'Egyptian religion always centred around the sun and its role in human lives, and many of its gods were responsible for its passage and for the times of the day.'

Philip and Beatrice Purser-Hallard reflect on the inspiration behind a specially commissioned sculpture by Beatrice for the Greenbelt festival, A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun). The theme of the 2008 festival is Rising Sun. Pictures by Andy Jackson

‘…eternally calendrical, infinitely stonehengible lord horus (lord graciously horus)’

Thousands of years ago in Britain, people built stone monuments to the seasons, and to the yearly comings and goings of the sun.  In Egypt, religion was far more concerned with clock than calendar time. 

In a desert culture, where the demarcation between burning day and freezing night is harsh and always immediate, it is the daily increments of time which are vital. Egyptian religion always centred around the sun and its role in human lives, and many of its gods were responsible for its passage and for the times of the day.

Christianity too is a desert religion, arising in the Middle East and developing its monastic tradition in Egypt and Northern Africa.  Christian monastic life is also punctuated and regularised by religious observances set for specific hours of the day. 

This sculpture places the Egyptian god Horus – from whose name we still derive the English word ‘hour’ – side-by-side with the words of the Anglican liturgy.  Through the power of silly puns to free the mind from preconceptions, we may understand better the debt which Christianity owes to its pagan precursors, and thus the role which the sun may still play in Christian spirituality. 

sole potent parent to mother material, father to daughter spun also from that archane disc

The sun is, in a far more visible way than God, the source and origin of all light, life and energy here on earth.  It fuels plants through photosynthesis, kicking off the food chain.  The fuel we burn, whether wood or coal or oil, was at some point an organism which owed the energy it stored to the sun.  Our star’s warmth dictates our climates, winds and water cycle; its gravity helps fuel our tides. 

All the power we use is ultimately solar power – which means that it is also nuclear power, as the sun itself generates its light and heat from the perennial process of nuclear fusion at its core. 

More than that, the sun, or its precursor, is the source of earth itself, of the minerals from which all living things are made, as well as the energy which fuels them. 

The spinning disc of nebular material whose core became the sun and whose outlying strands congealed into the planets, moons, comets and asteroids of the solar system, is our direct ancestor.

We human beings are, in so many senses, the children of the sun. 

…feeding all, filling all, fuelling all, sustaining all, yet one day mere trillennia hence devouring all, re absorbing all earth’s sunstuff, if never first devoured by dragon monkey wolf serpent or blackholy goddess of galactic night…

A story can be true and still a myth; conversely, myths can have power even if untrue.  Originally trained as a physicist, the sculptor of A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun) is interested in allowing the grand narrative of modern physics to take its place alongside the myths of Christianity and of other faiths, living or extinct. 

The vanishing of the sun is a common theme in mythology – the dragon, monkey, wolf and serpent mentioned in the piece are the supposed devourers of the solar orb in Chinese, Hindu, Norse and Egyptian legend. 

Physics, by contrast, casts the sun as itself the devourer, expanding in billions of years’ time to engulf the Earth and other planets which it once gave birth.  The only entity in physics which might engulf the sun itself is the vast black hole which cosmological theory tells us forms the core of our galaxy. 

The ‘missing sun’ motif in myth is, of course, an attempt to account for the phenomenon of the solar eclipse.  And one specific eclipse plays a significant role in the central narrative of Christianity.

…son of mandala spread on cross, haloed by circle, spun on sunwheel in ecliptic pain, abandoned to mandated exocclusion, three hours dying, veiling and unveiling in the vale of the shade of the death of the son…

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