The story of “Strawberry Fields Forever” is more or less the story in miniature of the Beatles’ reinvention after they swore off touring in 1966 and disappeared into the studio to make their most innovative albums. It was not, as some Beatles fans might remember, an easy transition right away. Some of their fans, it turned out, were fickle, easily swayed by gossip as the latest TV trends. “While unsubstantiated break-up rumors swirled, some music fans became disenchanted with the group,” writes Ultimate Classic Rock. “You need only watch a 1967 clip from American Bandstand to see how many teenagers in the audience thought the Beatles were has-beens.”
Eager to get something out and fight the whims of fashion, Parlophone and Capitol both released John Lennon’s latest, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” with Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane” as the B-side, in 1967. Since the band no longer toured, they were “directed to make film clips to accompany each song and promote the single.”
Here, they debuted their new psychedelic look, and in the singles they demonstrated the new direction their music would go. Thematically, both songs are nostalgic trips through childhood, with Lennon taking a mystical, psych-rock approach and McCartney diving headlong into his sentimental music hall ambitions.
“Strawberry Fields Forever” also firmly established the band as studio wizards, thanks to the wizardry, primarily, of George Martin. In the video at the top from You Can’t Unhear This, we learn just what a marvel—as a technical achievement—the band’s new single was at the time, containing “the craziest edit in Beatles history.” The song itself went through a very lengthy gestation period, as Colin Fleming details in Rolling Stone, from sketchy, ghostly early acoustic demoes called “It’s Not Too Bad” (below) to the wild cacophony of crashing rhythms and looping melodies it would become.
Recording take after take, the band spent 55 hours in the studio working on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Nothing seemed to satisfy Lennon, though he was leaning toward a darker, heavier take, Fleming notes:
This was a version approaching proto-metal. Lennon couldn’t decide if he wanted to go the ethereal route, or the stomping one, and famously told George Martin to combine the two versions. This was less than practical.
“Well, there are two things against it,” Martin informed Lennon. “One is that they’re in different keys. The other is that they’re in different tempos.”
But for a man who had started his most personal, honest musical journey, within the parameters of a single song, back in Spain, this was merely part of the process.
“You can fix it, George,” Lennon concluded, and that was that, with Martin now tasked with finding a solution to a problem that seemingly violated the laws of musical physics.
Martin’s solution involved slowing one version down and speeding up the other until they were close enough in pitch that “only a musicologist, really, would know that there was that much of a difference,” Fleming writes. Speeding up and slowing down tracks was common practice in the studio, and is today, but given the incredible number of instruments and amount of overdubbing that went into making “Strawberry Fields,” the endeavor defied the logic of what was technologically possible at the time.
While the time spent on the song might seem extravagant, we should consider that these days bands can pluck the sounds they want, whatever they are, from pull-down menus, and splice anything together in a matter of minutes. In the mid-60s, Brian Jones, Brian Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and other studio pioneers dreamed up sounds no one had heard before, and brought together instrumentation that had never shared space in a mix. Producers and engineers like Martin had to invent the techniques to make those new sounds come together on tape. Learning the ins-and-outs of how Martin did it can give even the most die-hard Beatles fans renewed appreciation for songs as widely beloved as “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
I have never thought that as a retired man being so busy as I haven’t been before. That is and means being a grandpa!
Oh yes; excitement is the order of these days, the first; queen Mila is on our board; with grandma & pa because the second one; the king (or the Lord on the side of the queen, the name has not been chosen yet) is on the way to step (or shout out) on this earth.
so then it’s announced many sleepless nights and heart-beats, till all gonna be well. we can just hope.
PS: Since last Saturday, I am writing (trying 😛) to finish these some words but I have a feeling that I’m getting old(er)! today I (thought) I have an appointment with my gum surgery to finish my implant but it came out that I have messed up the day and the appointment was yesterday 😮😩
I was shocked when I found it out and now try not to become depressed.
Anyway, I try to give my best. Have a good rest of the week and stay safe dear friends🙏💖✌
The “Nefer” (Good, Beauty, Pleasant, Well) is a prefix which had been used several times for the Egyptian queens, therefore, we must not mix them together. There are many beautiful Queens in ancient Egypt; “Queen Nefertari—not to be confused with Nefertiti, the powerful queen who ruled alongside her husband, King Akhenaten, in the mid-14th century B.C.—was the first and favoured wife of Ramses II, the warrior pharaoh who reigned from 1290 to 1224 B.C., during the early 19th dynasty.” https://www.history.com/news/archaeologists-identify-mummified-legs-as-queen-nefertaris
Here is another great article by Marie Grillot about finding a fetching artefact, among the others, the Pillar-djed amulet. 🙏💖🙏
Pillar-djed amulet Wood covered with cloisonne gold leaf, with glass paste inlay – New Empire – 19th dynasty From the Tomb of Nefertari – QV / VdR 66 – discovered in 1904 by the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini Egyptian Museum of Turin – S. 5163
It is to the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin, directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini, that we owe, in 1904, the discovery of the tomb of Nefertari, great wife of the pharaoh Ramses II; dazzlingly beautiful, it was adorned with eloquent titles. But the door which was to protect the abode of eternity – referenced QV / VdR 66 – from that which at Court was called “The most beautiful of all” had been opened, a sign of pillage from antiquity.
The tomb of Nefertari (QV / VdR 66) during its discovery by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini of the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin, in 1904
“Cuttings had slipped, entered the first room and this filling almost reached the ceiling,” notes Schiaparelli. The ground of the tomb is entirely covered with solidified mud… Of the fabulous and royal treasure which it must have sheltered, there remain only “rare objects, in the middle of torn shrouds, everything showed to what extent the rape and the rampage had been systematic “. The looters left only “scarabs, fragments of the cover of the granite sarcophagus, and fragments of a coffin cover in gilded wood. Thirty “chaouabtis “(or ” shaouabtis “, ” chabtis “, “shabtis)., many shards of pottery … One of the niches kept for the magic bricks in the funerary chamber contained the partitioned wooden pillar-djed with an inlay of glass paste which had, one day, decorated the brick. It is inscribed in the name of Queen Nefertari… Finally to finish, humble but moving object abandoned by the looters, a pair of rope sandals… “
Pillar-djed amulet Wood covered with cloisonne gold leaf, with glass paste inlay – New Empire – 19th dynasty From the Tomb of Nefertari – QV / VdR 66 – discovered in 1904 by the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini Egyptian Museum of Turin – S. 5163
In “Nefertari, For Whom The Sun Rises”, Valeria Ornano describes the queen’s djed amulet as follows: “The front of the wooden object is 13 centimetres long and is covered with gold leaf with inlays in the blue glassy paste, while the back is painted yellow with red decorations and bears a touching engraving: “Osiris, the great royal wife, his beloved, just like Re”. It is quite possible that the other three niches contained similar objects, possibly related to Isis as she is depicted on the walls of the same tomb. These amulets were used to provide magical protection for Nefertari during his regeneration. “
Djed painted on one of the pillars of the sarcophagus room of the tomb of Nefertari (QV / VdR 66) discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini (Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin) in 1904
The pillar-djed, symbol of stability is the Osirian amulet par excellence. In “Ancient Egypt and its gods”, Jean-Pierre Corteggiani devotes a long development to him, here is a short extract: “this pillar with the foot as flared as the head, surmounted above multiple ligatures, by four elements dishes which seem to fit one inside the other, was assimilated to the backbone of Osiris: this is what the ‘Formula of the pillar-djed in gold’ indicates… of chapter 155 of the Book of the Dead where it is specified that any deceased buried with this amulet suspended from the neck by sycamore fibre is guaranteed to be ‘an eminent blessed in the empire of the dead’ and this is what makes it a symbol conferring stability and duration, notions expressed in Egyptian by the corresponding hieroglyphic sign. “
Pillar-djed amulet Wood covered with cloisonne gold leaf, with glass paste inlay – New Empire – 19th dynasty From the Tomb of Nefertari – QV / VdR 66 – discovered in 1904 by the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini Egyptian Museum of Turin – S. 5163
The Guide to the Museo Egizio in Turin, where the Nefertari pillar-djed is exhibited under the reference S. 5163, specifies that this is: “the only survivor of the four amulets linked to what we call the ‘magic bricks’, ritually arranged at the four corners of the golden room to protect the deceased “.
In BIFAO 112, Elka Koleva-Ivanov studies this funeral ritual of “magic bricks” or “sacred bricks” linked to Osiris: “According to chapter 137A of the Book of the Dead, on the western brick must be placed a pillar-djed which is an Osirian object and on the eastern brick, the figurine of Anubis which is closely associated with the protection of the dead god. Similarly, according to this text, the magic brick must be made in sjn wȝḏ, which designates the raw clay, but also green clay, the Osirian colour par excellence “; the other two bricks being: “to the south – the one with the torch and to the north – the brick carrying the mummy figurine”.
Remains of the funeral furniture of Queen Nefertari from her grave (QV / VdR 66) discovery by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini of the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin, in 1904 exhibited at the Turin Museum
It is clear that the bricks did not succeed in preserving the queen … In his “Nefertari the Lover of Mut”, Christian Leblanc returns to the desecration of the tomb: “The burial unsealed by looters was not burnt down, but the queen’s funeral furniture was largely taken away. The open pink granite sarcophagus allowed thieves to get their hands on the most precious objects: gold and gilded coffins, jewellery and amulets, which were easily transformable or exchangeable on the market where large traffic arises. The chests, baskets, chairs and beds which had to appear among the pieces of equipment put at the disposal of the sovereign in her eternal home, were undoubtedly dismantled then recovered, along with the contents of the jars and containers. “
Nefertari represented in his tomb – Valley of the Queens – QV / VdR 66 discovery by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini of the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin in 1904
As for Nefertari whose representations, whether painted or of stone, delight our eyes, it is infinitely sad to report that, of his mummy, only the two knees have been found. After the plundering at the end of the New Kingdom, was it restored and sheltered in a royal hiding place, similar to the DB 320? If that were the case, hope would then be allowed to see the beautiful sovereign one day …
Nefertari, ‘the beloved de Mut’ Christian Leblanc, Editions du Rocher 1999The queens of the Nile. Library Rarities, Christian Leblanc, Paris, 2009Nefertari, For Whom The Sun Rises, Valeria OrnanoOsiris and sacred bricks BIFAO 112 (2012), p. 215-224 Elka Koleva-Ivanovhttps://www.ifao.egnet.net/bifao/112/15/
12 Egyptian queens who changed history, Pierre TalletThe secret discoveries, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt Editions Telemachus, 2006The great nubiade or the journey of a Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, Stock 1992
Nefertari, also known as Nefertari Meritmut, was an Egyptian queen and the first of the Great Royal Wives of Ramesses the Great. Nefertari means ‘beautiful companion’ and Meritmut means ‘Beloved of [the goddess] Mut’. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to Cleopatra, Nefertiti, and Hatshepsut. Wikipediahttps://g.co/kgs/SaKbEz
An Enlargement of a Photograph… or an Enlargement of Mind.
Hi dear friends. I hope you’re all good and well and tuned. Oops! It looks like I’m writing a letter to you 😁 Of course, I have no intention of writing a letter, I’m just a little confused, It seems I am doing mostly something else as I have thought to want to do!!
It might be also caused by a problem, which I have got since a week ago about my limited action on the WP.
You know; I must confess that I am as a guest-writer here, it means that I use this site in no charge. It is, of course, a very kind act by the WP to let me and the same as me, to be allowed to work and write their thoughts without paying and it is as it expected, limited version.
Therefore, and at the same time surprisingly, the warning comes to tell that; you have reached your limit! And of course, I respectfully accept it (with considering deleting some old posts as suggested)
Anyway, what can one expect from an old poor retired man? Nothing I think, just forgiveness and let him do calm his soul by sharing it with you good friends. 🙏💖
Now let’s go in the very past; from the time as life has begun, I would it recall; The end of ’60s. And with this old but very interesting movie; the Blow-up by Michelangelo Antonioni http://Search Results Web results Michelangelo Antonioni – Wikipedia and his first English-speaking movie.
I have watched this last weekend, after about forty-five years, oh yes; I have seen it in Iran those days though it was censored partly but anyhow it was an unbelievable occasion to see it! In fact, there were many opportunities in Shah’s time to do, one should only know that!
Now on this movie; of course, Antonioni is famous enough as a great movie-maker and he has made a lot of fascinating pieces in the history of cinema, but in this one, he has a message which he shows it at the end of the movie; fully noticed; the enlargement of the mind.
A miniature of Nizami‘s narrative poem. Layla and Majnun meet for the last time before their deaths. Both have fainted and Majnun’s elderly messenger attempts to revive Layla while wild animals protect the pair from unwelcome intruders. Late 16th-century illustration. via Wikipedia,
Layla and Majnun is a very old Persian story about two unfortunate lovers as in this video will be explained; it might be compared with W. Shakespeare’s drama Romeo and Juliet. But it seems that it is a never-ending story, it works itself out into the modern times. 😉🤗
The story of Eric Clapton and “Layla” has always bothered me because to understand it is to understand how fallible and crazed any of us can be when it comes to love. We understand that our rock gods are human, but there’s something about Clapton falling in love with the wife (Pattie Boyd) of one of his best mates (George Harrison, a freakin’ Beatle, man!) and then writing a whole album about it, that is just unsettling. Is this something tawdry writ epic? Or is this something epic that has the wafting aroma of tawdriness?
Polyphonic takes on the behind the scenes story of this rock masterpiece and rewinds several centuries to the source of Layla’s name: “Layla and Majnun,” a romantic poem from 12th century Persian poet Niẓāmi Ganjavi based on an actual woman from the 6th Century who drove her poet paramour mad. Lord Byron called the tragic poem “The Romeo and Juliet of the East,” as unrequited love leaves both Majnun and Layla dead after the latter’s father forbids her to be with the poet.
Eric Clapton heard of the poem from his Sufi friend Abdalqadir as-Sufi (formerly Ian Dallas), and so when he wrote a slow ballad about his unrequited love for Patti, “Layla” made perfect sense as a name.
The song might have stayed a ballad–think of Clapton’s slowed down version from his MTV “Unplugged” special–if it wasn’t for Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers. The two had yet to meet, but were aware of each other. Allman had grabbed Clapton’s attention with his fiery solo work at the end of Wilson Pickett’s cover of “Hey Jude”:
When Clapton and Allman did meet, the two set to jamming and Allman made the history-changing decision to speed up Clapton’s ballad and use a riff taken from Albert King. “Layla” was born. Allman’s bottleneck slide style met Clapton’s string bending, and the track is a conversation between the two, where no words are needed.
“It’s in the tip of their fingers,” says engineer Tom Dowd, listening to the isolated tracks in the video below. “It’s not in a knob, it’s not in how loud they play, it’s touch.
Over this, Clapton delivers his desperate lyrics, sung by a man at his wits end, much like Majnun of the poem.
And then, that coda, which takes up half the song. Drummer Jim Gordon was working on the piano piece for a solo album in secret. When Clapton discovered Gordon was recording on the sly, he wasn’t angry. Instead he insisted it be added to the end of the rocking first half. The song is a perfect balance between frantic rock and romantic ballad.
But in the real world, “Layla” didn’t do the job. Clapton played the album for Pattie Boyd three weeks later, and though she understood its beauty, Boyd was embarrassed by its message.
“I couldn’t believe I was the inspiration for putting this together,” she said in an interview. “I didn’t want this to happen.” She was also mortified thinking that everybody would know exactly who “Layla” was about.
“It didn’t work,” Clapton recalled. “It was all for nothing.”
The song was a flop in the charts, especially as it was cut in half for the single. It would find its audience three years later when the full version appeared on both a Clapton anthology and a best of collection of Duane Allman’s work. Finally it rocketed up the charts, and it’s kind of stayed in classic rock playlists ever since.
And as for Boyd, she actually did leave George Harrison in 1974 to marry Clapton in 1979, a marriage that lasted 10 years. Not all marriages last. The original flame dies out. It’s just that, in “Layla”‘s case, the flame is there every time the needle drops into the groove.
Yes, I am a retired pensioner person though, I’d never know what it really is! I mean; I have been feeling as an artist all through my life and I believe that an artist will never get retired, do they? why! there is always some ideas, something to create.
Of course, you might ask me that my job in the last almost 30 years could have nothing to do with the Arts and you might be right but, believe me, if you began your life with some kind of art in the society, you can’t leave it.
A nice welcome made by my adorable wife RENTE (Retirement) that every letter is the beginning of another word.
Yes, my destiny forced me to chose a job which I wasn’t really wanting it but a must to earn mony to survive, and I made of this dry, boring and trivial work an interesting one, a loving, caring and even intellectual kind of work, though, I tell you; in this business the word intelligence is a foreign word!
Anyway, I did my best and I can proudly say that some nice old people as my regular customers, will miss me 😉
Now let me tell you what I had done, or beter to say tried to do in Iran after Khomaynie regime closed down all the newspapers, you know, in that time in Iran, after so-called; Iranian Spring; in the Spring of 1979, in which at the beginning, we could touch a hint of freedom, the Mullah’s regime closed all the real and free newspapers, I have tried my talent on the stages. and I succeeded; played as an Ape; as you can see here, and I was also a Lion, a Bear, and a soldier. I got in the world of the theatre, just to keep being creative. and of course, it was an unforgettable time in my life
for ever ape!!
There I am, an Ape with something 😉 that is my time in (not Paris) but in Tehran, when I, and some experts, discovered my talent as an actor😁🤣 Here I must add that I was lucky to get a master of make-up to do this wonderful mask on my face. And it was an act for the children which we’ve played on the stage and also on the TV show.
I myself, as always carefully saying; being an artist, or at least being surrounded by the artists all through my life, tried to give my best, and I can not imagine someone can do this without the ability of creation.
here are other roles which I took over to play;
it surely needs your imagination for seeing me as a lyon 😂
The one at the right side The Bear!
as a soldier! the one who, I never can be
I must confess that I was actually always a musician. 😉🤗
introvert but no fear of the limelight 😉
“The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.”
Anyway, I was never in any position to work… and work it out… and get retired! In my life the work is the art, to create; the one is there to try to make it, not perfect but better, harmonically nice and beautiful… the feeling like; now I’m done! let’s… have a look 🤔😎
but you know what I mean; if somebody has something to do with a kind of arts and creations, can never be a pensioner.., there is nothing to stop; nobody can limit or control the imaginations, they are unlimited.
I think somehow; Fact doesn’t actually exist, just let the imagination run and never stop! 😊
With a great Thank to Laurent Tremblay
And there it is; an important question which still remains: the question of “How is it, to be Retired? Of course, it’s another story 😂😅 stay safe everyone 💖👍✌🙏💖
Hi dear friends. Today, I’d like to interview or better to use the word sharing with you (before you answer; hey! I know that stuff of course!!) this amazing TV work with great music, directory, actor(ess)s, and story.
You know; it is not simply to find a good TV show or serial and It’s The TV serial! Because I have wonderful memories in which my brother Al and I had watched it permanently after we’d recorded it on the videotapes. We were both introverts. because of our traumatic childhood and TV was a long time the best companion in this world. And I can add that in this one we could find a lot of similarities, for example; don’t trust anybody! (Though one of us must be in contact to the society, I did it, because Al was a writer and I, as I have thought, had nothing to present.)
therefore, we had a lot of memories about watching TV (series) and keep ourselves in. (it would be fit with the Coronas world now, doesn’t it?!
It was and is as a strong memory for me to watch and hear the first line of this show;
Of course, I had to add here, that it wasn’t only the brilliant artist’s movie work but also the music which belong to the time in which we, as humans, were suffering from inhumanity; the WWII.
It was not only a TV show, it shows not just the points of draft or the thoughtfulness of the mankind, but it’d go to the deep of the childhood: Where is the father gone? when will he come back?; SOON… SOON, and we two brothers knew about it so much, too much, so long. we knew these questions!
Anyway, It was my discovery as I knew in Germany, it’s not so easy to find a good production from other countries in the original language. I mean here you can surely find all the good artworks from all over in the world but you must search intensively, they’d never come on the common famous TV channels.
And this song… give me a heartbeat!!
That is not only a good TV serial, I repeat myself I know, but it shows also the psychological stand of a child in a very deeply version; I know what I’m talking about! Roger Waters from Pink Floyd would confirm this! (The Wall)
I have the same stocking at school. from the teachers as the classmates!
And there we’ve found once more, I say once more because the history of the arts keeps mostly going to the deep points of the child in the growing-up period. Shadows… Shadows… We must know our Shadows. Am I right or am I right?
And the umbrella is too fix today 😉
These are the great ones to create this great work;
Michael Gambon, Janet Suzman and Patrick Malahide star in a 1987 miniseries about a stricken writer’s painful recovery.
I think indeed that the art is a gift given us by God or whomsoever, to see beyond, beyond our own soul (shadow) or either beyond the social life into the future.
To be blunt, I can’t explain myself how it is possible, though the artists-selves never recommended themselves as future predictors if we take a look at all the imaginary and science fiction kind of all possibilities in the history of arts, there are many facts which were fiction those days and now they are assured as fact.
There are so many examples and I don’t want to list them here, but I have a wonderful cingle example here; this movie; The Contact. I don’t know if you have seen this, I would suggest it highly recommended. But let me explain why I meant this and why I share this special clip with you;
agefotostock Contact, Contact, Contact, Contact, Jodie Foster Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) empfaengt nach Jahren der Forschung Signale aus dem All. Ihr Traum vom K…
I just tell a short summary on this movie if you haven’t seen it yet, as the title might clear it; it goes on the connection to the aliens as humans are trying all nights & days long and it achieved finally as they got a plan to get this connection. they had to build a ship! And it succeeds by Dr Ellie to understand the code and they got a map to constitute the very ship.
Anyway, last but not least everything got ready and one of the best actress and genius ever Jodie Foster flies to the unknown.
Anything is clear, exiting, and fascinated. But the main point, in my opinion, is here in this scene; here she has a chair which has not to belong to the design of the ship in which she had to stay, this chair is a human version of their own. The rest of the ship is perfectly imitated though, here man can’t get out of its stupidity and of course think that the aliens are stupid and forgotten to put the chair in between!!!
Here, in this scene, you see where is the problem. be safe, all you friends 💖🙏💖
Stele (detail) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52 – photo Marie Grillot
Let’s have a look at this stunning Stele, one of the many fascinating Steles from Egypt; the mysterious part of human history.
And here is “The Gate of heaven” or one of the feminine charms of ancient Egypt.
Funerary stela of Lady Taperet, Third Intermediate Period, circa 850–690 BCE. Lady Taperet is praying to Atum, god of the setting sun, in the hope of eternally accompanying him on his daily journey. The hieroglyphs above her exhort the god to grant her everything she will need in the afterlife. The sky is represented by the blue body of the goddess Nut, who swallows the sun every night and gives birth to it every morning. from https://www.nybooks.com/ by; Ingrid D. Rowland
I could imagine that not only for me, but many also have the wish once to pass through this gate! What is always fascinating me when looking at these Steles, they tell us a lot of mystery which mostly are still unknown to us.
This so-called “Dame Tapéret” stele is certainly one of the most original artefacts of the Egyptian department of the Louvre museum. Its particularly rich and harmonious chromatic palette seduces us; the originality of the scenes which appear on each of the faces delights us, and the very representation of Dame Tapéret, all in femininity, charms us … As for the symbolism, it is exposed in every detail.
Referenced E 52, 31 cm high, 29 cm wide, 2.6 cm thick, dated from the XXIInd dynasty (approx. 900 BC), it is made of painted wood and of a curved shape. Indeed, as Auguste Mariette reminds us: “Until the 11th dynasty, the steles are quadrangular … But from the 11th dynasty, the stele takes the form that it only abandons on rare occasions. is rounded from above, as if it were intended to recall the curvature of the sky or that of the sarcophagus lids. “
Stele (front and back) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52
On both sides, Dame Tapéret, the “dedicatee” of the stele, is dressed in a light, pleated, orange-coloured dress, with long and long sleeves, edged with bangs on the front. Completely transparent – we imagine it made in the finest linen – it suggests the curves of the body, especially the arch of the kidneys and the shape of the legs. Tapéret is wearing a long black tripartite wig, encircled by an orange band and surmounted by a delicate cone of perfume. It is adorned with a large necklace with several rows in green tones.
As a sign of adoration, her delicate hands are raised before the god Re whose representation differs from one face to the other.
Stele (front) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52
The front of the stele is an enchantment, a profusion of colours, symbols and charming details. The hanger is fully occupied by the curved sign of the sky which rests and seems to rest on the heraldic plants of Egypt. A set of three stems, artistically positioned, on one side of the lotus and on the other of papyrus, adorn the opposite sides of the stele. The plants seem to “be born”, to spring from a human head which could be that of the god Nefertoum who, as “personification of one of the receptacles of the sun of the origins, is in connection with the perpetual rebirth of the star”.
Stele (detail) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52 – photo Marie Grillot
The upper part is occupied, in its centre, by a representation of the conception of the world. The sun, orange and majestic, seems to be surrounded by two uraeus whose heads, erected on either side of its lower part, carry an ankh cross. On each side of the sun is an oudjat eye. The unit thus formed gives an impression of perfect balance.
Under the right eye is a rectangle made up of six vertical lines of hieroglyphs, coloured, which stand out against an ocher background.
The rest of the panel is occupied by a magnificent scene, whose highly accomplished pictorial quality is matched only by extreme originality.
Tapéret, which we described above, stands in front of Re-Horakhty with the head of a falcon. The god with grey flesh is wearing a black tripartite wig. Her muscular body is perfectly proportioned. She wears a green top with suspenders and a loincloth of two colours – orange and beige – held by a belt. It is adorned with many jewels, a large necklace, bracelets of humerus, wrist and ankle. In the left hand, she holds firmly a light green was sceptre as well as a striped stick while, in the right, there is a flail and an ankh cross. The orange solar star which is on its head darts its powerful rays symbolized by four rows of blooming and multicoloured flowers which go towards the face of the deceased. “Figured like multicoloured garlands of lily flowers, these rays bring it the promise of survival in the afterlife …”
Stele (detail) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52 – photo Marie Grillot {detail of the tapeter stele – unknown provenance – stuccoed and painted wood – “The mistress of the house tapéret raises her arms in adoration before the re-horakhty god. the god with the head of a hawk carries on his head the solar star which illuminates the emptying of the woman. Figured like multicolored garlands of lily flowers, these rays bring her the promise of survival in the afterlife. ” (quotation text andreu in “the ancient egypt in the louvre”)}
Between the two figures is a table of offerings laden with food. A caring hand has placed delicate lotus flowers on it. On one side of the table, the leg is an elongated container, decorated with a flower, while the other is occupied by a delicately flowering branch. Dame Tapéret “offers Re a table heavily stocked with food, while the hieroglyphs placed behind her back assure her for herself” thousands of bread, beers, meats and poultry “, according to the millennial formula which allows humans to enjoy eternal sustenance. “
On the back of the stele, Tapéret reproduced identically, is in front of Atoum, “form of the sun god at sunset which echoes Rê-Horakhty, the sun of the day”. He appears without his “human” form, proudly wearing the double crown, in orange tones. Its flesh is grey, the curved false beard is treated in black. He is dressed and dressed in the same way as on the other side. What he holds in his hands are different, however: in the left an ouas sceptre and, in the right, a cane and an ankh cross. In the right centre of the upper part, there is also a rectangle made up of 6 vertical lines of hieroglyphs.
Stele (back) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52
The body, night colour, of the beautiful goddess Nut, long but folded, hugs the entire border of the stele. Its slender legs occupy the entire left part, while its long torso stretches in the hanger, and its head and arms with hands stretched down to occupy the right part.
The pubis is marked with a black triangle and in front of it is a small ocher-red circle which represents the sun, and which is found twice: in the centre of the hanger and at the level of the mouth. “Dream sails on a river originating near the pubis and in the evening she engulfs it in her mouth to revive it every morning.”
The torso, thin and long, is decorated with eleven stars; the breasts are pointed and small. The face of the goddess is in the roundness of the hanger and her long hair descends in a long black cascade to the level of her wrists.
Hieroglyphs “arranged in a retrograde manner above Tapéret exhort these gods to grant to the deceased all the offerings that will be necessary for her to survive in the afterlife”.
In these scenes of worship in the sun is manifested the wish of the deceased to eternally accompany the god Re on his night journey and to be reborn with him each morning. The feet of the god as well as those of Tapéret are bare: they rest on a black band which is at the bottom of the stele and which symbolizes the earth.
Stele (tranche) of the Lady Taperet – tenth or ninth century BC. AD (Dynasty XXII) painted wood – origin unknown – gift Batissier Department of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre Museum – E 52
It should be noted that “an inscription painted on the edge invokes the divinities Isis, Nephthys, Sokar and Hathor so that they grant to the Lady Tapéret all the funeral offerings necessary for her survival”.
The origin of this stele, the “composition of which combines traditional elements and plastic innovations” remains unfortunately unknown.
She entered the Louvre, thanks to a donation from Louis Batissier. This doctor, art lover, inspector of historic monuments in the Allier in 1839, was, after several charges, appointed consul of France in Suez in 1848. He stayed there for thirteen years, and, befriending Auguste Mariette, was passionate about Egyptology. He built up a fine collection of antiques and it was in 1851 that he offered the stele to the Paris museum, as well as vases, papyrus, amulets …
Ancient Egypt at theLouvre, Guillemette Andreu, Marie-Hélène Rutschowscaya, Christiane Ziegler, 1997
The gates of heaven: worldviews in ancientEgypt, March 2009 Jocelyne Berlandini Keller, Annie Gasse, Luke Gabolde
Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century: Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress ofEgyptologists, Cairo, 2000, Volume 2, Lyla Pinch Brock; American University in Cairo Press, 2003
Egyptian mythologydictionary, Isabel Franco, 2013
Universal Exhibition of 1867. Description of the EgyptianPark, Auguste Mariette, 1867
Of course, I couldn’t begin this without a mention from the master of the Dark-Side.
This creature is one of my most favourites in all fairytales which I have swallowed at an early age as a child and still onto now! The Div (Demon) in old Persian fairytales have a great presence and unusually as a man might expect, for me, they were very interesting! Their essential came from Gnome or as Irish folklore leprechaun.
As I remember it was almost normal to see such creatures in the bathrooms or elsewhere.
And Yes! They play a huge role in the Persian fairy tales, of course, I’m not talking about the “Thousands and one night”, there are so many more fairy tales of that kind in our history.
Though, in the time as a child; for us two (Al, my brother and me) our parents had no time to read out or aloud these wonderful stories for us. We had to get used to reading them by ourselves. And we were just hungrily got them in.
I found here some interesting different name for this subject.;
The Infernal Names
Abaddon—(Hebrew) the destroyer. Adramalech—Samarian devil. Ahpuch—Mayan devil. Ahriman—The Mazdean devil. (This is in old Perian culture as mighty as the God-self; Ahuramazda: The Duality. Amon—Egyptian ram-headed god of life and reproduction. Apollyon—Greek synonym for Satan, the archfiend. Asmodeus—Hebrew devil of sensuality and luxury, originally “creature of judgment”(? 😮😉😅) via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_infernal_names
To be shared is here a nice article about the way of the “Imagination of this creature”. Let see and read. 💖🙏
Few modern writers so remind me of the famous Virginia Woolf quote about fiction as a “spider’s web” more than Argentinian fabulist Jorge Luis Borges. But the life to which Borges attaches his labyrinths is a librarian’s life; the strands that anchor his fictions are the obscure scholarly references he weaves throughout his text. Borges brings this tendency to whimsical employ in his nonfiction Book of Imaginary Beings, a heterogenous compendium of creatures from ancient folk tale, myth, and demonology around the world.
Borges himself sometimes remarks on how these ancient stories can float too far away from ratiocination. The “absurd hypotheses” regarding the mythical Greek Chimera, for example, “are proof” that the ridiculous beast “was beginning to bore people…. A vain or foolish fancy is the definition of Chimera that we now find in dictionaries.” Of what he calls “Jewish Demons,” a category too numerous to parse, he writes, “a census of its population left the bounds of arithmetic far behind. Throughout the centuries, Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia all enriched this teeming middle world.” Although a lesser field than angelology, the influence of this fascinatingly diverse canon only broadened over time.
“The natives recorded in the Talmud” soon became “thoroughly integrated” with the many demons of Christian Europe and the Islamic world, forming a sprawling hell whose denizens hail from at least three continents, and who have mixed freely in alchemical, astrological, and other occult works since at least the 13th century and into the present. One example from the early 20th century, a 1902 treatise on divination from Isfahan, a city in central Iran, draws on this ancient thread with a series of watercolors added in 1921 that could easily be mistaken for illustrations from the early Middle Ages.
The wonderful images draw on Near Eastern demonological traditions that stretch back millennia — to the days when the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud asserted it was a blessing demons were invisible, since, “if the eye would be granted permission to see, no creature would be able to stand in the face of the demons that surround it.”
The author of the treatise, a rammal, or soothsayer, himself “attributes his knowledge to the Biblical Solomon, who was known for his power over demons and spirits,” writes Ali Karjoo-Ravary, a doctoral candidate in Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Predating Islam, “the depiction of demons in the Near East… was frequently used for magical and talismanic purposes,” just as it was by occultists like Aleister Crowley at the time these illustrations were made.
“Not all of the 56 painted illustrations in the manuscript depict demonic beings,” the Public Domain Review points out. “Amongst the horned and fork-tongued we also find the archangels Jibrāʾīl (Gabriel) and Mikāʾīl (Michael), as well as the animals — lion, lamb, crab, fish, scorpion — associated with the zodiac.” But in the main, it’s demon city. What would Borges have made of these fantastic images? No doubt, had he seen them, and he had seen plenty of their like before he lost his sight, he would have been delighted.
A blue man with claws, four horns, and a projecting red tongue is no less frightening for the fact that he’s wearing a candy-striped loincloth. In another image we see a moustachioed goat man with tuber-nose and polka dot skin maniacally concocting a less-than-appetising dish. One recurring (and worrying) theme is demons visiting sleepers in their beds, scenes involving such pleasant activities as tooth-pulling, eye-gouging, and — in one of the most engrossing illustrations — a bout of foot-licking (performed by a reptilian feline with a shark-toothed tail).
There’s a playful Bosch-ian quality to all of this, but while we tend to see Bosch’s work from our perspective as absurd, he apparently took his bizarre inventions absolutely seriously. So too, we might assume, did the illustrator here. We might wonder, as Woolf did, about this work as the product of “suffering human beings… attached to grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.” What kinds of ordinary, material concerns might have afflicted this artist, as he (we presume) imagined demons gouging the eyes and licking the feet of people tucked safely in their beds?
lampmagician 
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