666
666
So, what do those hieroglyphs actually say? The following treatment is heavily indebted to the anonymous “modern analysis” of the writing on the stèle which appeared in Appendix A to The Holy Books of Thelema, Equinox III (9). Any mistakes are probably my own. The hieroglyphs below are arranged left to right for ease of reading; this does not reflect the arrangement on the stele, the bulk of which is written right to left.
Observe of stèle (1) Captions to picture.
5° ±‚ Ð
(beneath winged disk):
k
bodt
× ° !
nur ea nb.t [sic] pt
°
“The Behedite, the great god, lord of the sky.” Written right to left on the stèle. The ‘t’ ( ) in nb.t was possbily included as a piece of space‐filling to make the arrangement of signs symmetrical as it changes the gender of the title to ‘Lady of heaven’ (nb.t pt is an epiphet used for any goddess the scribe or person commissioning the inscription wished to flatter at the time). Alternatively, there could be a sign omitted; another stèle from the same area and period (that of another Ankhefenkhons, in this case a priest of Amun, printed in Pemberton, Treasures of the Pharaohs), renders the title , i.e. giving the phonetic components of pt as well as the ‘sky’ ideogram.
×Ä°!
5
The first symbol, (F18 in the standard sign‐list) is generally used for the bo biliteral, although in some combinations has the value ow and was so taken by the person responsible for the 1904 transliteration Crowley was working from, giving Hudit or Houdit as the name of the winged sun‐disc. Neither reading can reasonably give ‘Hadit.’ In the name of the winged sun‐disk the // terminal sometimes replaces the ‘crossroads’ determinative, for bodty, ‘he of Behedet’; spelt as on the stele it is strictly the name of a town, but is here obviously being used in a transferred sense. (above enthroned god)
‘ ° w ¥ô&O \ y— 5 ! ÐÐÐ re
or
axt
ory
nurw
“Rē‐Harakhty, chief of the gods.” Written in two columns, right to left. ‘Rē’ is written out in long‐form, i.e. with the hieroglyphs for r and e, the ‘sun’ ideograph and the ‘god’ ° determinative. or.axt is represented by the Horus falcon, followed by y— 5 for akhet, ‘horizon’ (strictly, ‘the place of the sunrise,’ Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, sign‐list, N18). In older renderings, the “akh” bird was read as khu, hence the transliteration Crowley was working from gave the name of the god as Ra Hoor Khut, which spelling appears in a couple of places in Liber AL.
y ÀÐ
wsir
Ðp
om nur
(above standing figure) ¡ × ° æm Ä ôôô FF ì F m! —F — ´Y ¼ Š‚ jë°À ‚ ˆª mnu
nb wst
wn eawy nw pt
m ipt-swt
anx.f-n-xnsw
¾
[mae]-xrw
Written in five columns, left to right. Name and titles of the deceased. wsir, “[the] Osiris,” used in a transferred sense as in Egyptian funary literature from the Old Kingdom onwards to mean “the deceased.” om nur is here written using a convention known as ‘honorific transposition’ (see Gardiner, op. cit. §57) where the neter sign for ‘god’ (or the sign(s)
comprising the name of some particular god such as Re, Amun, etc.) is displaced to the start of a group of signs when in the ordinary grammatical order it would come at the end. omnur, lit. ‘slave of the god’ is sometimes glossed ‘prophet’ (following its being rendered by the Greek prophetes in the bilingual “Decree of Canopus”) although not in the sense of the Hebrew neviim, freelance ‘inspired’ preachers outside the temple hierarchy); Gardiner (op. cit., vocab, s.v. om) renders it ‘the highest grade of priest.’ nb wast, ‘Lord of Thebes’ was an epithet of Mentu (mnu), originally a local god who could not be entirely displaced by the cult of Amun‐Re so was instead assimilated. The final epithet, Ma‐kheru, ‘true of speech,’ ‘vindicated,’ etc., is given defectively with only the second of the two glyphs of the abbreviated form written, squashed under the ‘seated dignitary’ determinative (which latter normally indicates that the name it follows is that of a person of rank), probably on the grounds that the scribe was running out of space. (below offering table) Simply identies what is on the table, as bread, beer, beef and geese; in other words, the late period Egyptian equivalent of a barbeque.
(2) Main text. Five lines of writing, right to left. This may be broken down for convenience into four sections (|| represents line breaks on the stèle): jd mdw n wsir om-nur mnu nbt [sic] wast wn eawy nwt [sic] pt m iptswt enx.f-n-xnsw || mae-xrw
Preamble: “words spoken by” (jd mdw is represented by a conventional abbreviation: see Gardiner, op. cit., vocabulary s.v. mdw), then the titles, etc., of the deceased, more or less as in the caption although the scribe here appears to have inserted a couple of °s in as space‐ fillers, giving nbt for nb and nwt for nw. The name of the deceased is followed by a slightly different version of the ‘seated dignitary’ determinative to that used in the picture caption (also in the father’s name in the bottom line). mae-xrw is here written using both signs of the abbreviated form, i ka dwa.twf wr baw ba ea cfyt ddw nrw.f || n nurw xew or nst.f wr
Initial address to the god: flattering him in the hopes of getting his attention and disposing him favourably to meet the requests that follow. While the text itself does not name the deity addressed, the picture and its captions provide the context. “O high one! may he be praised! the one of great power, the spirit of great dignity, who places fear of himself among the gods, who shines forth from his great seat.” ir wawt n ba[.i], n ax[.i] n.cwyt[.i] iw epr.kwi wbn[.i] || im epr ir n.i wat r bt ntt re itm xpri owt-or im
The letters in square brackets are conjectural ‘corrections’ by the author of the modern analysis in Equinox III (9), specifically possessive suffixes, thus “[my] soul, [my] spirit, [my] shade.” The god is requested to make ways (i.e., paths or roads) for the ba (‘soul’), akh (‘spirit’) and ‘shade’ of the deceased, who declares that he is equipped and shines forth as one who is equipped (or possibly ‘so that he might shine forth &c.’). The deceased further requests the god to make a path for him to the place wherein are Re, Atum, Khepre and Hathor. (Some versions of this ‘chapter,’ e.g. the Papyrus of Ani version translated by Faulkner, only mention Re and Hathor). wsir om-nur mnuw nb wast || enx.f-n-xnsw [mae]-xrw sa mi nw bs-n-mwt ir.n ioyt n.imn-re nb[t]-pr ta-nci
A recapitulation of the name and titles of the deceased, rounding off with his parentage. As in the picture caption, only one of the two components of the Ma‐kheru abbreviation is written, and that squashed in beneath the name, itself here written in a slightly shorter form than elsewhere on the stèle (using two fewer signs for the phonetic part, and lacking the determinative); one assumes the scribe was running out of space again. The father’s name is written using a ‘group‐writing’ convention (see Gardiner, op. cit., § 60, also G29 and Aa18 in sign list), in that the first two glyphs, normally ideographic or biliteral forms, are here used to each represent a single phoneme. The first part of the name is the ba bird symbol of the ‘soul’. The final syllable of the name is represented using the vulture ideograph of Mut (mwt), the mother‐goddess of the Theban theogony. As the text indicates, Besenmut was likewise a priest of Montu; his painted sarcophagus (or at least, the sarcophagus of a Theban priest of Montu of that name from about the right period—the name appears to have been borne by several members of a prominent Theban priestly family of the Late Period) survives in mostly legible condition. In the titles of the mother (who, we are told, was a musician of Amun‐Re; the standing female figure is apparently holding two systrons) the feminine terminal ° in nbt pr, ‘mistress of the house,’ has been omitted for reasons of space. (nb pr, presumably an Egyptian equivalent of the Hebrew Baal‐Zebul, is not one of the generally known epiphets of Amun‐Re). The text is a version of cap. XCI of the Book of the Dead. In the Papyrus of Ani the accompanying vignette depicts a human‐headed bird (a conventional symbol of the ba soul) facing a doorway. The stated purpose of the chapter (rubric from Papyrus of Ani vn., trans. Faulkner) is to “become an equipped spirit in the God’s domain” and to “not be restrained at any gate of the West whether coming or going.” An earlier version is spell 496 in the standard edition of the “Coffin Texts.” There is a well‐known and very free English verse‐paraphrase (rather, an original composition suggested by the above) by Aleister Crowley which was incorporated into Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law. The following, omitting the preamble and recapitulation with the name and titles of the deceased, is my own composition and makes some pretence to metre but none to rhyme: Saith the Osiris N.: O thou ! most High ! may thou be praised Thou art the mighty one of power The spirit, soul of majesty Whose terror is among the Gods. Thou shinest forth upon thy throne: Open a pathway for my soul, And for my spirit make a road And for my shadow loose the gates. Hear thou my voice: I am prepared As one prepared may I shine forth Make roads unto that place where Rê, Atum, Khepri, and Hathor dwell.
lege iudica atque ride. [Translation of reverse may follow at some point]
