Greg Reeder Wrote:
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> Interesting!
> I was just reacting to your statement:
>
> "The only deity who is known to be represented
> with two snakes in the so-called caduceus manner
> on occasion is Harpocrates, or "Horus the Child",
> who is said to have held off attacks by snakes by
> holding them away from his body."
>
> "Traditionally" Thoth is associated with Hermes
> and the caduceus. Hermes Trismegistus was popular
> about the same time as Harpocrates.

The association of Thoth with Hermes comes about from Greek authors: you do recall that Bastet is also associated with Artemis, and Neith with Athena, for example. But that doesn't mean that Greek interpretation of these Egyptian gods by their Greek equivalents is necessarily the correct description of their functions. For example, Thoth was not, per se, a psychopomp, as was Hermes. His function in the Ennead is that of Ra's vizier, to maintain peace within the land (Bleeker 1973: 118-119). Thoth does this as one who does the bidding of Ra as conveying his desires to men and gods. In this function he is similar to Hermes, as a messenger of the gods (Bleeker 1973: 112)

> "Rather, the magician uses the symbols of a snake
> to represent a god's action on the world."
>
> I do not understand your distinction between magic
> wands and Thoth using these wands to transfer
> divine power to the deceased king. Is the Ankh a
> "magical" instrument?

For one, Thoth isn't 'using wands' - the staffs symbolically represent the Two Lands in a political way - the northern lands by the papyrus and red-crowned cobra, and the lotus staff with White crown cobra, the southern lands of Egypt. Hence my comment about Thoth as a 'divine vizier' conveying the symbols of the Two Lands to the deceased king as he rules from the afterlife.

The /anx/ is also not a wand, either: it symbolises divine life being conveyed by the gods to the deceased. Seti I, for example, is shown with several female goddesses within the Temple of Seti I either as a child or a young man, on the laps of these goddess and in each case, they hold an /anx/ symbol to his nose to convey that they are giving divine life to the king. But this does not mean that the /anx/ was an instrument required by the god/dess to effect that change. As Richard Wilkinson noted in his book in Egyptian art symbols:

"The ankh may represent the life-giving elements of air and water, and the sign is thus commonly offered to the king as a symbol of the "breath of life", and a personified ankh sign is sometimes shown holding an ostrich-feather fan (*S35) behind the king in a variant form of this same idea. In the same way, chains of ankh signs are also shown being poured over the monarch (and in later periods, over deceased commoners) as a symbol of the regenerating power of water." (Wilkinson 1992: 177)

> She might be right here, but do you really want to
> use Omm Sety as source for correct understanding?

As I quoted her after the direct translation of the texts, I wanted to give what was understood about the scene from what sources there are. Say what you want about Omm Sety, but she was a practicing archaeologist for many years under a number of well-known Egyptologists, and an extremely good archaeological draftsperson (Zayed 1962 and 1963). Further, as caretaker of the Abydos Temple from about 1960 - 1981, her knowledge of these Abydos scenes (though expressed in a more lay fashion) is not off the mark as to what the actual texts say.

Reference:

Bleeker, C. J. 1973. Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of the Ancient Egyptian Religion. Studies in the History of Religion (Supplements to Numen) 26. Leiden: Brill.

Wilkinson, R. H. 1992. Reading Egyptian Art: A Hieroglyphic Guide to Ancient Egyptian Painting and Sculpture. London: Thames and Hudson.

Zayed, A. e.-H. 1962. Miscellaneous Notes. II: Some Notes on the Building of the Temple of Sety I at Abydos. Annales du Service des Antiquités de l'Égypte 57: 119-124.

_______________. 1963. Abydos. Cairo: General Organisation for Government Printing Office.

HTH.

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg

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