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So the skin color of the Egyptians in art is symbolic
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Doug M: [QB] The purpose of the symbolism in Egyptian art was to express understanding of how the universe worked through observing nature. Humans have been observing nature since the very beginning, but only slowly did they evolve the ability to communicate complex ideas using language. Symbolic language is the root of all language, as it is a bridge between the object being described: "the thing itself" and the meta principle behind the thing itself or the archetype and "idea" behind the thing (retrieved from the brains memory of the experience of said thing). Mdu Neter is the blending of both where the symbol represents both the object itself cognitively and other ideas and concepts behind the object as a way of communicating abstract concepts "about" things and how they came to be. Some of those more abstract concepts are things like the nurturing principle (motherliness, feminine principle), the warrior principle and vigilance (the protector, male principle) and so forth. The complete cosmology of the AE was a comprehensive collection of many ideas and concepts about the Universe and how everything in it came to be and not simply a religion. It was religion, science, math and philosophy all in one. Because as the AE saw it everything was part of "one truth", one emanation and one whole creation and a reflection of a greater force at work which most call "God". Only later did folks like the Greeks begin to separate out various elements of nature and the universe into discrete separate disciplines, even though most of their works clearly still tied all these things together in many ways. Also keep in mind that the human brain is designed and hard wired to interpret meaning from physical stimuli like visual information and sensory information. Hence interpreting symbols and attaching meaning to them are all an aspect of how the brain works and communicates meaning. It is quite similar to how Aristotle wrote "Metaphysics" which means "about nature/physical reality" or the principles above and behind the nature of the physical world we see every day (again which come from observation and understanding of nature itself), with "God" as the grand archetype of the first cause and force behind it all. This is no different than what was revealed within the Egyptian system of symbolic language. So if you want to talk about philosophy within the AE language you have to talk in terms of Ptah and Djehuti which represent "the word" (communication, thinking and writing) and Djehuti (wisdom, intelligence, rationality and planning). Of course that is simply one example but of course there is much more than that. [QUOTE] Ptah (Pteh, Peteh) was one of the triad of Memphis along with Sekhmet (or Bast) and Nefertum. When Memphis became the capital of Egypt, Ptah became the ultimate creator who made everything including the gods of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis and the Ennead of Heliopolis and was given the epithet "He who set all the gods in their places and gave all things the breath of life". Ptah was worshipped throughout all of Egypt, but his primary cult centres were in Memphis and Heliopolis. He was so popular in Egypt that it is said that the name "Egypt" itself derives from a Greek spelling of the name of a temple in Memphis; "Hwt-kA-ptH", which means "the temple of the Ka of Ptah". He is often described as an abstract form of the "Self-Created One", who made the universe either by the wish of his heart (sometimes associated with Hathor or Horus) and by his tongue (or speech, identified with Thoth and Tefnut). Alternatively, you could argue that he was more directly in control of creation than either Ra or Atum). He was the patron of sculptors, painters, builders and carpenters, and other craftsmen and was thought to have invented masonry.[/QUOTE] http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/ptah.html In just that one passage, Hathor represents "birth" or feminine aspects of creation as in the Universe itself is the "mother" of all creation because all creation is manifest in the "womb" of the physical universe. Horus is the "sun" and one of the stars born in the Milky Way (cow reference) of Hathor the mother womb of creation. Thoth is the manifestation of "the logos" or ideas and concepts in time and space, which are manifested in the womb of Hathor and given form by Atum, through the power of chemistry and ATOMS. Or you could say that the "first spark" or "first cause" or "first chemical reaction" is symbolized by Ra the first child of Hathor/Ptah symbolizing the manifestation of "the word" (ideas, archetypes) in the physical universe at the "first time". Ra and Atum-Ra symbolize this as act of creation during "the first time" or before the universe was born which given the infinite span of time and space is a theoretical concept above physical nature. Generally the male deities in the AE system were organized in a trinity with a pair of opposites (male and female) and a child. The male generally symbolizes the hidden "urge" or force behind creation or hidden seed within creation (Amun, self masturbation,Osiris/Khem/Carbon/Chemistry/carbon based life/black substance). And the feminine represents childbirth, bringing the urge or essence into existence and nurturing that essence (Mother nature). From book one of Aristotle's meta physics talking of man's "experience of nature" and the ability to reproduce it in art (and thereby communicate meaning). This is nothing more than what the AE were doing symbolically in Mdu Neter and their art. Note even in the first two sentences he refers to human sight which the AE symbolized as the "Eye of Horus", which means the ability to discern and understand and memory on a basic level but on a higher level means "awakened conscious" (understanding experience of the nature of the universe/self/creation) mind within man, combining both the experiences received by DAY and those received by night, into the experience of ALL or "the one creation". And then he goes on to talk about craftsmen/artists as teachers, which is nothing more than what is seen in the concept of Ptah as deity of craftsmen, not only in their ability to create from ideas but their ability to communicate understanding through art and craft. [QUOTE] "ALL men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight. For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to do anything, we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to light many differences between things. "By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others. And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e.g. the bee, and any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides memory have this sense of hearing can be taught. "The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives also by art and reasonings. Now from memory experience is produced in men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the capacity for a single experience. And experience seems pretty much like science and art, but really science and art come to men through experience; for 'experience made art', as Polus says, 'but inexperience luck.' Now art arises when from many notions gained by experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced. For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done good to all persons of a certain constitution, marked off in one class, when they were ill of this disease, e.g. to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fevers-this is a matter of art. "With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art, and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience. (The reason is that experience is knowledge of individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man, except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. If, then, a man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.) But yet we think that knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which implies that Wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of experience know that the thing is so, but do not know why, while the others know the 'why' and the cause. Hence we think also that the masterworkers in each craft are more honourable and know in a truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know the causes of the things that are done (we think the manual workers are like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing what they do, as fire burns,-but while the lifeless things perform each of their functions by a natural tendency, the labourers perform them through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the causes. And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think art more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and men of mere experience cannot. "Again, we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the 'why' of anything-e.g. why fire is hot; they only say that it is hot. [b]"At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, not only because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of knowledge did not aim at utility. Hence when all such inventions were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at leisure.[/b] "We have said in the Ethics what the difference is between art and science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present discussion is this, that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the possessors of any sense-perception whatever, the artist wiser than the men of experience, the masterworker than the mechanic, and the theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than the productive. Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about certain principles and causes. [/QUOTE] http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.1.i.html [/QB][/QUOTE]
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