Theos-Talk Archives (July 1997 Message tl00347)

> Do you have an idea why it would have
>4 layers?    Any idea what 'pillars' symbolize in other cultures?

Four is the number for foundation or firmness or support.

I suspect most cultures see "pillar" as synonymous with
"phallus."  Here the meaning slants a bit toward Source or
Ground, rather than foundation.

>I'm curious to know how you handled all the 'multiple-meaning' words and
if
>you've tried to identify words similar to the Egyptian ones in other
>languages.

I tried to maintain a single meaning throughout whenever possible.
Of course, some hieroglyphs are meant to take on several meanings
(the owl, the mouth, and so on).  One of my rules of thumb through
the whole thing was that no one, not even Egyptians, would go to
all the trouble to make intricate glyphs that meant nothing at all
to the context.  Budge and everyone else would have us believe
that 10 to 20 glyphs were sometimes used to mean a single word.
I always tried to break them down, and this worked well.

Let me give you just one simple example. The human head is
translated by Budge and others as "master."  Yet when they make
their translations of the Book of the Dead, this glyph suddenly
means "behind."  I used "master" throughout, and got such things
as "Master of the Earth", Master of Fire", Master of the Universe",
and so on, as special titles given as ranks or levels of attainment.

Jerry S.
Member, TI