Originally posted by undo
Originally posted by Nygdan
With any myth, there are going to be lots of variations. What makes this one the correct one?
The pharaohs were actively searching for his burial site in Abydos.
And peopel have searched for the burialsite of jesus, that doesn't mean he's real either.
such as Orion, and the 14 pieces story is really just an astronomy-based one, whereas the Shabaka stone is relating his actual death - he
drowned.
Interesting idea.
I've considered the "Drowned" thing as a reference to his constellation sinking below the horizon over a body of water, but that area of
Egypt (Abydos), doesn't have any large bodies of water for the constellation to "sink" into.
If the 'drowing' is symbolic, then why not the water too? Water is often said to represent the subconscious, perhaps they were making a statement
similar to that, in saying that he drowned, that he 'returned the the subconcious/the abyss/formless pre-creation void/etc'.
Another thing to consider is that the many shaman initiation rites apparently invovle dying and returning to life, even dismemberment, burial in a
coffin, and then rising again. This might all be a remembrance of those older, pre-egyptian religion, traditions. Indeed, a shaman undergoing the
initiation, attaining powers from the formless void and underworld, and then returning as master of death, and source of the king's power, might make
sense in this death, dismemberment, drowning, rising, myth, wherein osiris becomes the judge of the dead and the epitome of the kings.