Ab Schetui
| Ab-Schetui in hieroglyphics | |||||||||
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Ab-Schetui ˁb-Štw.t - (read: ˁb-Št.wj ) cleaning of the turtles |
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Ab-Schetui is the name of an ancient Egyptian constellation that comprised at least four dean stars and the two individual deans, Ab and Schetui .
background
Ab-Schetui as a constellation
As the ancient Egyptian constellation “ turtles ”, Ab-Schetui is to be equated with today's constellation Cancer . In the Dean lists of Seti font in the Book of Nut , the associated the constellation down Schetui Dean is from not having astronomical mentioned information, although from the representation of the goddess Nut is shown at the bottom and together with the first dean Kenmut the sixth Schemu I introduced the new calendar year. The associated heliacal rise symbolized the rebirth.
As the 36th dean, Schetui had its heliacal ascent 15 days earlier, on the 26th Peret IV . The decree under Sesostris III was used as the basis for dating . ( 12th Dynasty ) in his seventh year of reign.
Ab shetui in ancient Egyptian mythology
The turtle was one of Seth's companions and also had the iconographic attribute of the deity Apophis . This made the turtle one of the "enemies of Re ". In the Neith - cosmogony Re and Apophis are called brothers. The further descriptions show interesting parallels to the Osiris myth . In various legends, Apophis is killed by numerous gods, only to always come back to life as a symbol of "rebirth".
In this context, the nickname of the turtle dean Ab-anch-shetu ("purification of the life of the turtle") is understandable, who also embodied the death and rebirth of the Nile with regard to the Nile flood . The descriptions in the sun hymns show how Apophis was cut up with knives or stabbed with lances. His blood turns the sky red at sunrise. The sun god Re could rise in the sky as Chepri after the death of Apophis or the death of the turtle. This moment was reflected in the constellation Ab-Schetui. In Papyrus Carlsberg 1 the important role is expressly commented on:
“The rising of Kenmut together with Ab-Shetui is the life of Horus ; that is, the place where Kenmut rises on the high day is the place where Ab rises. The place where the shetui rises on the high day is the place where Re rises. That is the rising of the Re; that means: the place of the ascent that Kenmut makes together with Ab-Schetui. "
In other hymns from Abydos , the turtle was one of the “waiting people in the wake of Seth”, who “will slurp the entire Nile” if Seth should succeed in penetrating “the land of light in the Duat ”. As part of the mythological New Year celebration of the birth of Sothis, the Egyptians sang exuberantly at the time of the flood of the Nile and made death and rebirth easier.
literature
- Christian Leitz: Ancient Egyptian star clocks. Peeters, Leuven 1995, ISBN 90-6831-669-9 , p. 95.
- Siegfried Schott: Ancient Egyptian festival dates. Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz / Wiesbaden 1950, pp. 12–13.
- Alexandra von Lieven : Floor plan of the course of the stars - the so-called groove book. The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (inter alia), Copenhagen 2007, ISBN 978-87-635-0406-5 , pp. 62-67 and p. 385.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edouard Naville: The Egyptian death book of the XVIII. to XX. Dynasty from various documents. Akad. Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1971 (reprint of the Berlin 1886 edition), Spruch 161.
- ↑ Alexandra von Lieven: Floor plan of the course of the stars - The so-called groove book. The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (inter alia), Copenhagen 2007, p. 52.