rich Wrote:
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> Here is a good free source of info on Egypt.
> *********
>
> Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents
> from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest
> by James Henry Breasted - 1906
<snip>
> *********
> I can't seem to find anything of it's kind on the
> internet for Egypt Mythology. I am considering
> creating a free website with original sources like
> those greek websites above. It is a long-term
> project/hobby with probably not much to show for a
> few years(3-5).
>
> I'm thinking of using some good sources, like
> those of Breasted(which is out of copyright), as a
> starting point.

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Again, depending upon Breasted may not be your best bet for the most accurate source for information on ancient Egyptian myth (although I admit I would refer to him before Budge). Let me give an example:

In Breasted, you have this comment, in reference to the coronation of Horemheb:

Marriage to Mutnezmet

He [the god Horus of Alabastronopolis] proceeded to the palace, he brought him [Horemheb] before him to the shrine [/[b]pr wr[/b]/] of his revered eldest daughter [literally,/wrt HkAw/ - KGG],-------. [She did] obeisance to him, she embraced his beauty, and placed her before him. (Breasted 2001 (1906), 3: 17, §28)

Yet, since then this text has been re-examined, and found to mean something totally different than thought by Breasted. Today, this text is more accurately translated as a textual description of religious and political importance:

He [Horus, Lord of Hat-nesu] then presented himself to this official, the /r.pt/ [noble] and deputy of the Two Lands [/[b]Hr-Da-Da n tA-wy[/b]/], Horemheb, and he proceeded to the palace and placed him before the Per Wer of his noble daughter, [Hekau]-Weret, whose arms (were) in greeting. She embraced his beauty and she established her(self) on his brow. (Davies 1995: 68)

Now, Davies (and in a similar translation by Murnane and Meltzer 1995: 232), note that Breasted had missed the point by translating the phrase, /wrt HkAw/, as "revered eldest daughter," when in fact the reference is to the goddess of the royal crown, /wrt HkAw/, literally meaning "Great of Magic". As Murnane noted (Murnane and Meltzer 1996: 224, n. 37), Horhemeb had to be designated king by the gods themselves since he was not the "heir" of any previous king.

In the case of Weret-Hekau, who is a Fiery Eye goddess, her "...establish(ing) her(self) on his brow..." is a mythical reference to how Hathor, in her "daughter mode," the first of the Fiery Eye goddesses, protects Ra (Troy 1986) by affixing herself as a fiery serpent to Ra's brow, to strike out at his enemies (Roberts 1995) (this is also the source myth behind the uraeus affixed to a king's crown, BTW).

I was always somewhat confused, when I was a student reading Breasted's version, why a queen would be within a /pr wr/, as this is a shrine where a god's image would normally reside. Breasted's note to this passage doesn't assist, IMO, since he merely assumed the /pr wr/ reference simply meant that every "divine consort" (queen) had her own shrine or chapel (Breasted 2001 (1906), 3: 17, n. (c)). But as there is no other such textual or imagery reference to such a situation, later scholars such as Davies, Murnane and Meltzer, et al., reviewed the texts again to discover that Breasted had missed an entire reference to a specific goddess - one who was not only important in her own right, but an integral part of the myth of kingship (which Horemheb desperately needed as he could only use the "divine oracle/approbation" myth to assume the throne of Egypt*).

To be fair to Breasted, he may not have been aware of this reference as a separate goddess at the time. Adolf Erman published the first reference to the goddess Weret-hekau, from the late Middle Kingdom, in 1911 as

Erman, A. 1911. Hymnen an das Diadem der Pharaonen: aus einem Papyrus der Sammlung Golenischeff. APAW philos.-hist. Klasse 1911 Abh. 1. Berlin.

Yet the actual first references to this crown goddess can be found in the Pyramid Texts in just about every known version of the texts. In the most recent Allen and der Manuelian translations of the Pyramid Texts, for example, Weret-Hekau is mentioned as a crown goddess in

Unas Spells 153-155
Pepi I Spell 39
Merenre Spells 29, 52
Neferkare Pepi (II) Spells 52, 106, 108, 111, 265, 296, 311, 315, 318
Neith Spells 48-52, 55, 325-326

Barbara Lesko also gives this example for a Weret-Hekau reference from the pyramid temple of Neuserre of the 5th Dynasty:

O, Great Crown!
O, Crown Great of Magic!
O Fiery Serpent
Grant that dread of me be like the dread of you
Grant that fear of me be like the fear of you.
Neuserre Spell 221 (Lesko translation; Lesko 1999: 73-74)

In addition, references to cult shrines to this goddess have been found in various places throughout Egypt and have been published in the following

Habachi, L. 1967. Per-Ra'et and Per-Ptah in the Delta. CdE XLII/83: 30-40. (On a stela of Ra'ettayfnakht (Cairo temp. No. 20-10-48-15) refers to a specific cult shrine of Weret-Hekau at Kafr Ed-Deir, midway between Athribis and Bubastis.)

Hari, R. 1976. La Grande-en-magie et la stèle du Temple de Ptah à Karnak JEA 62: 100-107.

Morkot, R. 1986: Violent Images of Queenship and the Royal Cult. Wepwawet 2 (Summer 1986): 1-9. (Reference to images of Tiye at Sedeinga in Nubia, where she is associated with the goddesses Hathor, Isis and Weret-Hekau.)

Simpson, W. K. 1972. A Relief of the Royal Cup-Bearer Tja-wy. Boston Museum Bulletin 70/360: 68-82. (A relief from this tomb shows in the second register a scene of a storehouse with a shrine of Weret-Hekau, possibly at Thebes.)
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* Basically a non-dynastic line king is faced with the following 6 ways to legitimately assume the throne:

a) adoption/acclamation by the previous king (Thutmose I is an example of this);
b) claim of direct relation with the previous dynastic line as an ancestor (Ramessides claimed Horemheb as an "ancestor," although there was no family ties between them);
c) marriage into the dynastic line (Ay's presumed marriage to Ankhsenamun after Tutankhamun's death);
d) proleptic stories of divience prophecies imbuing legitimacy to a king's reign (Amenhemet I's association with the proleptic "Prophecy of Neferti" which was created durign the reign of his son, Senwosret I);
e) the divine birth cycle (claiming direct lineage from a god, usually Amun-Ra; this myth was used by both Hatshepsut and in his later life, Amenhotep III), and
f) direct acclamation by a god or gods as the next heir to the throne, usually in a proleptic story (the bowing of the image of Amun-Ra before Thutmose III while Hatshepsut was still on the throne; the "Sphinx dream" story of Thutmose IV, and the coronation of Horemheb by images of Horus, lord of Hat-nesu (Horemheb's home town), Weret-Hekau, and eventually the entire Ennead).

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So, again, I would be hesitant to rely upon Breasted's work as your best "single source" for information about Egyptian mythology. While not saying that Breasted's work is totally flawed or inadequate (I still refer to his Ancient Records of Egypt quite bit for a quick resource to some texts), I would never rely upon this work as the only source to make an argument that a specific god's attributes was this or that. There is just too much more detailed and better scholarship in the intervening 100 years since Breasted's work was published to make him the most reliable source on Egyptian myth - or historical interpretation, I might add.

Other References:

Allen, J. P. and P. Der Manuelian. 2005. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Writings from the Ancient World 23. T. J. Lewis. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Breasted, J. H. 2001c (1906). Ancient Records of Egypt. The Nineteenth Dynasty. Vol. 3. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Davies, B. G. 1995. Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty. Fasc. VI. B. G. Davies. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.

Lesko, B. S. 1999. The Great Goddesses of Egypt. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Murnane, W. J. and E. S. Meltzer. 1995. Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt. Society of Biblical Literature: Writings from the Ancient World Series 5. S. B. Parker. Atlanta: Scholars Press.

Roberts, A. 1995. Hathor Rising: The Serpent Power of Ancient Egypt. Devon: Northgate Publishers.

Troy, L. 1986. Patterns of Queenship: in ancient Egyptian myth and history. BOREAS 14. Uppsala: ACTA Universitatis Upsaliensis.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

Doctoral Candidate
Oriental Institute
Doctoral Programme in Oriental Studies [Egyptology]
Oxford University
Oxford, United Kingdom