Prince Kawab died without obvious cause. His successor introduced the Sun God Ra. And in the sandstone cliffs of Gosford, Australia, the reason may have been written all along.
Kawab (c. 2600 BC – c. 2570 BC) was the name of a significant ancient Egyptian prince of the 4th Dynasty. He was the eldest son of King Khufu and Queen Meritites I. Kawab the prince heir and future ruler of Egypt died without obvious cause during the reign of his father. Succeeded by Djedefre, who married Kawab's widow Hetepheres II, the transition is testimony to wider events worth understanding. It is speculated that Djedefre the second heir had Kawab murdered, since Djedefre was buried in Abu Rawash, instead of Giza, which was the custom and implying more than a spiritual consolidation of the dynasty. Djedefre of course was the king who introduced the royal title Sa-Rê (meaning "Son of Ra") and so is the first to connect his name with the sun god Ra (pronounced ray).
It was during the final years of Pharaoh Khufu's reign, when Egypt stood at the zenith of its power. The Great Pyramid, a monument to eternal glory, had been dedicated to Khufu, and the Royal family was poised to better all who had come before. Among Khufu's many sons, Kawab was the eldest and so crown prince. However, and whether due to Khufu's determination to reign supreme or out of over-reach, his bid to expand Egypt's influence and secure its divine favor instead brought turmoil upon the family and called into question their holy prerogative.
Having likely directly sanctioned an ambitious maritime expedition led by two of his other sons — Nefer-Ti-Ru and Nefer-Djeseb — accounts from the voyage provision reason and motive to the madness of the succession of Khufu.
The brothers Nefer-Ti-Ru and Nefer-Djeseb, likely tasked with trade and exploration, had landed upon distant shores of Australia, according to the controversial inscription at Gosford, Australia. Their mission was both political and spiritual — a demonstration of Egypt's dominance over the seas and a quest to bring back exotic treasures that would further elevate Khufu's divine status. Months passed without word from the expedition. When Nefer-Djeseb, under the guidance of Captain Nedj Sobed, finally returned to Egypt, his arrival was not met with triumph but with devastating news: Nefer-Ti-Ru had perished in the cursed foreign land, which had been an exhaustive charter. Subsequent to the brothers' ship making landfall, and that subsequent to a voyage which took them the full breadth across the Indian ocean and halfway to circumnavigating the island Australia, after succumbing to a snake bite, Nefer-Ti-Ru's body had been interred in Penu in accordance with Egyptian funerary rites, but the prince's death cast a long shadow over the Royal family.
The court was thrown into disarray. The loss of Nefer-Ti-Ru was not merely a personal tragedy for Khufu — it was seen as an ominous sign from the gods. The death of one of Khufu's sons during such an important mission suggested that divine favor had been withdrawn from the royal house. Whispers of ill omens spread among the priesthood and nobility, shaking confidence in Khufu's ability to maintain ma'at (cosmic order).
"Djedefre seized upon his duty to his people and usurped power from the rightful though doomed heir Kawab — it was the plain and only forward plan for the cosmic order to continue unabated against the outlying risk of incursion upon the family."
In this dramatized retelling, and to preserve Khufu's legacy as a divinely favored ruler — and to ensure his own legitimacy — Djedefre initiated a campaign to erase all mentions of the ill-fated expedition and its tragic consequences. Nefer-Ti-Ru's memory was likewise erased. The records of Nefer-Ti-Ru's expedition of Penu were systematically scrubbed and his name was omitted from official inscriptions to assist in publicly forgetting their failure against the Gods.
The now abandoned Egyptian port Penu where wholly peaceful first contact with the natives was established — there by its temple, history so slipped away. Nefer-Djeseb's story was silenced, as his distant claim wrought accidentally by the wrath of the seas, proved too ambitious for the Lower Egyptian divine plan: Having returned as the bearer of bad news, Nefer-Djeseb may have even been marginalized altogether to prevent him from challenging Djedefre's new narrative and the divine plan of the Kingdom of Egypt.
Though his inscription remained in that distant cursed land — which Reinoud De Jonge has addressed proper.