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Akhet - The Horizon


Some Egyptian Symbols and Concepts - I

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Iaret - Ibis - Imiut - Inundation


 
Iaret

This is the ancient Egyptian word for cobra, 'Uraeus', in Greek. The Iaret was a symbol of kingship, described as 'Weret Hekau' ('the Great Enchantress'). It was the serpent seen around the brow of kings, often together with the vulture deity Nekhbet, from Upper Egypt. The word also meant 'she who rears up'. Her personified form was Wadjyt, patron deity of Buto in Lower Egypt.




 
Ibis

That kind of several of Ibis birds (Threskiornis aethiopicus)which was seen as a symbol of Djehuty (Gr: Thoth). Before 1850 it was common in Egypt but nowadays it is almost extinct.

Itīs body was white, itīs bill long, curved and dark, and itīs neck, wing tips and legs were also black.

In the Late Period and during the Ptolemies, sacred ibises were mummified and buried. In Saqqara, Tuna-el-Gebel, among other locations, they have been found in masses in catacombs.




 
Imiut

This is a stuffed, headless animal skin, often a feline, which is tied to a pole fixed in a pot. It goes as far back as to the 1st Dynasty (3100-2890 B.C.) and was in time connected to Yinepu and is therefore sometimes called the 'Anubis fetish'. Itīs said that it symbolizes Yinepu as embalmer. There are depictions of the imiut at the chapel at Deir-el-Bahri and other places, and sometimes there were models of it included in the funerary equipment.



 
Inundation

The yearly flooding of the Nile, which ,when it withdrew, left such a rich silt deposit on the river banks, that the whole Egyptian history and culture can be said to have been dependent upon it. The silt made it possible to cultivate the earth and thus the basis for food production, together with the rich hunting along the river banks, which in turn made for human. living and development

This inundation was so important that the Egyptians personified it as the god Hapy, connected to fertility and prosperity.

From the Middle Kingdom there is left to us a Hymn to the Nile Inundation, which celebrates the yearly renewed life that the river brings.






Sources:
Egypt, The World of the Pharaos - Hartwig Altenmueller et al
The Ancient Egyptians - A. Rosalie David
Egyptian Myths - George Hart
Symbols & Magic in Egyptian Art - Richard H. Wilkinson
Reading Egyptian Art - Richard H. Wilkinson


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