L Cooper Wrote:
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> ... Unfortunately, your interpretation
> seems to fall no where near this, but no matter.
> I'll address mostly line 1487.

I often say my "interpretation" isn't really interpretation at all but rather it is the implied literal meaning.

> Mercer, who I believe you are quoting from, has it
> almost about right here: "Thou art standing,
> Osiris; thy shadow is over thee, Osiris" - except
> for the fact that he translates the word Shwyt as
> "shadow", when it actually has more the meaning of
> "shade" or "protection" - as implied by the S36
> glyph. The image here is of the deceased King,
> here referred to as the resurrecting "Osiris",
> ascending to the northern polar region where this
> resurrection will occur. Above his head as he
> ascends, there is his "shade", providing him with
> protection from the strong burning heat emanating
> from the god at the center of this polar region.
> This "shade" of protection is for the deceased
> King (Osiris), not for Atum. If anything, the
> protection is protection from Atum, not for Atum.

I recognize the vast expertise that has gone into our understanding of the Pyramid Texts and every line in it but it seems to me we are seeing the exact same thing from two different angles. The king can only "live:" after his death as the pyramid itself ("he is the pyramid, he protects") and construction can only proceed on the pyramid when "atum/ osiris" stands and creates the shadow above. I'm suggesting they had a completely different way to think and it was driven by a completely different language that not coincidentally shares our same vocabulary. New words were not invented when formatting was changed at least initially.

> In addition, Mercer misinterprets Sethe in regard
> to his "Mooring Post" translation. I believe the
> image here is of the deceased King on his voyage
> to his final resting place (in the sky). The
> boat's anchor is weighed and the boat is loosed
> from its moorage. The boat is what is "great"
> here, not the mooring post. The djed pillar was
> likely a post on the boat to which the mooring
> rope was tied, not the mooring post itself. See
> related imagery in Utt. 532.

Again it's the same thing from a different angle. The king ascends to heaven to his final resting place as the pyramid and it's the pyramid in the sky.

The djed was the origin of the "Boat of Re" because it was the origin of the water for the "upper eye of horus" and was located in the bow of the boat.which sailed north to the circumpolar stars. The Boat of Re was the pyramid itself especially as it was under construction.

Building the pyramid was a tremendous undertaking for the primitive Egyptians despite the fact the "gods" did ALL the heavy lifting. It wasn't so much manpower that was a little stressful but rather the commitment of resources in a primitive economy. They always had a pyramid under construction because this was the nature of the culture and they had the available materials to do the work. It required several tons of copper and thousands of board feet of lumber to build these as well as ships, ropes and manpower. They had primitive means of food storage so building these during peak growing season with no crop in the ground wasn't especially taxing or dangerous. But all over Egypt it required extra men at various facilities to handle increased work loads during "high nile". This made pyramid building to be important to everyone across the land. The pyramid/ king watched over the people eternally and protected them from threats both internal and external much as the shade (alexander's band) "protected" the source of water from the "mooring post of the Boat of Re".

Obviously this is a radical idea that the PT makes perfect sense. But, I believe, that all that is required to see it is a change of perspective. Changing perspective is very difficult since we tend to always take the baggage that is our beliefs with us. We believe ancient people differed from us only in that they were superstitious but the opposite may well be the reality.

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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.