Greg Reeder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Katherine,
> Thanks again for your considered response.
>
> I mentioned Hermes Trismegistus because you had
> mentioned Harpocrates. Both are the same time
> period. Or did you mean cippi of Horus?
>
> "For one, Thoth isn't 'using wands' - the staffs
> symbolically represent the Two Lands in a
> political way - the northern lands by the papyrus
> and red-crowned cobra, and the lotus staff with
> White crown cobra, the southern lands of Egypt.
> Hence my comment about Thoth as a 'divine vizier'
> conveying the symbols of the Two Lands to the
> deceased king as he rules from the afterlife."
>
> If I may qoute Ritner here:
>
> "Nonetheless, it should be remembered that any
> speech delivered by Thoth could be considered ipso facto a genuine
> vocal spell by virtue of his role as "Excellent One of Magic" and "Lord
> of Divine Words.""
>
> p.67 Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian
> Magical Practice.
>
> and ..."the imagistic principle represented by
> heka underlies all ritual..."p 194
>
> The Ancient Gods Speak p. 194.

Ritner has his opinion, but the nature of Thoth, according to Bleeker (1973), is primarily political in these situations.

> IMHO Thoth is performing a "magical" ritual or an
> act of magic by "using" "presenting" to the
> deceased those implements to ensure his power of
> being in the afterlife.
> To therefore say that those implements are not
> magical ("political") is incorrect IMHO.
> (See Ritners' discussion of 'magic in the
> afterlife' in AGS.

Again, he has his opinion: I don't happen to see Thoth strictly as a magician here, as any god can convey "life" /anx/, as I noted earlier, and the symbol is not an implement, as Wilkinson noted, but symbolic of life.

In the texts, the wands are referred to as symbols of the Two Lands, and more importantly, these wands are never used or handled by Seti I. If these implements are meant to give him power, why does the king never take then?

> For the side issue of Omm Sety...
> See my problem with her here:

Oh, I quite understand the problems with some of her stories: I tend to ignore them as they are quite folksy at times, and seem to reflect an almost "Egyptian way" of understanding certain situations (IOW, it would be a good Egyptian 'tall tale' to say that the statuette was found in a latrine, eh?)

The problem is, she's not that far off, because the body of the statuette was found along the sides of the inner temple which Petrie had just excavated (which were, at times, use as latrines even in ancient times). Meanwhile the head of the statuette was found in a "tip heap" many weeks later (Drowser 1995: 266, citing Currelly 1956: 55).

> My copy of David, A Guide to Religious Ritual at
> Abydos only goes to p. 182. You might check your copy or do you have
> a different edition?

Because I wasn't referring to the A Guide to Religious Ritual at Abydos (1981). I am referring to another entirely different publication:

David, A. R. 1973. Religious Ritual at Abydos (c. 1300 BC). Modern Egyptology Series. H. S. Smith. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, Ltd.

This is the publication based upon David's PhD Dissertation, not the summary version she wrote in 1981.

Reference:

Currelly, C. T. 1956. I Brought the Ages Home. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum.

Drowser, M. 1995. Flinders Petrie: A Life in Archaeology. 2nd Ed. Madison: University of Wisconisn Press.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom