Corvidius Wrote:
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> Though how original is the source of the PT you
> are using? The Mercer edition which is a
> translation of Sethe's German translation of the
> origianl hieroglyphs. So you are using a source
> that is third hand having past through German and
> then English, and not only that, much work has
> been done on hieroglyphs since Sethe, and his
> translation has long been inadequate. But you
> persist with Mercer's translation of German from
> Old Egyptian, why, and don't even reference
> Faulkner, and with Allen, well, let's not even go
> there, eh.

This isn't true. I did use Mercer's translation almost exclusively at first but have sine seen more Sethe, become familiar with Faulkner, and read most of Allen. I've also read many other translations including alt translations like Harvey.

As I've said many times Ancient Language can't be translated so it doesn't really matter which you use. But bear in mind that the intended meaning is similar to the literal meaning so the old translations are far better. Sethe is probably the best but my German is poor and Mercer's was not.

> I would have thought that anybody who could not
> read hieroglyphs for themselves would want the
> latest and best translations, not the oldest and
> worst, and believe me, when you quote Mercer and I
> have to cross reference with Allen, it's almost
> like reading something entirely different.

Since it can't be translated it simply doesn't matter. Egyptologists say you need an eight year degree to understand the translations but it appears to me that a child could pick out the literal meaning in the older "translations".

> In
> fact, when you quote a PT number, I first have to
> look in Faulkner to see what part of a recitation
> you are using, as the practise of dividing them
> into individual lines of text in a book that does
> not have the original hieroglyphs is out of date,
> Allen just uses the main recitation number. For
> instance, if you quote 1303 - My head is a
> vulture, I will ascend and rise up to the sky....
> this is recitation 539, and much easier to
> reference by that number directly in Allen, the
> only English translation that should be used, but
> you persist in not referencing the main recitation
> number, why.

I could list the ritual number. Nobody ever complained before. I can't cross reference Allen but I can list the ritual number.

> Now, splitting the recitations into individual
> lines of text is still used by Allen, but not in
> his standard translation, the one most people with
> even half an interest will have, but in his
> grammars, in several thick volumes, of the PT, as
> the heiroglyphs are used in the book and Allen
> puts in the English translation line by line,
> though that is the minor part of these volumes
> with the majority of each volume taken up by the
> most in depth analysis of all grammatical aspects.
> But nobody expects you, or the vast majority of
> people to have these volumes, unless of course
> anybody wished to try and give a different
> translation to Allen's, which you are doing. So,
> do you have these volumes that forensically
> dissect every part of the PT

I am NOT translating anything differently. I am merely discovering word meanings in context and interpreting the LITERAL meaning. You simply can't "read" Ancient Language because it is formatted entirely differently. Instead of subject > verb > predicate it is subject + object > meaning. When "translated" properly the literal meaning is very similar to the intended meaning.

I would love to talk about this further but it is off topic in this thread so will probably not reply in the thread even to a well stated response.

It is my opinion that the original sources, facts, and logic will be the only possible way to solve all these mysteries. Even the Pyramid Texts may be an open book to the Egyptians of the so called old kingdom and their work. But the answers definitively do not lie in Egyptology or we would already know these answers rather than have mysteries and ten thousand theories. It seem that if everyone put their heads together the answers would appear in short order. But most people are entrenched in their own hypotheses with very little evidence.

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Man fears the pyramid, time fears man.