109-526: Ra ( / r ɑː / ; Ancient Egyptian : rꜥ ; also transliterated rꜥw , Ancient Egyptian pronunciation: [ˈɾiːʕuw] ; cuneiform: 𒊑𒀀 ri-a or 𒊑𒅀 ri-ia ; Phoenician : 𐤓𐤏, romanized: rʿ) or Re ( / r eɪ / ; Coptic : ⲣⲏ , romanized: Rē ) was the ancient Egyptian deity of the Sun . By the Fifth Dynasty , in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of
218-742: A literary language , and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular literature , comprising such examples as the Story of Wenamun , the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the Instruction of Any . Instructions became
327-626: A snake , the Mesopotamian Enki , Ninurta and Inanna fight with Kur and kill him, the Iranian Tishtry (Sirius) – with the deva Aposhi Tishtry kills Aposhi. The killed Apep, Vritra, Kur and Aposhi hold back the cosmic waters. Marduk defeats and kills the progenitors Tiamat and Apsu before resurrecting them back together, the deities of the dark waters of chaos, who has taken the form of snakes. There are stories in Canaanite mythology about
436-566: A synthetic language , Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an analytic language . The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian. The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic. Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the Demotic script , following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic ,
545-410: A boundary of the universe. In the myth of Noah's Ark , for forty days and nights of rain, the cosmic ocean floods the earth before receding away back into their original place. In Sumerian mythology, there was an image of the original sea abyss – Apsu , on the site of which the most active of the gods Enki , representing the earth, fresh water and agriculture on irrigated lands, made his home. In
654-431: A creator god as well. When Ra was in the underworld, he merged with Osiris , the god of the dead. Ra was portrayed as a man with the head of most likely either a lanner or peregrine falcon , adorned with a sun disk with a Cobra around it, and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus . Ra was represented in a variety of forms. Other common forms are a man with the head of a beetle (in his form as Khepri ), or
763-468: A factor in cosmic ordering. In ancient creation texts , the primordial waters are often represented as having filled the entire universe and are the first source of the gods . The act of creation is the establishment of an inhabitable space separate from the enveloping waters. The cosmic ocean is the shape of the universe before creation. The ocean is boundless, unordered, unorganized, amorphous, formless, dangerous, terrible. In some myths, its cacophony
872-550: A few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic. There was also a form of cursive hieroglyphs , used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the Book of the Dead of the Twentieth Dynasty ; it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of ligatures . Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as "lapidary hieratic". In
981-488: A few specialists in the language. For all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced. The following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme: / l / has no independent representation in
1090-458: A form of the sun god Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being. The concept of chaos is etymologically associated with darkness, but primarily about water chaos in the form of the primary ocean (Nu) or, in the Hermopolitian version, four divine pairs of primordial deities representing its different aspects. The primary hill is place of the sun god Ra and
1199-459: A great chaotic cosmic ocean, and the ocean itself was referred to as Nu . In some versions of this myth, at the beginning of time, Mehet-Weret , portrayed as a cow with a sun disk between her horns, gives birth to the sun, said to have risen from the waters of creation and to have given birth to the sun god Ra in some myths. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben ,
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#17328511731741308-454: A hypnotic stare. During the evening, the Egyptians believed that Ra set as Atum or in the form of a ram. The night boat would carry him through the underworld and back towards the east in preparation for his rebirth. These myths of Ra represented the sun rising as the rebirth of the sun by the sky-goddess Nut; thus attributing the concept of rebirth and renewal to Ra and strengthening his role as
1417-454: A man with a falcon's head, which is due to his combination with Horus, another sky-god. On top of his head sits a solar disc with a cobra, which in many myths represents the Eye of Ra . At the beginning of time, when there was nothing but chaos, the sun-god existed alone in the watery mass of Nun which filled the universe. The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters , and the Benben ,
1526-502: A man with the head of a ram. Ra was also pictured as a full-bodied ram, beetle, phoenix, heron, serpent, bull, cat, or lion, among others. He was most commonly featured with a ram's head in the Underworld. In this form, Ra is described as being the "ram of the west" or "ram in charge of his harem. In some literature, Ra is described as an aging king with golden flesh, silver bones, and hair of lapis lazuli . The chief cultic center of Ra
1635-458: A nominal feminine suffix * -at , a nominal prefix m- , an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes. Of the other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities with Berber and Semitic languages, particularly Arabic (which is spoken in Egypt today) and Hebrew . However, other scholars have argued that
1744-442: A popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration. Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase. However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally
1853-404: A pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and this when it blossomed emerged Ra. There were many versions of the sun's emergence, and it was said to have emerged directly from the mound or from a lotus flower that grew from the mound, in the form of a heron, falcon, scarab beetle, or human child. In Heliopolis , the creation was attributed to Atum ,
1962-540: A pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos. There was a lotus flower with Benben, and from this, when it blossomed, emerged Ra. "I am Atum when he was alone in Nun, I am Ra when he dawned, when he began to rule that which he had made." This passage talks about how Atum created everything in human form out of the chaos and how Ra then began to rule over the Earth where humans and divine beings coexisted. He created Shu, god of air, and
2071-453: A result of the rapid rotation, a whorl lights up – Mount Mandara , but trees and grasses emit their juices into the drying ocean. This motif echoes the Tungus myths about the creation of the earth by a celestial being, which, with the help of fire, dries up part of the primordial ocean, thus reclaiming a place for the earth. The motif of the struggle of water and fire in connection with the theme of
2180-444: A scribe jokes that his colleague's writing is incoherent like "the speech of a Delta man with a man of Elephantine ." Recently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian. Written Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably
2289-578: A similar with about the churning of the Churning of the Ocean . Myths about the world's oceans are universally accompanied by myths about its containment when the earth was already created, and myths about the attempts of the ocean to regain its undivided dominance. In Chinese mythology , there is the idea of a giant depression or pit that determines the direction of the ocean waters and takes away excess water. In many mythologies there are numerous narratives regarding
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#17328511731742398-496: A stressed vowel (⟨ bjn ⟩ = */ˈbaːjin/ 'bad') and as ⟨ jj ⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = */χaʕˈjak/ 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨ jt ⟩ = /ˈjaːtVj/ 'father'). In Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, / z / and / s / had merged, and
2507-502: A stressed vowel in syllables that had been closed in earlier Egyptian (compare ⲛⲟⲩⲃ < */ˈnaːbaw/ 'gold' and ⲧⲁⲡ < * /dib/ 'horn'). The phonemes /d g z/ occur only in Greek loanwords, with rare exceptions triggered by a nearby /n/ : ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ/ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ < ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w 'school'. Earlier *d ḏ g q are preserved as ejective t' c' k' k ' before vowels in Coptic. Although
2616-403: A theogonic or theocosmogonic process. At the same time, the feminine and masculine principles are associated with the element of water and with chaos; usually they are conceived on the side of "nature" rather than "culture." Mythical creatures from chaos, defeated and victorious, shackled and released, overthrown and restored, always continue to exist on the outskirts of space, along the shores of
2725-634: A transliteration of the corresponding Demotic "alphabetical" sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . More changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD). In Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ had merged into ϣ š (most often from ḫ ) and ϩ / h / (most often ẖ ḥ ). Bohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative / x / ( ϧ in Bohairic, ⳉ in Akhmimic). Pharyngeal *ꜥ had merged into glottal / ʔ / after it had affected
2834-461: A uniliteral hieroglyph. Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean. In "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects
2943-638: Is a mythological motif that represents the world or cosmos enveloped by a vast primordial ocean. Found in many cultures and civilizations, the cosmic ocean exists before the creation of the earth. From the primordial waters the earth and the entire cosmos arose. The cosmic ocean represents or embodies chaos. The cosmic ocean takes form in the mythology of Yazidism , Ahl-e Haqq , Alevism , Ancient Egyptian mythology , Ancient Greek mythology , Canaanite mythology , Ancient Hindu mythology , Ancient Iranian , Sumerian , Zoroastrianism , Ancient Roman mythology and many other world mythologies. The primacy of
3052-587: Is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years. Its classical form, known as " Middle Egyptian ," served as the vernacular of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and remained the literary language of Egypt until the Roman period . By the time of classical antiquity , the spoken language had evolved into Demotic , and by the Roman era , diversified into various Coptic dialects . These were eventually supplanted by Arabic after
3161-481: Is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt . It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century. Egyptian is one of the earliest known written languages , first recorded in the hieroglyphic script in the late 4th millennium BC . It
3270-454: Is associated with water, often as its abductor. It threatens either with a flood or a drought, that is, a violation of the measure, the water "balance". Since the cosmos is identified with order and measure, chaos is associated with the violation of measure. The Egyptian Ra fights and kills the underground serpent Apep , the Hindu Indra fights and kills the demon Vritra , who took the form of
3379-470: Is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a finite verb , which has been found. Discovered in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen (dated c. 2690 BC ), the seal impression reads: Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the Diary of Merer . The Pyramid Texts are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics
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3488-405: Is launched into the water, appears above the water, grows from a piece of solid substance placed on the surface of the water or liquid mud, from an island in the ocean, is exposed when the waters subsided, etc." The idea of the primacy of the ocean as an element, from the bowels of which the earth arises or is created, is universally prevalent. This representation is present in many mythologies of
3597-449: Is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced. Stops may be either aspirated or tenuis (unaspirated), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their tenuis counterparts in certain environments. The following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian. The reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by
3706-401: Is noted, opposed to the ordered rhythm of the sea. Chaos can be personified as water or by the unorganized interaction of water and fire, The transformation of chaos into order is also the transition from water to land. In many ancient cosmogonic myths, the ocean and chaos are equivalent and inseparable from each other. The ocean remains outside space even after the emergence of the land. At
3815-571: Is possible that Montu-Ra and Atum-Ra symbolized the two kingships, respectively, of Upper and Lower Egypt . Montu had several consorts, including a female aspect of Ra, Raet-Tawy . In Egyptian art , Montu was depicted with his head surmounted by the solar disk, because of his conceptual link with Ra. In some myths, Ra was thought to have created almost every other Egyptian god. [REDACTED] Media related to Ra at Wikimedia Commons Ancient Egyptian language The Egyptian language , or Ancient Egyptian ( r n kmt ; "speech of Egypt")
3924-413: Is presented first of all as the greatest world river (Hom. Il. XIV 245), surrounding the earth and the sky with the seas, giving rise to all rivers, springs, sea currents and seas in the world (XXI 196), the shelter of the sun, moon, stars and planets, from which they all rise from the ocean and set in it (VII 422; VIII 485). The Ocean River touches the sea, but does not mix with it. In its extreme ends at
4033-399: Is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed writing system , being at a transitional stage of proto-writing ; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as nisba formation can be seen to occur. Old Egyptian
4142-424: Is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from Egyptology . While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a cursive variant , and the related hieratic . Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the decipherment of hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian
4251-536: Is the cosmic ocean in Iranian mythology . In the first creation story in the Bible the world is created as a space inside of the water or Tehom , and is hence surrounded of it, "And Yahweh said, 'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.'" ( Genesis 1:6 ). It is clear that this upper water refers to the waters present in the clouds. There are points though that indicate
4360-452: Is the most important act necessary for the transformation of chaos into space. The next step in the same direction is the separation of the sky from the earth, which, perhaps, essentially coincides with the first act, given the initial identification of the sky with the oceans. But it was precisely the repetition of the act – first down, and then up – that led to the allocation of three spheres – earthly, heavenly and underground, which represents
4469-469: Is the ocean – and the inland seas. Later, Euripides begins to divide the ocean into parts: the Ethiopian Ocean, Eritrean Ocean, Gallic Ocean, Germanic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, etc. In Hindu mythology, there is an idea of darkness and the abyss, but also of the primary waters generated by night or chaos. Ancient Indian myths about the oceans contain both typical and original motifs. In the tenth mandala of
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4578-406: Is the tripling of ideograms , phonograms, and determinatives to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect. In the period of the 3rd dynasty ( c. 2650 – c. 2575 BC ), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized. From that time on, until
4687-641: The Battle of the Titans and the Olympians against the Olympians and the Titans and thus retained their power and trust of the Olympians and Titans and the other deities. Oceanus and Tethys are the father and mother of Metis , the wise wife of Brontes and mother of Athena and Porus with him (Apollod. I 2, 1). Known for their peacefulness and kindness (Euripides said that they tried unsuccessfully to reconcile Prometheus with
4796-551: The Coptic Catholic Church . Most hieroglyphic Egyptian texts are written in a literary prestige register rather than the vernacular speech variety of their author. As a result, dialectical differences are not apparent in written Egyptian until the adoption of the Coptic alphabet . Nevertheless, it is clear that these differences existed before the Coptic period. In one Late Egyptian letter (dated c. 1200 BC ),
4905-551: The Dashavatara who is depicted as churning the cosmic ocean during Samudra Manthana . Vishnu takes the form of a turtle to help hold the stick used to churn the cosmic ocean during this event in Hindu mythology. According to the biblical account of the creation of the world in Book of Genesis , the upper oceans ( Hebrew : המים העליונים , romanized : HaMaim HaElionim ) refers to
5014-457: The Ennead helped him on his journey, including Set , who overcame the serpent Apophis , and Mehen , who defended against the monsters of the underworld. When Ra was in the underworld, he would visit all of his various forms. Apophis, the god of chaos ( isfet ), was an enormous serpent who attempted to stop the sun-boat's journey every night by consuming it or by stopping it in its tracks with
5123-511: The Mesektet or evening-boat. These boats took him on his journey through the sky and the Duat – twelve hours of night which is also the literal underworld of Egypt. While Ra was on the Mesektet , he was in his ram-headed form. When Ra traveled in his sun-boat, he was accompanied by various other deities including Sia (perception) and Hu (command), as well as Heka (magic power). Sometimes, members of
5232-566: The Muslim conquest of Egypt , although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church . The Egyptian language branch belongs to the Afroasiatic language family . Among the typological features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are its fusional morphology, nonconcatenative morphology , a series of emphatic consonants , a three-vowel system /a i u/ ,
5341-576: The Second Dynasty , establishing him as a sun-deity. By the Fourth Dynasty , pharaohs were seen as Ra's manifestations on Earth, referred to as "Sons of Ra". Ra was called the first king of Egypt, thus it was believed pharaohs were his descendants and successors. His worship increased massively in the Fifth Dynasty , when Ra became a state-deity and pharaohs had specially aligned pyramids , obelisks , and sun temples built in his honor. The rulers of
5450-573: The hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. Demotic is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC. The Coptic alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet , with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in the Ptolemaic period , and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era. The term "Archaic Egyptian"
5559-603: The Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions. There are two theories that seek to establish the cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and the neuere Komparatistik , founded by Semiticist Otto Rössler. According to the neuere Komparatistik , in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/ : Egyptian ꜥr.t 'portal', Semitic dalt 'door'. The traditional theory instead disputes
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#17328511731745668-476: The Egyptians call themselves the "Cattle of Ra". In the myth of the Celestial Cow , it is recounted how humankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish them. According to Egyptian myth , when Ra became too old and weary to reign on Earth he relinquished and went to the skies. As the Sun god one of his duties was to carry the Sun cross the sky on his solar barque to light
5777-558: The Fifth Dynasty told their followers that they were sons of Ra himself and the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis. These pharaohs spent much of Egypt's money on sun-temples. The first Pyramid Texts began to arise, giving Ra more and more significance in the journey of the pharaoh through the Duat (underworld). During the Middle Kingdom , Ra was increasingly affiliated and combined with other chief deities, especially Amun and Osiris. At
5886-412: The Olympians before Prometheus was freed by the Olympians and Titans and others later on; Prometheus Bound 284–396). Herodotus contains criticism of the mythological concept of Oceanus as a poetic invention (Herodot. II, 23, cf. also IV 8, 36, etc.). Euripides called the ocean as the sea ( Orestes 1376). Since that time, a tendency has been established to distinguish between a large outer sea – which
5995-495: The Rigveda, the original state of the universe is presented as the absence of existing and non-existent, airspace and sky above it, death and birth, day and night, but the presence of water and disorderly movement. In the waters of the eternal ocean, there was a life-giving principle generated by the power of heat and giving birth to everything else. Another mandala of the Rigveda contains a different version: "Law and truths were born from
6104-592: The Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern. Although Egyptian is the oldest Afroasiatic language documented in written form, its morphological repertoire is very different from that of the rest of the Afroasiatic languages in general, and Semitic languages in particular. There are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from Proto-Afroasiatic before it
6213-455: The beginning, the entire space of the world was filled with an ocean that had neither beginning nor end. It was probably believed that he was eternal. In its bowels lurked the foremother Nammu . In her womb arose a cosmic mountain in the form of a hemisphere, which later became the earth. An arc of shiny tin, encircling the hemisphere vertically, later became the sky. In the Babylonian version, in
6322-566: The cosmic ocean was enveloped in thick clouds. In Exodus, the cosmic ocean is Yam Sûf and is mentioned in Exodus 15:4. The army of the Pharaoh was thrown into this "Sea of Extinction" and the entire army of the Pharaoh was killed in it. Yahweh rises Egypt up from this sea. King Sargon II is said to have washed his weapons in this cosmic ocean. The cosmic ocean is mentioned again in Joshua 1:4 and signified as
6431-512: The day. But when the sun set and twilight came he and his vessel passes through the akhet , the horizon, in the west, and travels to the underworld. At times the horizon is described as a gate or door that leads to the Duat. There he would have to sail on the subterrestrial Nile and cross through the twelve gates and regions. On the course of the underworld journey, he transformed into his Ram headed form. Every night Apophis attempted to attack Ra and stop
6540-660: The definite article ⲡ is unaspirated when the next word begins with a glottal stop: Bohairic ⲡ + ⲱⲡ > ⲡⲱⲡ 'the account'. The consonant system of Coptic is as follows: Here is the vowel system reconstructed for earlier Egyptian: Vowels are always short in unstressed syllables ( ⟨tpj⟩ = */taˈpij/ 'first') and long in open stressed syllables ( ⟨rmṯ⟩ = */ˈraːmac/ 'man'), but they can be either short or long in closed stressed syllables ( ⟨jnn⟩ = */jaˈnan/ 'we', ⟨mn⟩ = */maːn/ 'to stay'). Cosmic ocean A cosmic ocean , primordial waters , or celestial river
6649-504: The deities" Nu and Nunnet. In the historical era, the ocean, which was placed underground, gave rise to the river Nile. In the Heracleopolis version of the myth, an internal connection between the ocean and chaos is noted. The ideas of ancient Greaco-Roman mythology about the ocean demonstrate a typologically more advanced stage, when the image of the Ocean becomes the object of "pre-scientific" research and natural philosophy . The Ocean
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#17328511731746758-637: The emphatic consonants were realised is unknown. Early research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one of tenuis and emphatic consonants , as in many Semitic languages, or one of aspirated and ejective consonants , as in many Cushitic languages . Since vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems. The actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by
6867-439: The end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally: ⟨pḏ.t⟩ */ˈpiːɟat/ > Akkadian transcription -pi-ta 'bow'. The most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic. The consonant inventory of Demotic can be reconstructed on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects. Demotic orthography is relatively opaque . The Demotic "alphabetical" signs are mostly inherited from
6976-562: The endless primordial Ocean there was nothing but two monsters – the forefather Apsu and foremother Tiamat . Vourukasha is the name of a heavenly sea in Zoroastrian mythology. It was created by Ahura Mazda and in its middle stood the Harvisptokhm or the "tree of all seeds". According to the Vendidad , Ahura Mazda sent the clean waters of Vourukasha down to the earth in order to cleanse
7085-532: The first known Coptic text, still pagan ( Old Coptic ), from the 1st century AD. Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the Mamluks . It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and
7194-503: The flood. The opposition of two types of myths is known (for example, in Oceania ) – about the earth sinking in the ocean, and about the retreat of the ocean. An example of the first type is the legend about the origin of Easter Island , recorded on this island. In the creation myth of the Nganasan people , at first the earth was completely covered with water, then the water subsides and exposes
7303-408: The form of a boar . In the mythologies of many Asian countries, in which there is an image of an endless and eternal primordial ocean or sea, there is a motif of the creation of the earth by a celestial being descending from the sky and interfering with the water of the ocean with an iron club, spear or other object. This results in condensation which gives rise to the earth. In Japanese mythology ,
7412-401: The frame of the cosmos, separating it from chaos. The ocean is controlled by the god Varuna and the goddess Varuni. Varuna and Varuni is associated both with the destructive and uncontrolled power of the waters of the oceans, and with fruitful waters that bring wealth to people. The churning of the cosmic ocean contains the motif of the confrontation between the elements of water and fire. As
7521-569: The goddess of moisture, Tefnut. The siblings symbolized two universal principles of humans: life and right (justice). Ra was believed to have created all forms of life by calling them into existence by uttering their secret names. In some accounts humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat. Ra was thought to travel on the Atet, two solar barques called the Mandjet (the Boat of Millions of Years) or morning-boat and
7630-655: The graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably. In addition, / j / had become / ʔ / word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨ jwn ⟩ /jaˈwin/ > */ʔaˈwin/ "colour") and after a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḥjpw⟩ */ˈħujpVw/ > /ˈħeʔp(Vw)/ '[the god] Apis'). In Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k ( ⟨dbn⟩ */ˈdiːban/ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an 'dbn-weight'). Also, ṯ ḏ often become /t d/ , but they are retained in many lexemes ; ꜣ becomes / ʔ / ; and /t r j w/ become / ʔ / at
7739-435: The hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were / n / or / r / . That is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which / l / had merged with other sonorants. Also, the rare cases of / ʔ / occurring are not represented. The phoneme / j / is written as ⟨ j ⟩ in the initial position (⟨ jt ⟩ = */ˈjaːtVj/ 'father') and immediately after
7848-519: The hieroglyphic script, and due to historical sound changes they do not always map neatly onto Demotic phonemes . However, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the sign h̭ for / ç /, which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian. The Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: obstruents ( stops , affricates and fricatives ) and sonorants ( approximants , nasals , and semivowels ). Voice
7957-561: The islands of Japan arose from dirty foam raised by mixing the waters of the ocean with a spear of gods ( Izanagi and Izanami ). In the mythologies of the Mongolian peoples , the role of the compactor of the ocean waters is played by the wind, which creates a special milky substance out of them, which then becomes the earth's firmament. According to the Kalmyks, plants, animals, people and deities were born from this milky liquid. Hindu Mythology has
8066-402: The kindled heat.", hence the surging ocean. Out of the tumultuous ocean, a year was born, distributing days and nights. " Rigveda " repeatedly mentions the generative power of the ocean ("multiple," it roars at its first spread, giving rise to creations, the bearer of wealth), its thousands of streams flowing from the depths, it is said that the ocean is the spouse of rivers. The cosmic ocean forms
8175-464: The language's final stage of development, the Coptic alphabet replaced the older writing system. Hieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as ideograms to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, as phonograms to represent their phonetic value. As the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of transliteration to denote each sound that could be represented by
8284-406: The latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant diglossia between the late Demotic texts and
8393-460: The most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion , identified primarily with the noon-day sun . Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky , the Earth , and the underworld . He was believed to have ruled as the first pharaoh of Ancient Egypt . He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky. Ra was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus . At times,
8502-447: The most worshipped of all the Egyptian gods and even considered King of the Gods . At an early period in Egyptian history, his influence spread throughout the whole country, bringing multiple representations in form and in name. The most common form combinations are with Atum (his human form), Khepri (the scarab beetle) and Horus (the falcon). The form in which he usually appears is that of
8611-414: The ocean in some creation myths corresponds to the cosmological model of land surrounded by the world ocean. The sky is often thought of as something like the upper sea. The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times. The emergence of earth from water and the curbing of the global flood or underground waters are usually presented as
8720-456: The oceans, in the under ground "lower" world, in the above ground "upper" world. Other evil creatures were killed in these mythologies by the deities also. So, in Scandinavian mythology, frost giants precede time, and in space they are located on the outskirts of the earth's circle, in cold places, near the oceans. In Ancient Egyptian mythology, in the beginning the universe only consisted of
8829-615: The progenitors of many deities (Hom. Il. XIV 201, 246), but Oceanus and Tethys also had parents. According to Hesiod, Oceanus and Tethys is the son and daughter of the primordial deities Uranus and Gaia ( Theogony 133). Oceanus is the brother and husband of Tethys , with whom he and she gave birth to all the rivers and waters – three thousand daughters – Oceanids ( Theogony 346–364) and three thousand sons – Potamids ( Theogony 367–370). The deities revere Oceanus and Tethys as aged parents, take care of him and her, although he and she live in solitude. Oceanus and Tethys did not participate in
8938-503: The quality of the surrounding vowels. / ʔ / is not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimic ⳉⲟⲟⲡ /xoʔp/ , Sahidic and Lycopolitan ϣⲟⲟⲡ šoʔp , Bohairic ϣⲟⲡ šoʔp 'to be' < ḫpr.w * /ˈχapraw/ 'has become'. The phoneme ⲃ / b / was probably pronounced as a fricative [ β ] , becoming ⲡ / p / after
9047-861: The reality" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa. While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exact phonetics is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. In addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates Old Latin from Modern Italian , significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame. Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants. Egyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how
9156-402: The ripening of crops that were worked by man. Because of the life-giving qualities of the Sun, the Egyptians worshipped the Sun as a god. The creator of the universe and the giver of life, the Sun or Ra represented life, warmth and growth. Since the people regarded Ra as a principal god, creator of the universe and the source of life, he had a strong influence on them, which led to him being one of
9265-599: The same graphemes are used for the pulmonic stops ( ⟨ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ ), the existence of the former may be inferred because the stops ⟨ ⲡ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ /p t c k/ are allophonically aspirated [pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ] before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants. In Bohairic, the allophones are written with the special graphemes ⟨ ⲫ ⲑ ϭ ⲭ ⟩ , but other dialects did not mark aspiration: Sahidic ⲡⲣⲏ , Bohairic ⲫⲣⲏ 'the sun'. Thus, Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older *d ḏ g q : Sahidic and Bohairic ⲧⲁⲡ */dib/ 'horn'. Also,
9374-427: The same time, the ability of the ocean to generate is realized in the appearance of the earth from it and in the presence of a mythological creature in the ocean that promotes generation or, on the contrary, zealously defends the "old order" and prevents the beginning of the chain of births from the ocean. Yu. E. Berezkin and E. N. Duvakin generalize the motif of primary waters as follows: "Waters are primary. The earth
9483-433: The script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged. Even the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years. Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent Second Intermediate Period . As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian
9592-472: The sea, from which land is gradually created. In Polynesian mythology , Maui fishes islands. In Scandinavian mythology, the gods raise the earth, and Thor catches Jörmungandr from the bottom of the ocean. In ancient Egyptian mythology , the earth itself comes to the surface in the form of a mound. In the Hindu Brahmanas it was said that Brahma as Prajapati took the earth out of the water, taking
9701-473: The southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northern Bohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services. Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone in hieroglyphs . The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is zẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr ("writing of the gods' words"). In antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium of papyrus though
9810-601: The spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period. Coptic is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time of Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324) , but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the Hellenistic period c. 3rd century BC , with
9919-473: The struggle of the Canaanite deities with monstrous snakes, which also represents water chaos ( Rahab , Tehom , Leviathan ) and these monstrous snakes are all killed by the Canaanite deities. Yu the Great 's heroic struggle with the cosmic flood ends with the killing of the insidious owner of the water Gungun and his "close associate" – the nine-headed Xiangliu. The transition from the formless water element to land
10028-506: The sun goddess Raet as the creator deities in Heliopolis. Water chaos is opposed by the first earthly mound protruding from it, with which Ra is associated in Heliopolis, and in Memphis and Thebes , Ptah with Sekhmet and Amun with Amunet as the creator deities there respectively. Initially, the existing ocean contains the two primordial deities who are called as the "father and mother of
10137-474: The sun-boat overcome Apophis. The rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire put an end to the worship of Ra. As with most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, Ra's identity was often combined with other gods', forming an interconnection between deities. A very ancient god, Montu was originally a manifestation of the scorching effect of Ra, the sun – and as such often appeared under the epithet Montu-Ra. It
10246-528: The sun-boat's journey. After defeating the snake, Ra would leave the underworld, returning emerging at dawn, lighting the day again. He was said to travel across the sky in his falcon-headed form on the Mandjet Barque through the hours of the day, and then switch to the Mesektet Barque in his ram-headed form to descend into the underworld for the hours of the night. The Sun is the giver of life, controlling
10355-537: The time of the New Kingdom of Egypt , the worship of Ra had become more complicated and grander. The walls of tombs were dedicated to extremely detailed texts that depicted Ra's journey through the underworld. Ra was said to carry the prayers and blessings of the living with the souls of the dead on the sun-boat. The idea that Ra aged with the sun became more popular during the rise of the New Kingdom. Many acts of worship included hymns , prayers and spells to help Ra and
10464-579: The top of the Shaitan ridge Koika-mou. The first two people fall to this peak – a man and a woman. In the myth of creation of the Tuamotu Islands , the creator Tāne , "Spilling Water", created the world in the waters of the lord of the waters, Pune, and invoked the light that initiated the creation of the earth. The motif of the cosmogonic struggle with the serpent and its killing is widespread in terms of suppressing water chaos. The serpent in most mythologies
10573-409: The transition from binary division to trinity. The middle sphere, the earth, opposes the watery world below and the heavenly world above. A trichotomous scheme of the cosmos arises, including the necessary space between earth and sky. This space is often represented as a cosmic tree . Earth and sky are almost universally represented as feminine and masculine, a married couple standing at the beginning of
10682-649: The two deities were merged as Ra-Horakhty , " Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons ". When the god Amun rose to prominence during Egypt's New Kingdom , he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra . The cult of the Mnevis bull , an embodiment of Ra, had its center in Heliopolis and there was a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city. All forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra. In some accounts, humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat, hence
10791-644: The values given to those consonants by the neuere Komparatistik , instead connecting ⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ . Both schools agree that Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨ꜣ⟩ , and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties. They also agree that original */k g ḳ/ palatalise to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others. The Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to
10900-524: The waters located above the firmament . These waters were separated by God from the lower oceans ( Hebrew : המים התחתונים , romanized : HaMaim HaTahtonim ) on the second day of creation, as described in the genesis creation narrative .The firmament (sky) is acting as a boundary between the waters above and the waters below the oceans. Fraxkard ( Middle Persian : plʾhwklt , Avestan : Vourukaša ; also called Warkaš in Middle Persian)
11009-599: The west, east, north, south, the ocean washes the boundaries between the world of life and the world of death. In Homer , The Ocean is the world encircling river. In Theogony 282, Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή - pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the Pegai of Oceanus , where he was born" for a divine winged mythical horse of that name in Greaco-Roman mythology. In Homer and Hesiod, Oceanus and Tethys are divine living beings,
11118-454: The world and sent the water back to the heavenly sea Puitika . This phenomenon was later interpreted as the coming and going of the tide. At the centre of Vourukasha was located the Harvisptokhm or "tree of all seeds", which contains the seeds of all plants in the world. There is a bird Sinamru on the tree which causes the bough to break and seeds to sprinkle all around when it alights. At
11227-452: The world ocean is also present in other traditions. Hindu mythology is characterized by the image of the creator god Vishnu and the creator goddess Lakshmi, floating on the primary waters in a lotus flower, on the snake Shesha with Brahma, Shiva, Sarasvati, Parvati also are creator deities in the primary waters together also. Kurma , also known as the Turtle, is the second avatara of Vishnu in
11336-511: The world. In Asia and North America, the earth-diver myth is found. In this myth a creator god dives into the cosmic ocean to bring up and form the earth. A diving bird, catching a lump of earth from the primordial ocean, often appears in the mythologies of the Native Americans and Siberian peoples . In totemic myths , bird people are often presented as ancestors. Eggs are a common theme in creation myths. A waterfowl extracts silt from
11445-589: Was Iunu "the Place of Pillars", later known to the Ptolemaic Kingdom as Heliopolis ( Koinē Greek : Ἡλιούπολις , lit. " Sun City ") and today located in the suburbs of Cairo . He was identified with the local sun god Atum . As Atum or Atum-Ra, he was reckoned the first being and the originator of the Ennead ("The Nine"), consisting of Shu and Tefnut , Geb and Nut , Osiris , Set , Isis and Nephthys . Ra's local cult began to grow from roughly
11554-428: Was published by Adolf Erman in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by Alan Gardiner 's work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the verbal inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of Hans Jakob Polotsky . The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition
11663-473: Was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is a sprachbund , rather than a true genetic language family. The Egyptian language can be grouped thus: The Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major chronological divisions: Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both
11772-515: Was taking place in the later period of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (known as the Amarna Period ). Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called " Égyptien de tradition " or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars,
11881-539: Was used as a literary language for new texts since the later New Kingdom in official and religious hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic. Égyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of Roman Egypt in the 4th century. Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the New Kingdom of Egypt . Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as
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