TRANSLATIONS
Let us leave the number exercises and instead look at pictures. First we have the lifting up of the sun:
Hathor emerging through the side of a mountain = the necropolis. (Wilkinson) As I read the picture the sun is depicted as a scarab: "There are many species of dung beetle in Egypt, but the great sacred dor or scarab (Scarabeus sacer) is the species which most often is depicted in Egyptian art. This beetle is known for its habit of rolling balls of dung along the ground and then to keep them in tunnels under the surface of the earth for larva food. Larva ... A. † spectre, ghost ... B. insect in the grub state ... L., 'disembodied spirit', ghost', 'mask' ... sense B is due to Linnæus, and is an application of the sense 'mask', the notion being that the perfect insect or imago is not recognizable in the larva (Ray, 1691, had spoken of 'the same Insect under a different Larva or habit' ... (English Etymology) As the young dung beetles appeared to emerge by themselves out of such tunnels the Egyptians worshipped the scarab under the name Chepri, 'he who emerged' or 'he who was created'. Already very early the dor beetle therefore was identified with the god of creation, Atum. The rays on the head of the scarab and the habit to roll a ball of dung in front of himself also made it close at hand to regard it as a symbol of the sun. They also believed that the god Chepri rolled the sun over the sky in the same way." (Wilkinson) The necropolis is the mountain and the mountain is the abode of the spirits (larvae). Emerging from 'pits' (rua) in the east is returning from 'the other side' (te rua paiga):
I recall Aa6-66 at this point (when reading about 'to vomit', hakarua):
It is Hathor who emerges in the Egyptian picture above and the emerging beetle (uplifted as if by the hands of a god) may symbolize 'emerging' as such (not necessarily of the sun). However, rays from the scarab disc are drawn as wavy lines and therefore I guess that sun and Hathor emerge together. The wavy lines (GD31, ûa) in Aa6-66 probably symbolize fluid and if it is a sun head (which I believe) which vomits, then the sun is capable of producing both light and fluid. The gesture with upraised arms holding the disc is the same as in:
"In some two-dimensional pictures the Egyptian artist could show the mountains in the sign for the horizon as the two breasts of a goddess lying down and holding the sun up. In other cases the form of the hieroglyph was used not to represent the rising sun, but as a visual metaphor for fire and heat. (Wilkinson)
When we read 'emerging' (and not 'heat') the ideas of Lockyer are useful, and Hathor presumably is the wife of the sun (Rā-t), 'heralding sunrise' (Isis): '... These and other facts may be brought together in a tabular form, to show what apparently the complete mythology of Isis meant ... ANYTHING LUMINOUS TO THE EASTWARD HERALDING SUNRISE
It will be seen that in the case of Isis we are not dealing merely with a rising star, while, so far as I know, Hathor is limited to stars ...' We should also recall what Hamlet's Mill told us about Hathor:
Both Lockyer and Hamlet's Mill underlines that Hathor is not necessarily a specific celestial body but instead the 'lady' who rules every-body. She is in charge of 'emerging' ('birth') I would say, the heliacal rising. We should look in the east for her:
(Lockyer's classfication) The raised arms of Rā-t presumably are also expressed in Aa1-5--8: These 4 arms seem to represent 4 goddesses. But we do not have to follow all the way with the similarities. Instead the 4 months during which sun is rising high in the sky (before midsummer) is the probable reading. We see the elbow at left - just as in the left arm of Isis - and the thumb appears like the beak of a sun bird (moa). After midsummer the elbow is at right - as in the right arm of Isis. The midpoint, midsummer, therefore should be the location (house) of the sun himself. The arms of Isis are not similar to the straight arms (or rather wings) forming a rhomb with beetle in the middle:
The goddess at left represents Lower Egypt (low headgear) and the goddess at right Upper Egypt (high headgear). Which implies that the center beetle is located moving from east (bottom) to west (top - with starry sky above). The beetle seems to have emerged through the sun door at bottom. The 6 legs of the insect become 12 limbs at their ends. To the cardinal points in east and west are here added the two cardinal points of north (Lower Egypt) and south (Upper Egypt). In between these 4 cardinal points we find the surface. '... The God Amma, it appeared, took a lump of clay, squeezed it in his hand and flung it from him, as he had done with the stars. The clay spread and fell on the north, which is the top, and from there stretched out to the south, which is the bottom, of the world, although the whole movement was horizontal. The earth lies flat, but the north is at the top. It extends east and west with separate members like a foetus in the womb. It is a body, that is to say, a thing with members branching out from a central mass. This body, lying flat, face upwards, in a line from north to south, is feminine. Its sexual organ is an anthill, and its clitoris a termite hill ...' As we have identified the picture of arms raising the sun both on Easter Island and in ancient Egypt, it appears reasonable to suspect that the rhomb figure in rongorongo represents the surface of the earth. '... Above the door of the temple is depicted a chequer-board of white squares alternating with squares the colour of the mud wall. There should strictly be eight rows, one for each ancestor. This chequer-board is pre-eminently the symbol of the 'things of this world' and especially of the structure and basic objects of human organization. It symbolizes: the pall which covers the dead, with its eight strips of black and white squares representing the multiplication of the eight of human families; the façade of the large house with its eighty niches, home of the ancestors; the cultivated fields, patterned like the pall; the villages with streets like seams, and more generally all regions inhabited, cleared or exploited by men. The chequer-board and the covering both portray the eight ancestors ...' By chance I happened to notice in Mamari a glyph (Ca1-26) which may be relevant:
Being the last glyph in line a1 it could symbolize the last phase of the dark, just before light appears, especially as in Ca2-1 light arrives with (presumably) sun just above the top of the mountain. Ca2-2--3 and Ca2-5--6 (4 glyphs) indicate 'eating' (growing) and in Ca2-4 the rectangular henua therefore should be the season before midsummer. The two 'ears' in Ca1-26 may represent north and south. In Ca1-25 the triple vertical lines in hau tea (Ca2-1) are upside down, with - I guess - the sun at bottom like a nut with sprouts growing upwards. Looking ahead we then find Ca2-7--8 reminding us about what we just have seen in Tahua:
I guess the Mamari sequence of glyphs (Ca1-19 -- Ca2-23) should be read in this order:
To get the full perspective we must also have a quick similar look at the beginning of side a of Mamari: |