Sekhmet: snippets from ANET
Feb. 28th, 2007 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ikhet_sekhmetFrom James Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, aka ANET, aka a jolly useful book. :-)
The story of Si-Nuhe refers to the pharoah as "that beneficent god, the fear of whom pervaded foreign countries like (the fear of) Sekhmet in a year of pestilence" (p 19). King Men-Kheper-Re is called "the fierce lion, the son of Sekhmet" (p 23) and Seti I is described as "a Bastet terrible in combat". Similarly, Amen-Hotep's face is "terrible like that of Bastet".
King Ni-maat-Re's treasurer, Sehetep-ib-Re, describes his boss thus:
"He is the Bastet who protects the Two Lands;
He who worships him will be one whom his arm shelters.
He is Sekhmet against him who transgresses his command;
He whom he hates will bear woes".
Pritchard says in a footnote: "The gentle Bastet is contrasted with the terrible Sekhmet... the word rendered "woes" might be read "sickness".
"Every important cult-center of Egypt," explains Pritchard, "asserted its primacy by the dogma that it was the site of creation". ANET gives the following text from the Leyden Payrus I 350. (I assume the words in parentheses have been added to assist our understanding, but I'm not sure why some words are in italics - are they guesses at missing words?)
"Thebes is normal beyond every (other) city. The water and land were in her from the first times. (Then) sand came to delimit the fields and to create her ground on the hillock; (thus) earth came into being.
"Then men came into being in her, to found every city with her real name, for their name is called "city" (only) under the oversight of Thebes, the Eye of Re. [Pritchard explains that "The City" was a title of Thebes.]
"Her majesty came as the Sound Eye and the Beneficial Eye, to bind the land thereby together with (her) ka, coming to rest and alighting in Ishru in her form as Sekmet, the Mistress of the Two Lands. [Pritchard says: "Ishru, near Karnak, was a cult-seat of the goddess Mut, here equated with the goddess Sekhmet."] 'How rich she is,' they say about her, in her name of Thebes!' She remains sound in her name of the Sound Eye, the eye within, which is in his sun disc; Opposite-her-Lord [Thebes], appearing and appointed in her place in her name of Appointed-of-Places [Temple of Karnak], without her peer. Every (other) city is under her shadow to magnify themselves through Thebes. She is the norm." (p 8)
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Prichard, James B. (ed). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed). Princeton University, 1969. The reference to Men-Khepher-Re is in The Taking of Joppa; to Seti I, in A Campaign of Seti I in Northern Palestine; to Amen-Hotep II, in The Asiatic Campaigning of Amen-Hotep II.
The story of Si-Nuhe refers to the pharoah as "that beneficent god, the fear of whom pervaded foreign countries like (the fear of) Sekhmet in a year of pestilence" (p 19). King Men-Kheper-Re is called "the fierce lion, the son of Sekhmet" (p 23) and Seti I is described as "a Bastet terrible in combat". Similarly, Amen-Hotep's face is "terrible like that of Bastet".
King Ni-maat-Re's treasurer, Sehetep-ib-Re, describes his boss thus:
"He is the Bastet who protects the Two Lands;
He who worships him will be one whom his arm shelters.
He is Sekhmet against him who transgresses his command;
He whom he hates will bear woes".
Pritchard says in a footnote: "The gentle Bastet is contrasted with the terrible Sekhmet... the word rendered "woes" might be read "sickness".
"Every important cult-center of Egypt," explains Pritchard, "asserted its primacy by the dogma that it was the site of creation". ANET gives the following text from the Leyden Payrus I 350. (I assume the words in parentheses have been added to assist our understanding, but I'm not sure why some words are in italics - are they guesses at missing words?)
"Thebes is normal beyond every (other) city. The water and land were in her from the first times. (Then) sand came to delimit the fields and to create her ground on the hillock; (thus) earth came into being.
"Then men came into being in her, to found every city with her real name, for their name is called "city" (only) under the oversight of Thebes, the Eye of Re. [Pritchard explains that "The City" was a title of Thebes.]
"Her majesty came as the Sound Eye and the Beneficial Eye, to bind the land thereby together with (her) ka, coming to rest and alighting in Ishru in her form as Sekmet, the Mistress of the Two Lands. [Pritchard says: "Ishru, near Karnak, was a cult-seat of the goddess Mut, here equated with the goddess Sekhmet."] 'How rich she is,' they say about her, in her name of Thebes!' She remains sound in her name of the Sound Eye, the eye within, which is in his sun disc; Opposite-her-Lord [Thebes], appearing and appointed in her place in her name of Appointed-of-Places [Temple of Karnak], without her peer. Every (other) city is under her shadow to magnify themselves through Thebes. She is the norm." (p 8)
__
Prichard, James B. (ed). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd ed). Princeton University, 1969. The reference to Men-Khepher-Re is in The Taking of Joppa; to Seti I, in A Campaign of Seti I in Northern Palestine; to Amen-Hotep II, in The Asiatic Campaigning of Amen-Hotep II.
