lightland

English

Etymology

Calque of German Lichtland, itself a rough calque of Egyptian ꜣḫt, . Apparently first used in English by Miriam Lichtheim (3 May 1914 – 27 March 2004).

Noun

lightland (uncountable)

1. (Egyptology) Synonym of Akhet (the region in the sky in which the sun tarries just before it rises or after it sets)
   • 1976, Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, volume II: The New Kingdom, page 83:

     Appearing on his father’s throne,
     Like Re when he rises in lightland,
     He places light above the darkness,
     He lights the shade with his plumes.

   • 2004, Thomas F. X. Noble, Western Civilization to 1500: The Continuing Experiment, page 28:

     When you have dawned in eastern lightland, / You fill every land with your beauty.

   • 2007, Jan Assmann, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, page 151:

     The Coffin Texts liturgy begins with spell 30:
     “A cry goes out from the mouth of the great ones, the lords of the rḫy.t,
     a plaintive cry sounds in the mouth of the veiled ones
     at the thunderclap of the gods in Light-land,
     when they see the terror on their faces,
     the like of which they have never seen before,
     when they see Osiris N.,
     how he fares in peace on the roads of the West
     in his form of a divine ancestral spirit,
     after he has equipped himself with all the power of spirits,
     when the great ones at the head of Light-land said to him: […]”
     And yet the chiefs of Light-land, that is, of the liminal area between sky, earth, and the netherworld, where the sun rises and sets, greet the newcomer as son of the “beautiful West” […]

   • 2014, Martin Meredith, The Fortunes of Africa: A 5000-Year History of Wealth, Greed, and Endeavor:

     They were intended to assist Unas on his journey to the afterlife and ensure that he would dwell in ‘lightland for all eternity’.

Translations

place of sunrise or sunset

• Dutch: Lichtland n
• Egyptian: (ꜣḫt f)
• German: Lichtland n