Jay Caruso's goof on making a new avatar for Mark Murray that Ace linked reminded me of something immediately.
The name belongs to Akhenaten, King Tuts dad before his dad's fifth year of reign and before he changed his name from Amenhotep and moved the capital from Thebes to his new city of Amarna. Tut's dad changed the religion by cutting off the priesthoods and directing the wealth of the country to his new priesthood. Akhenaten upset the balance of Maat throughout the land. The land in the shape of a snake. Completely disrupted the priesthood system thereby disrupting the entire economy, the whole thing, priesthood, beliefs, economy are inextricably linked. Nothing worked properly. The nation floundered, except for the capital city, Amarna.
A similar colossus is part of the traveling Tut exhibition that landed next door for months. I took everyone I knew there who would go. Called up old friends. (Surprising to me how many had excuses not to go.) Surprising too how many American blacks I know do not know nor care that Egypt is serious black history. One fellow who used to live on my floor that did go was amazed to recognize African features among the statuary of Tut's relatives. To my tremendous embarrassment he reached out and touched the stone statues, the African-looking statues included to describe Tut's time in the galleries leading to the galleries devoted specifically to Tut's tomb. And the alarms did not go off, and the guards all around did not intervene. I said, "Don't touch those." But he could not resist, and the guards did not bother him. The guards wanted him to touch the statues.
The very next day I am asked to move back by the guards from pointing to specific hieroglyphics on Horemheb's stele.
Racists.
One lady I took there, a religious person, upon seeing this colossus in the fourth gallery said, "Isn't it amazing their religion stayed the same for that whole time?"
I said, "Yeah."
But it did not stay the same. The characters changed all over the place, continuously, in fact, that whole time taking on fresh attributes from new sources, combining attributes, amalgamating entire deity attributes, sharing attributes, combining by syncretism as fortunes of individual city-states rise and fall that the deities are associated with, and the myths evolve with them.
[When it comes to Egyptian "H," you must decide which "H" sound you want.
The emphatic H, like I did here.
The pharyngeal H like Arabic, or Hebrew
The voiceless velar fricative like German "ach" ]
7 comments:
So am I the only person interested in exactly what it is that Chip Ahoy does for a living?
Chip, I read your posts and then stop for a minute to pour a cup of tea, then read them again.
Many times I don't post a comment. Not because I am not interested, but because when you finish there's nothing left that I could add.
Wow.
I find this topic very very interesting. I was an anthropology/archeology major in college and even though my area of study was Meso America..... the archeology and history of Egypt is fascinating, to say the least.
Amenhotep/Akhenaten " moved the capital from Thebes to his new city of Amarna. Tut's dad changed the religion by cutting off the priesthoods and directing the wealth of the country to his new priesthood. Akhenaten upset the balance of Maat throughout the land. The land in the shape of a snake. Completely disrupted the priesthood system thereby disrupting the entire economy, the whole thing, priesthood, beliefs, economy are inextricably linked. Nothing worked properly. The nation floundered, except for the capital city, Amarna.
Sound familiar?
Everything old is new again. OR....those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Akhenaten was an ideologue and a fanatic. Nothing was more important than his ideology and he could not be swayed from his course which resulted in leaving Egypt in ruin for many generations.
Ask Choom about King Tut and he'd say, with a straight face, "Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia".
Wasn't Akhenaton's purpose to reduce the overwhelming power of Ra's priests? He didn't create a new priesthood, just made an existing one his new BFF. The old guard fought back and won. Redistribution of wealth didn't happen.
@Chip,
The very next day I am asked to move back by the guards from pointing to specific hieroglyphics on Horemheb's stele.
Doesn't that just fucking piss you off when some asshole guard does that? Like my finger pointing at a word or character feet away is going to somehow trash the work of art? It's a work of art, asshole, and its creators put words on it to help explain it. I'm here for, you know, an educational experience, so do you mind if I try and figure this thing out?
I don't know hieroglyphs, but I try to read ancient Greek & Latin inscriptions as best I can, so long as the guards aren't looking.
edutcher said "Ask Choom about King Tut and he'd say, with a straight face, "Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia"."
I would like him if he said that!
(Tut was the successor to Amenhotep and they both had weird elongated skulls. Ancient Alien theorists believe them to be the offspring of ancient aliens. Everything old is new again and some things NEVER CHANGE. haha.)
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