A few skerricks from "Servant of Mut"

[ikhet_sekhmet]

Jotting some quick notes from different papers in this collection:

• "there are no reliable records of Mut before the Second Intermediate Period" (p 25)
  
• Of a vulture statue inscribed to Amenemhat III, "beloved of Sekhmet, lady of Ankhtaui": "The syncretism of Nekhbet and Sekhmet is well known" ("eg they may be interchangeable in the Coffin Texts

Comments

[bodlon]

On the topic of vultures, you have to respect a creature who uses carrion vomit as a mode of self-defense.

"Yeah, yeah, you're huge and threatening. HORK."

[dreamer_easy]

I must adapt this for Internet use.

[lemon_cupcake]

n Egyptian art the vulture can be shown as protector or carrion-eater, an ambiguity which parallels that of the uraeus, so that the Two Ladies "also form another contradictory duality"

I don't see this as "contradictory". First, I believe that carrion eaters were significant in Egyptian thought as "innocent carnivores", therefore as mediating the opposition between flesh-eaters who are predators and non-flesh eaters who are prey; second, I believe that large carrion eaters such as vultures and jackals represented a preferable fate for the uninterred dead than being consumed by smaller creatures.

[kateorman]

V. interesting! Let me give you the context:"Nrt can be translated as 'the terrifying one' but also as 'the protecting one'. In the eyes of the Egyptians, a vulture seems to have been an ambivalent symbol... In ancient Egyptian art, the vulture is depicted both as a carrion eater and as a protective being hovering above the pharaoh. This dual, ambivalent aspect of the vulture, which can be both protective and terrifying, is comparable to the destructive and protective aspect of the uraeus snake... The Two Ladies (nbty), vulture and snake, Nekhbet and Wadjet, together also form another contradictory duality. This positive and negative evaluation of the vulture can be found as early as the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt... [...] the vulture as a carrion-eater on the battlefield vanished from the language and the visual arts [...] the vulture was respected as a disposer of refuse."

- te Velde, Herman. "The Goddess Mut and the Vulture". (pp 242-3)