It was said (in the Shabaka Stone) that it was Ptah who called the world into being, having dreamt creation in his heart, and speaking it, his name meaning ''opener'', in the sense of ''opener of the mouth''. Indeed the opening of the mouth ceremony, performed by priests at funerals to release souls from their corpses, was said to have been created by Ptah. Atum was said to have been created by Ptah to rule over the creation, sitting upon the primordial mound.

In art, he is portrayed as a bearded mummified man, often wearing a skull cap, with his hands holding an ankh, was, and djed, the symbols of life, power and stability, respectively. It was also considered that Ptah manifested himself in the Apis bull. He may have originally been a fertility god because of this.

Since Ptah was the primordial mound, and had called creation into being, he was considered the god of craftsmen, and in particular stone-based crafts. Eventually, due to the connection of these things to tombs, and that at Thebes, the craftsmen regarded him so highly as to say that he controlled their destiny. Consequently, first amongst the craftsmen, then the population as a whole, Ptah also became a god of regeneration. Since Seker was also god of craftsmen, and of regeneration of the sun during the night, Seker was later assimilated with Ptah becoming Ptah-Seker.

Consequently, Ptah-Seker became considered an underworld deity, and eventually, by the Middle Kingdom, become assimilated by Osiris, the lord of the underworld, occasionally being known as ''Ptah-Seker-Osiris''.

Legacy

Literature

References

Category:Arts gods Category:Creator gods Category:Crafts gods Category:Solar gods Category:Underworld gods Category:Egyptian gods Category:Primordial teachers

Alice Coltrane, née McLeod (August 27, 1937 – January 12, 2007) was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.

Biography

After her husband's death she continued to play with her own groups, later including her children, moving into more and more meditative music. She was one of the few harpists in the history of jazz and recorded many albums as a bandleader. Her essential recordings were made in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! Records.

Coltrane was a devotee of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba. In 1972, she moved to California, where she established the Vedantic Center in 1975. By the late 1970s she had changed her name to Turiyasangitananda. Coltrane was the spiritual director, or swamini, of Shanti Anantam Ashram (later renamed Sai Anantam Ashram in Chumash Pradesh) which the Vedantic Center established in 1983 near Malibu, California. On rare occasions, she continued to perform publicly under the name Alice Coltrane.

The 1990s saw renewed interest in her work, which led to the release of the compilation ''Astral Meditations'', and in 2004 she released her comeback album ''Translinear Light''. Following a twenty-five-year break from major public performances, she returned to the stage for three U.S. appearances in the fall of 2006, culminating on November 4 with a concert in San Francisco with her son Ravi, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist Charlie Haden.

In 1994, Coltrane appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic in African American society was named "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine.

Alice Coltrane died of respiratory failure at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in suburban Los Angeles. She is buried alongside her late husband John Coltrane in Pinelawn Memorial Park, Farmingdale, Suffolk County, New York.

Paul Weller dedicated his song "Song For Alice (Dedicated to the Beautiful Legacy of Mrs. Coltrane)," from his album ''22 Dreams'', to Coltrane; the track entitled "Alice" on Sunn O)))'s 2009 album ''Monoliths & Dimensions'' was similarly inspired. Electronic musician Flying Lotus is the nephew of Alice Coltrane.

Discography

As a sideperson:

References

External links

Category:1937 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Avant-garde jazz musicians Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:African American female musicians Category:American jazz harpists Category:American jazz pianists Category:Modal jazz pianists Category:American jazz organists Category:American Hindus Category:Converts to Hinduism Category:Followers of Sathya Sai Baba Category:Women in jazz Category:Deaths from respiratory failure Category:John Coltrane Category:Impulse! Records artists Category:Warner Bros. Records artists

Course of Empire was an Alternative / post-punk band based in Dallas, Texas.

Biography

Song topics were initially of a more political and environmental stance (the name Course of Empire having come from a 5-piece series by 19th Century painter Thomas Cole). Later, the lyrical content would take on topics related to conspiracy theories and the personal quest of spirituality.

They released three studio albums over their ten year existence: one on the Dallas label Carpe Diem, one with Zoo Entertainment, and one with TVT Records. Additionally, they toured with industrial-metal groups such as Prong, Sister Machine Gun, Stabbing Westward, Young Gods and many others. The band's first two albums established the group's sound: precise, driving drums overlaid with heavy industrial guitars and hard-edged vocals. However, the group refused to conform to any particular genre, incorporating elements of Eastern and Middle Eastern music, tabla drumming, and electronic music into their songs. As film students at Southern Methodist University, members of the band used their knowledge to infuse their songs with references to the environment, culture and the effects of humankind on the planet.

The band released their first single/EP, ''Infested'', ahead of the ''Initiation'' album in 1993. The single featured two new songs, ''Joy'' and ''Let's Have A War'' (a cover of a song by Fear (band)), as well as a "Darwin Goodman" remix of ''Infested'' -- Darwin from naturalist/evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin, and Goodman from legendary big band clarinetist Benny Goodman. The remix sampled Goodman's performance of swinger Louis Prima's big band standard Sing, Sing, Sing and featured a different, swing-inspired drumbeat.

In 1995, producer John Fryer (Nine Inch Nails, Gravity Kills) was tapped to produce their third record, ''Telepathic Last Words'', as it featured more electronic-edged material. Soon after, the band found support in Dallas radio icon Redbeard who promoted the album weeks ahead of release on Dallas radio station Q102, including heavy airplay of ''New Maps'', which was scheduled to be the lead single from ''Telepathic Last Words''. Unfortunately, the Zoo record label folded in July 1996, just one month before the album was due to be released.

TVT Records signed the band by December 1996 after working out the licensing terms with BMG for the rights to ''Telepathic Last Words'' and the previous ''Initiation'' record. At TVT's request, the band recorded additional tracks with drummer Chad Lovell as producer. The new tracks were mixed in Hollywood at Larrabee Studios North with Dave Bianco at the helm. Some previous tracks were also remixed by Bianco. ''Telepathic Last Words'', originally mastered by Bob Ludwig for the Zoo release, was re-mastered by Howie Weinberg in September 1997 and was finally released in January 1998, almost two years after its original completion. As part of the new deal, the scheduled national lead single was changed from ''New Maps'' to ''The Information''. The band received favorable press in the form of a two-page cover story in a local alternative weekly newsmagazine, the Dallas Observer, as well as mentions in Spin (magazine) and trade publications. However, a lack of promotion by the record company prevented the song from seeing a wide release on modern-rock playlists across the United States. ''The Information'' was picked up by local Dallas alternative-rock station Q102 (KTXQ) after the success of ''New Maps'' on Redbeard's show but failed to gain traction and was dropped from the playlist by 1998. Plans to release either ''Persian Song'' or the newly re-recorded version of ''Coming of the Century'' as singles did not come to fruition.

One track from ''Telepathic Last Words'', ''The Information'', was included on the soundtrack for the film Dark City. A music video was also produced featuring scenes from the movie and was aired on MTV at the time of the movie's premiere. The band toured with Rob Halford's ill-fated "Two" project along with John 5 of Marilyn Manson fame, and also opened for The Sisters of Mercy in L.A. that spring.

The group disbanded after ten years together over frustration with management, booking, and lack of a proper A&R; rep. The final show, played in July 1998 at Trees in the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, Texas, drew a vibrant, energetic group of fans determined to give a lively send-off to their favorite band. After the crowd had been pumped up by local opening acts Caulk and Doosu, Course of Empire took the stage and electrified the audience by performing some of their earlier songs, including most of the ''Initiation'' album, instead of concentrating on the new material from ''Telepathic Last Words''.

After the group split in 1998, drummer Michael Jerome and guitarist Mike Graff collaborated with Van Eric Martin to form the group Halls of the Machine who released their debut album, Atmospheres for Lovers and Sleepers, in 2001.

In 2004, Mike Graff and Martin Baird at Verge Music Works recording studio mixed the still-existing 24 tracks of the final performance at Trees in Dallas, TX from 1998 and personally financed and self released the tracks, titled ''Phone Calls From the Dead''. The group's website, courseofempire.com, currently offers all of their major releases as downloads in MP3 format free of charge, and the band also maintains a Myspace page under "Course of Empire".

Group Members

Other performing members: Dave Abbruzzese (drums) Kyle Thomas (drums)

Discography

Albums

Other Releases

Singles and EPs

Connections

Notes and references

External links

Biography

"During the later years of his life, (from about 1870 onwards) Massey became interested increasingly in Egyptology and the similarities that exist between ancient Egyptian mythology and the Gospel stories. He studied the extensive Egyptian records housed in the British Museum, eventually teaching himself to decipher the hieroglyphics."

Writing career

Many years afterward in 1889, Massey collected the best of the contents of these volumes, with additions, into a two-volume edition of his poems called ''My Lyrical Life''. He also published works dealing with Spiritualism, the study of Shakespeare's sonnets (1872 and 1890), and theological speculation. It is generally understood that he was the original of George Eliot's Felix Holt.

Massey's poetry has a certain rough and vigorous element of sincerity and strength which easily accounts for its popularity at the time of its production. He treated the theme of Sir Richard Grenville before Tennyson thought of using it, with much force and vitality. Indeed, Tennyson's own praise of Massey's work is still its best eulogy, for the Laureate found in him a poet of fine lyrical impulse, and of a rich half-Oriental imagination. The inspiration of his poetry is essentially British; he was a patriot to the core. His poem "The Merry, Merry May" was set to music in a popular song by composer Christabel Baxendale.

In regard to Egyptology, Massey first published ''The Book of the Beginnings'', followed by ''The Natural Genesis''. His most prolific work is ''Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World'', published shortly before his death. His work, which draws comparisons between the Judeo-Christian religion and the Egyptian religion, is not considered significant in the field of modern Egyptology and is not mentioned in the ''Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt'' or similar reference works of modern Egyptology.

Claimed parallels between Horus and Jesus

Some of the similarities that Massey claimed existed are that they both

#Were born of virgins on December 25 #Taught in a temple as a child at age 12 #Were teachers who had 12 Disciples #Were baptized in a river #Gave a sermon on the mount #Healed the sick #Raised men from the dead (El-Asar-Us for Horus, Lazarus for Jesus) #Died by crucifixion #Were resurrected three days later. At the same time, most contemporary Egyptologists believe these parallels are not true and pseudo-scientific. In particular they point out that, among the sourses make no mention of these facts in the life of Horus, and the celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25 was chosen for political reasons and was never claimed to be the actual date of his birth.. However, W. Ward Gasque conducted a world-wide pole of twenty leading Egyptologists - including Professor Kenneth Kitchen of the University of Liverpool and Ron Leprohan, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto- in Canada, USA, UK, Australia, Germany, and Austria to verify if there was any academic support for these claims. The scholars were unanimous in dismissing the claimed parallels. One scholar, who called it "fringe nonsense", also cautioned that "[e]gyptology has the unenviable distinction of being one of those disciplines that almost anyone can lay claim to, and the unfortunate distinction of being probably the one ''most beleaguered by false prophets''.".

See also

References

External links

Category:1828 births Category:1907 deaths Category:English poets Category:Chartists Category:English socialists Category:Christ myth

The building consists of 6 small gateways, built close together. The first (to the west) was erected by the Ptolemies. The subsequent gates date from the Eighteenth Dynasty, the first by Hatshepsut, the rest by Thutmose III.

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