Greg,

Happy to cite the passage here;

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Lehner, Mark ~ "The Complete Pyramids" (1997 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London; p.34)

Verbatim:

Pyramid an pyramidion

The word for pyramid in ancient Egypt is mer. There seems to be no cosmic significance in the term itself. I.E.S. Edwards, the great pyramid authority, attempted to find a derivation from m, 'instrument' or 'place', plus ar, 'ascension', as 'place of ascension'. Although he himself doubted this derivation, the pyramid was indeed a place or instrument of ascension for the king after death.

Our word 'pyramid' comes from the Greek, pyramis (pl. pyramides) 'wheaten cake'. The Egyptians had a conical bread loaf called ben-ben, which was also the word for the capstone of a pyramid or the tip of an obelisk - ben-benet, named after the ben-ben stone, the sacred icon in the temple of Heliopolis, the oldest centre of the sun cult.

The capstone or pyramidion is the complete pyramid in miniature, bringing the structure to a point at the same angle and with the same proportions as the main body. Stadelmann found the earliest pyramidion at Sneferu's North Pyramid at Dahshur, made of the same limestone as the casing and uninscribed. A number of pyramidions also survive from Middle Kingdom royal pyramids and from the small pyramids of non-royal tombs of New Kingdom and later times. Amenemhet III's pyramidion, of hard black stone, from his pyramid at Dahshur, is the most complete royal capstone. On one of its faces is a winged sun disk in relief. Below are two wedjat, sacred eyes, and below them are three nefer ('beauty' or 'perfection') signs; below these again we find the hieroglyph for the sun disk, flanked by the name and titles of Amenemhet III. The whole composition can be read as; 'Amenemhet beholds the perfection of Re'. The sacred eyes are those of the king himself. Like the names of pyramids - 'Sneferu Gleams', 'Great is Khafre' - the eyes tell us that the pyramids were personifications of the dead kings who were buried and revivefied within them.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

[that last line; the eyes tell us that the pyramids were personifications of the dead kings??? - How do they tell us this? no other pyramidion/ben-ben has eyes especially in this case Sneferu's which he says as much in the same paragraph and Khafre's is non-existent, those two pyramids from the 4th dynasty are named because we have text not on them but in non-royal tombs and on funerary stela, nothing remotely like the face of a pyramidion from the middle kingdom??]

Hope this helps for contextual purpose.

There is one other question I have; How far back does the wedjat (sacred eye) go? I can't recall it to the Old Kingdom.

Regards,

B.A. Hokom



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2007 06:51AM by Pistol.