cladking wrote:

>
> > No hint in those texs as to when the water dried up. I would
> > hvae thought it would be connected to the transition of
> Osiris
> > from watery qualities to tombish qualities.
>
> When the water dried up the phenomenon of the tossing water
> (atum) and his ka (the ben ben) simply no longer existed. But
> atum was the very foundation of much of their "science" and
> they didn't want to scrap it and rearrange how they spoke of
> it. Remember science was language and language was science.
> We misinterpret this concept as writing being the words of the
> gods. In order to write atum out of the language they would
> have to overhaul all of language because he came too early. To
> get around a language change they invented osiris (effectively
> "the phenomenon of a dead geyser) to take atum's place.
>
> This change to insert osiris and delete atum came before our
> first copy of the Pyramid Texts was written. There were
> numerous earlier versions written with no "osiris" and where
> this name appears in our version there was "atum" instead. Our
> copy is during a period that this transition was well underway.
>
Do you think it is possible that the conversion of the machine to a cenotaph would have been part of this process of reinterpretation? They would certainly want to erase any knowledge of the greatest machine failure in history, it would contradict the very essence of Divine power of the pharaohs.
>
> > you are not equating the Atum with the primeval mound or the
> > first geyser?
>
> It's never exact in real life and this goes many times over
> here because it was impossible to make an untrue statement in
> ancient Egyptian. The rules of grammar simply didn't allow
> statements that weren't reflective of the understanding of
> nature.
>
> The primeval mound was the calcium carbonate that accreted at
> the site of the geyser. There were several interesting
> compounds, elements, and particulates in it as well. Most of
> it was the compounds that came out of solution after it fell
> (tefnut) to the ground. This material accreted and became
> higher and higher over time. (the earth is high under the sky
> by means of thine arms tefnut). The ben ben was a conically
> shaped "stone" right on top of the primeval mound. As the
> water is leaving the ground it is heavily laden with compounds
> that fall out of solution very rapidly as the CO2 is emitted.
> This causes an accumulation right around the vent of the
> geyser. The Egyptians referred to it once as "the sandbank of
> horrible face bringing water". This is a very apt description
> stated in modern language.
>
> The word for geyser was "duat" but they used words differently.
> When we say "geyser" we mean just the water spraying up. They
> meant the whole ball of wax including the water in the caves
> under Giza, the spray, the mound, the ben ben, the falling
> water, and the water accumulated on the ground (set). For
> practical purposes the best way to think of atum is as the
> phenomenon of the geyser. Atum separated the sky from the
> earth at zep tepi which was the first time humans observed
> this event. By erupting the sky was defined by the place the
> phenomenon of upward took the water and where downward brought
> it. It's not likely the science actually started in this way
> but it's the origin of the Egyptian ennead.
>

Agreed on the formation of the original geyser and its genesis for the later versions. However a natural phenomena would be irregular, a conical benben would be a man made object. I would suggest this is the transition to the forms I am projecting. Incredibly large given the sizes of these stones we currently see, but the same shape and purpose under my models.

> Modern people have to change their thinking a little bity to
> wrap their heads around this. It's perfectly comprehensible in
> modern terms but it is highly inelegant.
>
> > Are you sure the
> > arms are not the shafts from each of the chambers?
>
> These phenomena of nature are somewhat equivalent to variables
> in an equation. But all the phenomena are given human
> characteristics. A human uses an arm to do action at a
> distance so everywhere a "phenomenon of nature" acts at a
> distance it does so through its arms. For instance nut (the
> phenomenon of the sky) acts to protect the geyser (atum)
> through her arms which are the holes and caves through which
> water flows. A cave is an arm of the sky which embraces the
> earth and protects atum by not allowing anything to fill it.
> The arms of serket (phenomenon of air for respiration) are the
> air shafts in G1.
>
Cheers arms of serket was the ones I was concerned about. Both the QC and KC have ''arms''. the description above could apply to both at different stages of the construction.

Regards

Chris