Alfred Wiedemann gives a possible clue when he points out that as soon as an Egyptian baby was born, the gods presented him first of all with the sign of "life" (the ankh) and "divine protection" (the s3), the former representing a knotted belly-band (Gürtelband), the latter a bound-up mat. Like the placenta (hn sw), which had to be preserved most carefully if one expected to be born again, this ankh-symbol was inseparable from a person throughout his lifetime and was always worn as an amulet. It was attached to or over the navel of both male and female babies as the sign of life. This would suggest that the mysterious ankh, by all accounts a knotted cord, was the navel string. It is interesting that ankh also means "oath," the idea being, as Jan Bergman suggests, that one swears by one's life, so that if the oath is broken, so likewise "the cord of life" – the umbilical cord – is broken. (Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, 2nd ed., 454.)

If the temple is a place where we get our “bearings” as Nibley said it was, there seems to be more to the idea of getting our “moral” bearings at the temple. If I remember correctly, the Delphi navel is placed at a very specific latitude and longitude. In any case, Hamlet’s Mill has some interesting things to say about the “navel” in mythology. Also, I believe it is Tompkins’ Secrets of the Great Pyramid that discusses the Delphi navel and other “navels” in relationship to certain ancient capital cities.

As you know, Nibley held de Santillana in very high regard. And although he thought the book by Tomkins was inappropriately titled, Nibley did cite it quite a number of times in The Message of the Joseph Smith Papryi: An Egyptian Endowment”.

Great post.

CUZCO, the name of the holy city of the Peruvians, the capital of the Incas. The word is Quichua and means, according to Garcilasso de la Vega, “navel.” (Roy. Com., Book 2, chap. 5.) Rivero (Rivero and Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, p. 44), takes the same view:

“It is certain, according to the traditions of the natives, that, as the navel is the source whence the infant receives life and growth in the womb, the plain of Cuzco was the nucleus of civilization and the focus of light for the estate founded by Manco Capac and Mama Oclla Huaco, as the celestial couple were called.”

Squier (Incidents of Travel and Exploralion in the Land of the Incas, p. 426), says:

“Its name, which signifies umbilicus or navel, was not given to it after the Inca dominion had been widely extended by warlike princes, but at the very period of its foundation, to denote that its position was central and dominating.”

If we accept this derivation of the word, we are struck with the fact that the concept of the name for the city is purely Hebrew. Jerusalem was by the ancient prophets called the “navel” of the earth. (Ezek. 38:12; Judg. 9:37.) “Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst [Hebrew "navel"] of the nations and countries that are around about her.” (Ezek. 5:5.) The highland forming the backbone of Palestine, where Jerusalem was established, was to the Hebrews the tabbur, the “midst,” “the center,” literally “the navel” of the earth. The very name proves that Cuzco was to the Peruvians what Jerusalem was to the Hebrews. Dante borrowed the Hebrew idea and placed Jerusalem in the “center,” with Ganges as one extreme and the Pillars of Hercules as the other. To the Greeks Delphi was the “navel” of the earth. They, too, borrowed the Hebrew idea; for the Greeks were great travelers and liberal borrowers. But where did the Peruvians get the same idea, if not through some such connection with the Old Country as related in the Book of Mormon? (Janne M. Sjodahl, Introduction to the Study of the Book of Mormon, 1927, 160)

Jerusalem is considered a premiere navel of the earth, the tabbur ha-aretz, because of the temple. The following comes from the book Jerusalem: The Eternal City, by Skinner, Ogden, and Galbraith:

Earth was considered the center of the universe; the Holy Land was the center of the earth; Jerusalem was the center of the Holy Land; the Temple was the center of Jerusalem; the Holy of Holies was the center of the Temple; the Ark with its mercy seat of God was the center of the Holy of Holies; God, therefore, was at the center of centers….

Jerusalem, the navel of the earth and the light of the world, is destined to become the metropolis of all countries, a capital for all the world….

Footnote: “The idea of Jerusalem as a ‘navel’ is reflected in Jewish Midrashim: ‘God created the world like an embryo. Just as the embryo begins at the navel and continues to grow from that point, so too the world. The Holy One, blessed be He, began the world from its navel. From there it was stretched hither and yon. Where is its navel? Jerusalem. And its [Jerusalem's] navel itself? The altar’ (Jellinek, Beth ha-Midrash, V, 63). Clearly the above midrash employs the symbolism of the navel to indicate the centrality of Jerusalem and its altar within the cosmos. Still earlier, Jub. 8:19 (cf. Enoch 26:1) refers to Mount Zion [the Temple Mount] as ‘the center of the navel of the earth.’” Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 622. See also Ben-Arieh, “Jerusalem as a Religious City,” 11; Encyclopedia Judaica, 9:1558-59. “The site of Zion was related to the navel of the earth. Solomon’s temple is built on a rock which is the earth-center, the world mountain, the foundation stone of creation, the extremity of the umbilical cord which provides a link between heaven, earth, and the underworld.” Terrien, “Omphalos Myth and Hebrew Religion,” 317. See also Nibley, Mormonism and Early Christianity, 323; Kotker, Earthly Jerusalem, 6; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3:748; Asali, Jerusalem in History, 33. (Andrew C. Skinner, D. Kelly Ogden, David B. Galbraith, Jerusalem: The Eternal City, 1996, 5-6)

Hugh Nibley also once remarked:

At hundreds of holy shrines, each believed to mark the exact center of the universe and represented as the point at which the four quarters of the earth converged--”the navel of the earth”--one might have seen assembled at the New Year--the moment of creation, the beginning and ending of time--vast concourses of people, each thought to represent the entire human race in the presence of all its ancestors and gods. (The Ancient State, 99)

There is a lot of material on the “navel” idea, so it is interesting that the Turkish called this site “navel hill.”