An observation on censing and ascending.

The purpose of censing is not to create smoke per se, but a fragrance, and in fact the PT do talk about scent. The fact that hot smoke from burning incence rises, and that the PT are describing the ascension of the king on this smoke, should not be seen as the king actually rising as this smoke, but instead what we are reading could, IMO, be an allusion to Nefertum, the god of fragrances, who was with Ra when he ascended on a lotus from the waters of Nun at his creation. The dead king is also described as a "fresh lotus emerging from a lake" This ties in with the presence of Atum not just protecting the pyramid, which is a personification of the king as Osiris, but it is a re-enactment of the act of creation as the pyramidion represents both Atum and the ben-ben. This is why parts of the PT directly reference Atum creating Shu and Tefnut when ostensibly the PT are funeral rites for a dead king, but they also recreate creation, as that is the nature of resurection, not just "rising from the dead" but in recreating the universe every day.

If the body of the king had been cremated, then this recreation could have happened only once, and the world have come to and end the following day. If the body of just one king were destroyed by fire, and some were during robberies, it is not the end of the world as the bodies of other kings will still exist, but if it was the standard practice to cremate the kings during the Fourth Dynasty, then that's it, their model of how the universe came into being and how it is maintained falls to pieces, it's endex, goodbye and thanks for the fish.

So, how is the universe to be recreated each day, simple, by the king going through this ascension, this recreation, every day, and this can only happen if his body remains in his tomb, for if there is no body in his tomb, then his ba has nothing to "tether" to, the king is unable to re-enter the tomb in order to go through the process again. I believe that inscribing the rituals in the burial chamber were a device to magically ensure that this resurection took place no matter what, as they were not fools and knew that tombs were robbed, but until Unas there were no permanent magical texts to maintain the world, so the king's body really did need to be in his tomb, and that was, until the 18th Dynasty, a pyramid. This also partly solves the issue of "spare" pyramids, for as long as the king were in one of them, no problem, and who knows, maybe these few "spare" pyramids were some sort of backstop, and we know they were very very keen on doubling down on magical protection.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/20/2021 03:04PM by Corvidius.