HI BA,



> Thank you for the information, I was probing for
> clarification, I made the assumtion of solar via
> the "akhet" horizon aspect, though your thoughts
> about entrance and exit of the underworld makes
> more sense.


Firstly, erm... I think you are making a huge mistake by dividing the AE beliefs in "solar" and "something else" (something else most obviously being stellar and hence all representations of night). Their belief system was a complete view of the world around them, and hence it has to include both sides, the perfect Maat. We have been through this ad nauseum on this board (and not always in very friendly terms!), but I'll just take a quick stab on what I mean.
You could simplify the issue by saying that solar = living and stellar/nightly = dead from the living world. Hence Aker is not directly solar by it's function, but still is highly so, because it is through Aker that the deceased reaches his/her afterlife. In other words, there is no afterlife with Ra without Aker! The same goes for the horizon images of Aker. In those we see the sun rising between the two lions, but without the lions we wouldn't see the sun rising, eh? Rising being the most important word in the sentence, heheh.
The same principia applies to the kingship: the living ruler was the son of Ra (solar), but he was also the ruling Horus, and hence the son of Osiris (stellar/nightly/linked to death).
Therefore, you cannot really classify any of the divinities or conceptions as simply one or the other, since they are all linked to the overall totality of the universe and without one there wouldn't be other.


Underworld (lower earth) Akeru
> conceptually precedes Aker which becomes akhet. Is
> it safe to assume Akeru is a lower Egyptian
> concept of pre-dynastic origin?


The grim truth is, that we don't know what precedes what. Nor do we know where the beliefs originate from or when they were formed. They just simply turn up in the PTs.
However, we can count on the ancient Egyptians having looked at the rising sun every morning and we can suggest them having imagined the sun having been dead during the night (as seen in later versions of the afterlife texts). We know from later texts and representations, that they strongly paralleled the human life and death with the daily/even yearly journey of the sun, and hence used such forms in explaining their belief system. Therefore and in consequence, I wouldn't dare suggest either Aker or Akeru being first. I'd think they are the one and the same i.e. the passage with two openings seen as horizons, or Akhets in the life/death context.





Ritva