After Theaux's (1985) and Osman's (1990) openings, during year 1999 a remarkable perspective with the work of Charles Pope has widen the view of the Primal Scene of our civilization even more. Pope shows that the Bible was an early book of Egyptology. The following page addresses the enigma which arises concurrently.

Shame of fame

A flaw, a defeat or a secret

C.Pope's thesis scrutinizes the Bible, paragraph by paragraph, name by name, event by event, son by son, wife by wife. After several other attempts/authors, he may have finally discovered a key which applies to, and decipher one after the other, each and every item of the Hebrew text, enabling him to translate the Bible data into a new text which superimposes perfectly with the recent Egyptological data coming up with our last century. This identification unveils the entire set of biblical characters as powerful rulers - kings or pharaohs - of the world, well remembered by the Hebraic culture and accurately depicted, but disowned from their political and throne titles. If this observation is correct, it asks why the Biblical heroes would have been discarded from their status of wealthy rulers?

A first hypothesis comes in mind: on the path of Civilization, they were responsible for a project which had eventually proven to be defective? In this case, once the governmental order was restored, the political society would have decided that their ideology, plan, method or project, should been forever deleted from the available set of government devices. Since the same politicians knew also that a memory record was however necessary for the survival of mass psychology, the saga of the Hebrew kings was thus represented in a text which would describe them as communars and shepherds--keeping thus a sufficient memory but disabling them and their tradition for ever claiming or retrieving a role in the management of world affairs.
The same situation would have also applied in the case of mere enemies who could have been vanquished by the traditional Egypt - such as the 'Hyksos', according to the classical description of invaders and/or usurper of the egyptian government and who have been eventually overthrowned by the Egyptian resistance and disappeared, a short time before the apparition of Israel. However a neat distinction of Hyksos from Egyptians themselves does not fit with Charles' discovery.
At his request, I have been searching for an explanation. Prior to his essay, I have been following Fabre d'Olivet's suggestion that Moses had divulged without restriction to the populace, the secret knowledge of the Egyptian priesthood (secret code, tools of power, whatever...). This would be another factor. In this third case, Ramses' order restoration made a deal with the Hebrew tribes: in exchange of a land and security, theis memory would hide the presence of such secret - hence confining the leakage material in the vicinity of Egypt. This explanation continue to stand after Pope's reading - yet it can be now refined.

After a single identity-equation (displacement and/or condensation) established by psychoanalysis in 1985 (Moses=Akhnaton/Oedipus), then several by Osman in 1990 (Joseph=Yuya, David=Tuthmoses etc..), now Pope equate many, if not every Hebrew figures as Egyptian (and often Greek also). With this geographical globalization, the primitive explanation of two or three distinct tribes or countries does not stand well. It seems that Egyptology and Bible are talking about the same men and women. Thus, a division would have insert a split through 'aspects' or 'qualities' within one population (as 'classes' differs from 'groups' for example); but in the case of rulers of the past, who had many names, the 'classification' would have occurred within a group of symbols (Symbolic) or attributes that these people were accumulating.
The more powerful were the people of the past, the more names they had. In our present time, powerful people also have often several titles - they can be president of many foundations, several corporations, owners of many rights, domains etc... In the past, a powerful king was responsible for many cities, industries, arts. Perhaps, in the same line of idea, was it a politic, an order or a school, even an abstract signifier, which had been strip of nobility and rank of responsibility.

Perhaps may I suggest a strong example - a pure fiction, yet close enough to our time for helping us to appreciate what may be deduced from Charles Pope's essays. Today, rulers are Democrats, Republican, Socialists etc... we do not know of Psychoanalysts as governments rulers nor amongst familial structures although many members of these social groups met the Freudian knowledge. One never hears "the Psychoanalyst Leader has been here or there", as one would say about a 'Democrat' or a 'Republican' Leader. However, in the past, Psychoanalytic discourse may have exerted a function of power. Kings may have been in position for, or known to be, listening and not acting... this may have happen in some ancient tribe or on another planet. As for a closer example, we have Bohemia. The same way Academia does not relate Hebrew to Egyptian History, history books do not relate Bohemians to German aristocracy and Scottish Royal family. Typically, Bohemians are homeless and politically irresponsible - yet a close look at the story of the Kingdom of Bohemia reveals it much alike Akhnaton's experiment. The brief episode of a Winter Kingship (King of Bohemia) in Europe indicates that 'Bohemians' had indeed bore an international ruling drive, if not a tradition of political power through their collective significand.

In the case of the Bohemians, it was not a group of people, it was a mentality, a politic, which establishes a folklore nowadays, with the same status than the Hebrews in the past. Instead of the historical actors themselves, it is this 'mentality' that must be identified. We see there an 'aspect' of the European mentality which is not recorded as a mean for leadership. We may now wonder if there were similar mentalities in the Ancient World.
If we categorize this distinction, we put the emphasis on collective psychology. It may be useful and correcting the abusing view of so many Egyptological speculations still based on immature phantasms of independent leaders, acting individually 'as a parent before a child'. The truth is that experiencing monarch under drugs or other influences during centuries has set cybernetic rules up, with very strong teams and collective apparatus for the conditioning of the leader's personal 'unconscious'.

In relation to this environmental logic, these objects, known as mentality, policy, significand, etc.. (some of which having possibly been rejected from history) are called Principle (as we find political principles: capitalism, communism, anarchism, kinship etc...). If we look back to ancient times, it is possible to detect in Egypt such a Principle, in a very interesting form which obviously relates with the Hebraic foundation of Israel.
In a recent page, I describe the origins of Hermetism, long before the Trismegistus's form, even before Hermes' function in Greece. A series of sound clues tracks back a 'secret' related to Moses (Mount Hermon), in the house of Hermonthis, at least 2000BC, near Thebes in Egypt.
In a sort of postulate - which is legitimate since Hermonthis must have had a 'principle' (code, title, significand) and since I shall give it a name which has a vague enough meaning - let's state that the ruling doctrine issued from Hermonthis was a Principle of Fusion. We may not know what 'fusion' means, so, if I abuse this word here, perhaps the word 'atonism' would be more appropriate, but it may bring itself even more confusion. Whatsoever, there are clues, which suggest that a principle from Hermonthis - I call it Principle of Fusion - had generated the Amarnian experience.
I am thus founding there the hypothesis that it is this Principle of Fusion which has been banished and discarded from the political decorum at the end of the 18th Dynasty. This is answering Charles' question; this explanation fully integrates the Hellenique function and the later Christian Hermetism. It also explains well enough why the Biblical historical report has been presented without its power representativity and titles. In conclusion: The biblical heroes indicate a principle whose effects ceased to be 'named' once its cause dissipated.

Psychoanalysis

If this explanation is satisfying and encompasses the varied suppression which grieves the biblical figures, it is incomplete for it does not render why such degraded Principle has persisted in unnamed 'effects'. There is also a second warning which comes from Psychoanalysis, which notices that appearances are more than often reversed Truth. Harvey Vedder also made me notice that the description of the Bible by the negative form of a disgrace doesn't fit well with its monumental status.
I must thus deepen my comment, yet reminding that nothing in the new light of the Bible so far, has dismiss whatsoever its status nor its content - all the opposite, it rather re-enforces its credit. Moreover, it tarnishes no one. At the point where Charles Pope has led us, the classical question if the Hebrews have stolen the Egyptian history or if it is the Egyptians who have stolen from the Hebrew, makes less and less sense. Egyptians and Hebrews were the same, one and a unique folk - nobody steals anything from oneself ! It does not take anything either from the Bible to disclose that its children were kings - and if it is necessary to remember that the Bible is the word of God, one must also remember that God never said that He would not help keeping memory.
For the Bible, apparently, may very well be a book of Egyptology. This is not because Egyptologists in the recent years are what they are, that it should be a disgrace. A good book of History deserves to be a truly Sacred. Memory is so important for the Spiritual Life that, producing a memory book in an age where there were subjectivity was hardly developed, is something which could not come from natural mankind. A child either could not develop into a moral being without the help of a higher instance. There is, in the Bible, a phenomenal cause which is more advanced than its own world. Such anticipated assertion of a desire for memory ranks this text of History amongst the most inspiring.

At that point I thus hold two notions: the Biblical text emanates from a repressed Principle of Fusion, and it manifests the presence of a Divine Action. As vague these references may be, this is far to confuse the two clauses. Each one can reflect the other, they can also be cause and effect, or be complementary etc... Actually there is a relationship between these two definitions which can be described by the analysis of Psyche.

Psychoanalysis provides an interesting information Let's start first from the so-called Principle of Fusion. Once again I must say that I do not know exactly what was this possible 'principle'. Perhaps is there in this principle a special difficulty which prevents it to be named. Let's suppose that Hermonthis was a place for the knowledge that politics depends on names. If Politics is Industry of Name(s) it is not easy to find the Name of its originating principle of naming. This is known as Self-Referential paradox. Such mind game with the name of the name is a routine in Psychoanalysis. This science observes that when Subjectivity rises, such essential principle manifests in an attempt for expressing its impossibility of being named. This is known, nowadays, as the repressed of the Unconscious. I have made a picture which illustrates this (5).
We are now holding a very clear understanding in depth. When the Principle of Hermonthis was applied, it secondly reached its point where he could not operates but without name, or without 'titles'. From this new point of view, the omission in the Bible is not a degradation of a failure, it appears as a super-evolution of a principle. It holds what cannot be named, and this is clearly meant in the Freudian theory as well as in the Bible itself: from the Unconscious this impossibility is represented as the zero/cipher, which has been also lately recognized as the Name-of-the-Father; in the Bible, it cannot even be heard or seen, except for/from Moses, behind a veil.

"The Bible would thus be the expression of the Unconscious...?"-- this solution faces a problem: in showing the positive face of the Sacred Text, I have equaled its process with Psychoanalysis--but it is commonly admitted that this dissociative apprehension of Psyche cannot equal the indivisible Truth. Fortunately, this aporia solves itself rapidly: the unbalanced competition between the two authorities has no practical time to take place; as soon as it is formulated the said Freudian theory ha already slept away, leaving to God the entire responsibility and knowledge of the Bible. This instantaneous eclipse of an option is theorized in Psychoanalysis as a vel. Practically, the reason why Psychoanalysis leaves the place in a blinking moment is because its theory implies that--if there is an Unconscious-- there is a Phallus and its function to be emerging elsewhere. This is exactly what history shows, with the extension of Moses' conquest stopping at Mont Hermon, as the border of a taboo, beyond which emerges Greece with Hermes, Apollo, Orpheus, then Oedipus.

Local extension of the text in depth: Regarding the presence of the 'Phallus' in Greece: what Psychoanalysts call 'phallus' is a significand which counterbalances the zero/cipher (above) in the correlative space of the Unconscious. It is manifested by the chaos which resolved in Greece with the reversal of the gender definition in the aftermath of Amarna and the definitive extinction of the Ancient Babylon - i.e. from Ishtar to Venus and the correlative 'hysteria' which typifies the civilization since. Then again I shall only link to details (7), for I have developed my explanation up to this point, in order to show the coincidence with Velikovsky's interpretation (Oedipus and Akhnaton), and his mistake when he failed in calculating the sexual symbolism of his correct astronomy (8) theory. Without getting as far in our understanding, we still have an homogeneous system which allocates the Bible to the Divine responsibility - and leaves geneticists' and obstetricians' control under the regulation of politicians.

The Unconscious

There is a final comment that I wish to make, which indicates again how psychoanalysis can be useful in order to progress and process the raw--and perhaps narcissistically violent--material which emanates for the scientific observation of the Primal Scene and documents of our civilization.
This observation follows another allusion to Immanuel Velikovsky, for it is partly related to the issue of dating, a.k.a Chronology. As we know, Velikovsky intended to move the date of Akhnaton's life in history, close to 1000BC (traditionally 1250BC). Similar modifications are still supported today by several authors (D.Rhol, D.McKay and others). I have interpreted Velikovsky's attempt as a way to prevent the identification between Akhnaton and a coincident Moses. However Velikovsky may have been right, even if I was not wrong; in any cases, both alternative point towards the nature of the processes in history recollection, which match the Freudian description of the mechanism of the Unconscious. It tackles a confusion that previous generations of Historians were not ready to address.

Theaux has received a message from a researcher, that I copy here below. 'Johnnyse' can be contacted and provide his extended work which bases his following summary:
 

When we compare this point of view with others which use the same and/or other dates and names in a different variation, or construct, we apprehend how it is difficult to have one idea of the historical facts which are recorded during an early phase of the collective memory process. 'Naming' has been in use for a long time in term of collective knowledge, before a certain industrialization of it, by and for the people as masses. It is only with the Bible that an apparent written design for integral popular collective memory began to be shared by all.
In the present day many authors foster various theories which recombine dates, places and characters of the ancient history. This is the sign for something emerging. With an Academia which supports an Egyptology which does not change anything in our mentality, we have also a typical form of the ego which covers the Unconscious. Apparently, the presence of an Unconscious is completed with a discourse (Bible) which expresses Truth, of History at least. It is in such form (contemporarily called Unconscious) that one finds the 'structured confusion" which advances Historians in our subjective intelligence of the past.

By nature, the Unconscious alienates and compels to repeat - inducing events which challenge their original set. Moreover, repeated significands are more significative than their first version. During their analysis they are also displayed through condensation, displacement, inversion, negation etc..
'Displacement' does not represent only the fact that a name is attributed to a person, place or event, then to another and so on; it also indicates that a signifier has been endorsed by a subject, then by others who will hold vitally to this signifier which supports their existence. When a person, therefore, repeats a previous history, he, she or it will make it very credible as his, her or its own. Such mechanism of displacement is therefore intentionally misleading for a human observation. The result of this is the impossibility to ever recover history in fact - or without violence which eventually ruins each attempt. Moreover if the mechanism of repetition unfolds, it reveals such a precise constraint (10) that it can induces phenomenon of terror.
'Condensation' causes similar difficulties. Persons hive many signifiers (names, titles) and thus they can only be identified by dissociative analysis (which is seen in the many names that designate each Patriarch in the Bible, or in Egyptological records). When such plural analysis is opposed each person, place or events, metamorphoses in as many single forms which signifies domination of totalitarism  (the fantasm of an Absolute is based on a part which condenses the whole).

To conclude: other mechanisms complete the structured confusion of the Unconscious which can be compared with a maze. Each one of us sees oneself on the top of it, like cherries on cakes which like to be amazing (or amazed). We have no interest at all in unraveling the Unconscious. For the most part of us, we live from it. Any visibility of the Unconscious is a sign which indicates the coming of repression. Will there ever be any way to make all this conscious?
Actually yes. It passes through interventions on collective psychology, which can be formulated (as PLAN for instance). We know that they will be nullified by violence if necessary. It is a that point that Cybernetics provides the final resource. But Cybernetics is like the Bible in its own time: it develops by itself and beyond the control or malevolence of humankind.
It is God's new surf board if you wish.

Sarasota 1999-07-19 23:33:20

note5 : The picture which is here refered to fails in showing as clearly as it should, that Phallus, Legends and Centuries which are listed at one point, correspond respectively to the Greek social 'organization', the repressed emergent 'text', and the 'events' - indicative arrows should make the picture more explicit <back to text>

note7 : On 99/07/09 such detailed page has not yet been published. At completion it should refer to the Goddess Europa riding from India on a bull until it is transformed into an ox after her passage in Greece on her way toward West. The social role of hysteria/uterus indicates that after the castration complex, a journey follows, questioning the function of pregnancy. The clinic of the absence of relationship between I.Velikovsky and W.Reich indicates also the importance of the lack of our knowledge of magnetism (Velikovsky was more interested in debating in vain with Einstein about the relationship of matter and magnetism, while Reich's theory of orgone/magnetism could have helped him better). This is leading to the logical probability that artificial pregnancies will be able to trigger our knowledge about magnetism.  <back to text> <back to Addendum>

note8 : Recent science of Earth tends to confirm Velikovsky emphasis's on the role of planetary magnetic perturbation only a few millenniums ago (see below). Interestingly enough another author whose thesis seemed to be so fare fetched that the scientific community never considered to mok - Zacharia Sitchin - seems to have described at least a plausible theory of an influent planet orbiting like a comet and intruding episodicaly the solar system, since computer simulation show nowadays that condition of life outside the solar system in such condition is possible.<back to text>

note10 : An interesting development in recent history allows an illustration. As the whole 'stuff' is 'incredible', it is appropriate as an example of a raw manifestation from the Unconscious; it can easily  be helpful as a fiction. The repetition of signifiers in the case the two presidents A.Lincoln and JFK can be either ignored or used of us to apprehend how deceitful is the condition of recollecting memory on the base of realistic coincidences. There is more to add, which may achieve a comparison and an evaluation with A.Osman's attempt of a logical de-materialization of Christianity. Thanks to the investigator R.Morningstar, we know of a possibility that another bodies that JFK's has been autopsied and officially buried (the second subject, who was known for his resemblance with JFK, and who had been murdered in Dallas in the same hours as JFK's assassination, was killed with a type of wounds which was in the range of the official explanation of the crime) - recent opening of classified files reveal the stunning information that, under telephone request from late Robert Kennedy, the first casket where JFK had been carried in to the autopsy facilities had been carried again in a plane a few months later, to be drop and sunk into a deep region of the Atlantic Ocean. In order to show how the reliability of science of history is precarious even with objective data devices as DNA sampling, since it is ourselves that we try to 'auto-spy', we can draw the following picture: let's suppose that - following the order after an old unrecorded official conversation of JFK's late widow - a DNA testing would be applied to the official remains of JFK, and that it would prove that another person hosts the Arlington casket. This would be a perfect situation for using A.Osman's logic: along with the 'Lincoln' repetition - similar to 'Tut' and Josua. it would conclude that JFK never existed. Condensation which may suggest that Jesus was the mock-up of a conspiracy require special psychoanalytic procedure in order to distinguish in the mass-psychology the plural consistency which allows the location of an individual subject. <back to text>

ADDENDUM

Two things are still in my mind.

First, using this criteria of 'discourse' or 'principle', it helped my figuring out something that may be worth to deepen. I was thinking about this extravagant representation of Akhnaton which depicts him pretending that he is the only one who knows (the nature of Aton, his project, whatever). This element is sometime used as an indication of a mental disorder of this king. Yet the character of unique knowledge is found elsewhere in History, without suspicion of mental disorder - as for instance in the case of Socrates.
There are strong elements which links Athens and Aton (for example, the banishment/condemnation of Socrates is followed by the Hermopolis phase in the long story of Atonism). Socrates was also the one who knew as he had been designated by the Pythia/priestess. This is suggesting a discourse, from Hermonthis, whose principle may be evolving toward a singularization of the individual and/or knowledge. It is known that Akhnaton built at Hermonthis - also called Arment - where the god Menthu (Sun God aka Ra-Menthu), was worshiped, as the southern variation of Heliopolis/On (An-Menthu or On-Menthu).
Such repetition between the psychocollective alienation of Akhnaton and Socrates, who both went singularly toward their banishment offers an interesting addition to the general view of what we recognize, in the aftermath, as the Hermetic Discourse.

A second thing may also appear more clearly in the large panorama.

I suggested recently to C.Pope that Sarah could be related to Sahra/Sahara. It was a joke... a very serious joke, because I have always wondered why West of Egypt is never mentioned, except metaphorically by Aton representing the sunset. Recent information indicate the very important climatic and thus sociological phenomenon which happened there, during the said origins of Egypt. It is simply impossible that this was not sourly remembered and imprinted in the Egyptian history. Menthu who/which represents the destructive heat of the sun was certainly appropriate in this regard. And in our present day, the negligence of Egyptology towards the Western neighbouring is another dynamic and psychological symptom which underlines its importance.
The fact that the tilt of the axis of Earth and that magnetic planetary phenomenon were involved in the process, suggest even more our attention, for it associates again the huge debate around Velikovsky's thesis which seems to gain a strong support on the occasion <back to Note8>.

But here is another aspect that I see of importance:

In relation with Note.7 above, we must definitely suspect that important knowledge, information or factor, regarding feminity are associated there. Leaving Hermonthis, a principle - let's call it Hermetism - migrates East and North, with Akhnaton, then Mont Hermon and Greece where a new form/expression of libido characterizes the young civilization. We cannot leave unnoticed how insistent is the factor of the age of the primordial Sarah in the legend, and even in Pope's scientific view who is even ready to change the span of Earth's life in order to give an explanation before Sarah's menopause. This is very intriguing, for there are reasons to consider that the female subjectivity maintains specific relationship with the collective psychology. Sarah may very well have been a 'harem' yet specific - a female community specific enough to be personified (in French the word 'Serail' - phon:Sarai - is synonymous with Harem). Only our contemporary view would see this as prejudicial for the feminine figure - though the appreciation of the homogeneity and value of collectivity in women psychology begin to be re-understood.
If Sarah was the Sahra 'serail' from Sahara, it may have not only carried a strong genetic force, but also an history and a mentality, therefore a powerful identity. The psycholinguistic factor also is important, since such feminine mass entity appears to be specifically atone in regard of the use of titles, as C.Pope's study shows their a-phase in the Bible recording (see text above).
If this is correct, Sarah may have been a 'pool' (political collectivity) from the feminine tradition previously established in the fertile Sahara. The evolution of the process of the covenant which was established in this regard with the Intelligentsia from East/Babylon, shows therefore its effect on this Saharian gynecee - with the first feminine offspring which resulted - i.e. Atchepsut, who wobbly expressed the adjustment to this transformation from collectivity to individuality; without prior references to singular female, she was sometime representing/represented by the male individualism.
Following her, in the rapid evolution of the 18th Dynasty, Tiye shows the progress of the political individualization of the female - the 'Sahrem' 'serail' matriarch, has evolved into the 'individual' matriarch who generates for father, brother and son - but the discourse itself soon imposes his regime of a-nomy (perhaps an expression of absence of numerical lineage, which probably corresponds to what we know today as the logic of the Y/male transmission particularity). Within just a few years, the Hermetic discourse (covenant Rama/Sahara) becomes atone, while in Greece, the heroic figure of the feminine citizen begins its career. Once again an individualization factor may be associated with an Hermonthis principle.

(Back to/or Following with Charles Pope's opinion on this development)

ANNEX - mirror http://touregypt.net/amenment.htm

Menthu-Ra

In connection with the Amen-Ra must be mentioned an important form of the Sun-god which was called Menthu, or Menthu-Ra, though he was commonly described as "lord of Thebes," the chief seat of the worship was at Hermonthis, the Annu-Rest, i.e., "Heliopolis of the South," of the hieroglyphic texts. Menthu was probably an old local god whose cult was sufficiently important to make it necessary for the priests of Amen to incorporate him with the great god of Thebes, and he appears to have been personification of the destructive heat of the sun. The chief centers of his worship were Annu of the South, Thebes, Annu of the North, Tchertet, {Edfu}, Dendera, and perhaps the temples of the First Cataract, and his commonest titles are, "Menthu-Ra, lord "of Thebes, king of the gods, he who is in his throne in Aptet, Merti, mighty one of two-fold strength, lord of the Thebes of the "North, Sma-taui, Governor of Behutet, lord of Annu of the South, "prince of Annu of the North," and "lord of Manu," i.e., the Libyan mountain. Menthu is mentioned in the pyramid Texts {Mer-en-Ra, line 784}, together with a number of ancient gods, in such a way that we may be certain that his worship was widespread, even in the VIth Dynasty. Thus Khepera, and Nu, and Tem and Uash, the son of Seb and Sekhem, the son of Osiris, are entreated to hearken to the words which the dead king is about to address to them. Nekhebet of the Temple of Sar, in Heliopolis is said to protect him, he is identified with the star Apsh, and the gods who transverse the land of the Thehennu, and who live on the "indestructible heavens," are besought to allow him to be with them. Five obscure gods are next mentioned, i.e., Tchent, Kher, Shenthet, Khenu, and Benutch, and then it is said that "Seb harkeneth to him, Tem 'provideth him with his form, Thoth heareth to him. Tem "provideth him with his form, Thoth heareth for him that which "is in the books of the gods. Horus openeth out a path for him, "Set protecteth him, and Mer-en-Ra riseth in the eastern part of "heaven even as doth Ra. He hath gone forth from Pe with the "spirits of Pe, he is Horus and is fortified by the Great "and the Little Companies of the gods. He riseth in the "condition of a king, he entereth into heaven like Ap-uat, he hath "received the White Crown and the Green Crown, "his club is with him, his weapon {or scepter}, "is in his grasp, his mother is Isis, his nurse is Nepthys, and the "cow Sekhat-Heru giveth him milk. Net "is behind him, Serqet is on his two hands ....... Let him pass, "and let his flesh pass, let him pass, and let his apparel pass, "for he hath gone forth as Menth, he hath gone down "like Ba, and he hath haunted like Ba-ashem-f. Of the origin and early history of Menthu nothing is known, but his worship must have been very ancient if we are to judge by the passage quoted above from the text of king Mer-en-Ra, for, although mentioned with the two obscure gods Ba and Ba-ashem-f, it is quite clear that he was a great god and the deceased hoped to resemble him in the Theban Recension Book of the Dead, but curiously enough, only as one of the number of gods. Thus, in Chapter cxl.6, together with Ra, Tem, Uatchet, Shu, Seb, Osiris, Suti, Horus, Bah, Ra-er-neheh, Tehuti, Naam, Tchetta, Nut, Isis, Set, Nepthys, Her-khuti, Hathor, Khepera, Amen, etc., who are entreated to bestow a garment of purity on the deceased. Menthu is usually depicted in the form of a man with the head of a hawk, whereon he wears a crown formed of the solar disk with the uraeus an d two high plumes ; as such he is styled "lord of Thebes." In a figure reproduced by Lanzone he has two hawks' heads, each of which is provided with the solar disk, two uraei, and two plumes ; in his right hand Menthu grasps the scimitar, which indicates that he was a god of war. Another proof of his warlike attributes is a scene in which he is depicted, with a long spear having a bronze or iron head, in the act of spearing a foe, whose hands and feet are tied together. In the city of Tchert, Menthu was worshipped under the form of a man with the head of a bull, but instead of the solar disk, sometimes with and sometimes without plumes. The warlike character of this local form of Menthu is indicated by the bow and arrows, and club, and knife which he was a personification of the fierce, destroying heat of the sun which warred against the enemies of the Sun-god, and smote them to the death with his burning rays which were like fiery spears and darts. In the narrative of the battle of Kadesh we are told that Rameses II. "rose up as up as Ra riseth, and took the weapons "of father Menthu" and that when he saw the foe before him "he raged at them like "Bar in his hour," he leaped into his chariot and drove headlong into the battle, wherein he, of course, gained a great victory. Elsewhere Menthu is often styled the "mighty bull," and it is possible that originally this god was nothing but a personification of the strength and might of the raging bull when fighting a foe, and that his worship in one form or another existed in predynastic times. It must, in any case, be very ancient, because when joined to Ra his name comes first in the compound name and we have "Menthu-Ra instead of Ra-Menthu. The pictures of the god reproduced by Lanzone prove that the god possessed other phases which are not at present well understood. Thus he is represented standing upright, with the head of a hawk, and he holds in the right hand what appears to be an ear of corn and in his left a vase, as if he were in the act of making offerings. In another scene the god, hawk-headed and wearing the solar disk encircled by a uraeus, is seated on a throne and is represented in the act of embracing a young Horus god who wears on his the solar disk with plumes, and a tight-fitting cap with a uraeus in front of it, and who stands on the edge of the throne by the side of the god.

© CYBEK of New York -1999