by Judy King
A sign is a communication that encodes a message. Sometimes we take this message to be a real or material object, person, or animal in our observable world, when it points to something beyond what we can see. Egyptian signs point beyond to the quantum biological world of proteins and molecular processes. The Pharaohs attempted to explain this biological world by attributing human characteristics to animals, objects and forces of Nature.
Using a holistic approach, I considered each sign’s potential for meaning within the context of the whole group of signs. The assumption underlying this approach was that the funerary texts from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom are unified in their presentation of key ideas. Fortunately, when one sign gives birth to another to form a family of meaningful signs within the least corrupted texts, and then expands into an interconnected city of signs within multiple texts, the interpreter can be confident that the lost meaning is being restored to the signs. In this consistent model, the value or meaning of each sign emerged, not by choice, but rather from an analysis of each sign’s interaction within a matrix of 870 interlinked thematic signs.
To begin this process, the argument of The Isis Thesis presents an organization of the earliest Egyptian writings into complementary strands of ideas. A review of 759 Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts and 1185 Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts resulted in a comparative table of 108 idea strands or key themes from the least corrupted texts.
Then I analyzed the 108 idea strands, classifying the related themes into broader categories such as Horus overcomes Seth or Osiris rises or Deceased King reassembles. This analysis resulted in 30 major Idea Strand classifications from the least corrupted texts that clearly defined textual events and major deities.From this foundation of Idea Strands and using an inquiry-based research strategy, I assigned a tentative meaning to major deities (the primary signs) in a hypothetical biological model to be tested for validity in six additional funerary texts. This process required numerous readings of all texts with related modifications to the working model. Keeping my mind flexible and leaving room for abductive reasoning, this process along with scientific research decoded the texts and supported a final logical model upheld by 870 networked signs.
The Reader Participates in the Discovery Process
As an interpreter using this foundational sign model based on 30 major Idea Strands, the reader explores translations describing primary texts and drawings, continually testing the model for validity. Possible scientific meanings are assigned to additional signs that are tabulated in a matrix for easy identification. In this process, the reader considers the etymology of Egyptian words as well as the unity and coherence of the interpreted signs. Using these strategies, Part I and Part II of The Isis Thesis builds and supports a base of interconnected decoded signs — a model that the reader can explore to decode Egyptian afterlife mysteries. In Part III, the reader tests this model through a scientific analysis of the twelve hours of the Book Amduat and the Book of Gates. Discovering both of these texts validate the expanding model, the reader explores four additional texts in Part IV to test the model’s validity. This investigation of The Book of Two Ways, the Edifice of Taharqa, and the Book of the Dead, including the Theban Recension, provides further support for continued unity and coherence of interpretation in the model.
With eight (8) Ancient Egyptian texts supporting, detailing, and expanding the model, the initial assumption stands firm: 2000 years of funerary texts from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom are unified in their presentation of key ideas.
Part V then draws conclusions based on the expanded, validated model or city of living signs reconstructed from the writings and artwork of the Egyptian Pharaohs.
In this way, one can understand how the signs work together to reveal the lost Egyptian wisdom that is buried within a language that deceives us by destroying the sign and its entire logic. The flood of language, misunderstood and inflated, that has swamped History as the essential truth and drowned the voice of Nature can then be dammed.
Signs
In the Book Amduat, textual descriptions and actual drawings show a remarkable correspondence between Egyptian serpents and DNA-binding proteins. When describing DNA-binding proteins, the Pharaohs portrayed the molecules as serpents with three, four, or five heads that correspond to the protein’s alpha helices (primary structure) and beta sheets (secondary structure). Our scientists often refer to beta sheets as wings.
Scientists describe the Lambda cI (c-one) repressor protein as having 5 alpha helices (heads) in a bundle with helices two and three forming a helix-turn-helix. One can easily equate this five-helix bundle and its function with the image of the five-headed serpent repressing the inert Osiris (dormant Lambda genome) in Amduat Hour Six below. In all Egyptian texts studied, Osiris rises from the dead to break the bonds of this serpentine repressor protein and activate the lytic pathway. Cellular events are clearly defined in the texts and mirror the knowledge of our modern scientists on Lambda behavior.
The Ankh. Isis is the biological sign for the Lac proteins/genes responsible for production of the sugar lactose in bacteria. A remarkable DNA loop structure that looks like the Egyptian ankh forms at the Lac genes, where the Lambda genome (Osiris) is lodged on the host chromosome. This DNA loop structure, referred to as the tiyet or Isis-knot, represents the Lac repressor protein that binds to the DNA and prevents the transcription of the lactose genes. In Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar the ideogram for the symbol of life known as ’the ankh’ is described as “tie or strap.” The DNA loop structure ties off or blocks production of three lactose proteins necessary for the rising or excision of the Lambda genome (Osiris) from the host chromosome. In the Book of the Dead, Chapter 156 is the Chapter for a knot-amulet, stating, “You have your power, O Isis . . . The amulet is a protection for this Great One.” The Isis-knot is the marker for the “Hidden Chamber” of Osiris (30 bp region) next to the lactose gene seat of Isis on the bacterial host chromosome. Similarly, the sacred symbol of the Sumerian goddess Inanna called Inanna’s knot is a stylized bundle of reeds bent into a loop.
Lac Repressor Protein looping the DNA at Protein Data Bank.In lysogeny, Lambda attaches its tail to the host cell, penetrating the cell. It then injects its DNA down the tail into the cell. Once inside the cell, the DNA circularizes and becomes negatively supercoiled or twisted reversely with a zig-zag backbone, referred to as Z-DNA. The Lambda DNA or genome (Osiris) then must go through a DNA cross called a Holliday junction which is a seven base pair (7 bp) branch migration or what the texts refer to as seven gates or the Boat of the Branch in Amduat Hour Three. The Holliday junction is a site-specific recombination process responsible for integration and excision of bacteriophage genomes into and out of the host bacterium. The genome then lodges on the host cell DNA at a specific spot: the Hidden Chamber between the b-gal and bio genes. The b-gal gene is another name for the lactose genes or Isis. The major portion of phage protein is derived from the lactose nutrient medium, thus Isis as the Lady of Provisions plays a major role. The Lambda genome or Osiris falls asleep here next to the inactive lactose genes that are tied off by the lac repressor protein or the Isis-knot. The genome or Osiris becomes dormant, inert, or dead, to be silently replicated with the bacterial cell DNA, resulting in our classical world and the Conspiracy of Seth.
Holliday Junction. Public Domain Protein Data Bank ID: 1HJP. Nishino et al. 1998.
