Some comments on my post in Scott´s thread.
Ka tombs
Where to start.. Most of you are familiar with the Ka and the Ba - two of the entities that, according to the AE, are present in a living person. Think of the Ka as a persons life-force and the Ba as his personality, his "I".
A person dies when his life-force, the Ka, no longer can sustain the body.
The AE practiced a two-fold funeral.
The tomb proper (pyramid, mastaba, bedrock): The body and the Ba.
The subsidiary tomb (small pyramid, shallow shaft in Mastaba, bedrock): The Tekenu (efflux and everything that was in contact with the body) and the Ka.
The reason for why the Tekenu could not be buried with the corpse is that it - in its present form - is to blame for why the person died. The efflux, life-force, is not working. It is foul, rotten and it needs to be refreshed.
So, on one side the efflux plays a vital role when it comes to completing the whole person in the afterlife, but until it is refreshed it cannot be allowed to contaminate the corpse with death.
Firth and Quibell questioned the motif of Djoser´s South Tomb: "What could have been so precious to Zoser as to merit this most expensive tomb, yet not wanted in his pyramid"?
The Tekenu.
Morten
Ka tombs
Where to start.. Most of you are familiar with the Ka and the Ba - two of the entities that, according to the AE, are present in a living person. Think of the Ka as a persons life-force and the Ba as his personality, his "I".
A person dies when his life-force, the Ka, no longer can sustain the body.
The AE practiced a two-fold funeral.
The tomb proper (pyramid, mastaba, bedrock): The body and the Ba.
The subsidiary tomb (small pyramid, shallow shaft in Mastaba, bedrock): The Tekenu (efflux and everything that was in contact with the body) and the Ka.
The reason for why the Tekenu could not be buried with the corpse is that it - in its present form - is to blame for why the person died. The efflux, life-force, is not working. It is foul, rotten and it needs to be refreshed.
So, on one side the efflux plays a vital role when it comes to completing the whole person in the afterlife, but until it is refreshed it cannot be allowed to contaminate the corpse with death.
Firth and Quibell questioned the motif of Djoser´s South Tomb: "What could have been so precious to Zoser as to merit this most expensive tomb, yet not wanted in his pyramid"?
The Tekenu.
Morten