Plaything of Sekhmet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ikhet_sekhmet) wrote2018-10-09 11:31 am
ikhet_sekhmet) wrote2018-10-09 11:31 am
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Hepet-Hor, redux
Discussing the various forms in which Hepet-Hor appears on Twenty-First Dynasty papyri and coffins, Beatrice L. Goff remarks: "Artists of the Twenty-first Dynasty were ingenious in devising variations while retaining a clearly discernable form... It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that they reflected upon the implications of such similarities and variations. They were concerned to meet present needs; and a papyrus or sarcophagus was felt to be more satisfying if the designs were in some way uniquely adapted to a particular person while at the same time conforming to a pattern. There is never any attempt to explain the significance of the derivations from but conformity to an accepted pattern." (p165) That fits the mental picture I have of the Egyptians, who were enormously uninterested in what a fan might call "canonicity". I wonder how imagery was fitted to the individual? "Give Fred a lot of snakes, he likes those." (If there was an explanation, I wonder what form it would take? Marginal notes, like the ones added to the text of the Book of the Dead?)
I'm compiling a list of attestations of Hepet-Hor. Goff mentions some of her forms which I haven't encountered yet: a deity with two snakes for a head; a male form, "That porter of the West"; a hare-headed guardian at the Lake of Fire; one with a hippo head with a snake in its mouth, guarding a form of Re.
ETA: Hepet-Hor appears in the Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen under a number of names: Ḥptt, "the Embrace"; Ḥptt-wrt, "the Great Embrace"; Ḥptt-bı͗k, "she who embraces the falcon"; Ḥptt-bı͗k-ntry, "she who embraces the divine falcon"; and Ḥptt-m-dw3t, "the embrace in the underworld". These are different readings and translations than those given by the authors I've been reading (of which much, much more later), most conspicuously the reading of "falcon" for "Horus".
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Goff, Beatrice L. Symbols of ancient Egypt in the late period: the twenty-first dynasty. The Hague; New York, Mouton, 1979.
Leitz, Christian (ed). Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götter bezeichnungen. Dudley, MA, Peeters, 2002-3.
I'm compiling a list of attestations of Hepet-Hor. Goff mentions some of her forms which I haven't encountered yet: a deity with two snakes for a head; a male form, "That porter of the West"; a hare-headed guardian at the Lake of Fire; one with a hippo head with a snake in its mouth, guarding a form of Re.
ETA: Hepet-Hor appears in the Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen under a number of names: Ḥptt, "the Embrace"; Ḥptt-wrt, "the Great Embrace"; Ḥptt-bı͗k, "she who embraces the falcon"; Ḥptt-bı͗k-ntry, "she who embraces the divine falcon"; and Ḥptt-m-dw3t, "the embrace in the underworld". These are different readings and translations than those given by the authors I've been reading (of which much, much more later), most conspicuously the reading of "falcon" for "Horus".
__
Goff, Beatrice L. Symbols of ancient Egypt in the late period: the twenty-first dynasty. The Hague; New York, Mouton, 1979.
Leitz, Christian (ed). Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götter bezeichnungen. Dudley, MA, Peeters, 2002-3.