Blackmans Coffin: A Sam Backman Mystery (Sam Blackman Series Book 1)

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I liked it, with a few reservations. I finished it, but it's not my cup of tea. Click to choose a label 17th Century 1 Partition 1 s 1 87th Precinct 1 A. Darko Dawson 5 D. Joe Faraday 3 D. Joe Plantagenet 4 D. John Redfyre 1 D. Michael Angel 1 D. Richard Poole 1 D. Sayers 2 Dorothy Martin 1 Dorothy St. James 1 Douglas Preston 3 Dover 1 Dr. Anna Fox 1 Dr. Katie LeClair 1 Dr. Nathaniel Gye 1 Dr. Garfield 1 James D. Haigh 1 Jane Harper 4 Jane K.

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Hubalek 1 Linda O. Allen Chappell 1 R. Cameron Cooke 1 R. Randisi 1 Robert M. It is necessary to make some qualification to a picture which has been presented m teims of a free gift of life and fertility. The sun and the Nile did com- bine to bring foith renewed life, but only at the cost of a battle against 'death. The sun waimed, but in the summer it also blasted. The Nile brought fertilising water and soil, but its annual inundation was antic and unpredictable.

An excep- tionally high Nile destroyed canals, dams, and the homes of men. An exceptionally low Nile brought famine. The inunda- tion came quickly and moved on quickly, constant, back- breaking woik was necessary to catch, hold, and dole out the wateis for the widest and longest use. The desert was always leady to nibble away at the cultivation and turn fertrle silt into and sand. The -desert m particular was a teuible place of veno- mous serpents, lions, and fabulous monsteis.

In the broad muddy stretches of the Delta, jungle-like swamps had to be drained and cleared to make arable fields For more than a thud of every year the hot desert winds, the blasting sun, and the low Nile brought the land within sight of death, until the weather turned and the rivet brought abundant waters again. Thus Egypt was rich and blessed m contrast with hei immedi- ate neighbours, but within hei own teriitory she experienced struggle, privations, and dangers which made the annual tri- umph real.

There was a sense that the tuumph was not an automatic privilege but that it must be earned at some cost. We have alieady suggested that the Egyptians were self- centred and had their own satisfied kind of isolationism.

The concept that Egypt was the focal centre of the universe set the standard foi what was right and normal in the universe in terms of what was nor- mal m Egypt The cential feature of Egypt is the Nile, flowing north and bringing the necessary water for life. They therefore looked at other peoples and other existences in terms of their own scene. Into their tombs the Egyptians put two model boats, which might be projected by magic into the next woild for navigation there One boat had the sail down, for sailing noith with the cuirent on the waters of the othei world, one boat had the sail up foi sailing south with that noith wind which must be normal in any proper existence, heie 01 heteafter So, too, tain could be undeistood only in terms of the waters which came to Egypt.

Thou hast put anothei Nile in the sky, so that it may come down for them, and may make waves upon the mountains like a sea, in otdet to moisten their fields m then townships. The Nile m the sky, thou appointest it for the foreign peoples and for all the beasts of the highland which walk upon feet, wheieas the leal Nile, it comes from the lower world for the people of Egypt.

It is then not the case that Egypt is a rainless country but lather it is the case that other countues have their Nile falling from the skies. In the quotation just given theie is a significant grouping of foreign peoples and the beasts of the highland. I do not mean that it is significant m coupling baibanans with catde, although that has a minor implication.

Thus the Egyptian pictorially grouped the foreigner with the beast of the desert and pictorially denied to the foreigner the blessings of fertility and umformity Just as people from our own western plains feel shut in if they visit the hills of New England, so the Egyptian had a simi- lar claustrophobia about any country where one could not look far across the plain, where one could not see the sun in all its course.

One Egyptian scribe wrote to another: TheLe are more lions there than panthers or hyenas, and it is suirounded by Bedouin on every side. Shuddering seizes thee, the hair of thy head stands on end, and thy soul lies in thy hand. He has been fighting since the time of Hoius, but he conquers not, nor is he conqueied, and he never announces the day in fight- ing.

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He may plunder a lonely settlement, but he will not take a populous city. Tiouble thyself not about him. Theie is another topogiaphical featute of the Nile Valley which finds its counterpart in the Egyptian psychology. That is the unifoimity of landscape. Down the centre of the land cuts the Nile. On each bank the fertile fields stietch away, with the west bank the counterpart of the east Then comes the desert, climbing up into two mountain fringes lining the valley Again, the western mountain desert is the counterpart of the eastern.

Those who live on the black soil look out through the clear ait and see practically the same scene eveiywhete. In the broad reaches of the Delta the unifoimity is even more striking. There the flat stretches of fields move on mono- tonously without featuie. The only land which matteis in Egypt has uniformity and it has symmetry The interesting result of unifoimity is the way in which it accentuates any exceptional bit of telief that happens to break the monotonous regulauty. Out in the desert one is conscious of eveiy hillock, of eveiy spoor of an animal, of eveiy deseit daststoim, of every bit of movement.

The late irregular is very striking in an envnonment of universal regularity. It has ani- mation, it has life within the dominating pattern of non-life. So also in Egypt the prevailing unifoimity of landscape thiew into high relief anything which took exception to that unifoi- mity. A solitaiy tree of some size, a peculiarly shaped hill, or a storm-cut valley was so exceptional that it took on indivi- duality. Man who lived close to nature endowed the excep- tional feature with animation , it became inspirited to his mind.

Of course, it is true that any agricultural people has a feeling for the force that works in nature and comes to personalise each sepaiate force. Therefore, as was pointed out in the opening chaptet, the human came to address the extra-human in teims of human mteicoutse. The Egyp- tians might - and did - personify almost anything: But few of these were personified with tegulanty or with awe, that is, few of diem leached the statuie of gods or demigods. Anothei aspect of the uniform landscape of Egypt was its symmetiy east bank balancing west bank, and eastern moun- tain range balancing western mountain lange.

This comes out clearly in his art, where the best pro- ducts show a fidelity of proportion and a careful counterpois- ing of elements m order to secure a harmonious balance. It comes out in his literature, where the best products show a deli- berate and sonorous paiallehsm of members, which achieve dignity and cadence, even though it seems monotonous and repetitive to modern ears. Let us illustiate this literary balance by quotations fiom a text giving a statement of one of the Egyptian kings: Of his modelling, he said.

Some of this striving for bilateral symmetry seems to us strained, and undoubtedly artificial concepts did arise in the search to find a counterpoise for anything observed or conceived. There is a contra- diction here, but we believe that it can be explained. The ancient Egyptian had a strong sense of symmetry and balance, but he had little sense of incongruity: Further, he had little sense of causation, that A leads sequentially to 3 and B leads sequen- tially to C. As remarked in the introductory chapter, the ancient did not recognize causality as impersonal and binding.

The older m his philosophy lay in physical arrangement lather than in integrated and sequential systematization COSMOLOGY It is now time to considei the terms in which the Egyptian viewed the physical universe, of which his own land was the focal centre. First of all, he took his orientation from the Nile River, the source of his life. He faced the south, from which the stream came. On his left was the east and on his light the west. As we shall see, the foimulated theology did emphasize the east.

This general term for the east was even used for specific foreign count ties, which weie otherwise despised. The contrast be- tween evening and morning was a contrast between death and life. In the second place, the ancient Egyptian left us no single formulation of his ideas which we may use as nuclear material; when we pick and choose sciaps of ideas fiom scattered sources, we ate gratify- ing out modern craving foi a single integrated system.

This possibility of complementary viewpoints applies to othei con- cepts, We shall therefore pick a single pictute, in the knowledge that it tells a chaiactetistic story, but not the only story. The Egyptian conceived of the earth as a flat platteL with a corrugated rim. The inside bottom of this platter was the flat alluvial plain of Egypt, and the corrugated rim was the rim of mountain countiies which wete the foreign lands. This platter floated in water. Nun was the waters of the underworld, and, according to one con- tinuing concept, Nun was the pnmoidial wateis out of which life first issued.

Life still issued fiom these underworld waters, for the sun was leboin eveiy day out of Nun, and the Nile came pouring forth fiom caverns which weie fed fiom Nun. Thus it was deal that the sun, after its nightly journey under the woild, must be reborn beyond the eastern honzon out of those encircling wateis, just as all the gods had onginally come forth out of Nun.

Above the eaith was the inveited pan of the sky, setting the outer limit to the univeise As we have already said, the ciav- mg foi symmetry, as well as a sense that space is limited, called fotth a counterheaven under the eaith, bounding the limits of the underworld This was the universe within which man and the gods and the heavenly bodies operated. Various qualifications to this picture aie immediately neces- sary. Our pictute gives the vault of heaven as suspended by apparent levitation above the eaith.

That would appeal to the ancient Egyptian as dangerous, and he would ask for some visible means of support. As we have alieady said, he provided various means of suppoit m various concepts, the incompati- bility of which he cheerfully ignored. The simplest mechanism - was four posts set on earth to carry the weight of heaven. These were at the outer limits of the eaith, as is indicated by such texts as.

Between heaven and eaith there was Shu, the air-god, and it was his function to stand firmly on earth and cany the weight of heaven. In the Pyramid Texts iioi it is said: She is represented as crouching over earth, with her fingers and toes touching the ground, while the sun, moon, and stars adorn hei body.

She may carry hei own weight in this pose, or the air-god Shu may take some of her weight on his uplifted hands. Again, the vault of heaven might be represented as the under-belly of a celestial cow, studded with stais, and provid- ing the Milky Way along which the boat of the sun might make its heavenly course. That these concepts are essentially alternatives did not seem to bothei the Egyptian. In the couise of a single text he might use these differing ideas about heaven ; each concept pleased him and had its pertinent value in a uni- veise which was fluid and in which almost all things were pos- sible to the gods.

Within his own standards of what is credible and convincing, he had his own consistency. Under the vault of heaven were the heavenly bodies, the stars hanging from the inverted pan or else spangling the belly of the cow or of the goddess, and the moon similarly tieated.

The moon has curiously little weight in Egyptian mythology, or, rather, we should say that it has little weight m the evidence which has descended to us. There are ttaces that there had been early important centres of moon woiship, but this worship became diverted mto less cosmic directions m histone times. Thus the moon-god Thoth was more important as a god of wisdom and a divine judge than he was through his heavenly activity. The waning and waxing moon disc as one of the two celestial eyes became a rathei foimal patt of the Osins stoiy, serving as the injury suffered by Hoius in fighting for his father, an injury which was restored every month by the moon- god Conceivably this idea was taken over fiom some earhei myth in which the moon had had an impoitance comparable to that of the sun, the othei celestial eye.

In histoncal times thete was little comparison between the two bodies Similarly, the stars had their impoitance in the measuring of time, and two oi three of the major constellations were deities of some weight, but only one gioup of stats achieved lasting importance in the Egyptian scene Again, this impoitance had to do with triumph ovei death. In the clear Egyptian air the stais stand out with brilliance. Most of the stais swing acioss the sky with a scythe-like sweep and disappear below the hori- zon.

But one section of the skies employs a smaller orbit, and there the stats may dip towaid the horizon but nevei disappear. These undying stars they took as the symbol of the dead who triumphed over- death and went on into eternal life Thar north section of heaven was in early times an impoitant part of the universe. As time went on, and as the dominant mythology of the sun spiead its weight ovei the nation, the region of Dat shifted ftom the noithern pait of the sky to the underworld. The old texts which tiled every conceivable method of boosting the dead into heaven were still reiteiated with solemn fervour, but the entry-way into the next woild was now in the west, and the two Elysian Fields weie below the eaith.

This was clearly be- cause the sun died m the west, had its spuitual course under the eaith, and glonously was lebom in the east. So, too, the dead must shaie in this ptonnse of constantly continued life, must be shifted to the pioximity of the sun m older to partici- pate in his fate. Enough has alieady been said about the central importance of the sun m this scene Something must be said about his motive powei on his daily journey.

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Most commonly he is depicted as moving by boat, and the bilateral symmetry which the Egyptian loved gave him a boat for the day and another boat for the night Various important gods formed the crews of these two boats This journey might not be all stately and seiene: This is, of course, the common belief m many lands that eclipses occui when a snake 01 diagon swal- lows up the sun. But a tiue eclipse was not the only pheno- menon involved, eveiy night an attempt to swallow up the sun was met and conqueied m the underwoild The sun might have other motive power.

So a beetle, a scarab, became a symbol for the morning sun, with an after- noon counteipait in an old man weanly moving toward the western horizon. Again, the symbol of the falcon soaring m apparent motionlessness in the upper air suggested that the sun disc also might have falcon wings for its effortless flight.

As before, these concepts weie felt to be complementary and not conflicting.

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The possession of many manifestations of being enlarged the glory of the god. To move the concept of the sun even faither fiom the physi- cal, from the notion of a fieiy disc which swung around the earth every twenty-foui hours, we must heie note othei aspects of the sun-god. He was thus lepiesented m the foim of a beaided deity with a disc as his clown As supieme god, he loaned him- self to other gods, in or del to enlaige them and give them a pri- macy within geogiaphical 01 functional limits. Thus he was both Re and Re-Atum, the cieator god, at Heliopolis. He became Amon-Re, King of the Gods, as the impel lal god of Thebes As we have said, these separate manifestations enlaiged him.

He was not simply a solai disc. It is significant that a plural should be necessary, that we can- not settle down to a single codified account of the beginnings. The Egyptian accepted various myths and discarded none of them. It is furthei to be noted that it is easiei to observe close parallels between the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts of the genesis than it is to relate the Egyptian accounts to the othei two.

Within the bioad aiea of geneial developmental sum- lanty in the ancient Near East, Egypt stood slightly apait We have already noted that Nun, the primordial abyss, was the legion out of which life fiist came. This is, of couise, paiti- cularly true of the sun, because of his daily re-emetgence fiom the depths, and of the Nile, because it consists of giound waters.

In laige pait, we need not seek too seiiously for a myth foi this idea. We have mentioned how btuad sheets of water covet Egypt when the Nile inundation is at its height and how the sinking of the waters brings into view the first isolated peaks of mud, tefreshed with new fertile silt. These would be the first islands of promise for new life in a new agricultural year As these fiist hillocks of slime lift then heads out of the floodwalers into the baking waimth of the sun, it is easy to imagine that they sputter and crackle with new life. The modern Egyptians believe that there is special life- giving power in this slime, and they ate not alone in this belief.

A little less than thiee centuries ago theie was a scientific con- tioversy about spontaneous generation, the ability of appar- ently inorganic matter to produce living organisms. The evidence on the Egyptian myth of the origin of life on the primeval hillock is scattered and allusive. The essential point is that the creator-god made his first appearance on this solitary island. At least two different theological systems claimed primacy through the possession of a primeval hillock, and indeed ultimately every temple which had a high place foi its god piobably considered that high place to be the place of creation.

The pyiamids themselves bouow this idea of a rising hill as a promise to the deceased Egyptian buried within the pyramid that he will emeige again into new being. As pomted out in chaptei I, the concept of the cieation hillock is the essen- tial, and its location m space, whethei Heliopolis or Heimo- polls, was of no concern to the Egyptian. Let us take a passage fiom the Book of the Dead, which states this fust sohtaiy appearance of Re-Atum, the creator-god The text is piovided with explanatory glosses.

I am Atum when I was alone in Nun the piimoidial waters , I am Re in his first] appearances, when he began to rule that which he had made What does that mean? The text which we have cited placed the cieation on a mound in the town of Hermopolis, the home of certain gods who were in being before the creation. We should qualify the term 'chaos" slightly, as these pre-ci eation gods are neatly palled off into four couples, a god and a goddess for each quality of chaos. That is another example of the love of symmetry.

This similauty is interesting but not too alluiing, because the Egyptian story and the Hebrew diveige immediately when one comes to the episodes of cieation, with Egypt emphasizing the self-emeigence of a cieator-god, whereas the creator-god of Genesis existed alongside the chaos. You have to begin with some concept, so that primitive man everywhere would try to conceive of a form- lessness befoie form was made. This formlessness might have much the same terms anywhere. We shall reveit to the Genesis stoiy latei. At this point we cannot pursue the othet emergences of a piinieval hillock m othei cult centies oi the implications of this thought in the beliefs and iconography of Egypt.

We wish instead to plunge on to a moie developed mythological pheno- menon which has its importance in the creation stories. In early times the sun-god had his own family of gods, which was also the supreme council of the gods.

This says clearly that the cieation marks the divid- ing-line between preceding confusion and present order. It is not implied that the creator-god conquered and annihilated the elements of chaos and set the elements of order m then place. On the contrary, it is obvious that such pre-creation gods as Nun, the underworld wateis, and Kuk, darkness, continued after the creation; but they continued in then proper place and not in universal and formless disoider. In that sense, this crea- tion has similarities with the creation m Genesis: Atum is the mchoation of all.

He is like that pregnant stillness which precedes a hurricane. There are varying accounts of the creation itself. The Book of the Dead 17 states that the sun-god created his names, as the ruler of the Ennead. That is delightfully primitive and has a consistency of its own. The parts of the body have sepa- rate existence and separate character, so that they may have relation to separate deities.

The name is a thing of indivi- duality and of power , the act of speaking a new name is an act of creation. The Pyiamid Texts present a different picture. Addressing Atum and recalling the occasion when the god was high upon the primeval hillock, the inscription goes on: This has the creation as a rather vio- lent ejection of the first two gods Perhaps it was as explosive as a sneeze, for Shu is the god of an, and his consort, Tefnut, is the goddess of moistuie.

The tefeience to the ka needs explanation. We shall discuss the ka or other personality of an individual later. The couple Shu and Tefnut, air and moisture, gave buth to eaith and sky, the earth-god Geb and the sky-goddess Nut. Or, according to another concept, the air-god Shu lifted and tore asunder earth and sky. Then in then turn Geb and Nut, eaith and sky, mated and produced two couples, the god Osins and his consort Isis, the god Seth and his consort Nephthys These represent the creatures of this woild, whether human, divine, or cosmic.

I shall not take time to atgue the exact oilgi- nal significance of these foui beings, as we are not precisely certain of any of them. Out of earth and sky came the beings that populate the universe. It is interesting that we lack a specific account of the creation of mankind, except m the most allusive way.

Once a creation was started with beings, it could go on, whether the beings were gods, derm-gods, spirits, or men. One of the texts which comments incidentally on creation states that mankind was made m the image of god. This text emphasizes the goodness of the cieatoi-god in canng for his human creatures. He made heaven and earth according to their desire, and he repelled the water monster at creation. He made the breath of life for their nostrils. They are his images that have issued from his body.

He arises in heaven according to then desire He made for them plants and animals, fowl and fish, in order to nourish them. We shall return to this remote parallel to the biblical Flood stoiy in the next chapter.


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We must examine at length one final document beating on the creation. This is an inscription called the Memphite Theo- logy, a context so strange and different fiom the matetial we have been discussing that it seems, at first glance, to come from another world. First, the Memphite text takes off from the creation stories which I have already lecounted: In place of discarding them as competitive, it wishes to subsume them into a higher philosophy, to take advantage of them by point- ing out that they belong to a higher system. That higher system employs invention by the cognition of an idea m the mind and pioduction through the utterance of a creat- ing order by speech.

Now thought and speech are ancient attri- butes of power in Egypt, personified as deities in our earliest literature. They occur normally as a pair of related attributes of the sun-god: Hu and Sia were attributes that carried governing authority. In our Memphite text these two attributes of power are taken in material terms: All this is credited to the activity of the Memphite god Ptah, who is himself thought and speech in every heart and on every tongue, and thus was the first creative principle, just as he remains now.

The part of the text in which we are interested begins by equating Ptah with Nun, the primeval waters out of which came Atum, the normally accepted creator-god. This in itself makes Ptah antecedent to the sun-god, and that priority occurs in passing references m other texts. But our text does not leave the priority implicit; it states the mechanism by which Ptah produced Atum. Conception and partuiition leside in these terms.

The text even draws an invidious distinction between the tiaditional creation by which Atum bi ought forth Shu and Tefnut and that cieation whereby Ptah spoke Shu and Tefnut and thus brought them into being. As we mentioned earliei, one veision of the Atum story makes Shu and Tefnut products of the self-pollution of the creator-god. Thus teeth and lips in the case of Ptah are brought into parallelism with the semen and hands of Atum.

To our modern piejudice, this makes the Ptah creation a nobler activity, but it is not certain that the ancient meant to belittle the more physical story. Then the text summarizes the range of this creative power of Ptah as heart and tongue Thus were the gods born, thus came into being all of the divine order , thus were made the directive destinies which supply mankind with food and piovisions, thus was made the distinction between right and wrong , thus were made all arts, crafts, and human activities ; thus Ptah made provinces and cities and set the various local gods in their gov- erning places.

It is clear that there is some special pleading in this text, the attempt of an upstart theology to establish itself as national and umveisal against older, traditional ways of thinking. Undoubtedly that special interest does lie m this text, but that fact need not concern us much. As we have said. The context enumeiates the created ele- ments. One can argue this same sense in other Egyptian contexts.

F01 example, an assertion that the lighteous man is not wiped out by death but has an immortality because of his goodly memory is indoised with the woids. It is the word ot con- cern or business of the gods which applies to the elements which the gods have created. Creation was accom- panied and directed by a word which expressed some kind of a divine order in older to comprehend the cteated elements.

In summaiy, the ancient Egyptian was self-conscious about himself and his uni vet se, he produced a cosmos in teims of his own observation and his own experience. Like the Nile Valley, this cosmos had limited space but reassuling periodicity; its structural framework and mechanics permitted the leitetation of life thiough the rebirth of hfe-givmg elements.

The creation stories of the ancient Egyptian were also in terms of his own experience, although they bear loose general similarity to other creation stories.

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Aton Hymn, 3 5. Tombos, 1 13 6 Aton Hymn, 7. Anast, I, 1 9 , 24 Ibid , Did the ancient Egyptian see an essential difference in sub- stance between men, society, the gods, plants, animals, and the physical universe? We can give only a petsonal answei with reference to ancient Egypt. To be suie, a man seems to be one thing, and the sky 01 a tree seems to be another But to the ancient Egyptian such concepts had a piotean and complementary nature. The sky might be thought of as a material vault above earth, or as a cow, 01 as a female.

A tree might be a tree or the female who was the tree- goddess. Truth might be treated as an abstract concept, or as a goddess, 01 as a divine heio who once lived on earth A god might be depicted as a man, or as a falcon, or as a falcon- headed man In one context the king is described as the sun, a star, a bull, a crocodile, a lion, a falcon, a jackal, and the two tutelary gods of Egypt - not so much in simile as in vital essence.

It is not a matter of black being antipodal to white but lather that the umveise is a spectrum m which one colour blends off into another without line of demaication, in which. We wish to argue this point further. Our line ot argument will be that to the ancient Egyptian the elements of the umveise were consubstantial, If that be true, the terms which he knew best - human behaviour - would be the frame of reference for non-human phenomena.

It would then be idle to argue whethei the universe, or the gods of the universe, were believed to be benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent. They would be just like humans: To put it in active terms, they would be benevolent when benevolence was their stated business and, malevolent when malevolence was their stated business. That conclusion would have relation to the business of the state and the forces responsible for the state. The first claim for the aigument that the elements of the uni- verse wete of one substance is in the principle of free substitu- tion, inteichange, 01 representation.

It was very easy for one element to take the place of another. The deceased wanted bread, so that he might not be hungiy in the next world. He made contiactual anangements wheieby loaves of biead wete presented regularly at his tomb, so that his spirit might return and eat of the bread.

But he was awaie of the transitory natuie of contracts and of the gteed of hned servants He supported his needs by other foims of biead. A model loaf made of wood and left in the tomb would be an adequate representative of an actual loaf. This is an easy concept: Let us carry representation into another area. A god repre- sented something important in the universe: In terms of his function that god had extensiveness and intangibility. But he might have alocalization in our world, in a place where he might feel at home, that is, a shrine might be specified for him.

In that shrine he might have a place of manifestation in an image. This image was not the god, it was meiely a mechanism of stone or wood or metal to permit him to make an appearance. This is stated by the Egyptians m one of the creation accounts. Of course, we rationalize the image or the sacred animal as being an empty shell of divinity unless divinity were manifest m the shell Howevei, m another sense the image or the animal was a representative of divinity or was divinity itself. I mean that divinity would be present m his place of manifestation whenever his business placed him theie, and his business placed him theie when the act of worship before the image called him into residence.

So that the image did act for and as the god whenevei the woishippei addiessed himself to the image. In that sense, the image was the god for all wot king purposes There were other substitutes for the gods. Fuithermoie, he was the one official mtei- mediary between the people and the gods, the one recognized priest of all the gods. Endowed with divinity, the pharaoh had the protean chaiactei of divinity, he could merge with his fel- low-gods and could become any one of them. How can the kmg be the god-king unless the god-king is piesent m him, so that the two become one?

A single text mag- nifying the king equates him with a series of deities: Carrying the principle of substitution one step further, if the king could represent a god, it is also true that the king could be represented by a man The business of kingship was too detailed for absolute tuie by a single individual so that certain responsibilities must be deputized, even though state dogma said that the king did all. Similarly, state dogma might insist that the king was the sole priest for all the gods; but it was impossible for him to function every day in all the temples , that activity must also be deputized.

Here we must admit that there is some diffeience of representation, the priest or official acted for the king, not as the king. It was deputizing rather than participating in the nature of the other being. This is an acknowledged difference, but even this diffeience is not abso- lute.

Those who act in the place of another share somewhat m the personality of that other Simply the physical grouping of the tombs of Old Kingdom courtiers aiound the pyramid of pharaoh shows that they wished to share m his divine gloiy by belonging to him and thus participating in him. Even here they belonged to some poition of the same spectrum and had an ultimate consubstantiality with him, which was partially de- rived and partially innate.

Between god and man there was no th r, function of the state 75 point at which one could eiect a boundaty line and state that here substance changed from divine, superhuman, immortal, to mundane, human, moital The fluidity of Egyptian concepts and the tendency to syn- thesize divergent elements have led some Egyptologists to believe that the Egyptians were really monotheistic, that all gods were subsumed into a single god. The pur- pose was to enlarge ihe god Amon by mcoipoiatmg the other- two gods into his bung.

Amon is the name of this single being. Re is his head, and Ptah is his body. In another group of hymns which has been called mono- theistic 5 the god is addressed as a single personage of compo- site form, Amon-Re-Atum-Harakhte, that is, the seveial sun-, supreme-, and national-gods rolled up into one. It may be hair- splitting, but we prefer to invoke the principles of consub- stantiality and free interchange of bemg and claim that the Egyptians weie monophysite instead of monotheistic. One element of consubstantiality lies m the fact that the Egyptian gods weie very human, with human weaknesses and vaiymg moods.

They could not remain on a high and consis- tent plane of infallibility. And no god was single-minded ly devoted to a single function. Yet throughout Egyptian history Seth appeared also as a good god, who functioned beneficently foi the dead at times, who fought on behalf of the sun-god, and who acted positively fot the enlargement of the Egyptian state. Horus, the good son throughout Egyptian histoiy, once flew into a rage at his mother Isis and chopped off her head, so that the poor goddess was foiced to take the form of a headless statue 6 The Egyptians appaiently delighted in the humanness of their gods.

This goddess slew mankind, waded m then blood, and exulted m their destruction. Then Re lelented and regretted his desire to obliterate. Instead of ordei- mg Sekhmet to stop the slaughter he resorted to a stratagem. They changed their minds, and they resorted to tricks to accomplish their ends. And yet - in a neighbouring text - they may be por- trayed as noble and consistent.

If the gods were so human, it will not be suiprising that humans could add ress them in brusque terms Not infrequently there are texts in which the woishippei recalls the nature of his services to the gods and threatens those gods who fail to return service for service One of the famous passages in Egyp- tian literatuie is called the "Cannibal Hymn', because the de- ceased expresses his intention of devouring those whom he meets in his path, human or divine It was ongmally written for the deceased king but was later taken over by commoners.

He is the one who eats men and lives on gods. I live on an island in Fla so vacations were most always to the mtns and who goes to the mtns without visiting Biltmore every few years. It's such a lovely place and I love Spending time in the orchid room of the the green house. This book also has the added excitement of lost treasure consisting of emeralds and gold, which is always exciting to fantasize about. And last but certainly not least, the story line revolves around a famous authors writings. I just downloaded books 2 and 3 of this series and look forward to reading them.

If they are half as good as the first I won't be disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed this clever mystery. The hero is suffering from a war injury resulting in the loss of a leg when he is approached by a women who spends time with veterans in recovery. She herself has suffered the loss of an arm and they have an immediate bond. Several days later, Sam discovers she is dead, the victim of a murder.

From that point forward, Sam finds himself embroiled in a mystery that is more than sixty years old. In the midst of the mystery, an old journal, written by a young boy The author does a fantastic job of weaving in Southern lore, some stuff about the author of "Look Homeward Angel" Thomas Wolf , the recovery of wounded veterans-- and manages to create a very credible, very addictive mystery novel. Honestly, I can't wait to read further books in this series. But this one was really, really, good! One person found this helpful 2 people found this helpful. It is equally as good!

Sam is a vet who lost a leg in combat. While recovering, he meets another vet, a young woman who lost a hand. She wants to enlist Sam to help her right a wrong that happened many, many years ago. She is murdered before she can reveal more, but her sister, an insurance investigator, contacts Sam, and together they solve the murder of a Negro in the south during the time of segregation.

The threads of that murder extend into the present and several local people are found to be just as guilty of crimes as their ancestors. What I enjoy about this series this is the second book I've read is that each book is tied to a literary figure. What a surprise I had when I started to read this story of a wounded Army Vet Sam Blackman, discharged with 2 new artificial legs, medical pension and a bad attitude.


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Before his discharge Tikima Robertson, herself missing a hand curtesy of a road side bomb had come to see Sam, offering him a job choice after his release. He waits for her to return to get more information on this job offer and she doesn't return, but Sam receives a phone call from her sister Natalya telling him that she has been murdered and would Sam help. The story is slow moving sometimes, but do not get discouraged, keep reading.

Set in the Asheville North Carolina area, there is a lot of local history combined in this story along with descriptions of the Biltmore and its grounds. A really good story of an almost hundred year old murder mystery that finally gets closure, brings the past and future together. One person found this helpful. It took me a while to get interested in this plot , several days in fact I had let this book sit on my kindle for several months before bringing it up to read a couple of days ago.