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.
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.
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)
No comments:
Post a Comment