Dear valleytom,
As it seems, there is a small mistake in the way the name is spelled.
The ending '-eris' indicates that this is the Greek form of an ancient
Egyptian name. However, my search has revealed that 'Thoneris' is not
an Egyptian name, neither are the possible spelling variants
'Toneris', 'Touneris', 'Thouneris', 'Thuneris', and 'Tuneris'. These
or other variations of 'Thoneris' are not listed by any any sources or
records as Greek terms. But there is an Egyptian deity known as
'Thoeris' (other common Greek forms are Thoueris, Tueris, Toeris). The
Egyptians called her Taweret (The Great One), Taueret, Taurt, Apet
or Opet. She was a low-ranking, but quite popular and very old
goddess. She was a deity of fertility and believed to protect women in
childbirth. Normally, she was portrayed as having a hippopotamus' head
on a voluptous female human body, often combined with lion paws and a
crocodile tail, as shown here:
http://2terres.hautesavoie.net/tegypte/texte/thoueri.htm
Should your statue not show these typical features, it might
nevertheless be an image of the goddess Thoeris: The ancient Egyptians
believed that their deities had various manifestations; they could
appear as animals, mixtures of animal and human features or fully
human without changing their identities. Also, the figure might be the
portrait of a real person who had been given the name or adopted it in
order to please the goddess.
If it is a statue of the diety, the figure might have seen use as a
talisman or item of worship as well as a votive present to the goddess
brought to her during a pilgrimage or as a reward for help in
pregnancy or childbirth.
Some sources for information on the goddess:
University of Colorado, Social Science Data Lab, Egyptian Gods Theme -
Taweret, Hippopotamus goddess and protective deity of childbirth
http://sobek.colorado.edu/LAB/GODS/taweret.html
Glossary Of Egyptian Mythology, Egyptian Goddess Taurt, by Richard
Deurer, 1997
http://members.aol.com/egyptart/taurt.html
Search terms used:
"egyptian gods" list:
://www.google.de/search?q=%22egyptian+gods%22+list&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&hl=de&meta=
Thoeris: ://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=Thoeris&meta=
Thoueris: ://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=Thoueris&meta=
I hope this helps you finding out about the identity of your statue
Regards,
Scriptor |