Wednesday, February 21, 2007
"Nut Sighting"
10:45pm
While we were at Hastings last night, I grabbed up the latest KMT magazine. The hiero of the 'Lord of the Sedge and the Bee' jumped out me, so I read the story on ancient beekeepers first. Then the mystery of poor Tut's missing ribs and 'willy'. Thieves desperate to get his beaded collar embedded in the resin apparently chopped away at the mummy to remove it. They were also careless with other parts, so 'Willy' fell off and was found to the side of the mummy.
(I use 'Willy', as that's the name this blogger used. (He and his family are having a sabbatical visiting ancient lands.)
Then the story with beautiful pictures of items at the Sakkara Imhotep museum attracted me. In particular, a lovely one of Nut (aka 'Nuit'), showing her hair blue with stars in it:
"Multi-colored faience inlay of the goddess Nut from the coffin of Huy"
And today, while going about my surfing rounds, I learned that in the Kemetic calender today is the birthday of Nut, the Mother of the Gods. So I needed no more encouragement and scanned that lovely faience inlay!
Sunday, February 25, 2007 B
"Oscars"
10:08pm
As I watch the Oscars tonight, I couldn't help but notice the similarity in appearance of the Oscar fella to an Egyptian God, Ptah:
And it's not entirely surprising. Ptah is "a patron of the arts, protector of stonecutters, sculptors, blacksmiths, architects, boat builders, artists and craftsmen. His high priest was given the title wr khrp hmw, 'Great Leader of Craftsmen', and his priests were probably linked to the different crafts."
I'm so happy many of my favorite movies and actors won!
Actress in a supporting role, Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” (she sang her heart out, wowsa!
Sound mixing, “Dreamgirls”, Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer and Willie Burton (yes, the sound is DREAMY!)
Visual effects,“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Writing, original screenplay, "Little Miss Sunshine"
Actor in a supporting role, Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (what a character!)
Actress in a leading role, Helen Mirren in “The Queen”
Actor in a leading role, Forest Whitaker in "Last King of Scotland"
Best documentary feature “An Inconvenient Truth”
Music, song, “I Need to Wake Up” from “An Inconvenient Truth”, Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge
And now it's 'later than I think', and if I'm going to wake up on time in the morning, I best sign off now. Congrats again to all the winners.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
"Intellectually Stimulating"
10:33pm
Tonight has been filled with stimulating topics. First, I read a well explained book on Mars which Julia received. It is even signed by one of the authors, Sally Ride. I admit I had trouble following that astronomy course our friends lent us. The teacher has a voice that put me to sleep, so smooth and even it was, and the vast realms of info was so overwhelming, I sort of fell asleep on each lecture I tried to follow.
But this book explained everything about Mars very clearly. I hadn't known clear evidence of water on Mars has been found.
Then I did some online shopping. Here's the order to arrive from Amazon:
"Prometheus: Archetypal Image of Human Existence", Carl Kerenyi; Paperback; $24.95
"Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life", Carl Kerenyi; Paperback; $21.26
"Journeys of a Dervish", Mercan Dede; Audio CD; $14.99
I thank the good sources from which I learned of these. I eagerly look forward to them.
Later this evening, Julia felt in a mood to turn on PBS, and there was a NOVA program:
"Treasures of the Sunken City" joins a group of archaeologists as they dive off the coast of Egypt in search of the remains of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the world's first skyscraper and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The program was wonderful, following them through the progress as it evolved. This is the team whose efforts I'd learned of earlier, and made a colored pencil drawing from one of the photos taken underwater:
I recognized that dude in various scenes. It was amazing the things they found, parts of the Alexandrian lighthouse, the 'Pharos', and various Egyptian artifacts. They found the match to an 'Isis' statue brought up earlier, and concluded that huge 40 foot tall statues of the Pharoah Ptolemy II and his wife Arsinoe were at the entrance to the lighthouse. Julia amazes me with her knowledge. When they showed the statue of the queen as Isis, she knew right away that it was Arsinoe, before they even said so.
She said it is because she feels such a deep connection to the Grecian times, she feels as though she's seen all those pieces centuries ago, when they were undamaged.
And I had a Set sighting. I shrieked with delight as his image flashed on the TV screen. Touregypt has a picture of Seti's obelisk when it was still underwater.
I couldn't find an example online, so here's a scan I'd saved earlier of the Set sighting:
61: Scene from the top of an obelisk fragment found in the harbour at Alexandria
62: Detail of Seti I as Seth headed sphinx, obelisk fragment of Seti I from Heliopolis
Note of April 25, 2008
As I am gathering together items for my gallery of ancient images of Set, I'm doing research. A little websearch for "Seti I as Seth headed sphinx" brought forth the info regarding the source of the above image:
_The Monuments of Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical and Art Historical Analysis_, By Peter James Brand
I have more intriguing Egyptian things to share. This weekend, I came across several unusual TWO LEGGED ANKHS. I don't know what this means, if it gives a clue to hidden meanings or what:
http://xoomer.alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/egypt/Djet-comb.jpg
http://xoomer.alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/palettes/Heluan-Ka_palette.htm
http://xoomer.alice.it/francescoraf/hesyra/labels/xxden11.htm>
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/ant/egypt/gallery/cataloguedetail.html?&priref=58851&_function_=xslt&_limit_=200
If the last link doesn't work, try this one to find an Hellenized Amun carrying a two legged ankh.
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