Hi Ritva,

R: "I don't know if you are quoting Allen or if these are your words, but since your argument as to "what is your evidence" is pretty much "because Allen says so", I'll take the above as your opinion."


You don't you know if I am quoting Allen?????? surely my quote of Allen was clear enough:

"Pyramid names are composed of an epithet plus the king's name. The epithet refers to the pyramid (mr: masculine), not the king, as shown by the determinative and by the names of Khufu's and Amenemhat I's pyramids. The name as a whole is a direct-genitive construction. In abbreviations the second part of the construction, the king's name, can be left out."

The words I put in quotes ".........." are, as I wrote, Allen's explanation - so do you disagree with what he wrote?



R: "The full name of the pyramid is for example: 'Khafra's 'Great Pyramid', / 'Khafra's Great Place', abbreviated to the 'Great Pyramid' / the 'Great Place'." Two things in one example. If the pyramid-glyph means "pyramid" only, then why the necessity to translate "Khafre's Great Place". Why place?"


Baines and Malek translate the name of Khafra's pyramid: 'The Great Pyramid', and the reason should be obvious - the name is written simply with the 'swallow' sign G36 (wr), meaning 'great' + the determinative for 'pyramid', O24 - hence 'Great Pyramid'.


If you think Baines and Malek's translation is not conveying the right meaning, how would you translate it?


Its also possible to translate the name: 'Khafra's great place', because it belonged to Khafra, and it was his 'great' place - the place where he was buried - Allen's point, is that the epithet 'great' applies to the pyramid.


The last king of Dyn 4, Shepseskaf, who completed the funerary complex of Menkaura, had a mastaba tomb built in the form that resembled a huge rectangular sarcophagus. Verner: "the name of the tomb, 'Shepseskaf is [ritually] purified', concludes with a determinative (an explanatory sign) in the form of a mastaba"


Allen translates the name, ‘Shepseskaf's cool place’ (qbHw-Spss kA=f), but the point, is the determinative actually resembles the form of the mastaba tomb, which is why it was used, just like the 'pyramid' sign resembles the pyramid, which is why it was the determinative in the name of a pyramid.



R: "If you look at the names of the OK pyramids (complexes), you'll notice that they all refer one way or another to the afterlife and resurrection,"


Not surprising, as the pyramids were the central most conspicuous element in the royal funerary complex, built to serve the 'resurrected' dead king in his afterlife.


R. "..... which can be anticipated seen the context. However, Khafre named his burial "Khafre's Pyramid". Does that make sense to you?"


As his tomb was a pyramid, I suppose it has to make sense. (btw, it was not just 'Khafra's pyramid', it was his 'Great Pyramid')


R: "Doesn't this give some kind of indication that the pyramid-sign may mean something else than just "pyramid"?"


Of course the place where the king was buried, his pyramid, had a depth of meaning that we can investigate - why do you think I have explored the depth of meaning of 'Khufu's Akhet'? - the meaning of 'Akhet' in the context of the king's afterlife beliefs.


R: ".....Especially since we do know, that it was used in contexts other than a pyramid already during the MK. Hmmm??"


After the OK, things changed, were reinterpreted. For example, in the OK, Osiris's name is first attested in private tombs as part of the Htp di niswt formulae in Dyn 5, but AFAIK, a non royal tomb owner was not explicitly identified with Osiris in death in the OK - that seems to have been the exclusive prerogative of royals. However, later, any dead person could be identified with Osiris. (one of the earliest examples of a commoner explicitly identified with Osiris ('O, Osiris, this Meni')...., is from the FIP, Dyn 9).

So an example from the MK is not explicit evidence of whatever you want it to mean in the OK.

In the following texts, the emphasis is on the pyramid:

- Idul was inspector of priests of the the pyramids of Pepi I, Merenra, and Neferkara. (Strudwick 2005: 349)

- Despite there being no water on the the sandbanks, Weni moored successfully at the pyramid of Merenra (Strudwick 2005: 356)

- Ankhesenmeryre, the sister of the vizier Djau, was the royal wife of the pyramid of Meryra......mother of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt the pyramid of Merenre (Strudwick 2005: 357)

Why do think Ankhesenmeryre was the royal wife of the pyramid of Meryra? - why the pyramid?


Piankoff can help here - according to Piankoff, the pyramid was personified: “The embalmed body of the king lay in or under the pyramid, which together with its entire compound, was considered his body." note: The pyramids were personified (C. Wilke, "Zur Personifikation von Pyramiden," ZÄS, LXX [1934], 56-83), and the title of the queens of Dyn.VI shows that the name of the royal pyramid stood for the name of the deceased himself. Thus the daughter of Unas is the royal daughter of the body of the (the pyramid) ‘Perfect are the Places of Unas’; see P Montet, "Reines et Pyramides," Kemi, XIV (1957), 92-101) (‘The Pyramid of Unas’, Piankoff 1968: 4)"


I wrote: "The pyramid is not an isolated structure - it was the most conspicuous part of the royal funerary complex, and the name of the pyramid gave the name to the whole complex."

You replied: "How exactly do you know this? How do you know it was the pyramid that gave name to the whole complex, and not the complex that was called by that name to begin with?"


I don't "know" for sure, but after careful examination of the evidence, it seems the most likely explanation.


I wrote: "The reason I emphasize that strictly speaking the name refers to the pyramid itself, is that the pyramid was a manifestation of the king - we even have texts where a queen is royal mother of the pyramid of Pepi I; royal wife of the pyramid of [Meryre] etc."

You replied: "This doesn't make much sense, you know. If the pyramid is a manifestation of the deceased king, then his manifestation is a tomb with a dead body, right? The MT on the other hand is a manifestation of the deceased king as a divine god. Why leave that out? Isn't the king becoming a divinity among others the ultimate goal of the burial?"


The dead king lay totally hidden inside the pyramid, but the external form of the shining white pyramid, was a shining manifestation of the king.

The royal cult complex, usually on the east side of the pyramid, was the place where the priests served in the cult of the king - I cannot see this building as a "manifestation of the deceased king as a divine god". The king was manifest in various ways inside the cult complex, in the form of his many statues, but the building itself was not a "manifestation of the deceased king as a divine god".


I wrote: "In practice however, the name of the pyramid covered the whole funerary complex including the settled community that served the royal cult."

You replied: "So you (or Allen) are in measure to see that the name didn't mean the whole complex, but in practise (which we do have evidence of!) the name served the whole complex? Where do you have evidence of this? Care to show how you can deduct this? Isn't the basis of this claim the fact, that you have decided the pyramid-determinative to mean only and exclusively the pyramid? Your resoning is somewhat circular...."


Where do you think the pyramid sign came from? - is there any evidence of a pyramid sign before the first pyramids? There were hundreds of tombs built before the first pyramids - did any of them have the pyramid det.?

The early development of the true plane-sided pyramid was an architectural and structural engineering innovation - in its time, it must have been a spectacular and awe inspiring structure - imagine these things - white, shining triangles in the desert - as one visitor to the pyramids put it: "pure, ideal elemental forms, as if exploding from the desert - an incredible experience......the power comes from a combination of the huge scale and the perfection of the geometry.....one can see these forms as a work of nature - the work of the gods."

The original idea may have been a purely architectural design innovation, but most probably, it also reflected developments in royal funerary ideology. AFAIK, the pyramid sign O24, only came into use after the introduction of a pyramid as an architectural development - in other words it was created to be an explicit representation of the new pyramid form - why else would the 'pyramid' sign, O24, take this form?

Shepseskaf's tomb was not a pyramid, and it's name was not determined with the 'pyramid' sign, however, the names of the royal pyramid shaped tombs had the 'pyramid' sign - both types of tombs are the tombs of Dyn 4 kings, so the obvious explanation for the use of two different signs for two different architectural types of royal tombs is that the det. followed the form of the tomb.

Having said that, of course the names and determinatives can have layers of meanings that relate to the kings afterlife beliefs - I have no problem with that.

CT




Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2007 02:00PM by Chris Tedder.