I've been having an interesting time adding new images to gallery of ancient images of Set. It's a real investigative process trying to track down where various saved images came from.

Set Headed Sphinxes

But I am really wracking my brain on this one:

But my search for "Seth, Egyptian, dazzles, OR dazzler, OR dazzling" did turn up an interesting tidbit from _A Splendor of Letters: the Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World_, by Nicholas A. Basbanes:

"Over time, communication across the generations has typically come by way of the written word, carried out in a striking variety of ways and recorded on an astonishingly rich medley of surfaces, the impulse always being to make contact and to give an account of ourselves--which, it turns out, is the point of the exercise. In a famous passage in his Areopagitica (1644), John Milton argued passionately that books--and the implicit understanding in that usage was writing in every form and on every conceivable kind of surface--are the 'precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.'"

The teasing excerpts explain that how without text to illuminate them, the fragments of the past can only be enjoyed through a sort of wistful intuition, but that the word gives contact with the creators of those fragments. When Frank Goddio and his team made their discovery four miles off the coast of Egypt, there was such a moment:

"Yet for all the dazzling statuary, pottery, jewelry, gold, and coins that have been brought to the surface thus far--and an entire marine archaelogy museum will be built in Alexandria to house them all--the definitive identification came with the discovery in 2001 of an immense granite slab installed at the customs port in 380 B.C. by King Nektanebos I. The inscription incised on its face established a 10 percent duty on all Greek cargoes, and included a text that is identical to one found in the ruins of another city along the dried-up bed of the Canopic mouth to the Nile in 1890. The only difference between the two stelae were the names of the cities, in this instance Thonis, the Egyptian name for Herakleion, which the Greeks who colonized the outpost in Hellenistic times had named for the god Heracules. 'We were the first to receive this message from the past,' Goddio said in an interview. 'Suddenly, we felt that we had made direct contact with the ancient world.'" (From the Preface)

This power of the word to transcend time is one of its unique properties. But too often the words do not survive, or survive only in partial form, tormenting those who yearn to know the mysteries. Disasters happen, whether through accident or intention, to destroy what had been so carefully delineated.

Basbanes writes:

"Further evidence of that gloomy certainty comes in The Antiquities of the Jews, a sweeping history of the world from the time of the Old Testament to the reign of the emperor Nero written by the Romanized Jewish priest, scholar, and historian Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-100). In chapter 1 of the work, Josephus told how Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve after Cain and Abel, became patriach of an industrious clan of savants who were the 'inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.' Aware of Adam's prophecy that the earth was to be 'destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water', but not sure which cataclysm would come first--these early astronomers were said to have undertaken what could argues was the first documented attempt to make backup files of important data as a hedge against disaster, and as further insurance, they did it with two different recording surfaces. Josephus wrote how the descendants of Seth constructed two pillars, 'one of brick, the other of stone,' and 'inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain.' For added protection, the duplicate was erected at a distant location 'in the land of Siriad,' where, Josephus asserted, it had remained 'to this day,' which may well have been the case two thousand years ago, when his history was written, though no trace of such a spire has come down to modern times. Indeed, most scholars regard the tale as apocryphal, though illuminating all the same, given the clear suggestion it provides that even the earliest of chroniclers saw merit in seeking out alterate writing materials for their most important inscriptions, and for further protection, to retaining copies in multiple locations." (pages 3-4)

In our temporary society, with so much of its correspondence based in ephemeral bits and bytes, what will survive? We must make an effort to secure less easily deleted transmissions if we hope to reach those descendants in ages to come.

Wedneday, April 30, 2008 B

"Precious"
8:53pm

I felt in a mood to draw, but uninspired. So I took to Flicker with the random word 'princely', and stopped at an engaging result, from the Cimitero Monumentale in Milano. I'm not sure how the photographer arrived at his title, "were princely boasts lyric to monsters waiting". Perhaps he feels there is something menacing in the background. However, the motherly expression of the statue drew me, the way her hands were cradling something unseen. As I drew it, I placed an egg there, a Xepera egg, as I drew the scarab within it, and she is nurturing some developments there, protecting them from any monsters and whatever else would hinder those developments:

Thursday, May 1, 2008

"Colorful Nurturing"
9:37pm

Friday, May 2, 2008 A

"Crazy Dream"
6:33am

I could not sleep last night. I tossed and turned, tried turning on a fan, but still could not sleep. So I got up and looked at the Photo Friday theme. Went to last week's archives to vote on "Electricity". Voted for my own, (at least it will get one vote!), and then picked a few others. I got intrigued with one woman's photo blog. She's been everywhere, Vancouver, Bali, and of course around her native Russia. Very interesting photos, I went through them all. And then I thought I'd try for sleep. After a bit of relaxation inducement, I got off to sleep. But what dreams!

Julia and I were there in Bali. We took a budget hotel. I understood, yes, the rooms did not have individual toilets, and assumed this meant each floor would have them. Oh no! There was a hut out back, with a huge line. Each person had to sit themselves to hang their posteriers over a small catching device. One handsome white haired man emerged quite upset, "I thought to have an adventure, and remember the hippie days of my youth, I'd go cheap! What a mistake! I could have had an elegant room, with my own toilet, but no, I had to go have an adventure! This is the worst adventure of my life!" Another thin old man was more agreeable, but he emerged having soiled himself. Finally my turn, and what difficult maneuvers to position my rump. Also, I did not feel much relief.

I returned to our room, various others I passed gave me a knowing smile. Julia was content and reading a book, not yet having had to make the arduous trip. An hour passed. I decided to go wandering, thinking there must be a pot hidden somewhere for those in the know. The public seating areas were nicely decorated with flowers and good furniture and mirrors. But as hard as I looked, I could not find one. An unbearable pressure was building within me. It was dark outside, and I grew terrified to find the hut at night. I couldn't hold it anymore and squatted, trying to aim for the tiles rather than the carpet. I went and went and went, the stream not staying to the tiles. A maid walked by and saw me. Extremely embarrassed, I cried out, "I'm sorry, I couldn't help it!"

I woke, needing to pee but extremely grateful for our private porcelain pot.