3/12/2009
48
Aegypt: The Rubbing
Paul
shook his head again. Was he imagining these figures? He stared
again. No, their outlines were clear; he traced them easily in the
design. Paul sat back at his desk, and squinting at the rubbing
on the door, he drew the symbols carefully in his notebook.
Osiris
was the Egyptian god of the dead and death. The determinate
showed Osiris, that is, death going away. “Death going
away,” Paul whispered. It didn’t make sense. The second set of
symbols was not as easy to understand. Ra. What did Ra represent—the
sun? Not light. No, not light, but warmth, the breath
from a man’s nostrils, the essence of life itself. Not just light,
but life. Ra was life. The determinate indicated “moving toward”—in
other words, coming.
“Life coming,” Paul spoke
aloud. Perhaps put together the symbols meant: death is going
away; life is coming.