[ANALYSIS] Semiotics: Egyptian Hieroglyphics

[Thamus]

Graecum est non potest legi. Latin for: It is Greek; it cannot be read.”

The Egyptian alphabet was pictures before it was words. The same is true of our other alphabets (like the Greek); the letters were images long before they became elements of words. Or became numbers.

Much of the old Egyptian hieroglyphics were essentially cartoon strips (like “The Book of the Dead”) for a non-literate populace.
Perhaps the symbols should be seen (and not read) as simple four-to-eight episode stories.

This adds the dimension of time. (Quote Tachyon's theme song, "What time is it?)

A graphic short story?

[kellylen]

kellylen were there supposed to be images? I'm confused

oh damn there were... i guess they disappeared :/

[ignatzmouse]

A dead end I had a look into, just thought I'd save everyone else the bother...

There's another series of Egyptian fractions based on the Eye of Horus. It contains the fractions 1/2, 1/4, ..., 1/64, and was used to give any fraction in the range (0..1) up to accuracy 1/64. Those clever Egyptians used binary!

Some more googling turns up ...

http://www.recoveredscience.com/const102horuseye.htm

by someone with too much time on their hands (pot, kettle) and some, er, interesting theories. It does show what the fractions looked like.

Interestingly, the Egyptians never added the pupil to the Eye, and represented the iris as a white disk. The theory presented in this page is that the black pupil = darkness and death. Oh look what the Watcher / Theta+Nu symbol have: a pupil in the eye.

I think this is a dead end at the moment, although an Egyptological/numerological hermetic Order with an eye for a symbol would certainly have been aware of this number system.

[janesalteredstates]

kellylen were there supposed to be images? I'm confused

oh damn there were... i guess they disappeared :/

Well at least I know I'm not crazy... er... crazier.

I'll check out the source.

[Balmung]

*is not sure that Deagol's post was actually written in english*

they rarely are ;D

[deagol]

*is not sure that Deagol's post was actually written in english*

they rarely are ;D

それは私に完全に中国語である

[outlaww]

From Wikkipedia:

An Egyptian fraction is the sum of distinct unit fractions, such as \tfrac{1}{2}+\tfrac{1}{3}+\tfrac{1}{16}. That is, each fraction in the series has a numerator equal to 1 and a denominator that is a positive integer, and all the denominators differ from each other.

If the fractions are actually the meanings, there are a couple of important things about egyptian fractions that might be symbolic of the order.


Each fraction has a numerator equal to one
One order, one goal, some sort of unity between these groups.

all the denominators differ from one another
Perhaps there are different sects with the same basic principle. For example, christianity is the basic idea for catholicism, protestantism, pentacostalism, etc.

The two symbols could represent two groups with the same general ideals but different ways of going about them.

Wikki:

The Rhind papyrus was written by Ahmes and dates from the Second Intermediate Period; it includes a table of Egyptian fraction expansions for rational numbers 2/n, as well as 84 word problems. Solutions to each problem were written out in scribal shorthand, with the final answers of all 84 problems being expressed in Egyptian fraction notation.

Does this sound familiar? We could be on to something.

Here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_fraction

I'm still digging, so I'll be back soon.

[tiltingwindward]

Egyptian fractions are notable, as outlaww pointed out, because the numerator is almost always one, with a different denominator (that eye/mouth shaped piece stands for one, or 1/1). You start from there, and add symbols to make it 1/3, 15, 1/10, etc., but you can never make 5/6, 3/5, 9/11, etc. A traditional Egyptian fraction looks like this:



There are only two exceptions to this rule: they are 2/3 and 3/4...and they look like this:


Fraction symbol for 2/3


Fraction symbol for 3/4

If we're hypothesizing that these are symbols for different factions within OpA or the Order, we need to take into account that the two symbols being used are the exception to the rule.

The Eye of Horus

ignatzmouse, I looked into the Eye of Horus too, mostly because it appears to have grown out of the basic Egyptian fractions into something a little more complicated...also because each portion of the Eye has a symbolism I discussed in my post on the previous page. I won't repeat all of that here, but here's a graphical representation of the Eye, with the appropriate fractions attached:

[outlaww]

Ohh, okay- I didnt read that as well as I should have. They are the exception.

Which is still interesting.

I can't believe we haven't gotten this yet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhind_Mathematical_Papyrus

I think this is interesting. But maybe I'm looking too far into the 84 word problems. It's just sticking out to me.

[ignatzmouse]

ignatzmouse, I looked into the Eye of Horus too, mostly because it appears to have grown out of the basic Egyptian fractions into something a little more complicated...also because each portion of the Eye has a symbolism I discussed in my post on the previous page. I won't repeat all of that here, but here's a graphical representation of the Eye, with the appropriate fractions attached:

Ooh, nice graphic!

Another thing I noticed about the Eye of Horus is that the pupil actually does have a meaning. Since it's the missing part which completes the eye, it on its own was used to stand for "one". So the Watcher sign could be read as "1 and 3/4", although I doubt any Egyptian would have written it that way (I think they'd have placed the pupil outside the mouth).

I suspect that this is a distraction from the puzzle at hand, but a) the Eye almost certainly was part of the development of the Watcher symbol, and b) it's an interesting distraction while we're waiting for the next kick up the ass from Tachy.

[toadlguy]

Tachyon said:

Theta is the 8th letter, Mu is the 12th. So that's one more 12, but the 8 = ?.

= 2 / 3 = 8 / 12 or 8th of 12

= 3 / 4 = 9 /12 or 9th of 12

Perhaps the watchers are the 9th division of 12 (the Order ?) and the other symbol is for the 8th. Perhaps other division symbols have similar double or triple meanings but still evaluate somehow to 1 of 12 ... 2 of 12, etc.

Right now it appears the 8th is the important one, since it may give some clue to Jonas' behavior.

Opy was similarly Hooked on Fractions.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but just a thought.

[deagol]

Tachyon said:

Theta is the 8th letter, Mu is the 12th. So that's one more 12, but the 8 = ?.

= 2 / 3 = 8 / 12 or 8th of 12

= 3 / 4 = 9 /12 or 9th of 12

Perhaps the watchers are the 9th division of 12 (the Order ?) and the other symbol is for the 8th. Perhaps other division symbols have similar double or triple meanings but still evaluate somehow to 1 of 12 ... 2 of 12, etc.

Right now it appears the 8th is the important one, since it may give some clue to Jonas' behavior.

Opy was similarly Hooked on Fractions.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but just a thought.

That reminds me of the "Thelema is 1 of ?" from the Merced craigslist.

[toadlguy]

That reminds me of the "Thelema is 1 of ?" from the Merced craigslist.

And double (and triple) bagged.

[janesalteredstates]

That reminds me of the "Thelema is 1 of ?" from the Merced craigslist.

So, Thelema is 1 of what?
I looked at the Pedia but could find nothing to answer the question.

[marlasinger]

There hasn't been an answer to that yet, has there? Thelema, being the Temple of Thelema, that is, the "California Non-Profit Organization" ....