Rick Baudé Wrote:
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> Remarkable article. I don't really have anything
> to add or comment on. So having said that I'd like
> to change the direction of the string slightly and
> explore some of the nuances of the PT's if
> possible, (since that's the bedrock foundation
> that AE mythology resides on IMHO).



And I think that is exactly why we have so many "mysteries" involving Old Kingdom cosmology. You can't interpolate backwards when dealing with mythology or in a broader sense, works of fiction. If we were looking at something akin to a modern science, then you could say that they must have learned how to do activity "X" before learning how to do activity "X2". However, when it comes to beliefs/religions/myths, they do not have to follow any particular evolution or rules, and they can, quite literally, spring up overnight. They are only fed by the imagination of a handful (possibly even just one) people.

For example, if you want to look at a nifty comparison, let's look at an airport. We can trace back the evolution of airports, as they run parallel to, and are directly related to, the development of the airplane. As jets got larger, runways got longer. As jets got bigger, terminals got larger to accomodate more passengers.

Now, let's contrast that with this particular structure being built 90 minutes from me in Florida, as we speak:




Just ten years ago, NONE of this existed, nor could it have existed, because it had not been imagined yet by J.K. Rowling. She invented it, even though pieces were "modeled after" elements in history or British culture. If an archaeologist from the future, using the rules that are frequently used to analyze the Pyramid Texts, were to come across this structure and try to analyze it, they would have to say that Salazar Slytherin did indeed live near the year 1000 CE, and so therefore, he must have fit into the Celtic pantheon or some other such strained conclusion. Use your own imagination here.

Even if every element in the Pyramid Texts was factually accurate, the links between them are little more than mythological fiction. They do not need logic to link them together, so you cannot use logic to backdate them. They cannot reliably be reverse engineered.

Now, this is not to say that the hieroglyphs themselves, or the grammar, cannot be dated properly, but simply saying that because something is in the PTs is therefore proof that it is the "bedrock foundation" for understanding Old Kingdom mythology is simply unsupportable.

In fact, there are times when the PTs contradict what we know about OK mythology. It was a dynamic, evolving, UNscientific data set. It only takes one person and one split second to imagine something new.

It's that simple. I know this steps on a lot of toes, but I think as more and more evidence is discovered that predates the Pyramid Texts, we will find that a huge amount of religious evolution occurred between 2650 and 2300 BCE... and it most certainly was not linear!

Anthony

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.