Before trying to understand hieroglyphs, one
needs to steep oneself in Egyptian thought: analogy with specific principles
played a major role, and everything was recounted in poetry. The universe
was seen as a large organism (the macrocosm) and Man a small world (microcosm).
We have seen that the preparations for moulding green bricks and for reconstituting
stone were similar and explained in the same way and could therefore be
used as analogies. Similarly the lungs and the heart were interchangeable
as they had similar functions, for although these organs do not look alike
they both use and transform air. The nose also had an analogous function.
In Egypt, the chemist's kiln that transformed matter had a similar function
to the sun which generated metamorphosis in nature. An analogy was drawn
between stone which was cut and put to death in the quarries and then regenerated
in the kiln, thus transforming it into artificial stone, and the human body,
which was reincarnated in Imenty (land of the dead) when the person died.
The evolution of each was told in parallel poetical terms. The separation
of lime from stone was similar to a soul leaving the human body. Thus lime
and the soul had identical functions. One was the critical component of
reconstituted stone, the other of a new, reincarnated man.
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| Scenes showing green bricks being moulded and stone being reconstituted.
The pile of earth is in the form of the hieroglyph representing the
sound t and the earth ta. The wall is being built with rectangular
bricks. The hieroglyph for stone (in or iner) is a rectangle. |
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| In Egypt, the union of the two earths was represented by a sign
called sema taouy (sema – unite; taou – earths; y –
duality). The lungs signified union; the trachea represented the Nile,
the vital artery and lungs that enabled Egypt to breathe. |
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| Here a lung replaces the nose. |
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Ta : Earth
