Fischer, Henry G., "Ancient Egyptian Representations of Turtles"
Fischer, Henry G., "Ancient Egyptian Representations of Turtles"
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art | 1968 | ISBN: N/A | English | PDF | 56 pages | 6.81 Mb
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art | 1968 | ISBN: N/A | English | PDF | 56 pages | 6.81 Mb
Turtles are treated in Ancient Egyptian belief, as in other cultures, as an ambiguous force, reflecting their life as creatures of both land and sea. In Ancient Egyptian religious iconography and literature, the turtle can be among marginal creatures invoked to defend a person, as on the objects illustrated below. However it is often the enemy of the sun-god Re. This negative position is already announced in the Coffin Texts: 'If you tell me to eat this (excrement), then Re will eat turtle'. In the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) the following refrain dominates an incantation appearing on almost all inscribed private coffins to the Late Period, and in funerary papyri (as Book of the Dead chapter 161): 'May Re live and may the turtle die' (see a fragment from Thebes)
Fischer, Henry G., "Ancient Egyptian Representations of Turtles"
Fischer, Henry G., "Ancient Egyptian Representations of Turtles"
