Images of the Gods in Liber Resh vel Helios
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
Thank you for the info Jim and Danica. I will find the info in the ITC and post.
I was performing it at midnite with the full moon lighting the night sky. I had such a great experience really locking into the sense of the earth spinning and moving while the sun remained still. It was similar to looking down from atop a ferris wheel just over the bar as the wheel and car moved, almost dizzying.
From that moment it completely changed my awareness of my relationship (on a moving planet) to the sun. Similarly, it awakened me to the impression that my HGA is as big, profound, and as patient as that sun waiting for me to complete my orbit...
It is simple -
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@Jim Eshelman said
"
Nonetheless, I wrote an article on it for In the Continuum some years ago. I don't know the issue - maybe someone else can look it up. You can get all copies of ITC for free here: helema.org/publications/itc.html"
Assuming...
Commentary By Frater Iacchus
ITC Vol. IV, No. 4 pg 4 or ITC 4a pg146 of 238Thanks,
Marc -
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
Is there a decent description anywhere of the colours that should be used when visualising Ra? Failing this has anyone any ideas? I mean making use of the Golden Dawn colour schemes. Like Thoth is all yellow and violet from Tiphareth and Yesod, so with Ra at Tiphareth he must need to have a lot of golden-yellow in his outfit, but what other colours would be appropriate? I'm trying to put together a decent Golden Dawn style Ra as opposed to a traditional Egyptian Ra.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
I repeat to my standard recommendation: Get one or two great full-color coffee table books on Egyptian gods, and find a picture that speaks to you. These are not standardized at all, and everybody should find their own.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@Jim Eshelman said
"I repeat to my standard recommendation: Get one or two great full-color coffee table books on Egyptian gods, and find a picture that speaks to you. These are not standardized at all, and everybody should find their own."
Absolutely:) Honestly its a Bhakti yoga thing(but only a shadow).
When you get to a pic that you stare at more then the others, then you have found your Image:)
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@danica said
"also, you can print the image (just the form, black and white) and colour it yourself - the colours will naturally come, the feeling where to put what..."
If I did that Kephra might end up dayglo pink!
Anyway, I'm in the process of sketching and painting them and trying to go with Golden Dawn ideas for colours as I'm sure there is some rationale behind them. Who knows, there might even be some insight into the nature and role of the gods in the colours used?
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
93 93/93
"I've also read that the bulls tail is sacred to Hathor and that the Egyptians used to believe that semen was produced in the spine..."
Isn't it?
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
Bulls tail: protector of the herd; and notions of fertility/virility, which includes impregnating your mother with yourself as her child...
"I am the Bull of my mother!"
Well, not me personally. But the idea that the God in question was his own father was one of those things every respectable god could claim. It had to do with a Gods' ability to renew themselves, and this figured prominently in the worshipers ability to accept the gods' immortality. Remember, according to the Egyptians, everything had to obey the laws of nature, even the Gods, and that meant growing old and dying. But no worries mate, just go back in time and fuck your mom!
EDIT: I was getting little punchy last night when I wrote the above. The essence of the symbol is that, by appropriating the Bull's Tail as part of his costume, the god was showing how he both youthful and virile, and also self-begotten. The whole business about immortality is a bit of stretch, though related. It's not uncommon to find passages from the Hymns of many of the solar deities like this: "I have made fertile my mother." In other words, there was no God before him, no greater power who created him.
Love and Will
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@spaceman said
"Man that Khephra man with the beetle head is CREEEEEEEPY!"
Yes, very strange. It seems like only the modern drawing has him with a human body. Is that something he has recently acquired or has he always been a half-man/half-bug?
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@horustheantichris said
"
@spaceman said
"Man that Khephra man with the beetle head is CREEEEEEEPY!"Yes, very strange. It seems like only the modern drawing has him with a human body. Is that something he has recently acquired or has he always been a half-man/half-bug?"
Pictures of the beetle being atop a human body are very ancient.
It's not "half-man/half-bug" but, rather, the human body being used as a conveyance for the beetle image.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@horustheantichris said
"
@spaceman said
"Man that Khephra man with the beetle head is CREEEEEEEPY!"Yes, very strange. It seems like only the modern drawing has him with a human body. Is that something he has recently acquired or has he always been a half-man/half-bug?"
"Help me! Help me!"
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/The_Fly/70074601?trkid=2361638#height1832 -
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
To better make sense of Liber Resh I researched the four Gods. My interpretation of the meaning of each of each of these Gods as they relate to the various positions of the sun is below. Have others noticed this esoteric meaning? Am I reaching?
[:3perhy6q]RA > His vital daily task was to guide the sunboat through the skies > Today is going to be a good day.[/
3perhy6q]
[:3perhy6q]HATHOR > Goddess of pleasure > Today is a good day.[/3perhy6q]
[:3perhy6q]TUM > "he who completes or perfects" > Today was a good day.[/3perhy6q]
[:3perhy6q]KHEPRA > carries the sun it safely through the underworld every night > Today was a good day.[/3perhy6q]
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
93,
@horustheantichris said
"To better make sense of Liber Resh I researched the four Gods. My interpretation of the meaning of each of each of these Gods as they relate to the various positions of the sun is below. Have others noticed this esoteric meaning? Am I reaching?
RA > His vital daily task was to guide the sunboat through the skies > Today is going to be a good day.
HATHOR > Goddess of pleasure > Today is a good day.
TUM > "he who completes or perfects" > Today was a good day.
KHEPRA > carries the sun it safely through the underworld every night > Today was a good day."I don't know if this contradicts, elaborates on, or adjusts your approach, but for myself, I approach Resh as a means of regular mindfulness, mentally saturating myself with the archetypal symbolism which the four gods represent. It also serves as a constant reminder that the appearance of morning, noon, dusk and night are illusions of perspective -- as are birth, life, death and afterlife -- but that the Sun is in fact unchanged by these things ("there is that which remains.").
93 93/93.
AL H-ShMATh
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
@Al Ha-Shema said
"I approach Resh as a means of regular mindfulness, mentally saturating myself with the archetypal symbolism which the four gods represent."
Yes, this is my approach as well. What I was trying to get at was: are these what the Gods symbolize? I think that Danica's answer was yes. Do you agree Al Ha-Shemat? What are others take of this?
-
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Liber Resh is not an ancient Egyptian ritual, though it is inspired by ancient Egypt.
My main purpose here is to post some images of what the Gods in Liber Resh look like. Most Gods have more than one form. According to Erik Hornung, the ancient Egyptians did not take these forms as literal pictures of what the Gods looked like, but rather as a hieroglyph or symbolic characterization of their nature.
Many Egyptian Gods have human bodies with animal heads. This form has its origins in a priest or shaman wearing an animal mask, in predynastic times.
One must keep in mind the conventions of two-dimensional Egyptian art. For example, Egyptian conventions in art show the face in profile, while the crown on the top of the head is sometimes shown in front view, sometimes in profile, depending on the style of the crown. When I can, I will also show a sculptural version of the God.
As a river people, one image Egyptians had was of the Sun as a boat floating across the sky. The boat, or barque, is usually shown as something fairly simple. The images I have of this sun barque are not exactly like the description in Liber Resh, as Liber Resh does not follow Egyptian mythology exactly.
Ra in the sun barque:
www.histoire-fr.com/images/ra_barque_solaire_apophis_thot.gifRa in the sun barque, with the benu bird (phoenix) Tomb at Deir el Medina:
innemedium.pl/sites/default/files/imagecache/400naszerokosc/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg
www.dinosoria.com/egypte/re.jpgModel boat for a tomb:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_barque_model_Louvre.jpg
artnc.org/sites/default/files/EGYPTIAN,%20Model%20of%20a%20Boat,%2082_12,%20view%20A_0.jpg
ihathor.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/egyptian_barque_model_louvre.jpgKhufu's Solar Boat found by the Great Pyramid:
www.phouka.com/pharaoh/egypt/photos/giza/solarBoat-01.html
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/greatpyramid5.htm
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/solar.htm
www.peccator.no/Images/By_Time_Place-Ancient/02egyptian/01/DOT_Egypt_Giza_Sun_Boat_1.jpg
(thanks to Lucero)"Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm."
The prow is the front of the boat, the helm is tiller to steer the boat at the back.
Tahuti is more commonly known as Thoth, which is what the Greeks called him. “Tahuti” is the Victorian rending of the Egyptian name for the God. Contemporary Egyptologists use “Djehuty”. Tahuti can be in the form of an Ibis, a man with the head of an ibis, or a baboon. Tahuti is the God of the moon, of writing, and of knowledge.
As a man with an Ibis head, in the Papyrus of Hunefer:
www.archaeowiki.org/Image:Thoth_%28detail%29_Papyrus_of_Hunefer.jpgAs a man with an Ibis head:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth.jpg
ravel.webshots.com/photo/1033326393033137413gfCpniTahuti enthroned, tomb of Queen Nefertari:
www.delange.org/Nefertari/nef6.jpgTahuti as an ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:-332_Hieroglyphe_Thoth_anagoria.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ibis_of_the_God_Thoth.jpgPhotos of the sacred Ibis:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:African_Sacred_Ibis_RWD.jpg
orientalbirdimages.org/images/data/african_sacred_ibis_001.jpg
ibc.lynxeds.com/files/pictures/African_Sacred_Ibis_MG_6948_Pat_Ayling.jpgStatues of Tahuti as a baboon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_-Thoth-Baboon-_Walters_481543.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thoth_as_baboo_E17496.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8453/8072261542_46960966e8_o.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/-odGv8Wmwadw/TZkbieUIXCI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/AUJiiOL8CkE/s1600/baboon.jpgPhotos of the African Baboon:
1.bp.blogspot.com/-jxN-GlntA30/UWaK-y4kK6I/AAAAAAAAAZg/77sxH7CZ2RA/s1600/baboon+Rodin.jpg
www.dsphotographic.com/g2/12654-3/Baboons+-009.jpg
images.travelpod.com/users/jonclark2000/africa-05-06.1140685380.baboon.jpg
Ra-Hoor is called “Re-Horakhty” by Egyptologists today. He is a syncretic God, which means he is a combination of two Gods. It is the idea of one God “inhabiting” another. In this case, Ra, (or Re, alternative spelling) is inhabiting Horakhty “Horus-of-the-two-horizons” – referring to the rising and setting sun. Confusingly, Ra and Re-Horakhty look exactly the same most of the time. You can only tell them apart from reading the inscription. He is a man with the head of a falcon, with the red sun disk surrounded by a cobra on top of his head. In two dimensional art, the sun disk is a front view but the cobra is shown side view.
Of course, the Stele of Revealing shows Ra-Hoor:
amesa.abrahadabra.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/stele.jpgThis site has a couple of pictures of Ra and Re-Horakhty with an essay:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/re.htmThis essay on syncretism has some nice images of Re-Horakhty:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sync.htmLady of the West and Re-Horakhty in the tomb of Queen Nefertari:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Maler_der_Grabkammer_der_Nefertari_001.jpgHorus as a falcon:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_Falcon1_(retouched.jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/152/435580385_3e2f9aa178.jpg?v=0
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-schmuela-_IMG_7082.jpgHorus as a falcon, sculpture:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egypt.Edfu.Temple.01.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_Falcon_(Le_Louvre_(8225557913).jpg
farm1.static.flickr.com/240/459924227_025744a752.jpg?v=0
farm1.static.flickr.com/247/452745893_c6e1935443.jpg?v=0Photo of the Lanner falcon, Egypt:
www.netcore.ca/~peleetom/Lanner%20Falcon.jpg
inyurl.com/ybxhat6Realistic painting of a Horus falcon by Fen Lansdowne, click on the upper left painting:
clicks.robertgenn.com/larks-owls.ph
Hathor is a mother Goddess, and also the Goddess of love, beauty, music and dance. She can also take a very fierce form, as the Eye of Re. She is frequently depicted as a woman with the sun disk on her head with two cow’s horns. She is also a cow, and less often, a woman with a cow head. She is also shown as a woman with the ears of a cow on the capital of pillars, and the handles of mirrors.
Hathor in human form:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hathor_y_Seti_I.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Römisches_Mammisi_21b.jpg
Hathor & Queen Nefertari: Hathor is on the left, with a sun disk and cow horns on her head, Queen Nefertari on the right with a vulture crown.
www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/Nefertari/hathor.nofretari.jpegHathor heads - face of a woman with cow's ears:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S_F-E-CAMERON_EGYPT_2006_HATSHEPSUT00195.JPG
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Hathor.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_703.jpg
farm3.static.flickr.com/2090/1773700164_488d2ffc87.jpg?v=0Hathor as the Heavenly Cow:
farm4.staticflickr.com/3160/2931264377_8d89cde09e_o.jpg
mifflin.soaringweb.org/images/EGYPT/Egypt_4008_1536x1042.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Hathor_Mistress_of_the_West.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Head_of_Hathor_.jpg
Tum, more commonly known as Atum, was a man, sometimes crowned as a king, other times without the crown. He was a creator God.
Essay on Atum, with photos:
www.touregypt.net/featurestories/atum.htmOsiris & Atum, Tomb of Nefertari.: Osiris is on the left, with green skin, Atum is on the right, with the double crown of a Pharaoh.
www.kingsacademy.com/mhodges/11_Western-Art/03_Egyptian/1200s-BC_Tomb-of-Nefertari_Atum+Osiris_GGW-039.jpgStatue of Pharaoh Horemheb worshipping Atum:
inyurl.com/bmjc5e
fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/390541_493235554038496_1771113533_n.jpgAtum - modern drawing
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atum.svg
Khephra, also spelled Khephera, Khephri, was a scarab beetle. This beetle lays its eggs in dung, which it then rolls into a ball. So another conception the Egyptian had of the sun was of a ball of dung rolled by a great beetle across the sky. Khephra could be depicted as simply a beetle, or as a man with a beetle for a head. (I like to think of him as a man with a beetle mask.) The scarab beetle was also much used as an amulet, by the living and the dead.
Here is Khephra, as a man with a beetle head:
img2.allposters.com/images/BRGPOD/218239.jpg
www.crystalinks.com/khepri.htmlScarab Amulet from King Tutankhamen,
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tutankhamun_scarab1.jpgBreastplate amulet from the mummy of King Tutankhamen, Scarab in Sun Boat, with Tahuti on each side:
www.blingdomofgod.com/entryimages/scarab_pec_cover-thumb.jpgWinged Scarab amulet from the mummy of King Tut – actually hieroglyphs spelling his name:
farm1.static.flickr.com/130/420305412_96b98ad055.jpg?v=0The scarab in the sun barque:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nun_Raises_the_Sun.jpg
www.uux.cn/attachments/2011/06/1_201106301006241UkhG.jpgStatue of the scarab at Karnak temple:
www.planetware.com/i/photo/granite-scarab-karnak-egy291.jpgPhotos of the beetle species, scarabaeus sacer:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.sacer.jpg
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scarabaeus.JPG
1068.photobucket.com/user/linnaeus1758/media/917779365.jpg.html
fw.so/uploads/posts/2012-06/1340025822_1.jpgIt's not just any beetle, it's a specific species. They are quite large, and they can fly. They come out in the summertime. They aren't as common in Egypt today as they were in ancient times.
Love is the law, love under will.
the four points of the day simply are the moments in time-space (for person on the earth) when the Sun is 'in focus' (angular, astrologicaly speaking) - it's easier to directly connect yourself to the solar principle in these moments.
the *meaning *of the four Egyptian Gods mentioned (and all the other related to that) change for you personally over time, as your own perspective evolves.
it's one of the most important practice (if not the sole most important ) - by performing it continually you are establishing and refining the connection to the H.G.A., so I would say: meditate upon the meaning of the Four (Gods, or four points of time-space, etc), but don't attach your mind strongly to the insights that come as if they convey some definite meaning. just write them down (blessed be the diary!) and keep going....