Talk:Seshat

message: I have just removed an image of a shabti box which claimed to contain an image of the hieroglyph which represents Seshat (Gardiner sign list reference R20 and R21).
In actual fact it is the hieroglyph of a sail (Gardiner sign list reference P5) and it is part of the name of the owner of the shabti : Henut Mehyt Tjaw ("Mistress of the North Wind").
Yaqubhor (talk) 22:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 15:38, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shabti box 

message: From http://wikoweedia.com/seshat.html is this: 
:"The ancient Egyptian goddess Seshat (above in her role as the Goddess who measures) is depicted with a hemp leaf in her head dress. Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1479 to 1425 B.C.E.) called her Sefkhet-Abwy (She of the seven points). Hemp was used to make measuring cords. Seshat was the goddess of libraries, knowledge, and geomancy, among other things. Spell 10 of the Coffin text states “Seshat opens the door of heaven for you”. Cannabis pollen was found on the mummy of Ramses II (nineteenth dynasty). Initially scholars debated as to whether the cannabis pollen was ancient or modern contamination. Additional research showed cannabis pollen in all known royal mummies. No known ancient Egyptian mummies were wrapped in hemp cloth.
I need to find the original sources for this info. But it looks less and less to me like we are talking about papyrus above her head. I have yet to find a source for it being papyrus. 
From http://www.touregypt.net/godsofegypt/sefkhetabwy.htm is this: 
:Sefkhet-Abwy was a goddess of writing, as well as temple libraries, of which there were many in ancient Egypt. Her name means the seven-horned and she wears on her head the symbol of a seven-pointed star below an indented arc which could represent a bow. She first appears during the reign of Tuthmosis III during Egypt's 18th Dynasty, and seems to have been little more than a version of Seshat. her role was to be present at the temple foundation ceremony of "stretching the cord", where the monarch (theoretically) measures out the extent of the precinct. The goddess also figures among the deities responsible for writing the name of the pharaoh on the leaves of the sacred tree.
Again, a cord, not a papyrus reed. Why would one write on a cord or reed? It looks more like she is counting the number of knots in a cord in some type of measuring and/or ceremony. See: knotted cord and rope stretcher. 
From the 2005 book The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West is this: 
:She was shown holding a notched palm branch (suggesting years or the measurement of time), and she had responsibility for recording all sorts of data. 
From Huh (god): 
:The other common representation depicts him crouching, holding a palm stem in each hand (or just one), sometimes with a palm stem in his hair, as palm stems represented long life to the Egyptians, the years being represented by notches on it. Depictions of this form also had a shen ring at the base of each palm stem, which represented infinity. Depictions of Huh were also used in hieroglyphs to represent one million, which was essentially considered equivalent to infinity in Egyptian mathematics. Thus this deity is also known as the 'god of millions of years'."
From http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/foundation.htm - Egypt: The Foundation Ceremony For Ancient Egyptian Religious Buildings. 
:The first of these rituals became, over time, the most important. Known as pedj-shes, or "stretching the cord", it was of such importance that the whole ceremony, or at least that section leading up to actual construction, was called by the same name. The reason this rite was so important was that it aligned the whole temple by careful astronomical observation and measurement. This was probably done by sighting northern circumpolar stars through a notched stick called a merkhet. 
From Palm branch (symbol)
:Palm stems represented long life to the Ancient Egyptians, and the god Huh was often shown holding a palm stem in one or both hands.
From Ancient Egypt; Foundation Rituals. Stretching the cord:
:"Stretching the cord" ("pedj-shes") was one of the most important elements of the whole foundation ritual. Its importance was such that in later times the entire ritual up to the point of construction was known as "pedj-shes". From as early as the Second dynasty the ceremony was closely associated with the goddess Seshat, "Mistress of the House of Architects". The "cord" in question is the mason´s line which was used to measure out the dimensions of the building and align the building with the stars or points of the compass.
:This stage ritual had three distinct phases; marking out the four corners of the building (at night), "stretching the cord" (driving stakes into the four corners and tying the cord to link them), loosening the cord (so that it slipped down the stakes and lay on the ground marking the limits of the building)
:It is often noted that the Ancient Egyptians were incredibly accurate in the laying of foundations and the orientation of their buildings. It is thought that they used a tool known as a "merket", a notched stick though which the constellation of the Great Bear could be viewed to enable the builders to calculate the position of true north and so to align their buildings accurately.
::"I hold the peg. I grasp the handle of the club and grip the measuring cord with Seshat. I turn my eyes to the movements of the stars. I send forth my gaze to the Bull´s thigh (the Great Bear). I count off time, I watch the clock, I establish the four corners of your temple."
::- Words spoken by the Pharaoh, from an inscription at Edfu temple 
The Temple of Edfu was built between between 237 and 57 BCE. This was long after Pharaoh Tuthmosis III (1479 to 1425 B.C.E.) and his name for Seshat: Sefkhet-Abwy. See farther up in this talk section.
Claims of Seshat having a papyrus plant above her head are questionable. I think it is more likely that the stretching of the cord, was based on a knotted hemp cord. That knotted cord looks like its knots were incorporated into the merkhet in the Seshat sculpture. That became symbolic of measurement in general including measuring time, years of the Pharaoh, eternity, heaven, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The only reference that I can find on this subject indicates that the emblem's identity is unknown. I changed the article to reflect that. Until somebody can find a reliable source that identifies it, all this is speculation. (The only detailed source I know on Seshat, by the way, is Die Goettin Seschat, Wodtke und Stegbauer, by Dagmar Budde. Anybody around here read German?) A. Parrot (talk) 18:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sefkhet-Abwy, knotted cord, notched palm branch, merkhet, and door of heaven