Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

civilis seditio

"The Aegyptian Pyramides & colossus" (Pyramids & Sphinx) anonymous engraver after a picture by George Sandys, published in Sandys Relation of a Journey begun An Dom. 1610

An emblem of the English Civil War with a double-headed snake crawling before the Egyptian pyramids with the head of the Sphinx at the left. 1643 /Wenceslas Hollar

Tuesday, 22 November 2011

the veiled image at Saïs

the veiled image at Saïs


turn at the statue of Champollion, says the guide

Lacan / ecrits/ 160

Apocalypse:
late 14c., "revelation, disclosure," from Church L. apocalypsis "revelation," from Gk. apokalyptein "uncover, disclose, reveal," from apo- "from" (see apo-) + kalyptein "to cover, conceal"

Calypso


Sheet of paper has gone missing must look for it at home. It contained:
1. The discussion of the concept of “system” and the doctrine of the extinguishing of intention in the truth, explained in terms of the veiled image of Sais.
2. Discussion of the concept of “essence” as the mark of truth.’

WB 1913-1926 /272

M. Champollion paid a visit, in his way, to the ruins of Sais, ... That part of the enclosure might well have contained great temple of Neith, the chief goddess of Sais, and we drove away, by our musket-shots, some owls, ...

The Asiatic journal and monthly register for British and foreign India, China and Australasia Vol 27







Novalis Die Lehrlinge zu Sais 1799

I. The Pupil. — Men travel in manifold paths: whoso traces and compares these, will find strange Figures come to light; Figures which seem as if they belonged to that great Cipher-writing which one meets with everywhere, on wings of birds, shells of eggs, in clouds, in the snow, in crystals, in forms of rocks, in freezing waters, in the interior and exterior of mountains, of plants, animals, men, in the lights of the sky, in plates of glass and pitch when touched and struck on, in the filings round the magnet, and the singular conjunctures of Chance. In such Figures one anticipates the key to that wondrous Writing, the grammar of it; but this Anticipation will not fix itself into shape, and appears as if, after all, it would not become such a key for us. An Alcahest seems poured out over the senses of men. Only for a moment will their wishes, their thoughts thicken into form. Thus do their Anticipations arise; but after short whiles, all is again swimming vaguely before them, even as it did.


TO ENVISION ✴ 39 Flusser / technical image
And so it looks as though our historical development in the West has reached a final stage that does not look significantly different from a Buddhist worldview: a veil of Maya surrounds the yawning nothingness of nirvana. From this standpoint, the powerful stream of Western history is about to empty into the ocean of the timeless Orient.
There is considerable evidence that such a suicidal view of Western society is justified. And yet this view largely overlooks what is significant in the current cultural revolution. That is, the visionary power that we are beginning to use and that we owe to technical images makes us capable of calculating and computing the whirring nothingness around us. Therefore our illusions are not things we should abandon to fall into nirvana but rather are quite the opposite, our answer to the yawing nothingness that threatens us. The veil of technical images that surrounds us, as similar as it may appear to an Oriental veil, challenges us to an engagement neatly opposed to the Oriental. Our veil is not to be torn but rather woven more and more closely. The following chapters are dedicated to looking at this increasingly dense mesh.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

Cartonnage

Cartonnage is the term used in Egyptology and Papyrology for plastered layers of fibre or papyrus, flexible enough for moulding while wet against the irregular surfaces of the body; the method was used in funerary workshops to produce cases, masks or panels to cover all or part of the mummified and wrapped body. The plastered surface gave an even ground for painting motifs with greater stability than was possible with a linen shroud.

Sometimes cartonnage is compared with papier mache, but there is no pulping of the substrate, whether papyrus or linen: instead, smaller or larger sections of linen are cut to shape, and layered, and the plaster applied over the top. The method of preparation preserves the sections, and for this reason papyrus cartonnage is a prominent source of well-preserved manuscript sections.