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 How did Ram and Krishna become the dominant Gods in Hinduism?
- π Was jealousy the cause of Ernst Winter's death?
- π Were Moses & Abraham historical figures?
- π Did churches in American south have to be segregated by law?
- π What was the military strength of the participants in the Falklands conflict?
- π When was the Ottoman mosque within the Parthenon demolished?
- π Are there any accounts of everyday life during the Black Death?
- π Why do people still leave flowers at the Temple of Julius Caesar?
- π Treatment of Jewish WWI Veterans
- π What is the actual Polish street name of the street in Martinau, now Rokitnica, of Strasse der SA?
- π Was coat of arms of Afghanistan of 1928 influenced by Soviet symbols?
- π Which operating system were the hackers at the MIT AI Lab using in 1971?
- π What were Hispanic people called in the US in the 1800s?
- π How do they prove adultery before video/digital evidence was available?
- π How exactly did most nobles gain wealth?
- π What was the Victorian opinion of the American Revolution?
- π Did the Red Army and German Army clash in Poland in 1939?
- π When did the Hudson Bay get its current name in French?
- π What did squires do in the middle of a medieval battle?
- π What flag is similar to the American flag, but has only 9 stars and 13 vertical stripes?
- π How did sugar go from a luxury to a necessity in 18th century?
- π Who was Chief Poking Fire?
- π What are the "ancient liberties" of the City of London?
- π What is the logic for the map maker classifying the map this way, specifically in Canada?
- π Why was Napoleon so lenient to Austria?
- π Did Julius Caesar reduce the number of slaves?
- π Were there US troops on the WW1 eastern front?
- π Has there ever been a practise of duelling with bows?
- π What were the advantages of dual power in the beginning of Castro's Cuba
- π How common were professional musicians before the advent of recorded music?
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)?
