11-25-2011, 07:29 PM
The true nature and scope of the ancient Egyptian Science has been wholly misunderstood. The Science was based primarily on observation since they lacked particle accelerators and anemometers. It is apparent that the observer would sometimes introduce variables into the process he was observing and these were the first true scientific experiments. What the science lacked in formality was offset by its ability to gain knowledge without complexity and its flexibility. It was largely based on philosophy just like modern science but the practitioners of the ancient science were aware results depended on philosophical underpinnings, definitions, and axioms where few people today realize that these even play a role far less that they define the results of experimentation and the meaning of such things to man and nature: no fact is the truth though statements of fact can be organized as truth.
The reason that the Pyramid Texts have been misunderstood is that there were complex rules for the expression of all ideas and scientific observation. Of course an even greater but less visible cause is that the referents for most of the more complex ideas and words are missing. We translate a word as “snake” or “boat” but don’t realize that the first might not be a legless reptile and the second might not travel on water any more than a mortar boat or a ‘57 Chevy does today. Without the proper referents it is simply impossible to communicate. It is utterly impossible to understand the PT without referents. Rather than seeking these referents by context within the PT scholars have inserted definitions and ideas from later times for the exact same words. It makes the PT clumsy and incomprehensible. It makes it the earliest version of the books of magic from which they yanked the definitions of the terms.
Then rather than take this book of magic which they themselves created as distinct they apply it across the board to the entire culture and along with information and objects found in tombs present the entire Egyptian culture in these terms. We have been presented a vary warped and inaccurate picture of these people and their beliefs. We have applied these inaccuracies even to the reasons and means by which the great pyramids were built. We have assumed these people were changeless and inert from the earliest days and were obsessed with death and the afterlife without ever considering most of what we know was improperly analyzed after being ripped from tombs. The living culture doesn’t survive because they lived in the valley and there are very few objects which can be found under many meters of sediment. This was a vibrant and living culture with a living and vibrant science and it has been mistaken for people obsessed with death and moribund by religious beliefs.
Their “Bible” doesn’t survive except in bits and fragments of ancient literature and a few chapter headings in the PT itself but this work would have been more equivalent to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics then to a prayer book. It contained the philosophical ideas that formed the basis of observational science. It likely also contained some results and even numerical tables. It almost certainly had a lot of information about stone.
These people were very down to earth. They were a part of nature and considered themselves a part of nature. They expressed themselves in “natural” terms and thought in natural terms. Their Gods, their “neters” were aspects of nature and were depicted with things from nature with man being the largest component of this depiction in most cases. To the Egyptians everything was in balance because man was the observer and the Gods the actors. The Gods were “true of voice” because the Gods were created in man’s image and language itself reflected nature; it reflected the neters. Their language was misunderstood because these ideas were not readily apparent. Their sentence structure and rules of grammar were also heavily influenced by their beliefs and trust in nature. One could “pray” for an outcome or event but one could not assign characteristics to natural processes. Unlike us they knew that as time went by their understanding would grow and evolve so saying something like the sun is round was a “sacrilege”. They would instead say “the sun (Re’) in its (his) name of that which is round “ or refer to the great circle that sets in the west. There are numerous such rules and conventions and these I’ll save for a later post. When they described a thing or process that had no defined God they would compare it to plants or animals. They were exceedingly keen observers and this especially applied to their observations of flora and fauna. Even the most delicate nuance of the behavior of animals was noted and used to describe things from everyday life. They simply didn’t think or express themselves as modern people do. Where we have virtually infinite ways to express any thought no matter how complex and risk being wholly misunderstood, they had a very limited number of ways to express any idea. Any idea could be expressed but there was a single “proper” way to say it and the more learned a man was the more closely he could approximate this ideal. Sentences could become quite complex and only learned people might understand them. Those who didn’t take the meaning would hear gobblety gook.
Since we lack so many referents and we don’t know the rules of grammar it’s not surprising that we mistook the work as goblety gook. As more and more anachronistic meanings and ideas are plugged into this work the farther and farther we get away from the original intent. This book is quite obviously a book of ritual that was read aloud to the assembled throngs at the king’s ascension ceremony; the w3g-festival on the Giza Plateau (during the so called 4th dynasty). These were the Rituals of Ascension. But the details have to be deduced from learning the referents of the words from context. Each time a word is used it gains definitional and connotative meanings and if used enough times the referent becomes known; it is those meanings. The meaning can then legitimately be inserted back into the text to reveal further meanings and referents for disparate terms. As this process proceeds a coherent literal meaning for the PT emerges. I have not engaged in this procedure in a vacuum. Perhaps it would be more legitimate to do it this way but the fact is that there isn’t nearly enough information in this short work to identify the majority of the terms and the complexity of doing this without other information is quite staggering. I’d compare trying to figure out terms that are used only a few times with little definition assigned to planning a chess move seven moves in advance; it’s possible but the number of permutations becomes too great. So I’ve simply chosen to apply the existing physical evidence to the determination of many of these terms. I’ve constructed a model of the implications on the physical evidence and use this model as well as the context to identify referents.
Using the process of finding referents by context there are some conclusions which are simply obvious and inescapable. Where Egyptology pronounces the conclusion that ramps must have been used to build the Great Pyramid based on no evidence or reason at all one must conclude by the discovery of referents that there was cool effervescent water on the Giza Plateau named Osiris and it was Osiris in his name of Seker whom
provided the power to lift the stones. But using logic anyone can judge for himself. One doesn’t have to assume that the builders were so ignorant that they couldn’t even come up with an easy method to get the stones up like pulling them up on ropes as the pyramid grew higher.
The referents that change the PT from a book of gobblety gook into a coherent “narrative” that makes the builders appear to be sane are as follows. I intend to refrain at this point by making this list comprehensive since this would require far more effort and might have no benefit. If anyone is interested in a more comprehensive listing I’ll be happy to add the missing ones. This means these will just tend to be the more important and more favorite referents rather than all of them:
The reason that the Pyramid Texts have been misunderstood is that there were complex rules for the expression of all ideas and scientific observation. Of course an even greater but less visible cause is that the referents for most of the more complex ideas and words are missing. We translate a word as “snake” or “boat” but don’t realize that the first might not be a legless reptile and the second might not travel on water any more than a mortar boat or a ‘57 Chevy does today. Without the proper referents it is simply impossible to communicate. It is utterly impossible to understand the PT without referents. Rather than seeking these referents by context within the PT scholars have inserted definitions and ideas from later times for the exact same words. It makes the PT clumsy and incomprehensible. It makes it the earliest version of the books of magic from which they yanked the definitions of the terms.
Then rather than take this book of magic which they themselves created as distinct they apply it across the board to the entire culture and along with information and objects found in tombs present the entire Egyptian culture in these terms. We have been presented a vary warped and inaccurate picture of these people and their beliefs. We have applied these inaccuracies even to the reasons and means by which the great pyramids were built. We have assumed these people were changeless and inert from the earliest days and were obsessed with death and the afterlife without ever considering most of what we know was improperly analyzed after being ripped from tombs. The living culture doesn’t survive because they lived in the valley and there are very few objects which can be found under many meters of sediment. This was a vibrant and living culture with a living and vibrant science and it has been mistaken for people obsessed with death and moribund by religious beliefs.
Their “Bible” doesn’t survive except in bits and fragments of ancient literature and a few chapter headings in the PT itself but this work would have been more equivalent to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics then to a prayer book. It contained the philosophical ideas that formed the basis of observational science. It likely also contained some results and even numerical tables. It almost certainly had a lot of information about stone.
These people were very down to earth. They were a part of nature and considered themselves a part of nature. They expressed themselves in “natural” terms and thought in natural terms. Their Gods, their “neters” were aspects of nature and were depicted with things from nature with man being the largest component of this depiction in most cases. To the Egyptians everything was in balance because man was the observer and the Gods the actors. The Gods were “true of voice” because the Gods were created in man’s image and language itself reflected nature; it reflected the neters. Their language was misunderstood because these ideas were not readily apparent. Their sentence structure and rules of grammar were also heavily influenced by their beliefs and trust in nature. One could “pray” for an outcome or event but one could not assign characteristics to natural processes. Unlike us they knew that as time went by their understanding would grow and evolve so saying something like the sun is round was a “sacrilege”. They would instead say “the sun (Re’) in its (his) name of that which is round “ or refer to the great circle that sets in the west. There are numerous such rules and conventions and these I’ll save for a later post. When they described a thing or process that had no defined God they would compare it to plants or animals. They were exceedingly keen observers and this especially applied to their observations of flora and fauna. Even the most delicate nuance of the behavior of animals was noted and used to describe things from everyday life. They simply didn’t think or express themselves as modern people do. Where we have virtually infinite ways to express any thought no matter how complex and risk being wholly misunderstood, they had a very limited number of ways to express any idea. Any idea could be expressed but there was a single “proper” way to say it and the more learned a man was the more closely he could approximate this ideal. Sentences could become quite complex and only learned people might understand them. Those who didn’t take the meaning would hear gobblety gook.
Since we lack so many referents and we don’t know the rules of grammar it’s not surprising that we mistook the work as goblety gook. As more and more anachronistic meanings and ideas are plugged into this work the farther and farther we get away from the original intent. This book is quite obviously a book of ritual that was read aloud to the assembled throngs at the king’s ascension ceremony; the w3g-festival on the Giza Plateau (during the so called 4th dynasty). These were the Rituals of Ascension. But the details have to be deduced from learning the referents of the words from context. Each time a word is used it gains definitional and connotative meanings and if used enough times the referent becomes known; it is those meanings. The meaning can then legitimately be inserted back into the text to reveal further meanings and referents for disparate terms. As this process proceeds a coherent literal meaning for the PT emerges. I have not engaged in this procedure in a vacuum. Perhaps it would be more legitimate to do it this way but the fact is that there isn’t nearly enough information in this short work to identify the majority of the terms and the complexity of doing this without other information is quite staggering. I’d compare trying to figure out terms that are used only a few times with little definition assigned to planning a chess move seven moves in advance; it’s possible but the number of permutations becomes too great. So I’ve simply chosen to apply the existing physical evidence to the determination of many of these terms. I’ve constructed a model of the implications on the physical evidence and use this model as well as the context to identify referents.
Using the process of finding referents by context there are some conclusions which are simply obvious and inescapable. Where Egyptology pronounces the conclusion that ramps must have been used to build the Great Pyramid based on no evidence or reason at all one must conclude by the discovery of referents that there was cool effervescent water on the Giza Plateau named Osiris and it was Osiris in his name of Seker whom
provided the power to lift the stones. But using logic anyone can judge for himself. One doesn’t have to assume that the builders were so ignorant that they couldn’t even come up with an easy method to get the stones up like pulling them up on ropes as the pyramid grew higher.
The referents that change the PT from a book of gobblety gook into a coherent “narrative” that makes the builders appear to be sane are as follows. I intend to refrain at this point by making this list comprehensive since this would require far more effort and might have no benefit. If anyone is interested in a more comprehensive listing I’ll be happy to add the missing ones. This means these will just tend to be the more important and more favorite referents rather than all of them:
![[Image: egypt_5.gif]](http://www.free-animations.co.uk/egypt/images/egypt_5.gif)