Historical Magic: The Seated Statue "stands Up"
Since the Egyptian belief system, contained concepts framed in a world of magic and a formal framework of art expression, the block statue had a magical purpose. Obviously ideas evolved, but eventually the idea came for the statue that it was always – seated in place, and at a moments notice, the individual could stand erect and "go out into the day." This concept is quite similar to the Book of the Dead, where the individual is:
- "returning, and entering..(to/from cemetery Neter-Khert)..the daily returning for events wonderful, to the loved, created habits, (all), sitting in the Hall, Senet-playing... returning as a living-soul (Ba)," Chapter VII, lines 1-3.5. (The Book of the Dead, subtitle: The Coming Forth by Day.)
The deceased individual Egyptian person returns each day, to perform their usual daily life duties. It is also equivalent to the earlier concept of the false door, where the ba-soul returned each day, to find the food offering.
Read more about this topic: Block Statue
Famous quotes containing the words stands up, historical, seated, statue and/or stands:
“In the cold morning the rested street stands up
To greet the clerk who saunters down the world.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
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“A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a barroom around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremarked seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and
oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.”
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“The spire cranes. Its statue is an aviary.”
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“It’s a queer sensation, this secret belief that one stands on the brink of the world’s greatest catastrophe. For it means the fall of Western Europe, as it fell in the fourth century. It recurs to me every November, and culminates every December. I have to get over it as I can, and hide, for fear of being sent to an asylum.”
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