Hi Katherine,


> > While I agree about the word "using" being
> > incorrect in this context, I still have to
> agree
> > with Greg. Thoth was the great magician par
> > exellence!
>
> That he may be, but that is not the function in
> this scene. Recall what Thoth is saying here:
>
> '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, who says
> with his mouth. My Majesty writes it down in
> writing; moreover, thou art my son upon the throne
> of his father, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, who
> cannot be excelled.' (citation already given in
> prior message)


I think this text is a direct parallel to PT utterance 468. Moreover, I think we should look at the context of this text. The contex, IMO, is not to rule the Two Lands, but for Seti to become a god. The utterance 468 is rather clear on this. And while you don't seem to acknowledge any kind of continuation in the AE afterlfe beliefs, I on my side, don't see the beliefs changing all that much from OK to NK. As you can see in this picture representation from Seti's, even the imagery is identic to what the utterance says.



>
> >I'd read this scene more as Thoth
> > symbolically offering the use of magic to
> the
> > deceased king. Because lt's face it, the
> deceased
> > king does not rule anymore, not on the level
> of
> > kings and viziers, but on a spiritual one.
>
> As a god, Thoth can convey life breath to the
> deceased king - that is the nature of divinity,
> but not a magical act. So his status as a
> magician is not the issue here, IMO (Thoth as a
> 'magician' is a fairly late concept, BTW, known
> primarily from the Contendings of Seth and Horus,
> in which Thoth heals teh injured eye of Horus
> under his epithet of /wr.t hkAw/ "great of magic,"
> which reflect his ability to cause "...any
> activity which seeks to obtain its goal by methods
> outside the simple laws of cause and effect," as
> Ritner put it (Ritner 1993: 69).


I don't agree with Thoth's status as a magician being a late concept. In the Pts he is clearly referred to as the one healing the eye, and as far as I know that is the context of him being "great of magic". See, for example, utterances 448-449.
Moreover, I don't think you can actually separate entering afterlife and magic accessible to the deceased. The whole context of being reborn in the afterlife is "magic". The mere fact, that the utterances have been carved to the wall with hieroglyphics, the libations, the incantations and the magic spells make it purely magic.


>
> Kings are still kings, unhindered by the nature of
> being dead. They continue to rule in the
> afterlife, and their dominion is the Two Lands.
> It is their spirits which guide the living Horuses
> who succeed them (hello? Egyptian ancestor worship
> is a two way street, after all).


I do agree with this, but IMO you are mistaken of the nature of this rule. I don't see it as a political act, as you seem to do. But merely being one ruler in the line of deceased rulers, the ancestors of the present earthly Horus, without whom.... he wouldn't be the Horus.
Btw, do you think the "hello?" was appropriate?




So Thoth, as the
> divine vizier he is, is assigning the regalia of
> authority to Seti I in the afterlife so that he
> may take his place among the other deceased and
> deified kings. Thoth's words, above, say as much,
> and Seti I is still recognised as the King of
> Upper and Lower Egypt - even after death.


Sure he is still recognized, but as a deceased ruler, on in the line of many! Again, I would like to underline the fact, that I don't see anything political in this. The context is not political.


>
> > I see this scene as identic to the one
> alluded to
> > in the CT spell 313, where the new Horus
> receives
> > his regalia to rule the kingdom on earth and
> the
> > deceased Osiris is given his regalia by
> Thoth. Two
> > different rules, two different regalia.
>
> But the New Kingdom has a different concept of
> what deceased kings do: they don't simply become
> static deities in the afterlife, as may have been
> conceived in the Pyramid Texts and the Coffin
> Texts. In the New Kingdom afterlife books,
> particularly after the Amarna period, deceased
> kings continue to represent, and to fight for, the
> Two Lands after death.


It seems to me that the utterance 468 disagrees with your view of the deceased king being a "static deity in the afterlife". Rather, it is very similar with the NK conception. After all, the utterance does say: "O King, raise yourself, stand up! The Great Ennead which is at On has assigned you to your great throne, that you may sit, O King, at the head of the Ennead as Geb, chiefest of the gods, as Osiris at the head of powers, and as Horus, Lord of men and gods." and "Horus has caused you to be a spirit at the head of the spirits and to have power atthe head of the living".



>
> EXAMPLE: In the Book of Gates imagery on royal
> tomb walls, the king travelled not only through a
> wilderness of a non-temporal physical landscape,
> but was also subjected to the internal questioning
> and challenges from gods, guardians, and demons.


But the context of Seti's temple is not the same as in the BoG, or other afterlife texts. A mortuary temple is raised to a living god, having already passed by the tests of entering the afterlife. Those texts are reserved to the burial, not the mortuary temple. The context here is Seti, already a god and venerated as such in his mortuary temple.
Yes, he has to go through the dwat in the Night Boat every night, but the "tests" are not the same as the first time he entered the dwat. At this point Seti is already established as one of the crew in Ra's boat.




Ritva