Hi Ritva,

"I have no clue what the White Shrine is"



The middle panel under Netjerikhet's pyramid, shows the 'White Palace / Shrine' (aH-HD) of the Great Ones (wrw) in front of the striding / running king.


In the PTs of Unis and Teti, aH-HD is written with a sign similar to the 'palace with battlements' sign O11 (aH) with the 'mace with pear shaped head' sign T3 (HD) inside the 'palace' + G36 repeated 3x (wrw) This is also how it's written on the middle panel under Netjerikhet's pyramid.


T3 (HD) is used in the words for 'be bright' and 'white' (HD). When the 'mace with pear shaped head' sign, T3, is partly inside the O1 'house' sign, its pr-HD, 'treasury' - lit. 'white house'.


aH-HD can also be transliterated as HD alone. It could be used as a shrine for king or god, or as a temporary dwelling place during the course of a ceremony, and in some Hb-sd scenes it appears to have functioned as a type of changing room where some of the royal regalia was kept. In the PTs the aH-HD is usually a place... endowed with powers that derive from its inhabitants. By their aid, the king can affect a safe passage in the afterlife. (see Friedman 'the underground relief panels of king Djoser', and Goelet, 'Two Aspects')


Inside the 'White Palace / Shrine', are the 'Great Ones' (wrw) simply written with three swallows / martins. Sitting in the ah-HD is a baboon with a cross covering the upper body (the cross, Z10, can in a few words mean wr, 'great').


The aH-HD is associated with the 'Beaten Path of Stars' (msqt sHdw) in the earliest PTs:

"there is no one who bars him from the White Palace (aH-HD) of the great ones (wrw) at the Beaten Path of Stars (msqt sHdw, perhaps the ecliptic or the Milky Way) - for look, Unis has reached the sky's height." W 172. (Sethe Vol 1: 180; §334c)


Teti has crossed in the great ferryboat without a fare having been taken in it; the White Palace of the great ones cannot bar him him from the Beaten Path of Stars - for look, Teti has reached the sky's height and the populace have seen him. T 186

I have to leave it there for now - the 'great ones' still need to come into this, so perhaps we can continue later

CT