From thelema93-l-owner@hollyfeld.org Mon Nov 10 21:17:31 1997 Received: from veracruz-gw.customer.itw.net (veracruz-gw.customer.ITW.NET [208.211.5.42]) by bay2.bjt.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA08497 for ; Mon, 10 Nov 1997 21:17:30 -0800 Received: from www.hollyfeld.org ([204.130.199.143]) by veracruz-gw.customer.itw.net (Netscape Mail Server v2.02) with ESMTP id AAA132 for ; Tue, 11 Nov 1997 00:25:28 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) id AAA20691 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Tue, 11 Nov 1997 00:08:01 -0500 X-Authentication-Warning: www.hollyfeld.org: majordom set sender to owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org using -f Received: from haven.uchicago.edu (haven.uchicago.edu [128.135.12.3]) by www.hollyfeld.org (8.8.4/8.8.4) with ESMTP id AAA20688 for ; Tue, 11 Nov 1997 00:07:53 -0500 Received: from midway.uchicago.edu (root@midway.uchicago.edu [128.135.12.12]) by haven.uchicago.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA10736 for ; Mon, 10 Nov 1997 23:01:36 -0600 (CST) Received: from harper.uchicago.edu (root@harper.uchicago.edu [128.135.12.7]) by midway.uchicago.edu (8.8.5/8.8.3) with ESMTP id WAA19378 for ; Mon, 10 Nov 1997 22:59:58 -0600 (CST) Received: from [128.135.14.100] (ntcs-ip293.uchicago.edu [128.135.14.100]) by harper.uchicago.edu (8.8.5/8.8.3) with SMTP id WAA26226 for ; Mon, 10 Nov 1997 22:59:54 -0600 (CST) X-Sender: hmhays@acs-popmail.uchicago.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 23:12:07 -0600 To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org From: h-hays@uchicago.edu (Harold M. Hays) Subject: Khu = Akh; Khab = Shwt Sender: owner-thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Status: RO 93 M. Allcock wrote: > As to your question about the khu & the khabs I suggest you peruse any >good textbook >on ancient egyptian language. The following deals exclusively with transliterating the sounds of the Egyptian language into the Latin alphabet and with ancient Egyptian words: Prior to the turn of the century, two transliteration systems were in use; one eventually won over the other and is now universally used by Egyptologists. The older transliteration system was the one employed by the French Egyptologist who translated Boulaq 666 in 1904. Khu = Akh Baphemetis Continuity mentioned: >the seven parts of the soul (of which the khu and >khabs are but two). See page 243 of Eq III.9 for the word "khu" in the 1904 transliteration. The word formerly transliterated "khu" is now read "aleph", "circle h" (together pronounced "akh") and is listed in this way in the dictionaries. The ancient meaning of akh has received a great deal of discussion; the most thorough attempt at circumscribing its significance is Gertie Englund 1978. Akh: une notion religieuse dans l'Egypte pharaonique. Uppsala, Sweden: Uppsala University. According to her, akh refers both to a state of being, or condition, and to an actual kind of being. Thus one can have akh; one can be an akh. Although she feels that theoretically the quality indicated by the word could be attained during life, she refrains from conclusively arguing toward this, and instead only shows that the quality could be attained upon (physical) death. According to her, akh, as both a being and a state, represents the power of self-generation and the element of life, and is continuous throughout all of one's manifestations (kheperew), which is to say external changes of form. This is as much as to say that an akh is immutable and, being the essence of life itself, deathless. The etymological meaning of akh seems to be "the brilliant one" or the like. It is figured as a crested ibis (Ibis comata). Incidentally, akh can appear in secular contexts in relation to a living person; but in such cases a translation involving the meaning "effective" is typically employed. Khab = Shw.t In respect to what is said on p. 81 of The Law Is for All, no reliable dictionary attests any reading "khabs" for a word meaning "star". There is however a word kha-ba.w=s, variant kha-b(a).w=s, a collective whose translation "stars" or "sea of stars" (HWB p. 582; see also Wb iii 230) is somewhat misleading. The word kha-ba.w=s is a name for the sky-goddess Nut meaning "a thousand of her ba's/souls" or perhaps even "her souls are one thousand." It appears in the Pyramid Texts (PT 785): "You [the king] have taken to yourself every god who bears his boat that you may make them *stars in Kha-ba.w=s" (trans. from Blackman). It appears also on the sarcophagus of Thutmosis III and on that of Hatshepsut, where Re (the sun-god) says "On behalf of Kha-b(a).w=s, I establish the king" (my trans. from Blackman's text). (On kha-ba.w=s, see A. M. Blackman in JEA 21 (1935) 1-9). Baphemetis Continuity mentioned: >the seven parts of the soul (of which the khu and >khabs are but two). See page 243 of Eq III.9 for the word "khab" in the 1904 transliteration. The word formerly transliterated "khab" (a guess from Coptic ha(e)ibes, "shadow") is now read "shin", w, .t (together "shw.t"), and is listed in this way in the most recent dictionary, Hannig's Grosses Handwoerterbuch (HWB). Older dictionaries such as Faulkner give slightly different transliterations. Shw.t means "shadow," and, according to H. Bonnet, Reallexikon der aegyptischen Religionsgeschichte, p. 675, the shw.t is to be ranked alongside akh, ba, body, and other terms as referring to a component of (the human) being. It appears to have a close connection with the ba, which is often translated as "soul," and with the physical body. "It is thus depicted [in pictorial art] as the corporeal form of the deceased, except that the same is filled in with black." In Late texts, "the deceased himself is referred to as a shadow"; in such texts it seems that the shw.t is not just a component of being, but represents the fullness or totality of the same. Less research has been devoted to shw.t than to akh; this is probably to be owed to the fact that, unlike akh, the word is relatively rare. It is unfortunate that Bonnet does not really discern any greater significance for the term and that I myself am not presently aware of a more detailed work on it. Christopher Weiss wrote: >Isn't the Khabs associated with light? >E.g. Khabs am pekt (sp?), light in extention. Khabs am pekht, appearing for example in the GD Festival of the Equinox, is perhaps legitimate albeit distorted Coptic: haybs em peht: haybs ("ay" here representing eta; "h" is rough) -if haybs, then here meaning "lamp" (comparable to Greek luxnos) -haybs etymologically might mean "that which shines" (W. Vycichl. Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue Copte, p. 290) -perhaps there is another word of similar spelling that makes better sense, but I cannot find such a one in Crum, Westendorf, or Vycichl -it is odd that there is no definite article em -perhaps sonet-n/mmo=, with nu assimilated to mu before pi -but the "e" sound has somehow been made into an "a" sound -if sonet-n, here meaning "in/while/as" peht ("h" is rough) -this appears to be a Faiyumic qualitative of the verb poh, a qualitative frozen in this form and used as an infinitive -infinitives do not take a definitive article after n/mmo=, so that it does not have one here is not a problem -if poh, then "reached/stretched" or, strictly as an infinitive, "to reach/to stretch" -(English _extend_ literally means "to stretch out") "Lamp in having been/being stretched (out)" = "lamp in extension" or "extended lamp." Since it sounds silly, perhaps "khabs am pekht" isn't Coptic. On the other hand, if it really is Coptic, the distortion of letters (the unusual use of the qualitative and the transformation of em to am) could suggest that this phrase was not invented in the last century, e.g. by Mathers, but rather was corrupted through verbal transmission and/or inaccurate copying. (This would be significant for historical purposes.) 93 93/93 Harold ____________...oooOOO---thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org---OOOooo..._____________ To subscribe send: 'subscribe thelema93-l' to majordomo@hollyfeld.org To unsubscribe send: 'unsubscribe thelema93-l' to majordomo@hollyfeld.org http://www.hollyfeld.org/heaven/elists/thelema93-l.phtml