Talk of a theory gone wrong! 

THE SHIP OF HEAVEN

David Talbott  AEON I: 1-2, but chack with .find

5- The ship meant the same thing as the two peaks of the world mountain,
the horns of the bull of heaven, the outstretched wings of the mother
goddess and the outstretched arms of the heaven-sustaining giant.

6- If the ship means the same thing as the two peaks of the cosmic
mountain, then it must be concluded that the two peaks literally sailed
around the central sun.

If the revolving cometary curl is the magical towing rope pulling the ship
on its circular journey, then the towing rope must be the same thing as
the celebrated sidelock of the god-king.

10- Similarly, the god Enki (translated by the Greeks as Kronos/Saturn)
rides "the ship of the antelope of the Apsu [cosmic ocean]."7

10- As we have already documented, the ancient sun god was Saturn, so
there can be no basis for separating the ship of Saturn from the
often-noted ship of the sun.  ?????????????

12- In view of the acknowledged identity of Saturn as the sun god, it is
significant that in numerous Mesopotamian illustrations of the
Sin-Crescent, the sun is shown resting in the center of its embrace.21 And
to this fact one can add the expert opinion of Peter Jensen, Alfred
Jeremias and others that the Sin-crescent was considered as an aspect of
Saturn.2

16- Around the band and helping to preserve one of its most crucial
mythical identities, is an encircling serpent with tail in mouth, the
folds of the serpent being presented in such a way as to state pictorially
another mythical attribute of the band: it was conceived as a surrounding
stream of water.

17- from Denderah.  Here the accretion of symbols combines with the
progressively dominating influence of functionality to almost displace the
archetypal band. The band is, however, still there, with god-child inside,
though both appear in highly diminished form and are pushed virtually out
of the ship, allowing the imposing functional symbol to dominate the
portrait completely.

18- Thus, "ship" is a name of the womb of the Sumerian Inanna.30
Correspondingly, "the ship of the brilliant offspring" was an epithet of
the Babylonian goddess Bau.31

18- The Egyptians conceived the band of the enclosed sun as the womb of
the goddess Nut, called also a "ship."

20- It is an interesting fact, for example, that around the world the
former sun- god or creator-king is said to have sailed on a ship
constituted from the form of a great serpent or dragon.  (The myths
declare that in a spectacular celestial event this fiery monster had
wrapped itself around the god.40) One of the most universal symbols in the
ancient lexicon, the circular serpent- dragon is indisputably a figure of
the sun god's enclosure, as in the well- -known sign of the Aten:

21- Likewise, on Mesopotamian cylinder seals, we see repeated instances of
a god sailing on a ship that is the dragon of the deep (Fig. 15, b).

22- That the ship does indeed divide the god's dwelling in half is clear
from the etymology of the Egyptian At-boat.  The root at means "to divide
in half," "to bisect."

24- Like many other ancient races, the Egyptians celebrated a circular
stream or ocean around which the sun god sailed each day.  "I have made my
way and gone round the heavenly ocean on the path of the bark of Ra,"50
reads the Book of the Dead.  "Lo, I sail the great Bark on the Stream."51

25- That the Aten-band did indeed signify "the celestial pathway" can be
confirmed through numerous lines of investigation.  A common hieroglyph
which was interchangeable with the Aten-band, for example, was the
Shen-sign, representing the band as a circle of rope:

25- This rope-enclosure of the Shen denoted the tangible "boundary,"
"edge," or "border" of the celestial kingdom, yet was used repeatedly to
signify the celestial oceanQthe path of the ship.  Thus the Aten-sign was
often the determinative in hieroglyphic words for the shen-rope.55 In
other words, there is no possible way to separate the Shen-rope from the
Aten band, and both are certifiable terms for the celestial pathway.  
(Why this enclosure was interpreted mythologically as a rope can be
answered only by the history of the cometary curl, seen at once as a
serpent and as a magical rope wrapping itself around the god to form an
enclosure.  The vital role of the cometary curl, in connection with the
ship, is discussed below.)

26- Egyptian sources similarly identify the cosmic serpent as the watery
"pathway" traversed by the boat.  The Egyptian Book of the Dead, for
example, describes the ship sailing over the "back" of the serpent-dragon
Apepi,58 a literary motif which finds many correspondences in Egyptian
art.  (Thus in Fig. 17 we see a ship constituted by a double-headed
serpent sailing on the back of a second serpent.)

27- And though the idea may seem bizarre (certainly nothing in the
character of our Sun or Moon would suggest such a belief), it is hard to
imagine that ancient symbolists could have overlooked the idea if our
model of the ship is valid.  It is therefore significant that throughout
ancient Egypt, the priests commemorated the ship's daily revolution by
fashioning an image of the ship, placing it on a sledge-shaped stand, and
dragging it around the walls of the city.59 Clearly, the city wall denoted
symbolically the path of the ship.

28- It is known, for example, that in Egyptian symbolism the cosmic ocean,
lake, or river means the circular womb (or body) of the mother goddess
Nut.  But Nut, as we have already observed, simply personified the
Aten-band.  Thus numerous reliefs show the sun god's boat sailing over the
body of the goddess (Figs. 27, 28).

29- The goddess is a shining band around the central sun, and the "starry
throng" or circle of secondary gods means nothing other than the literal,
constituent parts of the band.  In the archaic creation legend, vast
quantities of material erupted from the sun god as living "Outflow," and
it was from this ejecta that the band was constituted.63

29- In truth, the circle or band of secondary gods is the enclosure of the
Aten; which means not only that the great god in the ship resides within
the circle of lesser gods, but also that these gods or light spirits stand
on the "pathway" of the ship.  Again, we arrive at a radical but testable
reinterpretation of the symbolism.  And the verification comes from this
highly explicit statement of the Coffin Texts: "Every god who is on the
border of your enclosure is on the path of your boat. 64

31- In identifying the cosmic ship as the Saturnian crescent our model
leads to two conclusions: 1) the crescent-ship revolved around the summit
of the world mountain and, 2) the ship itself provided the cosmic mount
with its cleft or horned peak.  Consequently, while neither of these ideas
would make any sense under a solar or lunar interpretation of the ship,
they are both logical tests of the predictive ability of the model.

36- Here is a fact for which no Egyptologist can offer even the beginnings
of an explanation: in countless illustrations of the cosmic ship, the two
peaks of the Aakhut are shown either as part and parcel of the ship or
being carried by the ship.  Five examples will be found in T. R. Clark's
Ancient Egypt, proclaiming the essential identity of the two and proving
that, unlike any mountain on earth, the two peaks literally sailed around
the sky.

36- In the instances found in Clark's work, the Aten-band rests between
the peaks of the right and left, which in turn sit squarely in the cosmic
ship. Responding to one instance, Clark calls the cleft hill the "eastern
horizon," adding that "this hill is incongruously placed in the solar
boat."76 In another, the Aten "rests on the twin-peaked mountain of
sunrise.  Against all verisimilitude this figure, mountain and all, is
being conveyed across the waters of the heavenly ocean in a boat."77

37- It has been demonstrated by Heinrich Sch fer, for example, that the
two peaks are not always displayed upright: in connection with the
symbolism of the "night," they are presented in an inverted position above
the sun godQexactly where our model would have them in the "night" phase
of the daily cycle.78
 From these considerations the conclusion is inescapable: the two peaks
were anything but a fixture of the local landscape; and the Egyptian
symbolists recognized them to be synonymous with the cosmic ship.

45- Thus in the Book of Caverns the sun god "sails over this cavern [the
enclosure] on the arms of the mysterious one."99 In the same way, Osiris
sails "on the two arms of Horus."100

50- In Egypt, one of the well-documented themes noted in all of the
familiar commentaries is that of the two ships of the sunQa ship of "day"
(or "morning") and a ship of "night" (or "evening").  In the Pyramid Texts
there is a reference, for example, to the sun god "and his two boats."107
In the Coffin Texts the deceased desires to be rowed "in the Night-bark
and the Day- bark like Ra every day."108

51- Budge's explanation of the literal meanings of the two boats is
therefore highly relevant to our thesisQ
 "The morning boat of the sun was called Matet, i.e., "becoming strong,"
and the name of the evening boat was Semktet, i.e., "becoming weak."114

55- In the Book of the Dead, the god sails downstream "as a living soul"
and upstream as the Bennu, symbol of the dying sun.  Thus the Pyramid
Texts say, "The doors of the firmament are thrown open for me at dawn,
that I may go down and bathe in the field of Rushes,"119 while a spell
from the Coffin Texts declares: "The mighty ones sail upstream to me on
that night of faring upstream."120 Another spell from the same texts
reads: "The sun has shone when going downstream to the north from the
south."121 What are here translated as "north" and "south" are literally
the lower region and the upper region: the god shines forth as he sails
downstream toward the lower region.  Such literal meanings are a key to
appreciating a text such as this: "May you sail southward [literally
upstream, toward the upper region] in the Night-bark and northward
[literally downstream, toward the lower region] in the Day-bark."122

56- On this issue I will stick my neck out: having analyzed a considerable
number of instances, I do not believe there is a single contradiction of
this idea in either the Pyramid Texts or the Coffin Texts, the earliest
mythical and ritual sources in Egypt: the god sails downstream in his
coming to life, waxing, awakening, growing bright or coming forth and
upstream in his diminishment, waning, dying, weakening, sleeping.

59- Using the literal translations of pet and ta we obtain these
additional instances from Faulkner:
 "Three portions are in the upper region with Ra, four portions are in the
lower region with Geb.  It is the Night-bark and the Day-bark which bring
them to me daily in the two ships of Ra.127
 "Seven portions are in the house of Horus, three portions are in the
upper region and two are in the lower region. It is the Night-bark and the
Day-bark which will bring to me all portions from upon the altars of the
Souls of On. 128

60- Clearly, this placement is no accident, for the same idea is stated
consistently in Egyptian art.  The two regions of Pet and Ta were
frequently represented by the originally-independent god and goddess Geb
and Nut, with Geb always representing the lower region and Nut always
representing the upper region.  And without exception the artistic
tradition always has the ship of the sun sailing over the upper region of
Nut in its night journey.  This anomaly for the solar interpretation could
hardly have been more boldly stated, and it is a wonder that virtually no
one has ever asked why the boat of the sun is above at night, rather than
below, where the solar mythologists claim the god crosses to the East in
his ship.

67- Yet there is much evidence that the band was conceived as a circle of
(cometary) hair.  For example, the pathway of the ship (as we have seen)
was the shen-circle.  That shen was probably the most common Egyptian word
for "hair" is not a mere quirk of language evolution.  In the Book of the
Dead, the watercourse of the ship is identified as "the Lake of Hair."143
So too, the celestial Ta, land of the gods, is said to display "hair."

69- In the illustrated phase of the polar configuration under discussion,
the planet Venus is the small body at the end of the spiralling,
comet-like stream appearing to curl out from the band.  Considerable
evidence indicates that Venus is revolving around the polar axis in the
opposite direction of the Earth's rotation, because it moves in the
direction of the visual revolution of the crescent, only faster (that is,
while the apparent revolution of the crescent is due to the rotation of
the Earth; the faster apparent movement of Venus is due to the direction
of its independent revolution around the shared planetary axis.)

73- Chapter 99 of the Book of the Dead is devoted to an extended
description of the cosmic ship and its respective symbols.  Like the sun
god, the deceased wishes to be towed over the back of the serpent-dragon
Apep (the circular serpent).  But he must answer a series of questions put
to him by the different parts of the ship.  One of these parts is the
towing rope, and here the proper answer, according to the text, is that
the towing rope is henseket, i.e., the "sidelock." Why would the ship's
towing rope bear the name of the celestial sidelock? Our model simply says
that they are one and the same. The (cometary) Venus goddesses Isis and
Hathor, both of whom are called Hensektet, may thus be regarded equally as
personifications of the revolving sidelock and of the towing rope.

74- In the model, Mars appears inside the enclosure, as the summit or
central peak of the world mountain.  And because of the defined
relationship of the crescent-ship to the polar column, the model can help
us to see why the warrior-hero is so commonly identified as the ship's
pilot, steersman or captain.  (The god Shu, for example, is the "captain"
of the ship of Ra, but the same role is elsewhere played by Horus.)
Moreover, from this unique and clearly stated position one should expect a
virtual identity of the Mars figure with the mast and mooring post of the
shipQan eminently unique and testable prediction of the model.  (In the
Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts the god Horus appears as the "Lone Star,"
and is brought into a direct identification with the ship's mast: "Her
mast is the Lone Star which has severed the storm from the sky."157)