Hello wolfenheart,
Thank you for addressing a question specifically to me :)
1. I thought the answer to the first part would be a simple negative,
given that we don’t really know how the ancient Egyptians pronounced
their language, because the vowels are not indicated. Some words are
very similar to their Coptic equivalents, and for these the assumption
is made that the pronounciation was probably close to the Coptic one.
For the rest, Egyptologists use a set of conventions, so that they at
least all pronounce the words in more or less the same way.
To my great surprise, I did, however, find that there is a an Egyptian
language teaching resource on CD that includes recordings of
pronounciation:
“SMiles Productions LLC is proud to announce the release of Egyptian
Hieroglyphs Made Easy (EHME), an interactive CD-ROM that teaches the
fundamentals of the ancient Egyptian language. Created with the help
of Scott Noegel, Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Languages
and
Civilizations at the University of Washington, it is the ONLY
available CD that offers a broad introduction to ancient Egyptian!”
https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/anenews/2003-February/001209.html
More information is available at
http://www.smilesprod.com/hieromain.htm
On this page, you can click on a picture to hear the pronounciation of
a sample sentence:
http://www.smilesprod.com/hierolessons.htm
The course costs $69.99 plus s+h and can be ordered online:
http://www.smilesprod.com/ordernow.htm
2. Information about Anubis does tend to be rather sparse.
I started off by consulting my own book collection. There is a very
useful small reference book by George Hart: A Dictionary of Egyptian
Gods and Goddesses, Routledge, 1986, reprinted 1996. ISBN
0-415-05909-7
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0415059097/qid=1066863535/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-4289779-3434505?v=glance&n=507846
Hart refers to the best known story about the parentage of Anubis,
which is the version transmitted to us by Plutarch. I guess this is
the one with which you are already familiar, but I will repeat it for
the sake of completeness.
Of the five children born to the sky godess Nuit (Nut), four became
two couples: Isis being the wife of Osiris, and Nephthys being the
wife of Set (who would kill Osiris). The story has it that Nephthys
had little love for Set, the violent, red-haired god of the desert
storm. Her love was directed towards Osiris, who, with his wife Isis,
introduced agriculture and civilization to humanity. Nephthys took on
the form of Isis and in this form stood before Osiris and seduced him.
Anubis was conceived of this brief union. Plutarch then goes on to
say that Isis, being a benevolent goddess, adopted Anubis as her own
son.
Hart mentions that a fairly late Egyptian papyrus refers to Anubis as
the “son of Isis”, which could be a reference to this story.
There is also the tradition in which Anubis is son of Nephthys and
Set.
Hart also mentions a number of other traditions relating to the
parentage of Anubis:
In one, he is the son of Nephthys and the sun god Re.
In the earlier Coffin Texts, he is the son of the the cow goddess
Hesat.
In another place in the Coffin Texts, the cat goddess Bastet is
mentioned as his mother.
Hart also mentions that the Pyramid Texts contain references to a
daughter of Anubis, the serpent goddess Kebehwet, who refreshes and
purifies the king.
The web site of the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC has
information reproduced from Erik Hornung and Betsy M. Bryan, eds. The
Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt [exh. cat., National
Gallery of Art] (Washington, DC, 2002).
http://www.nga.gov/press/2002/exhibitions/egypt/gods.htm
Here the section on Anubis also mentions the lion goddess Sekhmet
being seen as the mother of Anubis in some traditions. A goddess of
Middle Egypt, Anupet is cited as being either the consort of Anubis or
an earlier manifestation of the god.
I hope this answers your question, but please do ask for further
clarification if required.
Search strategy
1. "ancient egyptian" language CD
2. Anubis consort
3. Anubis wife |
Clarification of Answer by
tehuti-ga
on
23 Oct 2003 03:26 PDT
Hello again wolfenheart,
Thinking further in terms of “rivalry”, I suppose one could look at
Anubis and Wepwawet, since there are many similarities between them.
There is a viewpoint that they are one and the same, although the
more common opinion is that they are two distinct deities.
Both are jackal-headed, although later the Greeks associated Wepwawet
with the wolf rather than the jackal. Wepwawet is sometimes pictured
with a grey or brown jackal head, while that of Anubis is always
painted black.
It is suggested that Anubis took over some of the functions of
Wepwawet when some of his own attributes, eg that of Lord of the West,
were passed over to Osiris. Perhaps the most important title
attributed to both Anubis and Wepwawet is “Opener of the Ways”, a
reference to the function of the psychopomp, the god who leads the
soul of the dead person through the underworld.
Both Wepwawet and Anubis were associated with the ceremony of the
Opening of the Mouth. Hart mentions that the adze of Wepwawet is used
for this purpose, but also says that the iron for this adze was
supplied by Anubis. The ceremony was carried out by a priest wearing
a jackal mask.
Another point of similarity is that the paternity of both these jackal
gods is sometimes attributed to Osiris. A Middle Kingdom stela in
Abydaos refers to a “procession of Wepwawet” that began the mysteries
of “his father” Osiris.
Sources:
Hart book as above
http://www.kemet.org/glossary/wepwawet.html
The Tour Egypt site has a detailed description of each:
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/anubis.htm
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/wepwawet.htm
|
