1st sitting, more linework to come next time. Just under 3 hours.

You’ve heard them singing carols in the office.  You’ve heard them karaoke down the pub. This is the best time of year to decide which of your colleagues merits the last phrase of the offering formula:

maa-kheru; true of voice.

We’ve had kheru, voice, before.  It was in the complex little group of signs which make up the standard phrase for “an invocation offering of bread and beer”:

where “invocation” is literally “that which comes forth by the voice”.  And there’s kheru, right in the middle of the group, like a wooden spoon ready for stirring the pudding (which would make the other signs a chopping board, a bag of flour and a bottle of brandy in seasonal montage straight out of the Lakeland kitchenware catalogue.  Except they’re not.)  But you know it’s an oar, and the other signs are a house, a loaf of bread (naturally) a jug of beer and the invisible owl.

So now we have the oar again, twice in one formula.  They did like sticking their oar in, the ancient Egyptians.  But what’s the first sign,

maa?  A doorstop?  An eraser? Nothing so mundane.  The wedge-shaped sign maa (very easy to draw) represents a platform or pedestal, as here supporting a figure of the god Ptah (from Tutankhamun’s tomb furniture):

(Ok, you could use him as a door wedge, I’ll give you that.  But he would be far from mundane.  There could be a whole interior design industry in this for someone – and that someone will need an office, and that office will need hieroglyphs…. I must stop getting carried away.) 

Back to maa - the pedestal has that distinctive shape because it in turn is a representation of nothing less than the primeval mound; the first bit of land to appear from out of the waters of chaos at the very creation of the world.  The Egyptians were used to seeing mounds of land rise from the water every year, as the floodwaters of the Nile receded after the annual inundation, leaving behind fertile silt which they could cultivate.  (So, we have to assume that Ptah is standing on a little island, with the waters of the primeval ocean lapping almost at his feet, at the bottom of the little slipway on his pedestal.)  The Egyptians assumed that this was how the gods had first created the land on which they lived.  To them, this pristine terra firma meant the world the way the gods had created it, the way the world was meant to be.  Maa meant “true” or “right” or “just” in the sense of  ”the proper order of things”.

Here is an example of the maa kheru group in a  carved relief:

 True of voice:  the “of” is unwritten but understood from the construction.  The maa hieroglyph is easy to draw:  a thin rectangle with one slanting short side.

But if our tomb owner Senusret was “true of voice”, what did that mean?  They didn’t have karaoke in the netherworld, did they?  No.  It was much worse than that.  To get into the Egyptian afterlife, you had to win the divine version of the X Factor.

Anyone who thinks the X Factor is hell on earth will get the idea of the Egyptian afterlife.  If life on earth was Round 1, to go forward to the afterlife or Round 2, you had to impress a panel of judges.  Here’s a scene from the show:

On the left,we have the tomb owner being led onstage by his divine sponsor, the god Anubis.  In the middle, the scene shows an early version of the machine used to record the audience’s verdict.  Back then, in the days before electronic voting buttons, they used a weighing scale.  In the right-hand pan of the scale is a feather, representing truth, order, justice and all those primeval virtues.  In the left is the tomb owner’s heart.

On the right of the scene, in their own special booth, sit the judges:  Osiris, the Simon Cowell of the underworld, sits on his throne, backed by two divas of the day, the goddesses Isis and Nephthys then, and fronted by four lesser judges, his own four sons, who stand on a lotus blossom.

The format of the show is this:  to qualify for the next round of existence, the tomb owner has to declare that he has led a good life on earth.  But just saying so is not enough; he has to prove it.  To test whether or not he is speaking the truth, the gods weigh his heart against the feather.  If his heart is not weighed down by sin and falsehood, it will balance the feather and he will be let through to the next round.  If it is heavier than the feather, it will be thrown to the crocodile-headed she-monster waiting by the weighing scale, (her name is Devourer-of-Hearts, but let’s call her Anne) and the tomb owner will be thrown off the programme – you are the weakest link, goodbye.  That won’t happen, though, because in the finest traditions of audience voting reality TV, Anubis is rigging the result by fixing the scale.  The Ibis-headed god Thoth is standing by like the Lottery adjudicator to verify the outcome.  And sure enough, Anubis is conducting the tomb owner, who has been proven to be speaking the truth, to Simon, sorry, Osiris, who declares him fit to go forward to the final. 

And ever after, our tomb owner is known as “true of voice”, as a sign that he has passed the test and successfully entered the next world.

So there we are:  at the end of the offering formula.  You know it all now:

Hetep di nesu Usir neb Djedu, netjer aa, neb Abju, di ef peret-kheru (em) te henqet, kau apedu, shes menkhet, khet nebet nefret ankhet netjer im, en ka en imakhy Senusret, maa-kheru.

“An offering which the King gives (to) Osiris Lord of Busiris, the great god, Lord of Abydos, that he may give invocation-offerings (consisting of) bread, and beer, meat and fowl, alabaster and clothing, and all good and pure things by which a god lives, to the ka of the Revered One, Senusret, True of Voice.”

How’s that for a Christmas list?

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Shortly before his death, Moses talked to Joshua, the man who was to take of the leadership role over the Israelites. They were at Mount Pisgah, the place where God led Moses in order to show him the land that the Israelites were to soon enter, the Promised Land.

“Joshua, I’m near the end of my earthly stay,” Moses told his right-hand man. “I am ready, even eager, to go to my eternal home.”

“It does appear that way, Sir,” Joshua agreed.  “We have been aware for some time that you, yourself, will not get to enter the Promised land.”

“To a degree, I am in agreement with that statement, Joshua,” Moses cordially chided. “Still, I am sure that I am going to the better Promised Land, not this earthly piece of soil that I have just seen from the mountain top.  I truly believe that there is a Promised Land that none of us can even begin to imagine, a spiritual place.”

“No doubt you are correct, Sir,” Joshua agreed with his superior.

“I’m not sure how much more time God will give me here in this earthly life. I’m sure that it is not much longer.”

Moses seriously considered this man, one of only two in the whole of the Israelites who was over the age of forty.  God would not allow them to enter the Promised Land until all of the rebellious generation had died off. That took forty years to accomplish.  Only two men were exempt from this decision of God’s to not allow any of the rebellious generation to enter the new homeland.  Joshua was one of those two men.

“You will be the new leader, Joshua.”  Moses spent a lot of time instructing Joshua on his duties and his outlook as the leader of the Israelites.

“Sir, I will instruct the people that as for me and for the people in my household, we will serve the Lord,” Joshua consoled the old leader.  “I know it’s not the popular approach for me, but I intend to work hard to follow your leadership and the teachings that you are leaving for us.”

“Actually, those teachings are not from me,” Moses corrected his protégé.  “I was always the person who had to express the teachings and commandments that God gave. I wanted my brother, Aaron, to be my spokesman, but that did not happen.”

“Frankly, I think you did a very good job of revealing what God wants us to know, even if you preferred that someone else be the spokesman,” Joshua added.

“I’m a slow speaker, and I think slowly. My brother would have said the words much more quickly and more fluently, I am sure.”

After a pause, Joshua expressed his thoughts about this. “However, you have been our deliverer, yourself.  As I recall, you acted alone much of the time. Even Aaron and your sister, Miriam, were not always in agreement with you.”

“That seems to be the lot of leaders, Joshua.  Accept it when you are alone in the future, doing that which you believe is God’s will,” advised the older man.

“You and Aaron were not always looking at things from the same angle, I think.” It was Joshua, feeling more free to tell his viewpoint.  “I wondered at times why you chose Aaron to be the priest to our nation.”

“That was the best that was available at the time,” Moses confided. “Whenever we can’t do as we would prefer, we need to do the best that we can.  I’m sure that Aaron did not always honestly represent God when he was High Priest. His priesthood was far from perfect.  There was a much more perfect priest, one who served our father, Abraham.”

“You’re talking about Melchisidec?”

“Yes.  He seemed to be a type of the much greater Deliverer Who will come sometime in the future.  We don’t know a lot about Melchisidec, do we?” Moses’ eyes were looking beyond the present time and circumstance, remembering the stories that they had been told about the strange Melchisidec.  After a few minutes of inward thinking, Moses went on.  “We have been told very little information about him.  He was called the king of Salem and at the same time, he was a priest, standing between men and God.  He served Father Abraham, collected tithes from Abraham, and soon was not seen again. It seems, from our teachings, that he had no father or mother and no children of his own.  It is hard to fathom, the part about him being a priest forever, even up to now, I guess. He was referred to as the King of Righteousness and sometimes as the King of Peace.  I wish I understood more about him.”

“So do I.”

“Still, I believe that another High Priest is coming, sort of like Melchisidec, but even better,” Moses predicted.  “Maybe you will see Him, Joshua. I kept hoping that I would meet Him, but surely that is not to be. Although I have not seen this new priest and deliverer, I feel a strong feeling of attraction for Him, a feeling much like love.”

“Since you have not met the One who is after the order of Melchisidec, you felt you needed to appoint Aaron to serve?” questioned Joshua.

“It seems something like that, yes,” Moses acknowledged.

The old Israelite looked over the lands that his people would soon call home. Clearly, he would have liked to go with them and see the country and oversee the battles that surely would take place.

“Oh, Joshua, be sure that Caleb gets to choose the part of the land before the other people.  You and he are the only men of any age who will enter the land,” suggested Moses.

“Surely, yes, of course.”

“Speaking about things in my past which seemed to parallel the new priest and deliverer, I think that men in the future will speak of the first Passover as significant.  I think the blood of a lamb, a lamb which died with no broken bones, this blood has significance.” Moses was doing so much deep thinking, wondering how many of his thoughts were related to a coming leader, king, priest and deliverer.

“You are probably correct about that, Moses,” Joshua agreed.  “Maybe other things, too, are significant.  I wondered about the bronze serpent that you had us raise on a tall pole. That was to heal people who had been bitten by serpents while we traveled.”

“You’re right,” Moses smiled, his eyes showing that he was remembering those days in the distant past. People who were bitten by the serpents were dying. He felt that God wanted him to raise a pole high in the air with a bronze serpent on it. Whenever people looked at the serpent and believed in its healing power, they did not die from the snake bites.  “Strange, isn’t it?”

“What are you referring to, Sir?”

“It’s strange how God told us to not make any brazen images, no pictures to try to represent God or even earthly things. Still, He told me to have the serpent cast of bronze for people to see.”

“Are you ready to depart now, Sir?” asked Joshua.  “It will soon be getting dark and will be hard to find our ways back to camp.”

“In a while, not yet. Let me think a while longer and admire your new homeland.”

Some more thinking, more looking in the distance across the lands. They could see so much from this peak, rivers, meadowlands, rocks, rolling lands, even the walls of cities which may have to be conquered by Joshua and the men he would be leading.

“Can I trust you to be truthful with me, Joshua, even if I ask questions which make you uncomfortable?”

“I will try, Sir,” Joshua replied. His facial expression showed that he hoped to not become uncomfortable.

“Am I impulsive? Do I do things that I later regret?” Moses asked.

Trying to think defensively, Joshua took a while to respond. “You worked miracles, Sir.  Remember when we were fighting and you had your hands in the air?  As long as your hands were up, we were winning.”

“Yes, I got very tired that day,” Moses remembered.  “Then, Hur helped me by holding my hands up for me. My strength was quite gone.  He helped us to win when I could not do enough for myself.”

“Remember when you struck a rock with your rod and water came out? We were so thirsty at that time,” Joshua expressed.

“That is one of the reasons why I asked you if I am impulsive.”  Moses looked at Joshua intently. Joshua lowered his eyes.  “Sure, I struck the rock and provided water when it was really needed.  Think it through, however.  That even is why I am standing on this mountain now, looking at the land that I cannot live in.  I hit it too hard, too often. It displeased God. He then told me that I cannot enter the Promised Land; I can only look at it from the outside.”

“You are a man, a human, Sir,” said the man who would soon lead the Israelites into the land beyond this mountain. “Humans are frail; they make mistakes. We are all nothing more than dust, dust that God chooses to use.” After Moses did not answer, Joshua added, “You and your magic stick did great things for our people, in God’s name.  Recall how that rod caused the great Red Sea to open a path for us and how that same rod caused the Red Sea to come down upon the Egyptians who were chasing us, drowning great numbers of them.”

“What a day that was!” Moses smiled strongly as he recalled that event.

“Your rod became a snake, remember?”

“Yes, that rod did so much.  But it was God, not the stick, that worked the miracles,” Moses recalled.  “It was not all good things, at least not good for the people of Egypt.”

“True, but it was because they had hardened their hearts against God.”

“I kept telling the Pharaoh that bad things would come unless he would give us the rights that humans should have,” Moses said.  “The plagues of frogs and the grasshoppers, the dust storms that caused skin problems, the water all turning to blood.  Of course, the final plague was the slaying of the firstborn child in every Egyptian family.  How it hurts me to remember the wails and cries of the people. Because of the pride and corruption in Pharaoh’s court, all of the Egyptian people had to suffer.”

Some time lapsed before Moses could go on. Clearly, it did not please him that the Egyptians had suffered so much.

“In the eyes of some people, I was an Egyptian myself, Joshua,” Moses sadly admitted.  “Somehow, God placed me into the Pharaoh’s own family, being considered a grandson.  That probably did place me into the line of people who could conceivably become a pharaoh, myself.”

“Because of being adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter when she found you floating on the river in a basket?”

“Yes, I was raised pretty much as an Egyptian,” Moses said.  “Still, my own mother nursed me since the Pharaoh’s daughter was dry. She hired my own mother to provide milk for me for a year or so. It was then that I learned some of the Israelite language although the Egyptian language seems more like my own language, even to now.”

“Your life has been a blessing to me, Moses,” encouraged Joshua. “I hope that God will be as close to me as He has been to you.”

“It’s true that I have been blessed above other men,” admitted the departing leader.  “For example, I doubt that many men have ever seen God in the flesh. Adam and Eve saw Him, at least until they sinned by unbelief and rebellion. Even I have not seen His face, only his back side, and that was astonishingly bright.”

“Yes, I know about that. We had to cover your face for a while until the brightness began to fade,” laughed Joshua.

“I told you a few minutes ago that I believe that there is a Prophet, a Deliverer, a much better High Priest coming.  He is the One that I love and the One Whom I want to see.  Remember what I wrote in Deuteronomy 18:18. I predicted that He is coming. I don’t really know when, but He is coming.  How my heart wants to see Him.”

Noticing that darkness was settling in the East, Joshua began to stress the need to return to the camp.

“I’ll tell you what, Joshua,” Moses suggested.  “You go on back to camp. Prepare your helpers and make plans to enter the Promised Land.  Leave me here to look over the land for some time.  If God permits, I will find my way back to camp. If I don’t come, just allow the thirty days of mourning and consider that God has taken me to my own Promised Land, the land of the Great One who will come later, bigger and more powerful and more important than I am.”

With some heaviness in his heart, Joshua did as Moses suggested. Moses was never seen again.  They understood that he was spending quality time with the God Whom he had served for many years and the God would take care of any details concerning his death.

Japanese people always said that Hideto Matsumoto wanted to make the phase of Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
(ジキルとハイド), so she got it. “Zi:Kill and Hide”. I cannot imagine how happy Hide was to be with this happy band. The girls from whole world would be so jealous her.

**NOTE : artwork in this page is before Decamber 21, 2009. If I draw more of this people, I may not remember to update this post, so you may need to check on my Fickr account or Deviantart account

So now, move on…

One of the most important project that I made is “Tuskty and Pink Cobra”, the children book for charity. Feature Tusk and Ken from Zi:Kill, and Hideto Matsumoto as the Pink Cobra. She is Pink-head king cobra, so I call he like this. If you need to Donate, please read Donate Page. I am sorry that I have only fixed prize for it.

Read the Book description
View Whole Book of Tuskty and Pink Cobra on Blog page
View Whole Book of Tuskty and Pink Cobra on Flickr Set

Seth et Holth is the movie created by Hideto Matsumoto and Tusk Zi:Kill. The movie confused many fans, and Zi:Kill had been rare thing or lost-world band for my country, Thailand. So.. I wrote its description in Thai language. CLICK HERE TO READ

I also made to caricature for both Hide and Tusk; “Seth et Holth” was from “Seth and Horus”. The famous Egyptian myth. Although the original story, they fought each other, and they were uncle and nephew, Hide and Tusk performed in this movie as the lovers.

So now, see my Caricature drawing.

Seth and Horus as Egyptian Drawing

I really visited Egypt about 2-3 years ago.
If you want to see my photography, just enter my Flickr Set CLICK HERE

Egypt is so HOT actually. I have to hold the umbrella to prevent the sun.

Both od Seth and Horus drawings are influenced by the real ancient Egypt drawing/painting. The first one above, I saw the layout in the papyrus drawing, and the one below, I saw the layout from the collection box of Pharaoh in The Egyptian Museum. The museum does not let the visitor take the photography, so I did not have photo in the museum in my Flickr account. But!! there are a lot of people steal taking photo. you know..

Gift for Hide
This is Udjat, the eye that Ra (Sun God) gave to Horus. Hide will love it, although infact, it should be gift for Tusk. I finish this Udjat in 3Ds Max

You can read it easily from these hints.
Acrylic on canvas
45×60 cm

Right now, see Hide and Tusk kill cat together.

This drawing is for Halloween day

One of my most favorite drawing of myself. It is really first design of cartoon Tusk Zi:Kill

And continue when Tusk got Dead End (I didnt talk about the J-Rock band, Dead End)

Merry X Mas Z-Mas to say good bye 2009!! and sa Happy New Year for 2010!!!

Merry X Mas Z-Mas to say good bye 2009!! and sa Happy New Year for 2010!!!

Cubist Painting
This Sw Eden’s work is the most favorite of many friends and many fans. I can call it many names, “Transparent People” or “The Reality of the World”

This cubism painting was painted with Acrylic colors.

Zi:Kill and Hide Karaoke カラオケ の ジキル と 秀人松本

I also wrote the poem for Zi:Kill and Hide, too.
http://sw-eden.deviantart.com/art/We-don-t-say-Love-101689753
http://sw-eden.deviantart.com/art/We-don-t-say-Love-in-Eng-101689712
I confirm that this poem will make you happy!!
The links I gave, one is in Thai and one is in English (Translate from original)

My latest mood to Hideto Matsumoto seems to be very sexy stuff.
Louis Chan, my friend, says that this is porn!! But I say, It is Artwork!!
So, you just consider it by yourself.


Hideto Matsumoto and Tusk Itaya 秀人松本 vs. 板谷祐

‘Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known’
Carl Sagan In Memoriam

Stone circle and midwinter sunset light

Neolithic farming communities in Scotland between the 56th and 57th parallel dragged massive 50-ton blocks of stone over the snow to form windows on the sky.

Recumbent stone circle at winter solstice

Fire festivals reenacted fire of the dying sun in stone circles

It must have seemed like a miracle at solar standstill when, after disappearing for seventeen hours, the sunlight returned and days began to lengthen once more. Seventeen hours of darkness is a long time if you live in a cave, an earth dugout or a stone mound.

The human subconscious appears to retain partial memory of this primordial condition which animals have, because in northern latitudes midwinter is often celebrated to an irrational degree. It is as if at a cellular level we remember that after galactic stillpoint is reached, the Earth starts to awaken once more and we realize that the Universe is going to keep on turning. What a blessing. What a miracle. What better reason to rejoice?

It is said our biological form is quintessentially-adapted for language: that the Word has created in our brain’s motor centers a highly developed auditory discrimination, with rapid muscular response in tongue, lips and palate; but we were not its makers. It was a gift from Creation which we have evolved to a remarkable sophistry. Fire, on the other hand was Man’s ultimate discovery.

At the forty-fifth parallel of latitude, in the cave vaults of Choukoutien near Beijing, a heavy-browed paleoanthropic form of Man with a cranial capacity as low as 860cc gnawed marrow bones and chipped stone implements. His time lies 500,000 years remote from this and yet in those years of the second Ice Age, this Man, with scarcely two-thirds of our modern cranial capacity, used fire.

Is it any wonder, then, that world mythology is filled with tales of sorcerer-priests who conjure light, the hero-giant stealer of fire from the gods? In discovering fire, were we not amazed at our ability to do as the gods themselves, to create Light?

In that dark cave half a million years ago ‘Peking Man’ created a spark which dispelled the darkness. His was the crucible which contained our entire human future. Have we not ever since – at a cellular level – been searching to return to that same realm of Light?

Round Zodiac of Dendera, from 50BC during Roman rule of Upper Egypt

In Babylonian legend, the redeemer of the world, Celestial Man, is expected to rise from the heart of the (cosmic) Ocean.

Ancient Man looked to the heavens for inspiration. Medieval Man was convinced heaven was right out there among the stars. It is only we, modern homo (so-called) sapiens who forgets to do that kind of communing with the Universe.

On the other hand select niches in our society still seek: within the scientific establishment the search for extra-terrestrial life (SETI) continues apace. Carl Sagan, exobiologist, astronomer and visionary, along with his colleagues at Cornell, created a fashion in the early ’70s for that kind of exploration.

He said:

‘We are starfolk, but we live in the galactic boondocks where the action isn’t’

and took steps, aided by NASA, to communicate with any advanced civilizations out there which might deign to reply. In sending the Pioneer 10’s message plaque of gold-plated aluminum to a star region in the vicinity of Taurus/Orion, they hoped to trigger a response from any listening/receiving civilization.

Pioneer 10 gold-plated plaque continues to travel for 80,000 years

Shortly after launching interstellar spacecraft Pioneer in March 1972, SETI directed efforts to beaming radio telescope transmissions to the stars. The latest of these was sent from Arecibo, Puerto Rico towards the Vega-Altair-Deneb triangle in 1999. By that time radio frequency was a speedier means of transmission than the fuel-propelled Pioneer space vehicle where a destination of even the nearest star (four light years distant) would not be reached for 80,000 years.

Besides they reasoned that if any civilizations were listening in/eavesdropping on us the Arecibo message was joining a century of transmissions from our planet, starting with Marconi’s first wireless communication in 1897.

It is thirteen years since Carl Sagan’s premature death on winter solstice 1996. He would be intrigued to learn of the massing body of evidence in favour of extra-terrestrial communication. The crop circle archive alone is superb. Not only does it communicate in the languages of science he advocated (mathematics, physics, astronomy), but, based on his premise that a more advanced civilization would find a more sophisticated means of communicating with us than we had with them, their graphics succeed in touching us at a cellular and emotional level, as well as pointing us to the stars.

Ancient World religions like the Judaic, Arabic, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Vedic faiths have frequent admonitions to look to the stars, to ‘observe in the east’, to watch the heavens for signs.

Our society is on the cusp of the year 2010. We have a Space Station partially operational; Hubble and SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) are in orbit; CERN has just collided atoms at an unprecedented rate in the tunnels below Geneva in Switzerland. We are technically advanced.

What about our spirit?

Neale Donald Walsch says:

Individuals — if their thought (prayer, hope, wish, dream, fear) is amazingly strong — can, in and of themselves, produce such results. Jesus did this regularly. He understood how to manipulate energy and matter, how to rearrange it, how to redistribute it, how to utterly control it. Many Masters have known this. Many know it now.
Neale Donald Walsch Conversations with God

If our heads were not so clouded by traffic jams and mind jams and living in a race for security and success, we might pause for this moment of solstice – the last in a single digit year for a century – and look to the heavens with awe. Two of our neighbours in the solar system, the crescent moon and Jupiter, shine brilliantly together shortly after sunset in the night sky. We have just experienced a multi-colour array of Geminid meteors emanating from the constellation which follows Orion through the night, with our brightest star, Sirius, stella maris, hovering below. It is the season for aurora borealis, which has already peaked over the Canadian Arctic. These are ‘commonplace’ wonders. However, we have also been treated to some unusual cosmic ’signs’.

Spiral of light over Tromsö, Norway on eve of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance

Great Eye of Sauron in Fomalhaut

‘We ask you once again to keep your eyes on the skies. These are the days when the signs have become talking points, that will awaken people’s awareness, not just to our presence but our methods of contact with you. For many years we have made crop circles as one means of getting your attention. As you will have noticed in more recent times, they have become more sophisticated. The messages they send have been interpreted, and their symbolism correctly understood. They have carried energy with them, and even although everyone has not understood them, it has connected with them sub-consciously.’

If Carl Sagan were still with us, I think he might consider this form of transmission equally valid from an advanced stellar civilization. After all his criteria suggested that those who had survived a post-nuclear age without exterminating either themselves or their habitat would be in a better frame of consciousness to extend the vibration of ascension and assistance to help another up the ladder of evolution.

If you’re listening, Carl. We miss you. Happy Solstice.

Pattern Price:  $3.99
Stitch Count:   382 stitches wide x 199 stitches high
Size in inches:  27” x 14” (30 cm x 39 cm) on 14 count fabric
Colours used:  30

Tis the season to learn of new traditions. When I first heard of these I couldn’t help but be excited.

Greek Kourabiedes are popular special occasion cookies. They are often served at weddings, christenings and of course, Christmas. You might also find them on an Egyptian cookie tray for the similar celebrations. There, they are called Kahk.

They remind me a bit of what a cross between a shortbread and a sugar cookie.
They’re simple, nutty AND they use some of my orange blossom water I coveted for recipes past.

Kourabiedes are subtle and not too sweet. The seasonal walnuts may be traded for almonds, but I love the combination of the bitterish walnut and bursts of salt with a hint of citrus and the warming, sweet and intriguing fragrance of orange blossoms. They’re perfect for the Holidays. I hope you try them.

KOURABIEDES – WALNUT SUGAR COOKIES

3/4 Cup Walnuts
1 1/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) (vegan) Butter, like Earth Balance, softened
1/2 cup Confectioners Sugar, plus more for dusting
1 Tablespoon Cointreau
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 Tablespoon Orange Zest, optional
2 Tablespoons Orange Flower Water

Toast the walnuts in a 350ºF oven, until golden brown, about minutes.
Pulse about 1/4 cup of the nuts in a food processor until finely ground.
Add the flour, baking powder, remaining nuts and salt. Pulse again to mix everything together and roughly chop the remaining nuts.
Meanwhile, beat the butter, sugar,  Cointreau and vanilla extract together with an electric or stand mixer until and fluffy.
At a low speed, stir in the nut/flour mixture to make a crumbly dough. Bring the dough together with your hands (it IS crumbly). Flatten it into a disk, like pastry dough, and wrap it in cling flim.
Refrigerate dough for about half an hour.

Preheat oven to 350º F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a silicone liner.
Unwrap the dough and cut into 20 pieces. Roll into balls between with your hands. Flattening to shape each piece into a round   disk.
Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets.
Bake until the cookies are golden, about 15 minutes.
Remove them from the oven and lightly brush the orange blossom water over the tops of each cookie.
Transfer to a cooling rack and dust with additional confectioners sugar.

AmiAmi’s Menace from Queen’s Blade is now available for Pre-Order! Have you ever seen a cuter Menace?

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The other week we had a fabulous time with our friend Fiby teaching us some Egyptian recipes and sharing stories of Egypt. Fiby is a fantastic cook and had already taught us pita bread, though ours are never quite as even or puff up so perfectly as hers. More practice for us I think.
This time she taught us some vegetarian recipes. Her family used to do a lot of work with the poor in Egypt and vegetarian recipes are cheap and fill up the family. We started talking about balanced diets of proteins and carbohydrates and she quickly pointed out; “It fills the belly.” That is all that matters when you have nothing.
First we made two dishes using eggplants – perfect for this time of year with them so cheap. They involved the same ingredients just one way we boiled the eggplant and put on the mix raw and the other way we fried chunks of eggplant and then fried the mix of garlic, then cumin, coriander, lemon juice, vinegar and chilli and poured it over the top of the eggplant. This was my favourite of the two ways and I think my favourite recipe of the night. I also like how she peeled her eggplant in stripes so some of the skin remained and she said not to ask why but it was how her mother always did it. Now I do it like that too.
We also made a potato dish that was a great basic that can be added to. It used potato slices, a lot of tomato puree, salt, onions and stock or water.
Of course we finished with a sweet dish – Basbousa - a semolina cake with a sweet syrup poured over it after it was cooked. We flavoured our syrup with some orange flower water. It was delicious and we had so much fun we are going to do it again for some meat recipes.
One of the things I enjoyed the most was Fiby’s stories about Egypt. Sometimes I find these days we can get enthused about a particular ingredient and it seems almost forget the culture and people that created the recipes using it. Sometimes I see a recipe and get a bit cross if it is trying to pass itself off as some “ethnic” dish but the people from that place would not cook it like that. It feels arrogant. That is why I love learning from locals who can show you the everyday versions – usually easy to make and very tasty.

- Fiona

Image : http://www.flickr.com

Egyptian interior design is just one of many different types of design are used when it comes to the design of your home can. If you give your home a look of elegance and a sense of ancient civilizations could very well be an option that you want to consider. You can use the help of a professional if you so wish, to win or you can choose to do so, the route to go himself. In any case, you will get the privilege allows the former to beWorld in your current home.

There are many different reasons why you would take this design to your home. In many cases it is simply because you express yourself and want the world to bring life in your own home. Apart from the fact that such an interesting time it was a time of wealth and beauty, which was the incomparable why you want to use the Egyptian Interior Design went.

This design is not something that is limited to a house, it is a design that can be thebe used in a business as well. If your company a sense of elegance and beauty that they are separated from all others in the world then you can check very well, go with the theme of the Egyptian Interior will need. This is not an easy task and is probably something that will help for the professional to acquire it in your organization would like to happen, but if you do it on your own then you may want to look at the vast resources that areAvailable.

Why Egyptian Interior Design

The main reason that people like the Egyptian interior design is used, because they want to set themselves apart. They are looking for a distinct look that they allow for freedom of speech on the environment. It is also possible with this issue, if they speak, their heritage. Look at all the different options you have available to you is as far as this design style affected. In many cases, a history buff would go withthis theme to decorate a room, and perhaps for the use of another civilization for each room, they are looking for. Use it as you want and you get the most out of your room or home.

diy-interiordesign.blogspot.com http://diyhouse.baywords.com http://diyhomedepot.anyhow5.com/

For those who don’t know of Zahi Hawass, apart from being a bit of a media tart, he is Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, and a key driver of the preservation and restoration of ancient Egyptian artifacts. He is currently raising money to establish a Chair of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo. For anyone that has investigated studying Egyptology at university, there are generally few courses offered, even in Egypt itself, and if Dr Hawass can get this off the ground, it promises to be an important contribution to Egyptology studies. It will help to provide some fantastic opportunities for both Egyptian nationals and foreigners to study Egyptology where it should be studied – in Egypt!

For those interested in ancient Egyptian art and culture, this is a cause worth strongly recommending.

image source

There seems to be a similarity between the moral codes of the ancient Egyptians and the early Israelites. The Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai are clearly set in an Egyptian tradition and would seem to have common roots with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Except for the first two commandments, we find the same moral rules in the Hebrew Bible that are also found in the Egyptian hieroglyphic writings. Egyptian religion was a polytheistic belief, and hundreds of gods and goddesses were worshiped in the Nile valley. These deities were believed to manifest themselves in certain images and the artists of that time captured these images in pictures and statues. This was completely forbidden by the Monotheistic God of Moses in the first two of his commandments given in Chapter 20 of the Book of Exodus: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in theearth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

Also, unlike the Israelites, Egyptians believed in a second life after death. They believed that every person has, other than his physical body, a dual spiritual nature, which they called the KA and the BA. They also regarded the name and shadow of a person as living entities, part of the spiritual existence, not just linguistic and natural phenomena. Thus Egyptians regarded death as simply a temporary interruption rather than a complete cessation of life, and believed that after their death, they faced a trial in the underworld before the god Osiris and his forty-two judges in the Hall of Judgment. In the Egyptian culture, eternal life had to be ensured by various means, including the preservation of the physical body through mummification, the provision of funerary equipment, and the presence of magical spells in the tomb to protect the dead person in his journey in the underworld.

Their composition of the texts relating to death and afterlife went back to the Pyramid Texts, the first examples of which were inscribed in the 5th dynasty pyramid of Unas (2375 – 2345 BC) at Saqqara. By the time of the 18th dynasty, about 1500 BC, these spells were copied on rolls of papyrus and placed within the coffins. These rolls have come to be known now as copies of the Book of the Dead. This is, nevertheless, a modern term, as the Egyptians themselves called it “Going Forth by Day.”

The Ten Commandments represent God’s orders to humans given in the imperative form….the Egyptian texts use this form:

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shat not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Spell 125 of the Book of the Dead, contrary to the Book of Exodus, contains a moral code represented in a form of Negative Confession that the dead person has to recite when he descends to the hall of the Two Truths.
He shall say:

Hail to thee, great God, Lord of the Two Truths. I have come unto thee, my Lord, that thou mayest bring me to see thy beauty. I know thee, I know thy name, I know the names of the 42 Gods who are with thee in this broad hall of the Two Truths . . . Behold, I am come unto thee. I have brought thee truth; I have done away with sin for thee. I have not sinned against anyone. I have not mistreated people. I have not done evil instead of righteousness . . .

I have not reviled the God.

I have not laid violent hands on an orphan.

I have not done what the God abominates . . .

I have not killed; I have not turned anyone over to a killer.

I have not caused anyone’s suffering . . . I have not copulated (illicitly); I have not been unchaste.

I have not increased nor diminished the measure, I have not diminished the palm; I have not encroached upon the fields.

I have not added to the balance weights; I have not tempered with the plumb bob of the balance.

I have not taken milk from a child’s mouth; I have not driven small cattle from their herbage . . .

I have not stopped (the flow of) water in its seasons; I have not built a dam against flowing water.

I have not quenched a fire in its time . . .

I have not kept cattle away from the God’s property. I have not blocked the God at his processions.

Ahmed Osman

Historian, lecturer, researcher and author, Ahmed Osman is a British Egyptologist born in Cairo
His four in-depth books clarifying the history of the Bible and Egypt are: Stranger in the Valley of the Kings (1987) – Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt (1990) – The House of the Messiah (1992) – Out of Egypt (1998)

______________________________________________________

According to Wikipedia:

“Some historians….have argued that the Ten Commandments originated from ancient Egyptian religion, and postulate that the Biblical Jews borrowed the concept after their Exodus from Egypt. Chapter 125 of the [Egyptian] Book of the Dead (a.k.a. the Papyrus of Ani) includes a list of things to which a man must swear in order to enter the afterlife. These sworn statements bear a remarkable resemblance to the Ten Commandments in their nature and their phrasing…..The Book of the Dead has additional requirements, and, of course, doesn’t require worship of Yahweh.” 1

The Book of the Dead was written circa 1800 BCE. 2 The Schofield Reference Bible estimates that the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt and the provision of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai occurred in 1491 BCE., some three centuries later. Thus, many religious liberals, historians, and secularists have concluded that the Hebrew Scripture’s Ten Commandments were based on this earlier document, rather than vice-versa.

Comparison of ancient Egyptian and Hebrew texts:
A comparison of the Book of the Dead text with the version of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:2-17 is striking. Both consist of a series of negative statements.

Comparing another translation of the Book with the King James Version of Exodus:

Book of the Dead: “I have done away sin for thee and not acted fraudulently or deceitfully. I have not belittled God. I have not inflicted pain or caused another to weep. I have not murdered or given such an order. I have not used false balances or scales. I have not purloined (held back) the offerings to the gods. I have not stolen. I have not uttered lies or curses.”

Exodus 20:7-16: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain….Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery…Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor…” 6,7

They listed for more than 10 “Commandments”

Hail, Usekh-nemmt, who comes from Anu,
I have not committed sin.

Hail, Hept-khet, who comes from Kher-aha,
I have not committed robbery with violence.

Hail, Fanti, who comes from Khemenu,
I have not stolen.

Hail, Am-khaibit, who comes from Qernet,
I have not slain men and women.

Hail, Neha-her, who comes from Rasta,
I have not stolen grain.

Hail, Ruruti, who comes from heaven,
I have not purloined offerings.

Hail, Arfi-em-khet, who comes from Suat,
I have not stolen the property of God.

Hail, Neba, who comes and goes,
I have not uttered lies.

Hail, Set-qesu, who comes from Hensu,
I have not carried away food.

Hail, Utu-nesert, who comes from Het-ka-Ptah,
I have not uttered curses.

Hail, Qerrti, who comes from Amentet,
I have not committed adultery, I have not lain with men.

Hail, Her-f-ha-f, who comes from your cavern,
I have made none to weep.

Hail, Basti, who comes from Bast,
I have not eaten the heart.

Hail, Ta-retiu, who comes from the night,
I have not attacked any man.

Hail, Unem-snef, who comes from the execution chamber,
I am not a man of deceit.

Hail, Unem-besek, who comes from Mabit,
I have not stolen cultivated land.

Hail, Neb-Maat, who comes from Maati,
I have not been an eavesdropper.

Hail, Tenemiu, who comes from Bast,
I have not slandered any man.

Hail, Sertiu, who comes from Anu,
I have not been angry without just cause.

Hail, Tutu, who comes from Ati,
I have not violated the wife of any man.

Hail, Uamenti, who comes from the Khebt chamber,
I have not violated the wife of any man.

Hail, Maa-antuf, who comes from Per-Menu,
I have not polluted myself.

Hail, Her-uru, who comes from Nehatu,
I have terrorized none.

Hail, Khemiu, who comes from Kaui,
I have not broken the law.

Hail, Shet-kheru, who comes from Urit,
I have not been irate.

Hail, Nekhenu, who comes from Heqat,
I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.

Hail, Kenemti, who comes from Kenmet,
I have not blasphemed.

Hail, An-hetep-f, who comes from Sau,
I am not a man of violence.

Hail, Sera-kheru, who comes from Unaset,
I have not been a stirrer up of strife.

Hail, Neb-heru, who comes from Netchfet,
I have not acted with undue haste.

Hail, Sekhriu, who comes from Uten,
I have not pried into matters.

Hail, Neb-abui, who comes from Sauti,
I have not multiplied my words in speaking.

Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comes from Het-ka-Ptah,
I have wronged none, I have done no evil.

Hail, Tem-Sepu, who comes from Tetu,
I have not worked witchcraft against the king.

Hail, Ari-em-ab-f, who comes from Tebu,
I have never stopped the flow of water.

Hail, Ahi, who comes from Nu,
I have never raised my voice.

Hail, Uatch-rekhit, who comes from Sau,
I have not cursed God.

Hail, Neheb-ka, who comes from thy cavern,
I have not acted with arrogance.

Hail, Neheb-nefert, who comes from thy cavern,
I have not stolen the bread of the gods.

Hail, Tcheser-tep, who comes from the shrine,
I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the Spirits of the dead.

Hail, An-af, who comes from Maati,
I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.

Hail, Hetch-abhu, who comes from Ta-she,
I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god

You can read the entire “Egyptian Book of the Dead” here: http://books.google.com/books?id=vmYHRAdETUAC&dq=Egyptian+Book+of+the+Dead&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=npLzSdiTMJHstgOMx7zuCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

The Dark Goddess, Self Portrait

To go into the dark with a light is to know the light

To know the dark, go dark, without sight,

And find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

And is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

– Wendell Berry, To Know the Dark

This photo is from a shapeshifting series that I am currently working on.  This series is loosely based on the legend of the Valkyries, but it is inspired by the iconography and energy of the all of the dark goddesses. Lilith, Inanna, Pele, Medusa, Kali, Sekhmet, Hecate and all of the goddess archetypes that move in and through the shadows. I am especially interested in the dark goddesses and their relationship to shapeshifting and ravens, so the Valkyrie archetype was an apt choice, since the Valkyries are most closely associated with ravens. Other images from this series will show the goddess shapeshifting into a raven.

In the image above, I wanted to portray the goddess as she was portrayed in ancient art. In particular, I was attracted to the Ancient Egyptian Nile Goddess (or, “Bird Goddess”) since this statue typifies the exaggerated female form that is often seen in depictions of the goddess (and it also follows the woman-as-bird idea). It also is reminiscent of a wasp or bee form.   This is a very difficult series to work on from a technical standpoint, because the technique I am using to achieve this effect  is very unusual and physically difficult. Like all of my series, all of these effects are done in-camera, and even though the background looks like a Photoshop “texture” it is actually a cement wall that I am projecting my shadow onto. Of the hundreds of photos I shot in order to capture the essence of the archaic goddess form, this one ended up being a perfect match for what I had envisioned. Her hips are overly exaggerated in contrast to the rest of her form, and her arms are in the morphing stage (in other photos they will become wings). There are also ghostly remnants of facial features- an effect which was a happy accident.

This is a very interesting series for me to execute, because it literally feels like shape-shifting to me-more than any of the other work I have done. I have been tapping into the very dark, shadowy, primal places lately. This series is a result of my own journey into the realm of the dark goddess.

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In the last post, I mentioned that there are two letters s in ancient Egyptian.  You won’t have been impressed.  Who is going to be impressed by two s-es when they already know about the four h-es (even though they haven’t met them all yet)?

Actually, the s situation is a bit more complicated than I let on.  There are two s-es rendered in transliteration, but one of them has two hieroglyphs to go with it.  We had one in the last post:

That was the vertical one.  Now meet the horizontal one:

Originally, it was pronounced more like a z, but it evolved into an alternative way of writing s, depending on whether or not the scribe had to fill a vertical or horizontal space in a group of signs.  You can see the point immediately in the full version of our tomb owner Senusret’s name:

We’ve already met the goddess Usret, “the powerful (female) one”, whose name appears first in writing, even though it comes second in pronunciation.  Now we’re on the second part of the name in writing, although it was the first part of his name when spoken: 

     se-en; “man of”.  The horizontal s hieroglyph depicts a bolt, of the type you can see on the doors of the golden shrines of Tutankhamun:

Here’s the carved relief version from the cartouche of King Sesostris in the last post: 

It’s simple to draw:  a straight line with a couple of short cross-hatches in the middle will do.  And there we have it:  se = man.

The n holds no mystery for you.  We’ve seen it all before.  It’s a ripple of water.  It means “of”.  You know that.  So, on to the final sign in this group:

Isn’t he lovely?  He’s a seated man, and he has no sound – he’s the strong, silent type.  He has no sound because he is a determinative – a hieroglyph stuck on the end of a word to show what kind of word it is.  We’ve had a determinative before, remember?  The town or city determinatives in the first line of the offering formula are the same kind of sign.  I explained then that, because the Egyptians wrote very few vowels, they had to use some device to distinguish between words which sounded different when spoken, but had the same sequence of consonants when written down.  This is what the determinative does – it shows it’s the word for man, as opposed to a similar word meaning something else.  But you remember all that. 

In this case, though, he’s not part of se, man, but of the name as a whole:  he’s the male  determinative for the masculine name, Senusret.

He’s complicated to draw, but he’s worth it for the animation he will add to your enigmatic line of Christmas card hieroglyphs.  Inanimate symbols are attractive enough, but you can’t beat a cute little animal or a tiny little person for instant appeal.  I usually start with a circle for the head, then a triangle, pointed side down, for the torso. A second triangle, pointing left (in this case) forms the lower leg, and a smaller one sticking up behind it forms the raised knee.  You can put in two short strokes for the feet, and two bent lines for his arms, as though he’s doing an impression of Toulouse-Lautrec power walking.  And you’ve created a little man.

Here’s one they made earlier, when they were painting texts on a coffin:

See?  He doesn’t have to be that complicated.  They’re simple creatures, after all.

This will give you a new appreciation for the Genesis Creation narrative even if you are Richard Dawkins. Read the ‘worst creation story ever’ here.

You know how you sometimes get a Christmas card, but can’t for the life of you make out the signature, and spend the whole New Year wrestling with the guilty suspicion that you’ve missed someone off your list, while they kept you on theirs?  Well, this is not going to happen this time; not on Office Hieroglyphs, it isn’t.  We are about to decipher the cryptic symbols by means of which our revered tomb owner conveyed his name – or at least had someone else to convey it for him.

And here it is:

Senusret, sometimes transcribed as Senwosret or, in its later, Greek form, Sesostris; a name of commoners, nobles and of course a number of famous Twelfth Dynasty Kings.

If you cast your mind back to the very beginning of this blog, you may remember that we encountered the device known as honorific transposition, which is a pretty rotten trick to pull on the eager beginner.  However, we’ve seen it before and we’re not intimidated.  We know it just means that the Egyptians believed that some words were more important and magical than others, especially when they were written down, and that they had better write down the most powerful symbols in a word or phrase first, even if they were not actually spoken first, or the magic letters might get annoyed and start acting up. 

Well, Senusret is one of those cases.  It is a theophorous name, which means it contains the name of a god or, in this case, goddess:  the goddess Usret or Wosret.  Senusret means “Man of (the goddess) Usret”.  And you’ve guessed it; even though the tomb owner’s name was Senusret, the diva gets her name at the top of the bill.  This is why, in very old textbooks written before they’d figured it out, early Egyptologists sometimes wrote the name as Usertsen.

So, we’ll spend this post giving all our attention to the goddess:

Usret:  literally, ”the powerful one”, perhaps an early version of “She-Who-must-be-obeyed”.  She was a relatively obscure goddess who is rarely depicted, probably because her cult flourished (at Thebes, modern Luxor) during the Middle Kingdom in Egypt (roughly 2000-1700 BC), and very little remains of the temples of that period – they’ve mostly been broken up, re-used and covered over by later monuments.  Similarly, later, even more powerful goddesses supplanted her as objects of worship.  However, the Kings of the time, who came from her home town, saw her as their patron goddess, which was why several of them were named after her.

We’ve got some new symbols here, too, which makes a change from the recycling we’ve seen lately.  Have a look at the first one:

It looks like a head on a stick.  In fact, it’s the head of some dog-like animal on a greatly elongated neck.  They did like their animal body parts, didn’t they?  When you draw it, you can just draw a head on a stick:  two pointy ears and a protruding snout, then a vertical line for the neck. The symbol is a triliteral – it conveys the sound wsr or user.  The next two letters are simply the s and the r written out in full for emphasis:

 is the letter s, one of two in the transliteration of ancient Egyptian.  A droopy looking sign, isn’t it.  After all the butchery we’ve had in this blog lately, you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a length of trailing intestine, but in fact it’s a folded cloth, something like the throw hanging over the back of the throne in our picture of Osiris from ages ago:

Maybe they need something to mop up the blood at this point in the formula.

is the letter r.  We’re back to good old body parts with this one; the r represents the human mouth. Here’s a slightly wonky inlaid technicolour version:

 Two curves touching at the tips will describe it nicely.

Finally, dedicated scribes will have spotted our old friend the loaf of bread

 representing the letter t, and forming the feminine ending, so we know Usret is a goddess, not a god:  “the powerful (female) one”.

Here they all are in the name of one of the Kings called Sesostris, enclosed by a rope border known as a cartouche:

Look at them all, like presents in Santa’s sack.  We’ll pull out the last couple next time.

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