Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Book of Abraham and the Facsimile Image-Part X – Understanding Elkenah

Having discussed the purpose of canopic jars in the last post, a look at Facsimile 1 shows the hawk-headed canopic, called Elkenah, beneath the lion couch (altar) on which Abraham is bound. Obviously, as shown in the last post, Elkena, was not a god associated with funery canopic jars. At the same time, the word “canopic” is not found or implied in the text of the Book of Abraham.
What is found is a drawing, Facsimile 1, which shows four objects labeled as “gods” in the “Explanation of the Above Cut,” that everyone has called canopic jars. However, while there are four objects under the lion couch, or altar, they are representative of named gods, not as jars anymore than the offering table or lotus plant are actually there as a table or a flower, i.e., the lotus flower, commonly associated with Upper Egypt, one of the two lands, when part of the funery imagery actually represented re-birth—in fact, the Book of the Dead contains spells for “transforming oneself into a lotus” and thus fulfilling the promise of resurrection. At the same time, the offering table in a funery scene represents the “offering formula,” a formal set of offerings in the name of the king (Htp Di nsw=hotep di nisu: “A gift [offering] which the king gives”) that includes phrases to confirm that speaking the offering formula would allow n-kA-n imAh, “for the ka of the revered one,” to gain access to the offerings listed after it on their trip into the afterlife.
Like many symbols in Egypt, the Lotus flower had many meanings. In this tomb painting, it is representative of fertility. In other images, it represents the universe, and sometimes considered to be magical, and sacred, and appears as a common motif in numerous ancient paintings 
These items are representative of things, not objects in and of themselves. As an example, the “offering formula” was the principal inscription on the False Door from the Early Dynastic period onward, and overcame the Egyptian concern of not being prepared when entering their tomb in death.
The canopic jars beneath the lion couch in a funery scene, actually contained the four principle organs of the deceased that had been removed from his body during mummification, and the heads upon the later jars represented the gods who guarded and protected those organs into the afterlife when they would be needed once again by the deceased. The gods represented in the Facsimile 1 scene are not there to contain or protect anything, nor do they represent the viscera of the deceased, but are strictly representative of the idolatrous gods involved in the “four corners” of the Egyptian world.
That is, while the Babylonians thought the earth was hollow to provide space for their underworld, Aristotle believed the earth was a sphere, though George Gamow thought it flat, and the monk Cosmas Indicopleustes described it square as did Egyptians, who thought the earth not only square, but having four corners, and mountains at the edge supporting the vault of the sky.
The Egyptian gods of the four corners, shown in the funery canopic jars, were: Qebehsenuef for the West; Hapi for North, Imsetyh for South, and Duamutef for East. As for the gods Abraham describes, shown in imagery beneath the altar, we have the Egyptian understading of the four corners, along with the Sumerian idolatrous gods, or the four directions of the earth:
1) The god Libnah, meaning “white, light, shining,” and in Hebrew, the root lbn, means lebonah and in Greek, libanos, Arabic lub-anun, which also applies to El Lubban, or to Labanah, meaning the “moon.” All of these are representative of “white.” As for a directional country, Labanon, associated with the snow covered Antilibanus, and Libanos in the Greek for the entire Mountain Range. Robert Smith, a Cuneiform and Assyrian scholar, in his commentary on the Book of Abraham identified the jackal-headed as Libnah, the correct designation for the West. And the Egyptians connected it with the white land, which is the meaning of the name. And Anubis, the God of the West, the White land of the Westerners, and is associated with the moon! The Egyptologist Hermann Kees noted that the epithet, nb ta djesr, "Lord of the White Land" derived from the idea of "Lord of the shining, sanctified land." That is a euphism for the necropolis itself, which is in the West. That would make him Lord of the Westerners! In addition, Egyptologist Brusch claims the four canonical colors of Egypt always has white as the color the West. Also the Libyans to the West of Egypt were noted for their white skin and blue eyes. Thus, we have the god Libnah  (meaning White Land), having the god mask of Anubis (god of the West), representing the West corner of the Egyptian world.
2) The god Mahmackrah, the ape’s head, baboon head or bull’s head, interchangeable in canopic jars, which the Egyptians always placed in the north. The mackr element of this name is very important in Canaanite names such as Mhr-Anat which means "champion, or upholder of the goddess Anat." Ramses II called himself Mahr-B'l meaning upholder of Ba'al, the Canaanite god. Mahr-Rah would be the champion or upholder of Rah, the Egyptian equivilant of Ba'al. We need to note that the "h" in the root must have a heavy sound in order not to be swallowed up by the "r" which follows. The shift between the "k" and the "h" can be seen in our own name Mi-cha-el which the Jews wrote Mi-ka-el. Incidentally, the form of the name rather neatly parallels our Ma-mackr-rah. Mi-cha-el, like Mi-ca-iah (1 Kings 22). The Canaanite name Maq'arah means a burning, a form of sacrifice. The idolatrous god of Beth-shan is called "Mkl'a", the great god. The first element in his name, Mkl is Canaanite, while the ending "a" is Egyptian. Another interesting name form is the Egyptian Mai-m-hqa meaning "the lion is ruler." Thus, the god Mahmackrah would be Mai-m-akr-ah which would mean The lion Akr is great! Akr being the earth god as lion, and Abraham is on the Lion Couch. Obviously then, the name is not meaningless.
3) The god Korash, with the variant spelling of Koash, correlates to the South, and could be the Land of Cush, the region south of Egypt, called Nubia or Ethiopia in Hebrew and other ancient languages which expanded south of Elephantine and Syene (aswan). The names of the four brothers, Mizraim, Punt, Canaan, and Cush, which obviously refers to the division of the world into four regions, with the Queen of Punt living in the South. The natives of Saba, at the far south end of Arabia worshipped a goddess Iagouth, who came from Heliopolis, and a local form of the Goddess Hathor, the regent of Heliopolis, worshipped at Punt and Saba. Her people were known as the Koraish! They were also called the Beni Qananee, or sons of Canaan. And in Heliopolis, she went by the name of Wadjit which was Semiticized into Ozza, under which title she turns up as one of the principle idols of the Qoreish in Mekkah. This Qoreish is the diminutive of the name Koraish.
4) The god Elkenah. H. Seebass notes that the Kenites provide the link between the Patriarchal period and the desert period of Israel in their original home being the Negev, and are from the Egyptian point of view, "the people to the East." Their name El-kenah might well refer to the god of an eastern region or people. It should be noted that in one system of classification the East is the hawk-headed disc Re-Harahkte, Lord of Heaven. J. De Witt has noted in the "Chron. D' Egypte," at the purification of the king, the East is the Hawk. In addition, Elkenah corresponds with the Egyptian "qen" or "qeni" the sound of a hard "k". The Egyptian element "qen" [Ken] means mighty or powerful and is used in various names of kings according to the Berlin Dictionary, which also claims that in Palestine and Syria, it is common to find such names combining Egyptian and West Semitic elements.
The four angels (their wings symbolize power) seen by John, “four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth” (7:1) may well be the basis of the four corners of the world in Egyptian thought and their four “gods” standing at the corners
Robert Smith also mentioned that Elkenah correlates with the Biblical Hebrew word El-qanah, a name for six or more persons mentioned in the Bible. In Genesis 14:19 we read "El Elyon qoneh shamayim we'aretz," "El, the Exalted one, Creator of Heaven and Earth." It is a common hypocoristic form in the late Hittite story of Asherah and El-Qone-ersi: "El-Creator-of-the-Earth" (which is written El-ku-ni-ir-sa and pronounced Elkoners according to Albright and Clifford. El-Qone-ersi means "El-Creator-of-the-Earth," El-Qone-ersi is written Elkunirisa, and Elkunirisa is pronounced Elkoners. Thus, the East was identified with the falcon headed canopic counterpart of Elkenah. All in all, the names of the four idolatrous gods Abraham mentioned correlate to the exact correct regional directions of which are depicted on the heads of the four god images under the altar in Facsimile 1.
(See the next post, “The Book of Abraham and the Facsimile Image-Part VIII – Ur of the Chaldees,” for more information on Abraham’s home and his nearly being sacrificed to Elkenah)

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