DOCSLIB.ORG

Blood, Crocodiles, Frogs and Gnats

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Blood, Crocodiles, Frogs and Gnats October 17, 2012, Rebecca Jones Blood, Crocodiles, Frogs and Gnats Exodus 7:6–8:19 I AM gave this “sign” to Moses Exodus 3:12 "I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain." Hold that thought! I. A Croc on the Loose: Setting the Scene A. Which Pharaoh? Perhaps Ramses II (Dynasty 19 – about the 13th century BC). Perhaps Amenhotep II (15th century BC, with Thutmoses III reigning for most of Moses’ life). One scholar feels that the Egyptian timeline is erroneous. We don’t need to know in order to benefit from the truth of the Scriptures. The biblical texts were written by someone familiar with Egyptian beliefs and habits. Pharaoh was known as the king with a “strong arm.” Now it will be proven that the “arm” of the I AM will save.1 I AM begins the one-on-one struggle to the death – of Pharaoh’s firstborn, or I AM’s firstborn. B. Snake or Crocodile? Aaron and Moses throw down the staff and I AM turns it into a “monster of the sea,” perhaps a crocodile (tannin, not naḥaš, as in chapter 4:3). The magicians are able to do the same, but Aaron’s serpent swallows2 their serpents. Some scholars think that a snake is meant by both words, but that the text is reminding us of the Genesis references, in which naḥaš is used (3:1) for the serpent that tempted Eve, whereas tannin is used (1:21) for the sea creatures. Tannin also represents the chaotic forces of nature (Enns, 196-7). “Some Egyptians worshiped the crocodile god Sobek as ‘Ruler of the Nile’” (Ryken, 205). The word tannin is also used for a large venomous snake, such as a cobra. As this was the symbol of Pharaoh’s kingly power, such a translation is satisfying, though not certain. C. What about the Magicians? Is the sorcerers’ magic real or simulated? The Scripture does not imply that these were parlor tricks. God allows a certain deceptive power to Satan and his servants. When pagans seek demonic intervention, or contact with the dead, they find power, but the power only imitates 1 Isaiah 50:2-3 Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering." 2 For the Eyptians, swallowing something was to absorb its power. Ryken points out that the magicians were the first to recognize the power of I AM. (Ex 8:19). 1 October 17, 2012, Rebecca Jones or corrupts God’s real creative power and hurts not only the one who tries to wield it, but all who come in contact with it. We are to be encouraged by this passage that such power trembles and pales before the power of the word of I AM. Esquimaux sorcerers, when converted, have declared that their sorceries, when they were heathen, were not mere impostures, that they were acted on by a power they could not control; but when they believed in Jesus they had neither the will nor the power to do what they used in their pagan state. Brainerd states the same as to the Indian diviners, namely, that all their former powers of divination departed the moment the word of God entered their souls. (Fausset 990) Egyptian magicians prided themselves in their control of snakes, and the flared cobra, ready for war was the symbol on the crown of the Pharaoh (the ureaus), indicating his power over the entire land of Egypt, thanks to two goddesses: the Ureaus-goddess Wadjet (Lower Egypt) and the vulture-goddess Nekhbet (Upper Egypt) (Currid, 89). There were large libraries of scrolls containing curses and blessings from the gods. Apparently the wise men were unable to find the scrolls needed to deal with Moses and Aaron and the great I AM! II. I AM Confronts Pharaoh and the Gods of Egypt A. Pharaoh Pharaoh cannot be distinguished from the gods. He is seen as the incarnation of the gods, who give him all power and authority over the entire land of Egypt, and the Nile itself. Here Moses is given the authority of I AM (Ex 7:1) and confronts Pharaoh in His name. As I AM says to a later prophet about another Pharaoh: Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; speak, and say, “Thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon (tannin) that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, “My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.”’” Ezekiel 29:2–5 The Egyptians saw the Nile as their lifeblood, the defining gift of the gods that created Egypt. And Pharaoh was the Lord of that Nile. Pharaoh was “eternal, worthy of worship, and omniscient: he imbued Egypt with existence and power….he was ka, the life force and soul of Egypt,…[but] Pharaoh’s cobra-crested diadem had no power against Yahweh.” (Currid 93-4) B. The Gods of Egypt 1. The Ennead – nine major gods There are over eighty Egyptian gods, many of whom were originally regional gods that gradually morphed into a national religion, maintaining many inconsistencies3 that didn’t seem to bother 3 Adolf Erman says, “we find a mythology with myths which are absolutely irreconcilable existing peacefully side by side ; in short, an unparalleled confusion.” (Erman, 361). 2 October 17, 2012, Rebecca Jones anyone. In theory, they were all One god, but Egyptians mixed and matched them at will. (Sound familiar?) Atum – creator and father to the King Shu – son of the creator god, god of dry air, wind and the atmosphere. Tefnut – the lunar goddess of moisture, humidity and water and the solar goddess of dryness Geb – god of the earth, the vegetation god Nut – sky goddess, who swallowed the sun each nitght and birthed it each morning Osiris – god of resurrection, the underworld, the afterlife, agriculture, fertility, including the annual flooding of the Nile and patron of Pharaohs Set – god of the desert, Storms, Darkness, and Chaos Nephthys – female goddess, divine assistance and protective guardianship Psalm 135:15-18 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them! We can see from this incomplete list, that it is hard to associate each plague with a particular god, but I AM defies them singly as well as in their united claim to power. God says, “against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments -- I am the Lord” (Exodus 12:12). 2. Worship of Creation All the gods and their power are associated with nature: the Nile River, the land and the sky. Egyptians worshiped creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). These were, are, and always will be the only two possibilities for worship, and no faith but the Christian faith truly worships the Creator and Redeemer whose power is displayed in this event. All other religions worship creation in one way or another. C. The Plagues 1. Plague 1: Blood Drawn from the River Plague announced in advance, early in the morning. The magicians could imitate this sign but do nothing to stop it. A preview that the Nile will be the source of death to the Egyptians A challenge to Hapi: A specific challenge to Hapi, the god of the Nile. A challenge to the country’s lifeblood: The Nile served Egypt as the main transportation and commercial system, its source of drinking water, its source of food (fish), and its irrigation and fertilization source. A challenge to Pharaoh, who was the Lord of the Nile and of the whole land of Egypt – a power given to him by the gods. To strike the Nile was to strike at the heart of the entire country’s religious, cultural and physical existence. One author suggests that when the text says blood was “in wood and stone” (no mention of jars), it could refer to idols, which are elsewhere associated with “wood” and “stone.” 3 October 17, 2012, Rebecca Jones Apparently the Egyptians washed their wood and stone idols each morning in the Nile! (Ryken, 221). Blood sacrifices were offered during death ceremonies, as well as by priests in religious rites, and in general blood would be perhaps even more repulsive and unclean to an Egyptian than it would to us. Pharaoh’s Response: Refusal I AM said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is heavy; he refuses to let my people go.” Exodus 7:14: See the supplemental page to see how an Egyptian heart was “weighed” against a feather before Osiris, who judged enrance to the afterlife. If the heart was lighter than a feather, the person was judged to be ma’at – righteous, or in balance. But I AM declares Pharaoh’s heart “heavy,” i.e. “wicked” for not obeying I AM’s command. Anti-Creation: The waters are not filled with living creatures, but are spitting out those living creatures.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • JIIA.Eu Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology Isis-Thermouthis and the Anguiform Deities in Egypt: a Cultural and Semantic Evolution M
    JIIA.eu Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology Isis-Thermouthis and the anguiform deities in Egypt: a cultural and semantic evolution M. Franci CAMNES, Firenze The snake, for its primeval power and chthonic life, has always had a central but ambivalent role, in Egypt as well as in the Ancient Near Eastern world. Here the semantic field of the serpent is mainly negative: just for example, the god Mot, the deification of the death, can also appear as a serpent;1 the world äl-mā-yuḏkar “snake” in the semitic dialect of Sana means “the one who is not named” is a clear evidence of a linguistic taboo; and the Common Semitic word NAḤAŠ “snake” was related with the meaning “prophecy” and “exorcist formula”.2 From the reading of the Egyptian documents and representations on the tomb and temple’s walls it is clear that in Egypt the symbolic significance of the snake figure was intimately considered powerful and productive during all the Egyptian history. It was used to express different and wide meanings – political, religious, philosophical – because in Egypt the snake could be also seen, at the same time, as an evil and dangerous entity (Apophis above all), as a protective deity (the goddess Wadjet, for example): one can easily find in the Pyramid Texts a long list of serpents, as evil entity e.g. the hpnwi-snake, as protective entity, e.g. the ḏnn-serpent, a clear evidence of an interesting quantity of more ancient myths that merged in the Corpus of the Pyramid Texts. The example of the snake-god Nehebkaw is paradigmatic: in the Utterance 229 the god Atum pressing down on the vertebrae of this serpent have stilled the turmoil in Heliopolis; but in the utterance 510 the deceased king is identified with Nehebkaw.3 A double meaning that had been created, doubtless, by the natural relationship of the snake with the creative process, generating a continuous contradiction, for a modern point of view.
    [Show full text]
  • Raising of the Djed-Pillar
    RAISING THE DJED PILLAR, THE RAMESSEUM DRAMATIC PAPYRUS Adapted by Stuart Tyson Smith from the translation & commentary of Kurt Sethe (1964, German translation by Jessika Akmenkalns), Henri Frankfort (1948), & Edward Wente (1980). Amenhotep III raises the Djed during his Heb-Sed in the tomb of Kheruef at Thebes. The annual ritual of “Raising the Djed” was the culmination of the larger “Mysteries of Osiris,” which commemorated the resurrection of Osiris after his murder by Seth and the restoration of the throne to Osiris’s son Horus. During the Coronation and Heb-Sed festival, Pharaoh took the place of Horus in the ritual, emphasizing the stability of his rule and his connection with the Osiris myth. Its phallic overtones alluded to the renewal of Pharaoh’s potency as ruler like Osiris in the myth. The Djed appears already in Predynastic art and was probably originally a fetish consisting of a pole with sheaves of grain attached. The Djed is described later on as the “Backbone of Osiris” in the Book of the Dead, but the original harvest and renewal symbolism was retained in the ritual. Although probably originally part of Ptah’s cult, the two gods were associated through a syncretism with Sokar, and the ceremony resonated with Osiris’s role as a god of the agricultural cycle. Cast: Lector Priest, Thoth, Geb, Horus/the King, Children of Horus, Osiris (as the Djed), Seth, Isis, Nephthys, Descendants of the King/Followers of Horus/Great Ones of Lower Egypt (royal princes and princesses), Musicians, Dancers and Singers, Followers of Seth/Great Ones of Upper Egypt, Spirit Seekers and the Keeper of the Two Feathers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Inventory Stele: More Fact Than Fiction
    Archaeological Discovery, 2018, 6, 103-161 http://www.scirp.org/journal/ad ISSN Online: 2331-1967 ISSN Print: 2331-1959 The Inventory Stele: More Fact than Fiction Manu Seyfzadeh1, Robert M. Schoch2 1Independent Researcher, Lake Forest, CA, USA 2Institute for the Study of the Origins of Civilization, College of General Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA How to cite this paper: Seyfzadeh, M., & Abstract Schoch, R. M. (2018). The Inventory Stele: More Fact than Fiction. Archaeological The Inventory Stele tells a story about Khufu and the Great Sphinx which Discovery, 6, 103-161. contradicts the current mainstream narrative of when the Sphinx was carved. https://doi.org/10.4236/ad.2018.62007 The story’s historical relevance has long been challenged based on its mention of names and certain details which are believed to be anachronistic to the time Received: March 6, 2018 Accepted: April 16, 2018 of Khufu. Here, we address the elements commonly cited by the critics one by Published: April 19, 2018 one and find that they are largely based on misconceptions in part due to er- rors and oversights contained in the two commonly referenced translations Copyright © 2018 by authors and and based on a missing context which relates to the economics and symbolism Scientific Research Publishing Inc. of supplying provisions to the royal house. We reconstruct a more plausible This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International scenario of why and when the text may have been originally composed and License (CC BY 4.0). who its target audience was. From our analysis we conclude that while we http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ cannot rule out a couple of minor modifications of names from the original Open Access th written version we date to the 5 Dynasty, there is no plausible reason to dis- miss the entire account recorded in this Late Period version on those grounds alone and that the events it describes appear more factual than fictitious.
    [Show full text]
  • The Writing of the Birds. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs Before and After the Founding of Alexandria1
    The Writing of the Birds. Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs Before and After the Founding of Alexandria1 Stephen Quirke, UCL Institute of Archaeology Abstract As Okasha El Daly has highlighted, qalam al-Tuyur “script of the birds” is one of the Arabic names used by the writers of the Ayyubid period and earlier to describe ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The name may reflect the regular choice of Nile birds as signs for several consonants in the Ancient Egyptian language, such as the owl for “m”. However, the term also finds an ancestor in a rarer practice of hieroglyph users centuries earlier. From the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods and before, cursive manuscripts have preserved a list of sounds in the ancient Egyptian language, in the sequence used for the alphabet in South Arabian scripts known in Arabia before Arabic. The first “letter” in the hieroglyphic version is the ibis, the bird of Thoth, that is, of knowledge, wisdom and writing. In this paper I consider the research of recent decades into the Arabian connections to this “bird alphabet”. 1. Egyptological sources beyond traditional Egyptology Whether in our first year at school, or in our last year of university teaching, as life-long learners we engage with both empirical details, and frameworks of thought. In the history of ideas, we might borrow the names “philology” for the attentive study of the details, and “philosophy” for traditions of theoretical thinking.2As the classical Arabic tradition demonstrates in the wide scope of its enquiry and of its output, the quest for knowledge must combine both directions of research in order to move forward.
    [Show full text]
  • The Allure of Ancient Egyptian Jewelry
    Aegyptiaca. Journal of the History of Reception of Ancient Egypt The Allure of Ancient Egyptian Jewelry Yvonne J. Markowitz Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator Emerita of Jewelry, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston For centuries, the West has been attracted to the exotic lands of the East and the cultures of the ancient world. One of the most intriguing is ancient Egypt, an African civilization that flourished during the third through the first millennium BC. In its prime, it was respected, revered, and sometimes feared. Neighboring lands were in awe of its powerful leadership, majestic architectural wonders, imposing statuary, and sophisticated decorative arts with its curious iconography and even stranger hieroglyphics. For many, Egypt held the key to understanding the world’s deepest mysteries. It was the Phoenicians (ca. 1500-300 BC), a seafaring people who lived along the Mediterranean coast in city-states now part of Lebanon, Syria, and northern Israel, who first capitalized on the fascination with all things Egyptian, especially those small objects that were easily shipped and traded. Early entrepreneurs, they served as middlemen stopping at ports in North Africa, Cyprus, Crete, the Cyclades, mainland Greece, and parts of Mesopotamia. Among the goods they bartered were raw materials, Phoenician-made glass, and an array of Egyptian adornments composed of beads and amulets fabricated from metal, stone, faience, and glass. Amuletic forms that especially resonated with Phoenician trading partners were representations of household gods, the healing (sacred) eye of Horus, and the scarab. The latter was a potent symbol of rebirth and rejuvenation based on the life-cycle of the dung beetle (scarabaeus sacer) whose activities the Egyptians associated with the life-giving sun.
    [Show full text]
  • Goddess Nekhbet Scenes on Royal Monuments During the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties Saraa El-Shamy
    International Journal of Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality Vol. (13), No. (1), March, 2019 By: Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University Goddess Nekhbet Scenes on Royal Monuments during the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties Saraa El-Shamy Osama Ibrahim Taher Hassan Walid Shaikh Al Arab Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University Abstract Nekhbet was an early Predynastic local divinity in the Egyptian mythology. Her ancient Egyptian name meant She of Nekheb, she was the patron deity of the city of Nekheb. Ultimately, she became the tutelary deity of Upper Egypt and one of the two patron deities for all of Ancient Egypt when it was unified. Nekhbet and her Lower Egyptian counterpart Wadjet often appeared together as the Nebty name which meant [he/she] of the Two Ladies. It is one of the five titles of each ruler. This study aims to shed more light on the cult of goddess Nekhbet throughout her names, titles and iconographies appeared on royal monuments during the fifth and sixth dynasties. Geographical epithets of Nekhebet were the most common and important ones, especially those that connected with the IIIth Nome of Upper Egypt and its capital, Nekhen. Nekhbet beard several epithets which show her relationship with Upper Egypt and its principal sanctuary. Nekhbet attained epithets that refered to her mighty character «Awt-a:with outstretched wings » and « 8mAt-pD(w)t: Stretcher of Bows ». Keywords: Nekhbet, Old Kingdom, Vulture, Nekhen, El-Kab. Introduction Nekhbet* was the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt. She was a mythical mother of the king. She wasn't associated in any form of family ties with any deities but she was identified as the mother of Horus in the Pyramid Texts†.
    [Show full text]
  • The Deity Shemaa-Nefer “Sma Nfr” at Esna Temple Mofida El-Weshahy1 and Noha Mohamed Hafez2 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Suez Canal University
    Mofida El-Weshahy and Noha Hafez (JAAUTH), Vol. 17 No. 2, 2019, pp. 15-31. The Deity Shemaa-nefer “Sma nfr” at Esna Temple Mofida El-Weshahy1 and Noha Mohamed Hafez2 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Suez Canal University. ARTICLE INFO Abstract Shemaa-nefer is the crocodile god who was mentioned at Esna temple Keywords: as “the son of goddess Neith”. His name means “the long and the good Shemaa-nefer; god” which agrees with the main figure of the god more than “the crocodile; Esna; Southern beautiful”. Shemaa-nefer was not only sacred at Upper Egypt. Neith. His name was found among the deities’ names “Semenouphis, Samanouphis” in some of the Greek texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. (JAAUTH) His name appeared on one of the papyrus which was found at Vol. 17, No. 2, Elephantine. Another papyrus found at Esna mentioned the deity’s (2019), name, but it is now in Chicago1. This research aims to; (1) shed light on PP. 15 -31. the deity Shemaa-nefer; (2) study the role of Shemaa-nefer at Esna; (3) study the relationship of Shemaa-nefer with the other deities. Introduction Esna tA-snj 2, iwnjt 3 is located on the West bank of the Nile, 64 km south of Luxor. This site was an important cultural center during the Ptolemaic period4. The temple of Esna dates to Ptolemaic and Roman times and was one of the last Egyptian temples erected in Egypt. It was dedicated to god Khnum along with other deities such as Mehet5, Menhyt6, Tefnut7, Sekhmet8, Nebtu, Neith9 and Heka10,11.The temple was built during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor and completed under Decius whose inscriptions included the last hieroglyphs sculpted in ancient Egypt12.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rosetta Stone
    THE J ROSETTA STONE PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. London : SOLD AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM f922. Price Sixpence. [all rights reserved.] I \ V'.'. EXCHANGE PHOTO ET IMP. DONALD :• : . » MACBETH, LONDON THE ROSETTA STONE. r % * THE DISCOVERY OF THE STONE. famous slab of black basalt which stands at the southern end of the Egyptian Gallery in the British Museum, and which has for more than a century " THEbeen universally known as the Rosetta Stone," was found at a spot near the mouth of the great arm of the Nile that flows through the Western Delta " " to the sea, not far from the town of Rashid," or as Europeans call it, Rosetta." According to one account it was found lying on the ground, and according to another it was built into a very old wall, which a company of French soldiers had been ordered to remove in order to make way for the foundations of an addition to the fort, " ' afterwards known as Fort St. Julien. '* The actual finder of the Stone was a French Officer of Engineers, whose name is sometimes spelt Boussard, and sometimes Bouchard, who subsequently rose to the rank of General, and was alive in 1814. He made his great discovery in August, 1799. Finding that there were on one side of the Stone lines of strange characters, which it was thought might be writing, as well as long lines of Greek letters, Boussard reported his discovery to General Menou, who ordered him to bring the Stone to his house in Alexandria. This was immediately done, and the Stone was, for about two years, regarded as the General's private property.
    [Show full text]
  • Statuette of a Snake-Legged Anubis in the National Museum, Warsaw 214 ALEKSANDRA MAJEWSKA
    INSTITUT DES CULTURES MÉDITERRANÉENNES ET ORIENTALES DE L’ACADÉMIE POLONAISE DES SCIENCES ÉTUDES et TRAVAUX XXV 2012 ALEKSANDRA MAJEWSKA Statuette of a Snake-legged Anubis in the National Museum, Warsaw 214 ALEKSANDRA MAJEWSKA Among the images of Egyptian gods on display in the gallery of Ancient Egyptian Art at the National Museum in Warsaw there is an exceptional fi gurine of bronze with a jackal’s head, torso of a man and serpentine coils instead of legs. It is undoubtedly a representa- tion of Anubis, but suffi ciently unique to merit a broader commentary than the brief notes published on its subject so far.1 The iconographic and stylistic distinctness with regard to canonical representations of Anubis in Egyptian art indicate a background in the artistic production of an age in which a native tradition coexisted with Graeco-Roman culture. The Anubis statuette from the Warsaw National Museum is of composite form.2 It is made up of three independent elements: jackal’s head, male upper body and serpentine coils (Figs 1–4). The relatively small head features a long narrow snout. Set in deep sockets, the large slanting eyes with marked pupils look attentively to the front. Curly wisps of fur encircle the snout and neck, joining the tripartite wig to form a hairdo that skillfully softens the animality of the head. Preserved between the fl eshy ears of natural shape is the base of the broken crown. The harmoniously built male torso is characterized by ample pectoral muscles passing into a narrowed waist and softly modeled, slightly rounded abdominal muscles with a distinctly sunk navel.
    [Show full text]
  • The Eye of Horus: the Connection Between Art, Medicine, and Mythology in Ancient Egypt
    Open Access Review Article DOI: 10.7759/cureus.4731 The Eye of Horus: The Connection Between Art, Medicine, and Mythology in Ancient Egypt Karim ReFaey 1 , Gabriella C. Quinones 2 , William Clifton 1 , Shashwat Tripathi 3 , Alfredo Quiñones- Hinojosa 1 1. Neurosurgery, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, USA 2. Art, University of Miami, Miami, USA 3. Neurosurgery, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Corresponding author: Karim ReFaey, [email protected] Abstract Ancient Egyptian civilization is one of the oldest cultures in human history. Ancient Egyptians are well- known for pioneering the fields of art, medicine, and the documentation of discoveries as mythological tales. The Egyptians mastered the integration of anatomy and mythology into artistic symbols and figures. The mythology of Isis, Osiris, and Horus is arguably one of the most recognized mythologies in ancient Egypt. The Eye of Horus was used as a sign of prosperity and protection, derived from the myth of Isis and Osiris. This symbol has an astonishing connection between neuroanatomical structure and function. Artistically, the Eye is comprised of six different parts. From the mythological standpoint, each part of the Eye is considered to be an individual symbol. Additionally, parts of the Eye represent terms in the series 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, and 1/32; when this image is superimposed upon a sagittal image of the human brain, it appears that each part corresponds to the anatomic location of a particular human sensorium. In this manuscript, we highlight the possible scientific speculation of the ingenuity of ancient Egyptians’ remarkable insight into human anatomy and physiology.
    [Show full text]
  • (Neophron Percnopterus [L.]). the Symbolic Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Primarily Meaning of the V
    Iconography of Deities and Demons: Electronic Pre–Publication 1/4 Last Revision: 15 October 2008 Vulture beginning of the Middle Kingdom apotropaic armed lions and v.s are depicted I. Introduction. V.s were highly re- on magical knives for the protection of spected birds in the ancient Orient, espe- mother and child (ALTENMÜLLER 1965, cially the proud griffin v. (Gyps fulvus 1986). On these apotropaica the griffon v. Hablizl), but also the bearded v. (Gypaetus represents the powerful goddess Nekhbet. barbatus [L.]) and the Egyptian v. The Egyptian visual imagery of the Late (Neophron percnopterus [L.]). The symbolic Bronze Age and Early Iron Age primarily meaning of the v. has its roots in both an- show the v. in the realm of the dead. On cient Near Eastern and Egyptian tradition papyri from the Book of the Dead dating to (see SCHROER 1995 for an extensive discus- the 11th and 10th cent., the v. can be found sion and examples from Palestine/Israel repeatedly in connection with solar symbol- back to the Middle Bronze Age). The v. as a ism, i.e., together with Kheper (→Scarab), carrion eater is found in two symbolic con- the falcon head (→Falcon, →Falcon– texts, namely accompanying human death headed gods)/solar disc (→Sun, →Solar (and rebirth) and in war and battle. Since the deities), or the head of the young sun god in Neolithic Age, human bodies were left to the flower, suggesting the rebirth of the the v.s for defleshing in the Near East. Per- dead into a new life (NIWINSKI 1989: figs.
    [Show full text]
  • 19 Sloan-Hubert
    Egypt in Antiquity: Music and Mythological Deities April Sloan–Hubert Jack Yates High School INTRODUCTION Jack Yates High School in Houston, Texas, is the alma mater of choreographer, producer and actress Debbie Allen and her Tony-award winning sister, Philicia Rashad. The Allen sisters discovered and began to develop their talents and skills at the historic Jack Yates High School. The great jazz vocalist, the late Anita Moore, developed her vocal pipes too at Jack Yates. Anita’s voice although silenced is still remembered for being hand picked by the one and only Duke Ellington to lead his orchestra. Jack Yates High School is also the alma mater of the now retired Lavonia Pope Bassett, the first African American music supervisor for the Houston Independent School District. As the present Choir Director and Fine Arts Department Chair at this talent-rich institution, I am charged with the phenomenal task to lead, mold, develop and return our department to its traditional glory. I am also cognizant of the fact that those were the days before state- mandated tests, budget cuts, site-based management and weaponless wars of destruction. In America’s not-so-long ago past, people from all walks of life were considered culturally refined and upstanding citizens by attending the opera, going to the museum, knowing what dinner fork to use at a well set table, and by the art work in their homes. At the heart of my motivation lie two exceptionally large music history classes with forty plus students each. The students enrolled in these classes are lovingly called “the music historians.” These semi-non musically inclined historians are void of vocal and instrumental skills, but they possess a great love and appreciation for music.
    [Show full text]