Ronald Wrote:
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>
>
> Imo, the key to Khufu's view on resurrection and
> the Afterlife are the shafts, which are unique.
> They are not preceeded, nor repeated in any other
> pyramid. Personnally, I don't believe in the
> shafts being 'launching-tubes' for the pharaoh's
> ka. The soul namely does not require a physical
> exit from a tomb. Imo, the shafts served as
> symbolic boosters to activate from the outside
> (sunrays) the mummified organs of the pharaoh,
> stored close to the mummified body. With the
> re-activated organs, and the preserved body, the
> pharaoh was able to live in the Afterlife.
Close, very close. There's more to the Egyptian cosmography than we understand as modern westerners, though.
They were not sun rays being allowed to enter, but cosmic water, channeled in from the Abyss, via the Great Waterway. Light won't bend around corners like the ones in the pyramid shafts, but water will flow freely down a tube of any degree of straightness. Water is what gave life in Egypt and was the source of all rebirth in the agricultural nation every year.
You'll find my abstract was lifted from the ARCE program and posted here by an attendee:
[
www.hallofmaat.com]
Quote
by Anthony P. Sakovich, Independent Scholar, (page 77, Programs & Abstracts, 57th ARCE meeting).
"Using multiple surviving texts, Egyptian creation myths, temples and structures that both pre- and post-date Pharaoh Khufu of the 4th Dynasty, it can be shown that the small shafts of Khufu's pyramid were not directed at the stars, nor designed as mechanical ventilation aids for the builders. the physical structure of Khufu's pyramid, including the multiple chambers, their component materials, and the other sealed shafts from the Queen's Chamber are all necessary parts of a coherent, carefully planned construction model. All of these architectural features, taken as a whole and viewed as a practical application and adaptation of ancient Egyptian beliefs to the physical world, clearly support this conclusion.
If we shift our perspective, we can see that the shafts were not designed to direct the pharaoh's spirit out of the pyramid. Instead, they were engineered to direct the cosmic waters of the Abyss, via the Winding Waterway, into the elevated burial chamber of the Pharaoh Khufu, as a mandatory element of his rebirth into the netherworld and his resurrection as Re, the sun god."
When they raised the chambers above the ground (and one should note that Nun, the Abyss, is both above and below the ground) they removed the chamber from being able to be inundated like all the other pyramid burial chambers of the time. Only Sneferu's pyramids were close to encountering this problem, but in both those cases (Red and Bent), there was an entrance to the pyramids that was still higher than the burial chamber. Apparently the entrance passage could serve as a canal as well as the shafts did in Khufu's pyramid.
I hope that helps a bit in your studies. Consider it a bit of a mile marker, if you like. At least you know you're going in the right direction.
Anthony
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him think.