Qebehu

Qebehu (i) as a country name in hieroglyphics
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Qebehu in hieroglyphics
	Map of Egypt

Qebehu (also Kebehu, Qebeh, Kebeh, Qebehet, Kebehet ) was the ancient Egyptian name for various locations as well as the epithet for breeding places of migratory birds in the Nile River . The term “Qebehu” can be used as “water word” for both earthly and heavenly water areas beyond the path of the sun . Although Qebehu is generally handed down as a stand-alone designation with “heaven” or “(cooling) waters (of heaven)”, a literal translation with regard to the mythological use is not possible.

The spelling of the term "Qebehet", which was also used for the goddess Qebehut in Greco-Roman times , is most likely associated with the changed orthography . In the further development of the New Egyptian language , the “w” in the final vowel was lost, which in the further course led to the fact that, in addition to the traditional spelling “qbḤw”, the term “qbḤt” was mainly used later.

Qebehu as the place of origin of migratory birds

The ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen published as early as 1930 on the subject of migratory birds in Egypt: “The migratory birds come from the north and northeast. In autumn, the flow of immigrants continues along the route from the Levant to the coastal areas of Syria , Palestine and the north coast of the Sinai Peninsula . The path leads the migratory birds from the Sinai Peninsula to the Egyptian Nile Delta. "

As in the Old Kingdom , the place of origin of the migratory birds is also described in the New Kingdom as “coming from distant Qebehu”. In the past there were geographical allocation problems, as Otto Neugebauer chose the Carlsberg 1 papyrus as the information base and did not compare the commentary of a copyist with early texts, which initially led to an incorrect location. Otto Neugebauer therefore identified the “west” as the breeding ground for migratory birds and tried to find an astronomical justification for his assumption : “Its location extends from the north-west, where the sun sets, to the south-east, where it comes”.

Representation of the ba bird

In a later publication by Otto Neugebauer and Richard Anthony Parker , both commented on the obviously confusing cardinal points in Papyrus Carlsberg 1: “The origin of the birds is described from northwest to southeast. We cannot recognize any reliable order in the topography and therefore let the text speak for itself without making a comment. "

The documentation of reports on the Qebehu migratory birds in the seasonal reliefs in the sun sanctuary of Niuserre, initiated by Elmar Edel , helped the Nutbuch to become very well known in addition to the doctrine of the dean, as the statements in the Nutbuch are literarily closely related to the information on the seasonal reliefs in Abusir . There is another connection to the Wenamun's travelogue , in which the migratory birds are also mentioned.

Finally, the correspondence with the seven royal hymns in the pTurin papyrus CG 54031 is also striking. Elmar Edel, who based his analysis on older texts, noticed the different reading , as did Alexandra von Lieven later . The area of origin could be proven beyond doubt with "northwest to northeast":

Sethos script in the Nutbuch (lines 73 to 84)	Version from Papyrus Carlsberg 1 (lines 73 to 84)
⁷³ The nature of birds: their faces are human, ⁷⁴ while their shape is that of birds. ⁷⁵ Everyone speaks to his comrades in human language. ⁷⁶ Come to eat vegetables in the swamps, ⁷⁷ they settle under the light of heaven. ⁷⁸ They transform themselves into their bird form. ⁷⁹ Their nesting place is in the land of Qebehu, ⁸⁰ the Qebehu of the gods, where the birds come from. ⁸¹ (the nesting sites) extend from the northwest side ⁸² to the northeast side. ⁸³ It is open to the Duat, ⁸³ which is on its northern side. ⁸⁴ Nuts rump in the east, her head in the west.	⁷³ As for birds, their head is that of humans, ⁷⁴ their shape as […]. ⁷⁵ Each of them speaks in human language. ⁷⁶ The birds that come to Egypt, ⁷⁶ to eat the vegetables of the field, ⁷⁶ in all the swamps of the land. ⁷⁷ […] because the bas of the […] are positioned, ⁷⁸ The [scarabs?] Transform into a bird shape. ⁷⁹ The nest is made in Qebehu ⁸⁰ The place […] is where the birds come from. ⁸¹ The birds emerge on Nut's northwest side. ⁸² The place where they are ⁸² extends to the southeast side of the sky. ⁸³ The place where the protected Bas are located, ⁸³ is open to the Duat on its northern side. ⁸³ When the name of the place is said, ⁸³ because that is where the protected and damned Bas are ⁸³ and (Re) will guide you to that place. ⁸⁴ When the locations of the back and the head ⁸⁴ are said to be east and west, it is because […].

With reference to the appearance of the Ba in connection with the "birds from Qebehu", the connection established between migratory birds and the Ba soul as an equation with the Ba birds is very likely, since they returned periodically to Egypt. The mention of food has parallels to the Bas in the island of flames in the 56th scene in the gate book , where the herbs / vegetables (semu) are also given as food.

Between the earlier texts and the later commentaries of the Carlsberg Papyrus 1, the Duat's spiritual historical transfer from the north to the west takes place. This results in the finding that the commentator on Papyrus Carlsberg 1 incorporated new theological concepts into the old teachings that were already tangible in the Middle Kingdom .

Qebehu as a country name

In connection with the generic term Qebehu (also Qebehui, Kebehui ), with the introduction of the Book of the Dead in the New Kingdom and the new understanding of the world, the identifications of Qebehu- Horus with the Nile Delta and of Qebehu- Seth with the southern half of the country increased. In addition, the northernmost and southernmost border districts of Egypt were named "Qebehu-Horus" and "Qebehu-Seth".

In accordance with early texts, the ancient Egyptians counted the northeast and the northwest to the "waters of Horus" and the southeast and southwest to the "waters of Seth", with the inhabitants of the "waters of Horus" and the "waters of Seth" since the early Dynastic period also carried the synonym " Kiebitzvolk " or " Patvolk ".

Qebehu as the place of the heavenly waters

Old empire

In the Old Kingdom , Qebehu was understood as the region lying above the goddess Nut and as “ concentrated darkness ” and “upper heaven of Nun ”, the area of which begins after leaving the edge zone “back of the groove” . In this primordial darkness there are neither stars nor other celestial bodies , but the nothingness in which only “the primordial waters of the Nun” are at home. According to ancient Egyptian beliefs, the sky itself was located on the body of the sky goddess Nut, who leaned over the earth in an arc on her fingertips and feet.

On the basis of reports in the pyramid texts , attempts were made to localize in heavenly areas, whereby Rolf Krauss sees a connection to the southern sky. However, the arguments for the southern sky are based on a paperless basis, since the corresponding pyramid texts do not describe an exact location, but only mention the sky in general. Historians' conclusions therefore have the character of auxiliary hypotheses .

Historical attempts to identify Qebehu with the area around Nut contradict the location information in the Nutbuch, as Qebehu is only named for the northern regions. In the south and southeast, on the other hand, is the Reteh-qabet . According to the descriptions of Qebehu, which lies in the primeval eclipse, it must apparently be a place on the edge of the Keku-semau . Whether this locality is in Egypt itself or outside the country is not mentioned in more detail, which is why an exact location is not possible.

The reference to the Duat is problematic because on the one hand the north and on the other hand the west are mentioned. Locating Qebehu with the Duat seems impossible, since in this context only the area of the north is spoken of and the commentator on Papyrus Carlsberg 1 would like to relocate the region to the west. The location of the duat itself represents an additional difficulty, which is by no means clear. Previous publications are only assumptions without explicit evidence.

New kingdom

In the New Kingdom , Qebehu is mentioned in the Nutbuch as a region of heaven and also as the location of the primordial waters of Nun. In Nun's creative function , Qebehu stands as an expression for the preparation for birth and rebirth in the " sphere from which all life arose" and in which the four cardinal points lose their meaning because it is "the place without directions":

The Nutbuch can bring the different concepts closer to this controversial question, since the goddess Nut on the one hand is heaven herself and on the other hand the entrance into her mouth is referred to as the northern entrance into the Duat. This fits very well with the alignments of the pyramids made in the Old Kingdom and the associated importance of the northern sky.

literature

Elmar Edel : On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the sun sanctuary of Niuserre. In: News from the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, No. 8 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1961.
Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . In: News from the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, No. 5 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1964.
Alexandra von Lieven : Floor plan of the course of the stars - the so-called groove book . The Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Ancient Eastern Studies (among others), Copenhagen 2007, ISBN 978-87-635-0406-5 .

Individual evidence

↑ Wb V 30.1
↑ ^a ^b Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . P. 106.
^ Richard Meinertzhagen: Nicoll's birds of Egypt . Rees, London 1930, p. 39.
^ Hans O. Lange, Otto Neugebauer: Papyrus Carlsberg No. I: A hieratic-demotic cosmological text . Munksgaard, Koebenhavn 1940, p. 41.
^ Otto Neugebauer, Richard-Anthony Parker: Egyptian astronomical texts; Vol 1 - The early decans - . Lund Humphries, London 1960, p. 66.
↑ Alexandra von Lieven: Floor plan of the course of the stars - The so-called groove book . P. 156.
^ Virginia Condon: Seven royal hymns of the Ramesside period - Papyrus Turin CG 54031 - , Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-422-00830-6 , pp. 11, 19, 28-30 and 80.
↑ ^a ^b Alexandra von Lieven: Floor plan of the course of the stars - The so-called groove book . Pp. 156-157.
↑ Christian Leitz u. a .: LGG , vol. 6 . Peters, Leuven 2002, ISBN 90-429-1151-4 , p. 183.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . P. 113.
^ Wolfgang Helck : History of Ancient Egypt; Vol. 1, Section 3 . Brill, Leiden 1968, p. 20 and p. 42.
↑ John-Coleman Darnell: The enigmatic netherworld books of the Solar-Osirian Unity - Cryptographic compositions in the tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX - , Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004, ISBN 3-7278-1469-1 , pp. 379-380.
^ Rolf Krauss: Astronomical Concepts and Concepts of the Beyond in the Pyramid Texts , Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-447-03979-5 , pp. 207-215.
↑ Hellmut Brunner In: Wolfgang Röllig: The hearing heart - Small writings on the religious and intellectual history of Egypt - , Universitäts-Verlag, Freiburg 1988, ISBN 3-7278-0567-6 , pp. 356-358.
↑ Robert Chadwick JSSEA 28, 2001, pp. 15-25 In: Nicole Cloth: It will be laid down as a document - Festschrift for Hartwig Altenmüller on his 65th birthday - . Buske, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-87548-341-3 , p. 455.

[1] Wb V 30.1

[E106-2] Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . P. 106.

[3] Richard Meinertzhagen: Nicoll's birds of Egypt . Rees, London 1930, p. 39.

[4] Hans O. Lange, Otto Neugebauer: Papyrus Carlsberg No. I: A hieratic-demotic cosmological text . Munksgaard, Koebenhavn 1940, p. 41.

[5] Otto Neugebauer, Richard-Anthony Parker: Egyptian astronomical texts; Vol 1 - The early decans - . Lund Humphries, London 1960, p. 66.

[6] Alexandra von Lieven: Floor plan of the course of the stars - The so-called groove book . P. 156.

[7] Virginia Condon: Seven royal hymns of the Ramesside period - Papyrus Turin CG 54031 - , Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-422-00830-6 , pp. 11, 19, 28-30 and 80.

[L156-8] Alexandra von Lieven: Floor plan of the course of the stars - The so-called groove book . Pp. 156-157.

[L183-9] Christian Leitz u. a .: LGG , vol. 6 . Peters, Leuven 2002, ISBN 90-429-1151-4 , p. 183.

[E113-10] Elmar Edel: On the inscriptions on the seasonal reliefs of the "World Chamber" from the solar sanctuary of Niuserre, part 2 . P. 113.

[11] Wolfgang Helck : History of Ancient Egypt; Vol. 1, Section 3 . Brill, Leiden 1968, p. 20 and p. 42.

[12] John-Coleman Darnell: The enigmatic netherworld books of the Solar-Osirian Unity - Cryptographic compositions in the tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI and Ramesses IX - , Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004, ISBN 3-7278-1469-1 , pp. 379-380.

[13] Rolf Krauss: Astronomical Concepts and Concepts of the Beyond in the Pyramid Texts , Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-447-03979-5 , pp. 207-215.

[14] Hellmut Brunner In: Wolfgang Röllig: The hearing heart - Small writings on the religious and intellectual history of Egypt - , Universitäts-Verlag, Freiburg 1988, ISBN 3-7278-0567-6 , pp. 356-358.

[15] Robert Chadwick JSSEA 28, 2001, pp. 15-25 In: Nicole Cloth: It will be laid down as a document - Festschrift for Hartwig Altenmüller on his 65th birthday - . Buske, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-87548-341-3 , p. 455.