June i] PROCEEDINGS. [1886.

The following Communication has been received fromMr. P. Le Pae:e Renouf :

1The Name of S^^ II 111 '-, the Blind Horus.I have long wished to offer some remarks upon M. Lefebure's

very interesting communication on the Egyptian name of theIchneumon, in our Proceedings of June 2nd, 1SS5, but have hadno time to do so till now.

The picture of the animal called T ^^, ^ ^ X^^^^' by theEgyptians appears in the tomb of Ramses VI as a symbolical repre-

sentation of the god whose name is there written ^x^^ [UllHeru yent en man, who is known to us from the Turin text of theBook of the Dead, and from many other documents under the

[fill -^orthography S>\ lllll Heru -vent an man. "Horus prince_^^ '^^"' 00

of blindness," or as others might translate it, " resident in the realmof darkness." M. Pierret renders it "le dieu qui est sans yeux."This myth has been explained long ago. Horus is the sun, andwhen he is no longer seen, but has disappeared beneath the horizon,he is said to have lost his eyes, and to be sitting in darkness. Verysimilar myths are to be found in many parts of the world.

Now Horus was worshipped specially under this title x^'^^ ^'^7nau in the town of Sechem, named by the Greeks Letopolis, andunder this title he was called the Lord of Sechem. Whenever theLord of Sechem is mentioned, it is the blind Horus who is meant.But the title itself underwent a curious transformation, through thecarelessness of the Egyptian scribes. The negative particle .^_ru> , an,which occurs in so many independent documents that no doubt canbe entertained about its correctness or signification, was frequentlywritten with the phonetic sign ^^w-aa or its homophone , whichled to its being confounded with the phonetic complement of mh,X^nt, and sometimes it was dropped altogether ; so that the name ofthe god was often written, even in the earliest times, as Prince of" Sight " or " Two Eyes " instead of " Blindness."

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June i] SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY, [1886.

It was, no doubt, in order to escape from the difficulty of choosingbetween two contradictory readings of the same reHgious text, thatthis title of the god was struck out of the eighteenth chapter of theBook of the Dead, where it occurs in all the ancient copies, and thatfor it in the later recension we find substituted " Lord of Sechem,"or -^ent Sechem.

M. Left^bure is unquestionably right in identifying the old Egyptianword -xptruyN'w^i the Coptic CLJA-OOtX, to which the native lexiconsassign the meaning ju^^^JJ^, the Ichneumon; but I am .not so surethat the animal whose . picture occurs in the royal tomb is anIchneumon. We have in the British Museum (No. 1604) a bronzefigure, exceedingly like the picture in the royal tomb, but it does notrepresent the Ichneumon, but the Blind Mouse, commonly called theShrewmouse. The hieroglyphic inscription at the base identifiesit with the " Lord of Sechem," whereas the inscriptions on our

Ichneumons identify them with the goddess 'HK c^ [/ , Uat'it*

The true meaning of x^'^^ ^'^ '""^^^ of the god of Sechem musthave been rightly understood by those who so appropriately chosefor his symbol an animal of the same zoological family as theMole, and with very similar habits and physical characteristics.n,in .- would be an excellent Egyptian name for the Shrew, as

it would be for the Mole.

But the god of Sechem is found at the time of the XXVIthDynasty with another name y^ert (Denkm. Ill, pi. 277a).The determinative of this name in the plate jjublished by Lepsiusseems to be a Lion. It would be interesting to verify the accuracyof this. The Egyptian 7vord reminds one at once of the SemiticiSn, Ir^^^! ''^'id JkLs-, and the Lion may turn out to be aShrewmouse after all.

There is another name \ ^~^ hetes, which belongs to one ofthese insinuating t animals, ichneumon, weasel or shrew. Identifi-

* The Ichneumons in the British Museum arc always represented standing ontheir hind legs.

+ This is the meaning of the Semitic root from which these animals derivetheir names. The name of tlie prophetess Iluldah lias the same origin.