Greg Reeder Wrote:
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> "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?"- Katherine
>
> The text itself states that Thoth gives the
> staffs.
>
> Thoth says:
> ' give thee life to thy nose, and the two uraei
> for thy beautiful face.'
The two uraei = the Two Lands.
> It may mean the king is renewed ("How beautiful is
> thy face, when thou art new and young" pyr194)
> when presented with the ankh and the two staffs.
> He doesn't need to take the ankh in his hands to
> receive life ...it is presentd to his nose.
I never said anything about Seti I receiving the /
anx/ as an implement; it's a
symbol of life, as Wilkinson noted, and is something only the gods can give to mortals - not as a "power," but as a gift from divinity.
You had stated that the
wands were
implements of power given to Seti I:
they aren't given to him, but
symbolically he is given by Thoth the
authority over the Two Lands (represented by the staffs (lotus and papyrus) and their corresponding crowned uraeii) as a divine king in the afterlife.
> A power is passed from the staffs to the king.
Or he is receiving his authority to rule the Two Lands.
> 'Receive for thyself life, O thou good god Horus,
> who appears in Thebes. The /Sma.s/ crown and the
> /mHw.s/crown are affixed upon thy brow, the Two
> Banks are united for thy portion by Ra'...
Here Seti I
is receiving his authority to rule the Two Lands as a king, after death: these texts specifically state this.
You can see it as you wish, Greg, but I don't see this as a "magical" event, just an example of divine political action, with Thoth, as the divine vizier, granting Seti I his authority to rule the Two Lands from the afterlife.
Katja Goebs talks a bit about the significance of gods granting crowns to deceased kings, when she stated
"...while royal crowns and insignia are generally bestowed on the king by the gods. Their symbolism is therefore significant for the relation between earthly and celestial rule, both of the gods and of the king - a concept that is prevalent in many cultures, and is known to Europeans in such notions as ruling 'by the grace of god.'" (Goebs 1998: 448)
> Omm Sety.
> "The problem is, she's not that far off,"
>
> It was a well-known story.
Exactly my point: what Egyptian has ever been able to resist developing a well-known story into something quite different just for entertainment's sake? Make no mistake about the fact that Omm Sety does quite the same: it's part of the reason the Egyptians got along with her as well as they did - she could spin a yarn from known information to make it sound even more interesting.
Reference:
Goebs, K. 1998. Some Cosmic Aspects of the Royal Crowns. In C. Eyre, Ed.,
Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Egyptologists, Cambridge, 3-9 September 1995: 447-460. OLA 82. Leuven: Peeters.
Katherine Griffis-Greenberg
Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom