Is the diagram of the Egyptian trinity a copy of a pictogram on an obelisk?
Upvote:4
No, its not. In fact, that appears to be nonsense. However, its interesting 17th century nonsense.
The obelisk in question, I'm not sure where the original is, but there's a copy to this day standing at a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome. As for the original...
The obelisk, made of Aswan granite, has an interesting history. It is connected with the emperor Domitian, and was originally thought to have come from the Serapeum, which the emperor rebuilt in A.D. 80. However, it is equally plausible that the obelisk might have originated from the Temple of the Gens Flavia on the Quirinal Hill, built by Domitian dedicated to his family cult. The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the obelisk were of Roman authorship, offering a hymn to Domitian, and the deified emperors Vespasian and Titus, possibly on the occasion of something being restored.
It was moved in the 4th Century, after which both its original location and the knowledge of how to read the hieroglyphic carved upon it were lost. However, it still looked really cool, and the lost language on it added a healthy dollop of mystique. In the early 1600's Pope Innocent X decided to have it moved again, to the plaza in front of his family home, with a suitable setting, of course, and commissioned a Jesuit scholar named Athanasius Kircher to oversee the effort.
As I said, the knowledge of translating hieroglyphics was lost at that time, and not really regained for another 200 years. Kircher didn't let that stop him though, and attempted his own translation anyway. To be fair to him, someone eventually had to be the person to figure it out, so why not him?
Well ... it wasn't him. Boyohboy was it not him. In particular, that diagram of his linked in the question appears to be Kircher's own attempt to illustrate his translation off the (now) south face of the obelisk, which he translated (into Latin like you see on that diagram) as:
'To the triform Divinity Hemptha - first Mind, motor of all things, second Mind, craftsman, pantamorphic Spirit - Triune Divinity, eternal, having no beginning or end, Origin of the secondary Gods, which, diffused out of the Monad as from a certain apex into the breadth of the mundane pyramid, ...
It goes on in this poetic vein for quite a while, but you can see where his diagram of the pyramid with the trinity flows from this translation. The picture itself appears to be from a book he wrote about his work in 1650, Obeliscus Pamphilius (Pamphilji was the pope's family name).
So when the hieroglyphs were actually deciphered two centuries later, thanks to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, what did they say? "Horus, strong bull, beloved of Maat."
Oh well. Not all theories are winners, right?
More post
- π Were there any gunner aces of WW2?
- π An Austrian Emperor who thought taking his own sweet time about rewarding his underlings was the best way to inspire respect?
- π When did Socrates die?
- π How did medieval serfs obtain their iron goods?
- π What happened to the Imperial Byzantine Family after the collapse of the empire?
- π Were Germans permitted to give the Hitler salute with the left arm?
- π Are there any secular accounts of the Sadduccees?
- π On the Ezana Stone, who are the black and red people that the Ethiopian king was referring to?
- π Has the US army ever fought an urban battle?
- π Was Nixon's "Madman Theory" effective?
- π What calendar was used by the kingdom of Ireland?
- π What is the meaning of the hand gesture performed by King James II in the portrait by Peter Lely?
- π Did any African-American slaves with Jewish owners ever adopt Judaism?
- π Does it make sense to mention months (and days) in any BCE date?
- π How were the holes for the guns in battleships' turrets protected?
- π How exactly did most nobles gain wealth?
- π Why didnβt Herbert Hooverβs residency in London during and after WWI disqualify him from becoming President?
- π How serious was Fermat's statement about the ancients?
- π Why is Lal Bahadur Shastri's death in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, still a mystery?
- π Were ships effective for sieging cities?
- π Did the Axis engage in trade with other countries during the war?
- π Does anyone have information about a pre-1859 church in Villers-Bretonneux?
- π What's the rationale for shipping coins back to Spain from its colonies?
- π Has any generation generally agreed that the next generation was better?
- π What kind of knife is this and where is it from?
- π What is the longest name chain?
- π Does Genghish Khan Worship Tengri?
- π Physical meaning of the phrase "Beijing-Tianjing corridor" in the context of Sino-Japanese war?
- π This is the second time Australia has had 6 PMs in 10 years. What caused it the first time?
- π Why didn't Japan attack communist China in WW2?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- π Is the diagram of the Egyptian trinity a copy of a pictogram on an obelisk?
- π How did the monks whose job was to copy books react to Gutenberg's printing press?
- π What kind of labor was used to build the Egyptian pyramids?
- π What is the layout of Ancient Egyptian pyramid shafts?
- π Can history shed any light on the "secret arts" of the Egyptian magicians who turned their staffs into serpents as claimed by Exodus 7:11-12?
- π References or accounts in historical Egyptian literature about the Exodus
- π Do any Egyptian hieroglyphics mention the ten plagues?
- π How did the Egyptian engineers of the Third and Fourth Dynasty construct the Pyramids and Sphinx without modern science and mathematics?
- π Were the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs ever discovered really found in Qustul in Ancient Nubia?
- π How long did belief in the Egyptian sun god Ra last?
- π How old is the Egyptian winged disk? Is it Assyrian?
- π Does any copy exist of the Papal bull which authorized the Spanish Inquisition?
- π What would have been on the menu in an Ancient Egyptian tavern?
- π What was the ancient Egyptian word for "soldier"?
- π How long did it take to copy a Bible during the early propagation of the Christian faith?
- π What was the primary source Brugsch used to argue for Egyptian monotheism?
- π Is there a majority viewpoint for the fall of the ancient Egyptian civilization?
- π Were Egyptian monarchs referred to by the title "pharaoh" alone, without using their proper names, from around 1500 BCE until the 10th century BCE?
- π Does the ancient Egyptian religion still have followers?
- π What language is the inscription in Masaccio's Holy Trinity
- π What were Egyptian rulers called before the honorific title "Pharaoh"?
- π Based on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, Did Assyrians of 825 (or) 840 BCE associate the ΧΦΈΧΦ΅Χ ΧΦΈΦΌΧΦ΄Χ Magen David as a symbol of Yisrael?
- π How was the Ancient Egyptian name 'God is Gracious' written?
- π Where can I find an explanation of the variations in style of Egyptian hieroglyphs?
- π Was there any Egyptian Pharaoh that was considered the one and only god that ancient Egyptians worshiped during his life?
- π What was the efficiency of the "Gadget" bomb in the Trinity Test?
- π Are there any texts/translations of the 4 main Egyptian creation myths?
- π How old was the Egyptian calendar system?
- π What's the Ancient Egyptian word for "benedict"?
- π Was garlic an Egyptian deity, based on Pliny the Elder's "Natural History" (Book XIX, Ch 32)?