Ziborova TIME-ETERNITY: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TEMPORAL CONCEPT IN THE CONTEXT OF ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

TIME-ETERNITY: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN TEMPORAL CONCEPT IN THE CONTEXT OF ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

D. A. Ziborova

PhD (Philosophy) V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University 4, Svobody Sq., Kharkiv, 61022, Ukraine ziborova.daria@gmail.com

The article is devoted to ancient Egyptians temporal categories: nHH (neheh) and Dt (djet) and their comparison with the tradition of ancient Greek philosophy. It is shown that these terms can be defined as time-eternity. Attention is focused on the definition of the term nHH as associated with the solar god and the cyclic movement, infinite duration of recovery and cyclic length, and term Dt as the eternity associated with Osiris, the other world of the dead, imperishableness, constancy and “eternal sameness”. Bilingual inscriptions of the Hellenistic age show that Dt was translated as both αἰών and χρόνος, depending on the context. Yet, in the king’s name in the Rosetta Stone decree Dt is invariably translated as αἰών; thus, considering the formal character and the significance of the context, it can be regarded as the main way of translation. The pair of concepts nHH and Dt cannot be adequately conceptualized in terms of European philosophy, but one can find parallels to their semantics in Plato’s opposition of αἰών and χρόνος. Plato’s concept is unique and not typical for the previous tradition, in Timaeus he defines time (χρόνος) as a “movable image of eternity” (αἰών) (37 d). While χρόνος is associated with the sky and the movement of celestial bodies, which happens in accordance with numbers, and with cyclic return, αἰών is regarded as the prototype and the eternity beyond the boundaries of time, belonging to the divine world. According to Plato, the αἰών eternity is the fullness of the existence of God, unchanging and perfect, and the χρόνος time is a dynamic reflection of eternity in the human world. A certain semantic proximity of those pairs enables us to correlate Dt with αἰών and nHH with χρόνος. The semantic parallels described above give way for a deeper understanding of the ancient Egyptian and Greek terms.

Keywords: Ancient Egyptian temporal concept, ancient Greek philosophy of time, Plato, Timaeus, time, eternity, neheh, djet, chronos, aion

Preislamic Near East 2021, (2):79-88

https://doi.org/10.15407/preislamic2021.02.079

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