The Negative Confessions of Ani
No, not little Anakin Skywalker. The “Negative Questions” take their name from the so-called “Papyrus of Ani”, stolen from the Egyptians in 1888 by Wallis Budge and currently at rest (i.e. uncomfortably and illegally situated) in the British Museum. I wonder if the Egyptians would like it back? The same wonderment concerns the Elgin [pronounced with a hard “g”] Marbles; I’ll bet the Greeks would like to get their hands on those.
There are several translations of the Forty-two Questions; I happen to like this one, because it invokes the forty-two gods likely to be offended by each transgression. Once standing in the House of Ma’at before the god Anubis, the recently deceased had to answer in the negative when presented with each question (except for one which is omitted here: “Is there one upon the Earth who is glad thou hast lived?”), else his soul would be eaten by Sekhmet and totally obliterated. The Egyptian “Hell” was non-existence, which makes eternal torment sound fairly attractive. How would you answer each of these?
1. Hail, Usekh-nemmt, who comest forth from Anu, I have not committed sin.
2. Hail, Hept-khet, who comest forth from Kher-aha, I have not committed robbery with violence.
3. Hail, Fenti, who comest forth from Khemenu, I have not stolen.
4. Hail, Am-khaibit, who comest forth from Qernet, I have not slain men and women.
5. Hail, Neha-her, who comest forth from Rasta, I have not stolen grain.
6. Hail, Ruruti, who comest forth from Heaven, I have not purloined offerings.
7. Hail, Arfi-em-khet, who comest forth from Suat, I have not stolen the property of God.
8. Hail, Neba, who comest and goest, I have not uttered lies.
9. Hail, Set-qesu, who comest forth from Hensu, I have not carried away food.
10. Hail, Utu-nesert, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not uttered curses.
11. Hail, Qerrti, who comest forth from Amentet, I have not committed adultery.
12. Hail, Hraf-haf, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have made none to weep.
13. Hail, Basti, who comest forth from Bast, I have not eaten the heart.
14. Hail, Ta-retiu, who comest forth from the night, I have not attacked any man.
15. Hail, Unem-snef, who comest forth from the execution chamber, I am not a man of deceit.
16. Hail, Unem-besek, who comest forth from Mabit, I have not stolen cultivated land.
17. Hail, Neb-Maat, who comest forth from Maati, I have not been an eavesdropper.
18. Hail, Tenemiu, who comest forth from Bast, I have not slandered anyone.
19. Hail, Sertiu, who comest forth from Anu, I have not been angry without just cause.
20. Hail, Tutu, who comest forth from Ati, I have not debauched the wife of any man.
21. Hail, Uamenti, who comest forth from the Khebt chamber, I have not debauched the wives of other men.
22. Hail, Maa-antuf, who comest forth from Per-Menu, I have not polluted myself.
23. Hail, Her-uru, who comest forth from Nehatu, I have terrorized none.
24. Hail, Khemiu, who comest forth from Kaui, I have not transgressed the law.
25. Hail, Shet-kheru, who comest forth from Urit, I have not been angry.
26. Hail, Nekhenu, who comest forth from Heqat, I have not shut my ears to the words of truth.
27. Hail, Kenemti, who comest forth from Kenmet, I have not blasphemed.
28. Hail, An-hetep-f, who comest forth from Sau, I am not a man of violence.
29. Hail, Sera-kheru, who comest forth from Unaset, I have not been a stirrer up of strife.
30. Hail, Neb-heru, who comest forth from Netchfet, I have not acted with undue haste.
31. Hail, Sekhriu, who comest forth from Uten, I have not pried into other’s matters.
32. Hail, Neb-abui, who comest forth from Sauti, I have not multiplied my words in speaking.
33. Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have wronged none, I have done no evil.
34. Hail, Tem-Sepu, who comest forth from Tetu, I have not worked witchcraft against the king.
35. Hail, Ari-em-ab-f, who comest forth from Tebu, I have never stopped the flow of water of a neighbor.
36. Hail, Ahi, who comest forth from Nu, I have never raised my voice.
37. Hail, Uatch-rekhit, who comest forth from Sau, I have not cursed God.
38. Hail, Neheb-ka, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not acted with arrogance.
39. Hail, Neheb-nefert, who comest forth from thy cavern, I have not stolen the bread of the gods.
40. Hail, Tcheser-tep, who comest forth from the shrine, I have not carried away the khenfu cakes from the spirits of the dead.
41. Hail, An-af, who comest forth from Maati, I have not snatched away the bread of the child, nor treated with contempt the god of my city.
42. Hail, Hetch-abhu, who comest forth from Ta-she, I have not slain the cattle belonging to the god
I’d like to imagine Reverend Varenhorst having delivered a sermon contrasting the Ten Commandments with these.
“Song of Democracy” by Walt Whitman
An old man’s thoughts of school,
An old man’s gathering youthful memories and
blooms that youth itself cannot.
Now only do I know You, O fair auroral skies –
O morning dew upon the grass!
And these I see, these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning, these young lives,
Building, equipping like a fleet of ships, immortal ships,
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the soul’s voyage.
Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a public school?
Ah more, infinitely more.
And you America,
Cast you the real reckoning for your present?
The lights and shadows of your future, good or evil?
To girlhood, boyhood look, the teacher and the school.
Sail, Sail thy best, ship of Democracy,
Of value is thy freight, ’tis not the present only,
The Past is also stored in thee.
Thou holdest not the venture of thyself alone,
not of thy Western continent alone.
Earth’s resume entire floats on thy keel, O ship,
is steadied by thy spars,
With thee Time voyages in trust, the antecedent
nations sink or swim with thee.
With all their ancient struggles, martyrs, heroes,
epics, wars, thou bear’st the other continents,
Theirs, theirs as much as thine, the destination –
port triumphant;
Steer then with good strong hand and wary eye
O helmsman, thou carriest great companion,
Venerable priestly Asia sails this day with thee,
And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.
And royal feudal Europe sails with thee.
Ronald Olley [born 1923]
OLLEY, Owen Ronald [born 1923]
[From the Community Collection, a public trust in Agincourt, Iowa]
“War Sketch”
undated
acrylic on paper / 7.0 inches by 10.3 inches
“Sunrise Horse Ride”
undated
oil on panel / 11.3 inches by 11.1 inches
“Blitz, London”
2011
oil on panel / 7.5 inches by 9.9 inches
On the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, today, it is especially appropriate for the Community Collection to feature these three works by British nonagenarian artist Owen Ronald Olley.
Olley was born in 1923, and studied at both the Harrow Art School and the Central School, London. His father had served as a soldier throughout the First World War, and Olley joined the army in 1942, witnessing the bombing of Bath, England, before being stationed at El Alamein in Egypt, and then in Italy. As one of the last artists to paint World War II from personal experience, a significant part of his portfolio depicts battlegrounds and war-torn landscapes. While they may not have been created on the actual battlefield, they were painted using significant research and photographs, augmenting Olley’s own knowledge of the front line.¹
His work has been shown at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists, as well as in exhibitions at the Medici Gallery and at Duncan Campbell.
¹ Rachel Campbell-Johnston wrote about precisely this quality of Olley’s work inThe Times for 11 January 2014: “Ron Olley ‘paints what battle is like'”.
On the Cusp
cusp (plural cusps)
- a sharp point or pointed end.
- (figuratively) an important moment when a decision is made that will determine future events quotations ▼
- (geometry) a point of a curve where the curve is continuous but has no derivative, but such that it has a derivative at every nearby point
- (architecture) a point made by the intersection of two curved lines or curved structures. A common motif in Gothic architecture[1]
- (astrology) a boundary between zodiacal signs and houses
- (dentistry) any of the pointed parts of a canine tooth or molar
Technically, I suppose, every day is a cusp; every moment, for that matter. We are always at some point of change, which is as it should be. Astrologically, I’m a Capricorn on a cusp with Aquarius, meaning that my sun sign is influenced by the next celestial house—not that I believe in astrology, but there are a good many Capricorn characteristics I favor, and they were “mine” long before I knew what astrology was. But today my cusp-edness concerns a project that, if it is concluded successfully, will bring broad grins to many of my friends—and grimaces to a clump of others.
More to follow. Your patience will be rewarded.
Industrial Archaeology
Invoke the Industrial Revolution and place names like Pittsburgh or Toledo spring to mind. Industrial archaeology is the systematic study of what that culture shift left behind, especially interesting since we’ve passed from that era to post-industrialization. As someone barely equipped for the 19th century, the further prospects of the 21st scare the crap out of me. Happily, it won’t have to endure much more of my cantankerous disdain for venture Capitalism and an adequately trained and obedient workforce. Cynical, you say? Thank goodness the Coplay Cement Co. kilns appeared on my radar and filled me with uncharacteristic giddy delight.
These kilns were built in 1892-1893 and shut down just eleven years later, at a time when Coplay and surrounding cement producers in the Lehigh Valley of eastern Pennsylvania produced seventy-two percent of the Portland cement in the U.S. Chances are very high that an old masonry building in your vicinity is still held together (or kept apart; there are two schools of thought on the function of mortar) by a Coplay product.
I’m not certain how much longer the company survived; improved methods of production may have fossilized these titanic beauties. Because the company made them a gift to their community in 1975 as an industrial heritage park, one which I would gladly have visited, had I know its existence. Let it not be said that “The American Century” had not been fueled with a fusion of invention, innovation, and a substantial quantity of chutzpah.
My regret, of course, is that Agincourt won’t have had anything comparable in its history to compete with the Coplay kilns. But I’m working on it. These (or something similar) would much more likely have shown up in Mason City.