Ancient quest of saqqarah horus 236/29/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The Ramesside version includes one detail missing from the Coptic example – that the formula is supposed to be spoken over a written version of the same formula inscribed on a dish, which is filled with honey, and perhaps other liquids, and used to anoint the patient’s belly. He cries out for Isis, who responds by speaking a spell which will heal him, and, by extension, the suffering patient. Horus has eaten an animal which he probably shouldn’t have – a bird in one case, a fish in the other – and his stomach aches. Just as the star-gods weep for Horus, they are to weep for the suffering child, and heal the stomach ache.Īlthough the details are different, then, the structure of the Coptic charm and this one, which is about two thousand years older, are identical. The purpose of this charm, then, is to identify the suffering of a real person – perhaps a child – with the suffering of the god Horus. The identity of the “Little Ennead” varies depending on the context, but the Unwearying Souls are likely a reference to a group of stars in the southern sky, who, like the abdju-fish, at times accompanied the barque of the sun god. Isis’ response doesn’t seem immediately helpful – she says, through a rhetorical question, that a group of gods called the “Little Ennead” and the “Unwearying Souls” are weeping because of Horus’ suffering. By eating it, therefore, Horus has committed a transgression, resulting in his stomach ache. Eating an abjdu was forbidden during certain festivals, and in another text it is a sacrilegious act attributed to the dangerous god Seth. Its mythological role, however, was to swim through the heavenly waters ahead of the barque of the sun god, and warn of the approach of his enemy, the serpent Apep. ![]() This abjdu was probably a real fish, although it has not yet been identified. This scene depicts the barque of the sun god, with the abdju fish which swims in front of it visible at the lower-right. Turin 1791, a funerary papyrus created for the scribe Djehutymes, dating to the XXIst Dynasty (ca 1076-944 BCE). He confesses that he has eaten the golden abdju-fish from the pool of Re, the sun god. Horus cries out, suffering from stomach ache, and his mother Isis asks what is wrong. Though much shorter than the Coptic example, this charm follows a very similar structure. This formula is to be spoken and written on a new dish in yellow ochre, anointed with honey wash the man who suffers in his belly. Isis said, “Is it he who ate the golden abdju-fish on the border of the pure pool of Re? Does he lie awake suffering in his belly? Do the Little Ennead weep because of the suffering of his belly, the Unwearying Souls?” Horus said, “I have eaten the golden abdju-fish on the border of the pure pool of Re!” These charms are intended to deal with problems such as burns, difficult childbirth, and – most often – stomach ache, the subject of formula 23, which interests us here: Maarten Raven suspects that it was probably found in Saqqara, the vast necropolis of Memphis, home to the most famous pyramids as well as many other tombs and temples, and that it may belong to a small magical archive, along with four other texts purchased in Memphis from the same sale.Īlong with a series of writing exercises, the manuscript contains 33 charms, written in Middle Egyptian in the hieratic script, a cursive form of hieroglyphs, in black and red ink. It was purchased by the 19th-century trader and consul Jean d’Anastasy, or his agents, in the area of Memphis in the early 1820s, and sold to the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities in 1828. Leiden I 348 is a roll 360 cm long, dating to the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) or shortly thereafter, written by five different scribes. In the first post of this series we discussed a text from an eighth-century CE manuscript which, although from a Christian context, contained a story in which the Egyptian god Horus eats a bird which is mysteriously three birds at the same time, and has a stomach ache which is healed by his mother Isis.Īs we mentioned, this Coptic text has a very close parallel in a much older Egyptian charm, which is the subject of this post. In this series we’re discussing charms – spells in the form of short stories which mirror and resolve problems in the real world. The text discussed here ends on the third line of this column the symbols to be copied – two facing jackals, a series of six seated deities, three wedjat-eyes, and three cobras, can be seen at the end of the charm on the third line. Column 13 of Leiden I 348 (AMS 26a), a fragment of a much larger roll dating to around the reign of Ramesses II, and containing a charm in which Isis heals Horus’ stomach ache. ![]()
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