A fragment of Sinuhe. Translating ancient egyptian.

This is a fragment of the famous egyptian tale, Sinuhe. It is writen in the papyrus of Berlin, number 10499. The sentence that I am going to comment is above, and it corresponds to the seven line of the text.

Transliteration: Shr fr pt Hmm N Itn H'w ntr 3bh m ir sw.

If we want to translate any language, we need to interpret what the author wants to say. When we talk about religion, for exemple, that job gets more complicated. If we want to translate a religious expression of Ancient Egypt, we should use words that conceptualize the best possible the egyptian ones.

I mean that we can`t use words that we often use in our religions. We should try to express the sentence with words that help us to relfect the world of ancient egyptian people. I know that it is so difficult, but we can try.

So, we could translate the sentence as: “he flew to heaven, he was united with Aton, the body of God, he has been integrating himself in The One that created him.” But I would translate it like this:

“He flew to the Universe, he was united with Aton, the phisical manifestation of God, he has been integrating himself in The One that created him.”

It is more literal to translate the body of Aton, but it is full of christians meanings. For the same reason I would change heaven for Universe. In conclution, I interpret this text in the next way:

The spirit of the deceased (the king Sejetepibre), returns to his origin: the cosmic and primordial energy which egyptian called Aton. This is the visible manifestation of that force (similar to the buddhist Nirvana).

This is the reason why the sentence says that the deceased integrates himself in the One that created him.

The spirit of Sejetepibre comes back to the fountain of life, Aton, in order to be part of the Spirit of Universe that ancient egyptian called Ialu. This is the land where the god Osiris reigns (far away from material world).

Aton is the light that we see in the Sun. I think this is reason why the text talks about the body God and this is why it talks about Aton, and not about Amun, because Amun was the hidden one, secrets of unknowledge.