S6E6 TEMPLE SPRING TRANSLATIONS

It is getting harder to translate the background hieroglyphs. They are shown quickly or they are grainy in screen caps. But last night we saw on the stairs leading down to the spring a set of glyphs, which one would assume, have reference to the spring's healing powers or temple rituals.

Six steps were shown after Sayid had killed Dogen by drowning him. The face on the first two steps closest to the water are blank. (Was the spring's water level significantly higher in the past?) As with the temple hallway translations, there are some mixed glyphs, with rough surfaces, faint lines or missing pieces. On the fourth step, there was a clear chip that almost obliterates the symbol. Then I remembered a recent documentary on Discovery Channel which showed that some Pharaohs used to chisel out their predecessors name off tomb inscriptions, as a way of eliminating them from history or the after life. No more than in trying to find some coherent meaning for Step #4 below. The idea of temple successors trashing the symbols in a sacred area like the spring makes sense since I postulated that the Others did not seem to be an Egyptian priest order, more like nomadic pagans, than spiritual worshippers.
Since translation of this type is more an art than a dictionary reading, these translations used more speculative reference to the temple spring as a theme to be presented by each step going down towards the water's edge:

Top step (#6):
CONTAIN (YOUR) MEDICAL CONDITION. ??? (possibly Speak?) LIVING GOD (?)

Next step down (#5):
YOUR HEALTH

Next step (#4):
KEBECHET USE HATHOR'S POWER (IN) KA OFFERING (FOR) PTAH'S PROTECTION.

Next step (#3):
MY KA GIVES MY BA

There are multiple symbols for reeds on the steps. The double reed symbolizes "I, me, my." If cross hatched together, it could mean "victim." If drawn with a rolled top, it could be a feather, which could be a symbol for Maat, the goddess of truth and order, a funeral deity at the judgment rites.

The snake (with stars) represents Kebechet, a deity of embalming liquids. Her name is "cooling water" who would refresh and purify waters. It was told that she was the child of Anubis, an underworld protector of souls and tombs. Kebechet would fortify the body against corruption so it would stay fresh for reanimation with the deceased's ka (soul).

When Sayid was near death and he was placed in the dirty spring waters, it could have been both a purification rite or an embalming ritual. When Miles said Sayid laid dead for three hours in the temple (without bloating from decomposition), then the embalming liquid of the spring did its job, holding the physical body in a condition where Sayid's ka (soul) could re-enter. Where Sayid's soul was for the three hours of limbo is unknown. Dogen believed that Sayid had become "infected" and claimed by the darkness (evil).

But the corruption could have been as a result of step #4 chip away of the symbol for Ptah, which is a column crowned by cords of grain. I learned last week that Ptah was the creator being who called the world into being, having dreamt creation in his heart, which created the world from submerged land and then he created Atum to rule over creation. Other interpretations of Ptah symbol include "open" "opener" "risen land" or "release sail." Other meaning on the p include "support," "base," "bird," "these," and "jug." It could mean that three different "peas" are represented in the sentence. However, in the context of the possible words on step 4, Ptah seems to make the most sense.

There was also a possible reference to Hathor in an incomplete symbol for necklace. Hathor is one of the most ancient Egyptian goddesses. She was known as "the Great One of Many Names" and her titles and attributes are so numerous that she was important in every area of the life and death of the ancient Egyptians. She protected and assisted the dead on their final journey. Trees were not commonplace in ancient Egypt, and their shade was welcomed by the living and the dead alike. She was sometimes depicted as handing out water to the deceased from a sycamore tree (a role formerly associated with Amentet who was often described as the daughter of Hathor) and according to myth, she (or Isis) used the milk from the Sycamore tree to restore sight to Horus who had been blinded by Set.

Because of her role in helping the dead, she often appears on sarcophagi with Nut (the former on top of the lid, the later under the lid). She occasionally took the form of the "Seven Hathors" who were associated with fate and fortune telling. It was thought that the "Seven Hathors" knew the length of every childs life from the day it was born and questioned the dead souls as they travelled to the land of the dead. Her priests could read the fortune of a newborn child, and act as oracles to explain the dreams of the people. People would travel for miles to beseech the goddess for protection, assistance and inspiration.

However, she was also a goddess of destruction in her role as the Eye of Ra - defender of the sun god. According to legend, people started to criticise Ra when he ruled as Pharaoh. Ra decided to send his "eye" against them (in the form of Sekhmet). She began to slaughter people by the hundred. When Ra relented and asked her to stop she refused as she was in a blood lust. The only way to stop the slaughter was to colour beer red (to resemble blood) and pour the mixture over the killing fields. When she drank the beer, she became drunk and drowsy, and slept for three days. When she awoke with a hangover she had no taste for human flesh and mankind was saved. Ra renamed her Hathor and she became a goddess of love and happiness. As a result, soldiers also prayed to Hathor/Sekhmet to give them her strength and focus in battle.

So Hathor's power could be to re-fresh the souls of the dead during their time in the afterlife or ask for protection as the defender of Ra, the sun god, who had guards during his nightly journey through the underworld.

A person's "ka" is their human soul, while the ba is the underworld soul, a human's spirit aspect that survives after death. The Ka was the Egyptian concept of spiritual essence, that which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the ka left the body.

The '"ba" is in some regards the closest to the contemporary Western religious notion of a soul, but it also was everything that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of 'personality'. Like a soul, the ba is an aspect of a person that the Egyptians believed would live after the body died, and it is sometimes depicted as a human-headed bird flying out of the tomb to join with the ka in the afterlife.

If the spring had been conquered by non-Egyptian followers, or by those who corrupted the religion for their own purposes, Step 4's prayer for protection of Ptah, but by removing the ancient gods from the equation, could mean that the spring's ritual has been transformed from an offering of a human soul for protection into one for corruption.

Such an interpretation would mean that the ancient Egyptian magical powers have been corrupted or taken for misuse by conquering non-believers (such as the real history of war and conquest of nations for Egypt). Dogen as temple master was not the keeper of the true intents of the Egyptian ways, but as a master of the secondary corrupt ways of not giving souls rebirth in the temple waters but to corrupt them for the Others/Jacob's purposes. This theory could be some justification for those who think MIB may not be "evil" per se, or that Jacob is just as "evil" as MIB when it comes to corrupting, taking or manipulating human souls. It is all a matter of overall context: Satan would call Gabriel's angel's "evil and corrupt" for keeping him locked up in the pit of Hell for an eternity just as angels would call Satan "evil and corrupt" for trying to overthrow the Heavens.