Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 11:53:00 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Ice Age blast 'ravaged America'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6676461.stm
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

OBELISKS - A Short History

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: OBELISKS - A Short History  (Read 6185 times)
0 Members and 23 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2009, 01:50:41 pm »









From Mark Lehner:
 


The meaning of the obelisks has to do with solar worship. They definitely are inspired by Heliopolis, the ancient cult center northeast of modern Cairo, which was the seat of sun-worship, or the worship of the sun god Re.

The sacred item in the Holy of Holies in the temple of Heliopolis was something called the ben-ben. Ben-ben comes from an ancient Egyptian word that originally, primarily means "to swell." The ben-ben was a conical-shaped object like a small pyramidion. And the swelling, of course, has to do with the rising of the sun, the swelling of the light and so on. The Pyramids are thought to have been inspired by the Heliopolitan ben-ben and so were the obelisks, which have been called "pyramids on a stick" rather flippantly. The texts all associate the obelisks in various ways with the solar cult.

The obelisks were also put up for the pharaoh's Jubilee, which was traditionally a celebration of 30 years of rule, but some pharaohs could celebrate it earlier if they chose.

And finally, my own personal take on it, which is nothing you could prove or disprove, but just a kind of personal interpretation, is that the obelisks stand for resurrection. They stand in front of temple entrances. We know there were inner obelisks in the innermost sanctuary of Amun. It has even been suggested that there were portable obelisks that were picked up and put on the sacred barque when Amun went in procession to the temple of Luxor for the Festival of the Opet, and there were sockets there that were put in place right in front of Amun's shrine.

Important people during their funerals had their own little obelisks, and in their tomb scenes, in which they show the funeral ceremony, these obelisks are being set up in the proximity of the necropolis or right in front of the tomb. So I think the combination of the solar symbol, the Jubilee—which as a renewal ceremony—and the use of the obelisks in private tombs, all suggest resurrection as a kind of key idea behind the obelisks.


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/mail/mail19990316.html
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: 1 2 [3] 4   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy