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Did Egyptian Pharaohs plan a real journey

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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Did Egyptian Pharaohs plan a real journey
    Posted: 09-Mar-2012 at 10:30
Did the oldest Egyptian Pharaohs actually plan a real trip to the underworld , ??
 seems they went to a lot of trouble ,  the old kingdom  pharaohs seem to have had real boats and real food and supplies for a long journey . clearly  it seems the middle and later kingdoms only planned a symbolic journey , with less grave goods , but the old kingdom seems to be almost like a real journey was planned , and if so why has nobody bothered to follow the instructions written on the walls to see if they can find out exactly where the journey ended .
 Can the journey be retraced / recreated from the available information  within the ancient texts ??
  links to wiki  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaru
The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resided in the heart. Those whose heart did not match the weight of the feather of Ma'at due to their sins were excluded. They were said to suffer a second death when devoured by another being, Ammit, while still in Duat for judgment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duat

What we know of the Duat principally derives from funerary texts such as Book of Gates, Book of Caverns, Coffin Texts, Amduat and the Book of the Dead. Each of these documents fulfills a different purpose and gives a different perspective on the Duat, and different texts can be inconsistent with one another. The texts which survive differ in age and origin, and it is likely that there was never a single uniform interpretation of the Duat.[3]

The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew. There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, there is even a map-like image of the Duat.[4]

The Book of the Dead and Coffin Texts were intended to guide the recently deceased through the Duat's dangerous landscape

The souls who did qualify had to undergo a long journey and face many perils before reaching Aaru.

Aaru usually was placed in the east, where the Sun rises, and is described as eternal reed fields, very much like those of the earthly Nile delta: an ideal hunting and fishing ground, and hence, those deceased who, after judgment, were allowed to reside there, were often called the eternally living. More precisely, Aaru was envisaged as a series of islands, covered in "fields of rushes" (Sekhet Aaru), Aaru being the Egyptian word for rushes. The part where Osiris later dwelt was sometimes known as the "field of offerings",



The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom.
 The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world.[1][2]
 Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom.
 The oldest of the texts have been dated to between ca. 2400-2300 BC.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ounas-chambre2.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hieroglyph_Text_from_Teti_I_pyramid.jpg
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Mar-2012 at 19:36
Many religions, including Christianity, viewed death as merely a journey or transition to another life 
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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Mar-2012 at 01:00
indeed Nick , its not hard to trace the concept of '' heaven and hell '' back through the christian religion to Judaism , and then back to the other middle eastern afterlife beliefs , and they were clearly symbolic , with no real need to go looking for a physical place called heaven or hell, but as you go back further it seems the Pharaohs actually believe they were going on a ''very real'' journey . vast effort put into preserving their body and preparing real stuff  , even real boats at one time were prepared for the journey to the '' duat '' . the text inside the older pyramids is acknowledged as being like a map of the '' under world '' to help navigate the journey safely .   I  simply wonder why nobody has yet actually  examined to text and followed the course outlined to see where t ends ,  = 255 degrees west of Elephantine  , in the underworld    or 17 X 15 degrees /  ''hours''  , if you use the text from the pyramid of Unas .  The journey started at sunset at the ''edge of the  western  sky'' and ended 11 ''hours'' later in the hour before dawn in the ''duat''  at the eastern '' edge of the sky '' 
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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2012 at 19:12
  I  have often wondered why nobody has yet tried to recreate the westward journey as described in the older  versions of the  ancient Egyptian pyramid texts ,  I  understand most people assume this journey was only symbolic and indeed it seems to have become impossible once the rains deceased '' about'' 4000 years ago  , but having examined the text and the route thy describe it is in my opinion a real journey westward , over land and water , to a point where the sun rises  , east of Egypt ,  I  have examined the landscape of the period when the pyramids first document this journey , 5000 years ago  it was much wetter in the deserts , and combined with increased river flow , using ocean currents and wind  the  journey as described in the Egyptian pyramid texts was easily possible
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_maps/ocean_currents_1943.jpg
The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BC) to around 50 BC.[1] The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw[2] is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day".[3] Another translation would be "Book of emerging forth into the Light". The text consists of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts
Despite draining into the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific Ocean is near enough to be seen from the mountains of Ometepe (an island in the lake). Before construction of the Panama Canal, a stagecoach line owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company connected the lake with the Pacific across the low hills of the narrow Isthmus of Rivas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nicaragua
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IMHO its easy to imagine the journey as described '' was a real trip '' , that  the  ANCIENT EGYPTIANS   made ,  or could have easily made ,  to the other side of the planet during the wetter period that then prevailed .   Once you actually ''start looking'' , the actual evidence that they did indeed regularly sail around the globe , and recorded this journey withing the ancient text ,  slowly emerges ,  actually sailing due west from Abydos across the present deserts to emerge via the  Niger river into the Atlantic ,  then crossing the americas via lake Nicaragua . all the while simply following the natural currents like many ''solo sailors '' do today
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/world_maps/ocean_currents_1943.jpg
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_Boats_%28First_Dynasty%29_%E2%80%93_Abydos
The Neolithic Subpluvial — sometimes called the Holocene Wet Phase — was an extended period (from about 7500-7000 BC to about 3500-3000 BC) of wet and rainy conditions in the climate history of northern Africa. It was both preceded and followed by much drier periods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2012 at 19:29
The Egyptian afterlife sounds very similar to the Christian heaven: the dead will go to a green, fertile land and do the work they did in life
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  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-May-2012 at 19:53
Originally posted by Nick1986

The Egyptian afterlife sounds very similar to the Christian heaven: the dead will go to a green, fertile land and do the work they did in life


Could I please see some verses in the bible that say this? I have read something similar in the Torah but never in the NT. regards
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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-May-2012 at 02:36
the way  I  read it , the concept of '' heaven '' has been slowly evolving for many thousands of years , the torah / bible / Qur'an all simply built upon the traditions received from the older practices . All of the ''concepts'' can be identified in the older religions , often only with minor changes , I myself like to refer to the text found almost complete unaltered  on the walls inside the pyramid of  Unas , they become different slowly right up to the period that the jews and christian influences can be seen  to  be evolving

The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom.

 The pyramid texts are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world.[1][2]

Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved on the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Saqqara during the 5th and 6th Dynasties of the Old Kingdom.

 The oldest of the texts have been dated to between ca. 2400-2300 BC.[3
.
but returning to my main point ,
   Im convinced we are actually missing the probability the '' journey the dead '' made was a  REAL  journey . naturally the envisioned heaven was not found as expected , but the '' trip '' to the west , is described in enough detail to recreate the route and destination quite closely , from the available early texts , if read like a list of directions once '' stripped '' of all its repetitious and  religious ceremony , then read like a map or written travel  plan . the Egyptians had all the skills requirded to build the pyramids and the boats found nearby ,  so  IMHO  they had the skills needed to sail around the world ,  like the  dozens of solo sailors have done recently . SEE LIST OF SOLO SAILORS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-handed_sailing#The_pioneers
the Book of the Dead also depicts the dead living on in the 'Field of Reeds', a paradisaical likeness of the real world.[36] The Field of Reeds is depicted as a lush, plentiful version of the Egypt of the living. There are fields, crops, oxen, people and waterways. The deceased person is shown encountering  the depiction of the Field of Reeds is pleasant and plentiful, it is also clear that manual labour is required. 
Two 'gate spells'. On the top register, Ani and his wife face the 'seven gates of the House of Osiris'. Below, they encounter ten of the 21 'mysterious portals of the House of Osiris in the Field of Reeds'. 
The path to the afterlife as laid out in the Book of the Dead was a difficult one. The deceased was required to pass a series of gates, caverns and mounds guarded by supernatural creatures.[39]

iArw meaning "reeds") (alternatives: Yaaru, Iaru, Aalu) or the Egyptian reed fields, are the heavenly paradise,

It has been described as the ka (a part of the soul) of the Nile Delta.

Only souls who qualified were allowed to start a long and perilous journey to Aaru, where they would exist in pleasure for all eternity. 

The souls who did qualify had to undergo a long journey and face many perils before reaching Aaru. Once they arrived, they had to enter through a series of gates. The exact number of gates varies according to sources, .

Aaru usually was placed in the east, where the Sun rises, and is described as eternal reed fields, very much like those of the earthly Nile delta: an ideal hunting and fishing ground, and hence, those deceased who, after judgment, were allowed to reside there, were often called the eternally living. More precisely, Aaru was envisaged as a series of islands, covered in "fields of rushes" (Sekhet Aaru), Aaru being the Egyptian word for rushes


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  Quote Mountain Man Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Aug-2012 at 11:54
The Chinese burn paper representations of everything the dead will need in the afterlife in order to send it along for the use of the departed.

Christian bury people fully clothed in their finest, along with personal jewelry and cherished items, embalmed and sealed inside elaborate caskets in order that they shall look their best when they are resurrected.

All of this indicates a firm belief across theological lines that the journey is in a sense quite real, since the soul itself would need none of these things.
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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Aug-2012 at 23:13
Indeed  Mountain Man , there are beliefs in an afterlife almost universal around the planet , and many seem to have some shared concepts of what it is like , but my interest is in the way   IMHO the ancient Egyptians do seem to have had a   real and physical journey in mind during the '' Old Kingdom '' ,  that over 3000 years did slowly come closer to the Jewish and christian beliefs in a non physical  journey . The ancient texts describe a physical journey of the departed  pharaohs  body ,  following the sun  to the west , to the '' hall of  Judgement ''  that was located  in the last hour of night . If you read the ancient texts as if it was a  REAL JOURNEY  , it does indeed make considerable sense and leaves me with no doubt they did indeed sail west from Abydos , as they claimed  ,  by damming up the river Nile and diverting its flow  west , through the deserts  , eventually linking into  into the river Niger   basin ,   and then sailing with the  favorable natural ocean currents and trade winds onward across the Atlantic via lake Nicaragua , then into the pacific  , to the place of final judgement 11 '' hours '' into the night .  IF YOU READ CAREFULLY ,   you can ascertain  The ancient Egyptian heaven was located in the '' hour '' before dawn or the 12 hour of the night , note the name of the  '' book of the dead '' is often more correctly  called '' book of coming forth into the day ''  IE  the pre dawn period in the suns 24 hour trip  , yes I know this takes a while to  translate into our understanding of the world / space and time , the ancient Egyptians had the world divided into 12 '' hours  '' of day and 12 '' hours '' of night , each of 15 degrees  to give 360 degree globe , using this information we should be able to identify the journey and destination of the journey taken by the deceased pharaohs , and then locate the remains , see my notes on this point here IF  you have time or interest in this possibility ] https://docs.google.com/document/d/16GFbOMhkjYQVA35Z0k6I9atld5zCuh3KbtbDVApULGI/edit [ the gold would not decay]  ,  the remains of those few  pharaohs who did complete the earthly journey may remain to be discovered  ,  it seems clear the physical journey  had became harder  and more or  less more symbolic by the middle kingdom , as many pharaohs mummies remain in Egypt but no old kingdom '' pharaohs mummies '' had as far as  I  can tell have  been positively identified  , more details on ancient Egypt astronomy can be found here if you are interested , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_astronomy#Ancient_Egypt , quote  ''Astronomy played a considerable part in religious matters for fixing the dates of festivals and determining the hours of the night. The titles of several temple books are preserved recording the movements and phases of the sun, moon and stars. The rising of Sirius (Egyptian: Sopdet, Greek: Sothis) at the beginning of the inundation was a particularly important point to fix in the yearly calendar. Star clock from the tomb of Rameses VI . From the tables of stars on the ceiling of the tombs of Rameses VI and Rameses IX it seems that for fixing the hours of the night
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  Quote unclefred Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Aug-2012 at 12:43

The time of Unas was a period of instability and cracks were developing in the old beliefs and the Kingdom. He himself seems a bit of a raver, he published broadly that he was an 'eater of the Gods' and it would appear he was a practitioner of cannibalism as well. Probably his magic spells and such that he lined the walls with was more of an aberration rather than the norm of the Pharoahs' practices? The sixth dynasty continued in fracture and decline.

I would guess that Unas believed in a literal journey as well as a transformation to Godhood and the domination of the other Gods. But I would think the journey was not expected to be a physical one. 

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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Aug-2012 at 04:33
indeed  I  think they genuinely believed there was a real journey and real elevation to god like status in the after life , and this belief slowly became more and more symbolic over time , eventually becoming totally symbolic by the early christian period . but if they genuinely did believe in a real journey west following the sun , then  the described journey  we should be able to trace it to the so called '' paradise '' , and having examined to text carefully I  think there is indeed a fairly good case to suggest they did indeed travel west following the sun  to he place where the sun emerges to the east of Egypt , literally sailing around the globe ,  sailing due west from abydos after damming up and diverting the river Nile as they claim ,  '' The Great One rises. The enneads speak: completely dammed-off shall be the land.
http://www.pyramidtextsonline.com/antewest.html
279: The two ridges of the mountain (on both sides of the Nile valley) shall be united.
The two banks of the river will be joined.
The roads will be hidden from the passers-by.
The steps (rwd.w) will be annihilated for those who go up.
Make tight the rope (of the boat), sail the road of heaven!.
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damming of the nile and diverting its flow west would enable the water to flow into the kharga oasis , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharga_Oasis , which would eventually flow into the bodelle depression / mega lake chad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bod%C3%A9l%C3%A9_Depression , and then into the river niger river basin , to discharge into the atlantic ocean , with ocean currents and trade winds now well documented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westerlies enabling a round the world voyage a real possibility  , with only 20 km overland required  near lake Nicaragua http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nicaragua ,  making the journey  as described in the ancient texts  was easily possible with the technology we know they had at that time . Seems clear though that this knowledge of the westward journey was lost by the middle kingdom
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  Quote kangarooistan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Aug-2012 at 05:22
as far as  I   understand , There are no confirmed  material remains of Columbus’s travels only 500 years ago ,  except the documents back in spain ,  similarly , we should not expect to find much surviving evidence of pharaohs journey ,  except those back in Egypt . Efforts to find the Spaniards’ first settlement on Hispaniola have so far failed, but the present-day fishing village of Bord de Mer de Limonade (near Cap-Haïtien, Haiti) may be close to the original site,  Concepción de la Vega, which Columbus founded on the second voyage, may be the present La Vega Vieja, in the Dominican Republic. Remains at the site of La Isabela are still to be fully excavated, as are those at Sevilla la Nueva, Jamaica, where Columbus’s two caravels were beached on the fourth voyage.
the only surviving '' evidence''  of several journeys around the planet are the documentation , that by examination can confirm the trip was indeed real , the deails aretoo accurate to be  otherwise , similarly  I  can see enough evidence in the ancient Egyptian texts to confirm the westward journey was indeed  , originally , a real journey west to a place where the '' sun rises east of Egypt '' see wiki =  Aaru usually was placed in the east, where the Sun rises, and is described as eternal reed fields, very much like those of the earthly Nile delta: an ideal hunting and fishing ground, and hence, those deceased who, after judgment, were allowed to reside there, were often called the eternally living. More precisely, Aaru was envisaged as a series of islands, covered in "fields of rushes" (Sekhet Aaru), Aaru being the Egyptian word for rushes.  ,  .
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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01-Jan-2014 at 16:24
Kangarooistan, wrote a long time ago these words;

"Did the oldest Egyptian Pharaohs actually plan a real trip to the underworld , ??
seems they went to a lot of trouble , the old kingdom pharaohs seem to have had real boats and real food and supplies for a long journey . clearly it seems the middle and later kingdoms only planned a symbolic journey , with less grave goods , but the old kingdom seems to be almost like a real journey was planned , and if so why has nobody bothered to follow the instructions written on the walls to see if they can find out exactly where the journey ended .
Can the journey be retraced / recreated from the available information within the ancient texts ??
links to wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaru
The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resided in the heart. Those whose heart did not match the weight of the feather of Ma'at due to their sins were excluded. They were said to suffer a second death when devoured by another being, Ammit, while still in Duat for judgment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duat
What we know of the Duat principally derives from funerary texts such as Book of Gates, Book of Caverns, Coffin Texts, Amduat and the Book of the Dead. Each of these documents fulfills a different purpose and gives a different perspective on the Duat, and different texts can be inconsistent with one another. The texts which survive differ in age and origin, and it is likely that there was never a single uniform interpretation of the Duat.[3]

The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew. There are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, there is even a map-like image of the Duat.[4]"

I can tell you that the Fomwnko Group, would consider that those words are the truth, and indeed dead Kings were embalmed and taken to certain places in Egypt to be entombed. But, the Fomenko Group considers these dead kings to have originated in Europe! Many especially in the area we now consider as Turkey and Russia.

These tombs are considered to have been used and built from but 800 CE to 1400 CE at the best.

Ron


Edited by opuslola - 01-Jan-2014 at 16:27
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/
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