Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid
In the news a year ago today (OK it was really yesterday) was this story by National Geographic.
I have included an image cropped from my website: www.pyramidtextsonline.com that contains the text in question: Utterrances 238-242 from the Unas pyramid.
It is suggested that the hieroglyphics read: “Mother snake, mother snake says mucus-mucus.” when read as a Semitic text.
The story created quite a stir and a bit of that controversy will be posted tomorrow.
“…The passages, inscribed on the subterranean walls of the pyramid of King Unas at Saqqara, reveal that the Egyptians enlisted the magical assistance of Semitic Canaanites from the ancient city of Byblos, located in what is now Lebanon.
The Canaanite spells were invoked to help protect mummified kings against poisonous snakes, one of ancient Egypt’s most dreaded nemeses.
According to the incantations, female snakes—acting as mediators for Canaanite magicians—used their multiple mouths and sexual organs to prevent other snakes from entering the mummified rulers’ remains.
The passages date from between 2400 to 3000 B.C. and appear to be written in Proto-Canaanite, a direct ancestor of biblical Hebrew.
In fact, experts say, the inscriptions may help them solve several long-standing mysteries of the Bible and ancient Egypt…
…in 2002 a colleague asked Richard Steiner, a professor of Semitic languages and literature at New York’s Yeshiva University, if the texts might be Semitic.
“I immediately recognized the Semitic words for ‘mother snake,’” Steiner said at a recent lecture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he presenting the findings.
“Later it became clear that the surrounding spells, composed in Egyptian rather than Semitic, also speak of the divine mother snake and that the Egyptian and Semitic texts elucidate each other,” he added.
“It was hiding there in plain sight,” Steiner told National Geographic News. “It’s unintelligible to Egyptologists, but it makes perfect sense to Semitists.”
Biblical Solution
Also of great significance, experts say, is that the newly deciphered spells provide the first glimpse of the ancestor language to Phoenician and Hebrew.
“This is a discovery of utmost importance,” Bar-Asher said. “Almost all the words found [in these texts] are also found in the Bible.”
“It’s not as different from biblical Hebrew as some people might have expected,” Yeshiva University’s Steiner added. “A lot of the characteristics of Hebrew that we know from the Bible are already present in these texts.”
The language of the newly deciphered spells is so similar to biblical Hebrew, in fact, that Steiner was able to solve a long-standing dispute over the meaning of the word “pot.”
Isaiah 3:17 reads, in regard to the daughters of Zion, “the Lord will uncover their pot.”
By the Middle Ages there was already a dispute among biblical scholars over whether the word referred to the females’ genitalia or to a part of their heads, Steiner said in his lecture.
But the use of this rare word in one of the Canaanite spells appears to settle the question.
“From this text it is now clear the Hebrew term used by Isaiah refers to the female genitalia,” Bar-Asher, of the Hebrew University, said.
These texts also “provide the first direct evidence for the pronunciation of Egyptian in this early period,” Steiner added.
“Current theories of Old Egyptian phonetics are based on extrapolation and are the subject of controversy. These spells may help to resolve some of the controversies.”"
Read the article in full: Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid
