Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)
ÉVA LIPTAY: Between Heaven and Earth II: The Iconography of a Funerary Papyrus from the Twenty-First Dynasty (Part II)
i.e. the place depicted in the closing scene of the papyrus in question. On the other hand, the myth about tbe raging Solar Eye that had become savage while roaming in the desert in the shape of a lioness takes place in the same region. This aggressive characteristic of the goddess proves to be extremely useful in this very place, on the edge of the eastern horizon, when the hostile powers threatening the sun-god are defeated, and upon the sequence of events in which the solar eye' s or the cobra-shaped goddess takes a prominent part. Accordingly, the Solar Eye-Daughter appears on the eastern horizon in the shape of a cobra whose fiery breath annihilates the hostile powers, 19 while as a fire providing protection and light in the darkness of the Netherworld it also provides beneficial energy for the sun-god and the blessed spirits preparing for rebirth in his company. 20 As mentioned in the first part of the present study, the reddish luminous phenomenon appearing in the horizon at dawn was deemed by the Egyptian symbolic mode of thinking to be a partly heralding the birth of not only the sun, but also the fire destroying the mortal enemies of the deity. 21 4. 2. 2. THE SOLAR EYE AS CREATIVE POWER (COSMIC LEVEL) Not only the above complementary aspects (mother/receiver —daughter/firstborn as an eternally changing cyclical continuum) of the solar eye had a significant role in the rebirth at dawn. According" to an even more abstract idea it actually functioned as a kind of mediator for the creator god, Atum-Re, whose task in the first moment of the creation w r as to activate the god, who up to that time was lying in an inert state in the Abyss. This conception existed in a written form as early as the Middle Kingdom. From one of the spells of the Coffin Texts it has been discovered how Atum —who previously had been existing in the Abyss in a helpless and passive way —sent forth his eye in order to "seek" (shn), "find" (hh) and finally "fetch" (in) his children, i.e. his first creatures. 22 In another spell of the same anthology Heka, the personified power of magic makes a declaration about the conditions that prevailed before creation as follows: "I am he whom the Lord of the universe made before two things (duality) had yet come into being in this land by sending forth his unique eye when he was alone. . ," 23 According to this spell the Power of Magic proved to be in the possession of the creator god already in the Abyss, before the world had been "divided into two" through his sending the unique eye. 24 In contrast to the other abstract means of creation as the creative concept of the divine heart (siJ) or the creative power of the declaration by divine words (hw), here the catalyst of the process is a further part of the body (to be more exact, of the head), i.e. the Eye as the symbol of the imagination. 2 '
