Ray Mullen

Season: 1, Episodes: 1, Faction: N/A

Overview

Ray Mullen was a farmer in Australia for whom Kate worked prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. His farm is 100 km from Melbourne.

Fertility (Earth)

Fertility (Vegetation)

1×03 – Tabula Rasa

Ray found a fugitive Kate sleeping in his sheep pen one morning, and gave her a job doing chores around his farm, since his wife had died eight months previously. Kate worked at Ray’s farm for nearly three months until Ray spotted her mugshot at the post office and decided to turn her in to United States Marshal Edward Mars for a $23,000 reward.

During the confrontation with Mars, Kate caused Ray’s truck to overturn. She then saved him by pulling him out from the burning wreckage, which allowed Mars to capture her.

Later, on the Island, Kate told the marshal that she wanted to make sure the reward went to Ray, since he had “a hell of a mortgage”. (“Tabula Rasa”)

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Related Character Images

Decoded Season 1 Characters

Kate Austen

Edward Mars

Key Episode(s) to Decoding the Character

1x03 "Tabula Rasa"

(Tatjenen, Tathenen, Tjenen, Tenen) Tatenen’s name means ‘the land (ta) which has risen/become distinct (thenen or tjenen)’, that is, the primordial mound which emerged at the inception of the cosmos from the waters of the abyss and hence distinguished itself (theni) from the abyss, in which all is indeterminate. It is perhaps this specific association with the primordial earth that principally distinguishes Tatenen from other Gods associated with the Earth such as Geb and Aker. Tatenen is depicted anthropomorphically wearing a crown with horizontal twisting ram’s horns (like those, e.g., of Khnum) and two ostrich feathers; sometimes the crown is augmented with solar disk and/or uraei. Tatenen was perhaps originally associated with Thinis (Tjeny, modern Ghirga), in the eighth nome (or district) of Upper Egypt, since his name appears related to the name of the town and the symbol of the eighth nome incorporates the two feathers of his crown. In later times, however, Tatenen is worshiped primarily at Memphis and is often fused with the Memphite God Ptah in the form Ptah-Tatenen. An early presence of Tatenen at Memphis is possible, however, on account of references in Old Kingdom texts to a God called Khenty-Tjenenet, ‘foremost one of Tjenenet’. It is sometimes speculated that Tatenen’s original consort was Tjenenet, on account of the similarity in their names.

In the Amduat, the book of ‘What is in the Netherworld’, in the eighth hour of the nocturnal journey, Tatenen is depicted in the form of four rams (labeled as ‘form (kheper) one’, ‘form two’, etc.) wearing four different crowns: the solar disk, the white crown of Upper Egypt, the red crown of Lower Egypt, and the two plumes respectively. In accord with the function of this division of the netherworld, the four forms of Tatenen are accompanied by the sign for ‘cloth’ (i.e., clothing). In the Book of Caverns, fifth section (Hornung 1999, 88) Tatenen is shown standing, his legs propped up by figures who, though evidently alive, are labeled as the ‘corpse of Atum‘ and the ‘corpse of Khepri‘. In the Book of Aker, part D (Hornung, 99f), two ram-headed deities are depicted seizing the Apophis serpent, under which stands Osiris in a shrine framed by the ‘corpse of Geb’ and the ‘corpse of Tatenen’, again evidently alive, but with their feet sunken into the ground. In the Litany of Re, Tatenen is mentioned twice, first at 3, in which the ‘power’ of Re identified with Tatenen is “he who begets his Gods, he who protects what is in him, he who transforms himself into the one at the head of his cavern,” in reference to the journey of the sun through the caverns of the netherworld; and then again at 66, in which the ‘power’ corresponding to Tatenen is “begetter who annihilates the offspring … Thou art the bodies of the exalted [or ‘risen’] Earth [or, ‘of Tatenen’].” The references to begetting in these two passages may derive phallic symbolism from the symbol of the ‘risen’ land.

Tatenen often embodies the earth, especially as beneficently receiving the setting sun, as in BD spell 15, in which a passage “adoring Re-Harakhty as he sets in the region of life,” says of Re-Harakhty “Thy father Tatenen lifts thee; he wraps his arms about thee, while thou art become divine in the earth.” In BD spell 64, the deceased, identifying with Re, affirms that “Tatenen’s friendliness exceeds that of Ruty, so that I am preserved. I am one who has escaped through a crack of the door. The light created at his will abides.” Ruty, which means ‘the two lions’, refers to the gates of the netherworld. The references here to a crack in the door and light penetrating a dark place seem to play upon an analogy between the resurrection made available to the deceased and the emergence of determinacy and thus, for Egyptian thought, of life from the entropy and formlessness of the abyss at the inception of the cosmos. The light which abides may also be taken as alluding to the generation within the earth of precious minerals. Another text states that “Geb is glorious owing to what thou [Tatenen] hast hidden, it being unknown what has arisen in thine body,” (Holmberg, 58) again alluding to minerals. Tatenen’s role in the afterlife literature is dependent largely upon the analogy between death and the precosmic abyss, on the one hand, and between the deceased and the sun, on the other. In BD spell 84, for “assuming the form of a heron,” the deceased is affirmed to be “the Sunlight,” and when s/he picks up the recitation in the first person, affirms, “the breadth of the earth was created for my journeys to cities and settlements … Do I not know the Deep [the Nun, the Abyss]? Do I not know Tatenen?” In a version of the divinization of the parts of the body, a common formula in the afterlife literature, the vulva of the deceased is identified with Tatenen (BD spell 181). In “The Songs of Isis and Nephthys,” Osiris is hailed as “Sacred image of thy father Tatenen,” (“The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus—I,” p. 123 [1, 16]), and is told that “Thy father Tatenen lifts up the sky that thou mayest tread over its four quarters; thy soul flies in the east; thou art the likeness of Re, and they who dwell in the Netherworld receive thee with joy, Geb breaks open for thee what is in him, and they come to thee in peace,” (ibid., p. 132 [16, 24]).

It is often unclear whether to take ‘Ptah-Tatenen’ as a combination of the two deities or whether ‘Tatenen’ functions rather as an epithet of Ptah. The logic of the combination is provided in the so-called ‘Memphite Theology’, in which it is said of Ptah, “He is Tatenen, who gave birth to the Gods, and from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, all good things,” (Lichtheim vol. 1, 55). Here Ptah is called Tatenen insofar as the preceding philosophical argument of the text has established that Tatenen’s cosmic function of determinacy can be identified, through a shift in perspective, with Ptah’s function of, as it were, articulation. The resulting affirmation comes about, then, as the result of the philosophical inquiry concerning their functions. Ptah and Tatenen also relate to each other more concretely through Tatenen’s association with minerals and Ptah’s association with metalworking.

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Further Info

The Egyptian god Tatenen, sometimes written as Tatjenen, symbolizes the emergence of silt from the fertile Nile after the waters of the inundation recede. The meaning of his name is uncertain but may possibly mean “the rising earth” or “exalted earth”.

He is usually depicted as entirely human (though with the beard of a god) in appearance, though he may be shown wearing a twisted ram’s horn with two tall plumes (ostrich feathers), sometimes surmounted with sun disks, on his head. However, his face and limbs are often painted green in order to represent his connection as a god of vegetation. Furthermore, he could also be a she. One papyrus in the Berlin Museum calls Tatenen “fashioner and mother who gave birth to all the gods”.

While we are not entirely certain of his origin, he may likely have been an originally independent deity at Memphis. He also seems to have had some close associations in Middle Egypt near modern Asyut. However, at Memphis he seems to have been a deity of the depths of the earth, presiding over its mineral and vegetable resources, though even as early as the Old Kingdom he had become entwined with Ptah as “Ptah of the primeval mound”, viewed as a manifestation of that well known deity of Egypt’s capital. Hence, we find him in an important role associated with the creation of the world as formulated on the 25th Dynasty (Nubian) Shabaka Stone of Memphite theology.

How he became associated with the Egyptian concept of creation is unsure, but several theories have been put forward. One theory holds that he was the counterpart at Memphis of the idea of the “high sand” or primeval mound (benben) of the Heliopolis theology. Other theories hold that:

a) Tatenen was the arable land that was reclaimed at Memphis from papyrus swamps through irrigation projects.

b) He was a very specific piece of land at Memphis, submerged by the annual flood that, after it receded, reappeared.

c) Tatenen was a personification of Egypt and an aspect of Geb, the earth god.

Regardless, as a creator god (Ptah Tatenen) he held the title, “father of the gods” and was thus both the source and ruler of all gods. Ptah as Tatenen is the one who begat the gods and from whom all things proceeded. Thus, we find in the “Hymn to Ptah”:

“Hail to thee, thou who art great and old, Ta-tenen, father of the gods, the great god from the first primordial time who fashioned mankind and made the gods, who began evolution in primordial times, first one after whom everything that appeared developed, he who made the sky as something that his heart has created, who raised it by the fact that Shu supported it, who founded the earth through that which he himself had made, who surrounded it with Nun [and] the sea, who made the nether world [and] gratified the dead, who causes Re to travel [thither] in order to resuscitate them as lord of eternity (nhh) and lord of boundlessness (td), lord of life, he who lets the throat breathe and gives air to every nose, who with his food keeps all Mankind alive, to whom lifetime, [to be more precise] limitation of time and evolution are subordinate, through whose utterance one lives, he who creates the offerings for all the gods in his guise the great Nun (Nile, in this case), lord of eternity, to whom boundlessness is subordinate, breath of life for everyone who conducts the king to his great seat in his name, ‘king of the Two Lands’.”

Of course, it must be noted that this hymn is specifically directed to Ptah as Tatenen. But in this guise he seems to have created everyone. Even Imhotep, after his deification, was also associated with Tatenen through Ptah. In a small temple dedicated to this great thinker of ancient Egypt, we find Imhotep described as “threat one, son of Ptah, the creative god, made by Tatenen, begotten by him and beloved by him…”

Though Tatenen is most closely associated with Ptah, we do find assimilation with other gods, including Osiris, Sokar in their function as earth deities, and later with Khnum. Also, in the Books of the Netherworld he is closely associated with Re.

During the New Kingdom he became particularly important, taking on a protective role towards the royal dead, guarding the kings and their family in their path through the Underworld. For example, in the tomb of Amunhirkhopshef in the Valley of the Queens, on the West Bank of Thebes (modern Luxor), Ramesses III, the father of Amunhirkhopshef is depicted in a scene where he asks Tatenen to look after his young son. In fact, in the Book of Gates, Tatenen personifies the entire area of the netherworld, protecting the deceased in the Beyond. He is able to rejuvenate the sun on its nocturnal journey. In the Litany of Re, however, another Underworld book, he is listed as the personification of the phallus of the dead king.

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Wiki Info

Tatenen (also Ta-tenen, Tatjenen, Tathenen, Tanen, Tenen, Tanenu, and Tanuu) was the god of the primordial mound in Egyptian Mythology. His name means risen land or exalted earth, as well as referring to the silt of the Nile. As a primeval chthonic deity, Tatenen was identified with creation. He was an androgynous protector of nature from the Memphis area, then known as “Men-nefer”.

Tatenen represented the Earth and was born in the moment it rose from the watery chaos, analogous to the primeval mound of the benben and mastaba and the later pyramids. He was seen as the source of “food and viands, divine offers, all good things”, as his realms were the deep regions beneath the earth “from which everything emerges”, specifically including plants, vegetables, and minerals. His father was the creator god Khnum, who made him on his potter’s wheel of Nile mud at the moment of creation of Earth. This fortuity granted him the titles of both “creator and mother who gave birth to all gods” and “father of all the gods”. He also personified Egypt (due to his associations with rebirth and the Nile) and was an aspect of the earth-god Geb, as a source of artistic inspiration, as well as assisting the dead in their journey to the afterlife.

He is first attested in the Coffin Texts, where his name appears as Tanenu or Tanuu, ‘the inert land’, a name which characterizes him as a god of the primeval condition of the earth. Middle Kingdom texts provide the first examples of the form Tatenen.

With a staff Tatenen repelled the evil serpent Apep from the Primeval Mound. He also had a magical mace dedicated to the falcon, venerated as “The Great White of the Earth Creator”. [In one interpretation, Tatenen brought the Djed-pillars of stability to the country, although this is more commonly attributed to Ptah.

Ptah-Tatenen

Both Tatenen and Ptah were Memphite gods. Tatenen was the more ancient god, combined in the Old Kingdom with Ptah as Ptah-Tatenen, in their capacity as creator gods. By the Nineteenth dynasty Ptah-Tatenen is his sole form, and he is worshiped as royal creator god. Ptah-Tatenen can be seen as father of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, the eight gods who themselves embody the primeval elements from before creation

Portrayal

Tatenen’s ambiguous portrayal is a result of the ancient nature of the period he was worshipped in, as well as the subsequent confusion when he was merged with Ptah. He was always in human form, usually seated with a pharonic beard, wearing either an Atef-crown (as Ptah-Sokar) or, more commonly, a pair of ram’s horns surmounted by a sun disk and two tall feathers. As Tanenu or Tanuu, obviously a chthonic deity, he carried two snakes on his head. He was both feminine and masculine, a consequence of his status as a primeval, creator deity. Some depictions show Tatenen with a green complexion (face and arms), as he had connections to fertility and a chthonic association with plants.

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