Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00270)

In a message dated 97-07-20 04:07:17 EDT, you write:

> I think you're talking about the 'owl' who's 'looking right at you'?  It's
>  usually used as a preposition and translated to mean 'in', however, based
>  on your description,  perhaps 'at' would be more appropriate. :-)

Hi Gisele,

For over 20 years, I've been wondering about the Egyptian hierglyph for a
preposition? Geeeesh!!!! <very big grin>
>  
>  I don't think that enough emphasis has been placed (by Egyptologists) on
>  the symbolism of the Egyptian glyphs.  You may or may not know that a good
>  part of the words have been translated wholly on a word's final symbol or
>  'determinative'.  Because of this, there are a host of words (with
>  different symbles) that are all said to have the same meaning.

I didn't know that and appreciate the information! I agree with you, if only
because hierglyphs would represent an extraordinarily cumbersome form of
writing if the some of the glyphs represented little more than
determinatives. It simply doesn't jive with what I intuit (however badly
informed my intuition is). Take the owl, for example. Surely it means more
than "in" or "at". (I'm not basing this on the fact of my personal experience
but the potential potency of the symbol.)  It's sort of ironic, BTW, that
this discussion here came up while I'm in the midst of doing charcoal
drawings (requested by my family) of Egyptian motifs (Tut's funeral mask,
various bas-reliefs, etc.) and several cable TV stations had shows about the
ancient Egyptians in the past two weeks. Maybe Jung's Law of Synchronicity
holds true after all. ;-D
>  
>  Btw, I know someone who has an awesome collection of Egyptian 'djed'
>  pillars which he's trying to determine the symbolism of.  They are at:
>  
>  http://www.aa.net/~mwm/phoenix/library/libraryph.html

Many, many thanks! I will definitely visit the site. I've been meaning to
surf the Web anyway in search of more Egyptian "fodder" for my current
creative mode and it would be great to pick up on some more Egyptology along
the way. The ancient Egyptians have always fascinated me, for a number of
reasons, anyway.

Lynn