Sopdu

Sopdu in hieroglyphics
Old empire
Middle realm
New kingdom	Sopdu Spdw The Sharp, The Pointed
Preparation of sopdu with high spring crown, What Scepter (right hand), anch sign and Shemset -Waffe (left hand)

Sopdu was an ancient Egyptian god of the eastern desert .

background

He was considered the "lord of foreign lands" (cf. Hyksos ) and gave them under the rule of the Egyptian king ( Pharaoh ). The main place of worship was Hut-nebes in the 20th Lower Egyptian Gau . In addition, Sopdu is named as the conqueror of Apophis and "Lord of the northeastern rebels of the Hathor Temple ". His worship is also documented in Edfu and the border areas of Nubia .

As the son of Sopdet and Sah, Sopdu formed a triad comparable to Osiris , Isis and Horus .

In the pyramid texts , Sopdu is mentioned as the morning star Venus . Sopdu is depicted in the shape of a falcon and was also the name of Behedeti and Schu , which is why it merged into Hor-Sopdu in the late period .

title

In the Middle Kingdom , the “teeth of the deceased” are equated with Sopdu, who “had to stand before him” after death. Sopdu was also one of the four gods who fortified the holy shrine and "the initiator of the rowing of Nut when the hour before the Sehtpenes hour begins."

During the Greco-Roman period , Sopdu was considered the chronocrat of the Schemu I period in the Sothis calendar , the beginning of the harvest . As a result of the seasonal shift, his day in the civil calendar moved from the 29th Achet IV through the 16th Peret III to the 25th Schemu I.

In the spelling of the Old Kingdom , the name 'Sopdu' is derived from the hieroglyph

meaning 'sharp, pointed' and the 3rd person plural suffix

together.

So 'Sopdu' means 'Die Scharfen' or 'Die Spitz'.

See also

• List of Egyptian gods

literature

• Christian Leitz u. a .: Lexicon of the Egyptian gods and names of gods . Volume 7: Š - ḏ (= Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta. 116) Peeters, Leuven 2002, ISBN 90-429-1152-2 , p. 289.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Richard H. Wilkinson : The complete gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, London / New York 2003, ISBN 0500051208 , p. 211. (German title: The World of Gods in Ancient Egypt - Faith, Power, Mythology - translated by Thomas Bertram. Theiss, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-8062- 1819-6 .)
2. ^ Yves Bonnefoy, Wendy Doniger: Greek and Egyptian Mythologies. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1992, ISBN 0-226-06454-9 , p. 221.