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Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:37 am
by Ishtar
As promised, here are some references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:King_Vegita/Hermetism
Thomas Taylor, the first English translator of Plato's texts, believed that Plato was initiated into the Egyptian mystery schools at the age of 49, in one of the subterranean halls of the Great Pyramid of Giza. [16] Plato's work was greatly criticized for revealing many of these Hermetic mysteries in his writings available to those outside the mystery schools. [17] If these assertions are correct, then it would be correct to call Plato's work Hermetic and not the Hermetists Platonic.
This is from Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s Hermetica:
Casaubon particularly claims that the Hermetica plagarised the Timaeus – a work written by the Greek philosopher Plato in the 5th century BCE. Like the Hermetica, it includes the doctrines of astrology and reincarnation. Yet these ideas played no part in early Greek religion, so where did they come from?
The answer is ancient Egypt. Over a hundred years before Plato, the Greek sage Pythagorus had set out on a journey to acquire the knowledge of the world. This led him to Egypt where he spent twenty-two years in the temples being initiated into the religion of the Egyptians. According to the ancient Greek scholar Diogenes Laertius, Plato purchased three books of Pythagorean doctrines based on Egyptian wisdom, and these he adapted into Timaeus.
The similarities between the works of Plato and the Hermetica are not surprising, therefore, since many of Plato’s ideas were direct descendants of ancient Egyptian philosophy.
and ...
While Casaubon was writing [1614] very little was actually known about ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphs themselves were not translated until two centuries after his death. Consequently, many modern scholars now believe that he was wrong to see the Hermetic philosophy as a second century invention, especially since the discovery of the pyramid text of Saqquara at the end of the last century. These hieroglyphs are over 5000 years old and yet contain doctrines that are identical to those expounded in the Hermetica.
And this from Herodotus:
The Egyptians are religious to excess, beyond any other nation in the world ... they are meticulous in everything which concerns their religion ... It was only, if I may put it so, the day before yesterday that the Greeks came to know the origin and form of the various gods ... The names of all the gods came to Greece from Egypt ...for all the names of the gods have been known in Egypt from the beginning of time.
Burials
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:41 am
by Cognito
The best graves (and thus reserved for the eilte) were always under the floor or in the walls of where all the important shamanic rituals took place.
Somewhat like paying money to be buried within a church in Medieval Ireland - if you could afford it, it was a ticket straight to heaven no matter what type of rogue you were.
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
Led Zeppelin - 1971
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:59 am
by Minimalist
I don't know what Zahi's theory about the pyramids is.
That they were built to be tombs and tombs only for 3 of the kings of the 4th dynasty: Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Each was constructed of limestone and granite blocks using ropes, sleds, and copper chisels by a workforce of between 20 and 24,000 men (not slaves) in a period of roughly 20 years.
Who is the "idiot," here?
Re: Burials
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:59 am
by Rokcet Scientist
Cognito wrote:The best graves (and thus reserved for the eilte) were always under the floor or in the walls of where all the important shamanic rituals took place.
Somewhat like paying money to be buried within a church in Medieval Ireland
Being buried in church was a practice that was common all over Europe.
Until they couldn't squeeze any more corpses under the floor because they simply ran out of room/space.
E.g. I know of one 650 year old church, about mid-sized, which had fifteen THOUSAND corpses buried under its floors.
They've been moved now, of course.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:37 pm
by kbs2244
Ish:
We have the same thing in the US.
It is very common to find “secondary“ burials on the sides and in the close vicinity of the various mounds and pyramids around here.
These people didn‘t build them, but they recognized them as something important and wanted to be associated with them in the afterlife..
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:41 pm
by Ishtar
You have pyramids in the US?
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:48 pm
by Minimalist
If we don't Bush will invade Egypt to seize a few.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:57 pm
by kbs2244
We call them "mounds."
Some are pyramid shaped. some are shaped like birds, snakes, etc
You can get into a real argument on the link between the pyramid shaped ones and the Central and South Americian pyramids.
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:59 pm
by Ishtar
Created by Native Americans, I imagine?
Do you have any pics of them?
Re: Burials
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 12:59 pm
by Ishtar
Cognito wrote:
Led Zeppelin - 1971
Cogs, you just dated yourself!
Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:16 pm
by kbs2244
Most of the pyramid shaped one are the South East and up the Mississippi Valley .
Most of the effigy shaped one are in our state of Ohio and close by.
Do searches on:
Etowa
Cahokia
Hedgepeth Mounds
Poverty Point
Watson Brake
Octagon Earthworks Ohio.
It just goes to show that the nomadic, hunter / gathers that the Europeans found in the 1400’s were not the first inhabitants of this hemisphere.