Listening to your other recent episodes on the Aten/Akhenaten (same thing?) you made a comment about what's commonly referred to as the 'sun disc' actually being a globe. Beyond the obvious that most hieroglyphs are 2D representations of 3D items, surely this relief (and others, I assume) shows a depth to the Aten (and the rest of the Trinity) that tries to capture that extra dimension as far as the medium allows. After all, if the Aten was truly meant to be flat, why portray it as otherwise, when to show it raysed would be more complicated and time-consuming? (No apologies for the pun.)
Even before seeing this, I also made an intuitive leap, which while maybe unsupported by any direct evidence, at least has a reasoned logic to it. Thinking about Khepri, who helps the sun to move, what would that look like in the physical world? To quote Wikipedia: "This mirrors the manner in which a scarab beetle pushes large *balls* of dung along the ground" (my emphasis). Aside from point A above, surely the Ancient Egyptians who would've been intimately aware of this process as a part of daily life, would automatically think of it when seeing depictions of Khepri and, by extension, any image of the sun. It's just unfortunate that there aren't any around to ask.
Listening to your other recent episodes on the Aten/Akhenaten (same thing?) you made a comment about what's commonly referred to as the 'sun disc' actually being a globe. Beyond the obvious that most hieroglyphs are 2D representations of 3D items, surely this relief (and others, I assume) shows a depth to the Aten (and the rest of the Trinity) that tries to capture that extra dimension as far as the medium allows. After all, if the Aten was truly meant to be flat, why portray it as otherwise, when to show it raysed would be more complicated and time-consuming? (No apologies for the pun.)
Even before seeing this, I also made an intuitive leap, which while maybe unsupported by any direct evidence, at least has a reasoned logic to it. Thinking about Khepri, who helps the sun to move, what would that look like in the physical world? To quote Wikipedia: "This mirrors the manner in which a scarab beetle pushes large *balls* of dung along the ground" (my emphasis). Aside from point A above, surely the Ancient Egyptians who would've been intimately aware of this process as a part of daily life, would automatically think of it when seeing depictions of Khepri and, by extension, any image of the sun. It's just unfortunate that there aren't any around to ask.
Agree on both counts! The dung beetle pushes a ball! The sun is a ball! Egyptologist Bill Murnane insisted on translating the Aten as the Orb. :)
Love your article. And it is a great topic, I think your questions and focus on this topic were spot on. Thanks for sharing