Was glancing at an experiment’s prototype the other day, which had cavities bearing a striking resemblance to an Ankh in three dimensions. Perhaps an Ankh has no relationship to any religious symbology, but is a legacy representation of something that has become distorted myth.
I don’t deny the possibility of prior advanced human civilizations - with their remains eaten up, over the eons, by the dynamic and ever changing earth landscape.
But I also think the human mind and its operational “computer” (the brain) are close enough to the same, even going far back in time, in every civilization. It sees pretty much the same earth, the same seasons, the same heavens - and all their operations - that we see.
Whether standing on a “flat earth” or standing on a giant orb, the universe above, it’s local members the moon and sun as well, move “around” us in their recognized cycle.
The first part of the ankh - the orb (and also head) - is the most common symbol of humanity, and quite naturally so. It takes no prior civilization for that to be the case. It comes from the nature of our physical place in the universe, and the universal human observance of that.
The rest is about where we have to stand, down here on earth’s surface. So the ankh is also like a standing figure.
And nearly ALL religions posit the two parts of the ankh as universal to humans. Life “above us” in some “heaven” which is believed is either our birth right when we die, or a life we can obtain by living as the religion says we should.
That the orb and the standing figure would be joined and be a symbol by many human civilizations to me takes no prior civilization. They come from a common humanity and the universe all humans physically occupy, the universe all humans observe.