Free Hieroglyphs by Penelope Wilson Page A

as he had not told her his true ‘secret’
    name, the pain would continue. This time Re gave in and whispered his true secret name to her, which she incorporated into her spell. It then worked, releasing the sun god from his agony. At the end of this episode, Re was healed, but Isis still knew the secret name of Re. The implication of the myth is that this was the basis of her power.
    This colourful story, full of allusion and subtlety, like most Egyptian myths, is founded on the basic principle that the name
    ‘I kno
    of a person contains the essence of that person. In addition, the w y
    knowledge of the name can invoke the being of an individual for ou, I kno
    good or for bad. For those people who were of sufficient status to have their names written in hieroglyphs, the extra magical power w
    of the hieroglyphs was a potent mixture. A statue or relief yo
    sculpture or drawing could be an image of anyone. As soon as it ur nam
    was identified with a name, written in hieroglyphs or hieratic, it es’
    gave identity to that image and image to that individual. Like the grammatical determinative, it determined ‘who’ a person was.
    In part, this explains the idealized images which we associate with Egyptian art. The lithe men and women portrayed in statues and the portly officials at work in their tombs are not ‘portraits’ of real people but ideal images of themselves as persons of rank and status identified by their names and titles. Portraits do exist but within the framework created by this principle. The name means that the image can be recognized by various entities and this is of paramount importance in the tomb and funerary context and also in the temple, both the main arenas for the writing of hieroglyphs.
    In the tomb chapel, the cult of the deceased was maintained by priests and relatives after the death of the tomb owner. Here 57
    they made food and liquid offerings and burnt incense, nourishing the spirit of the dead in the afterlife and stimulating their senses.
    However, the focal parts of the cult, the false door, stela, and offering table, all contain the name of the dead and these elements provide the point of contact with the dead and with the ‘correct’
    individual, labelled by the hieroglyphs. From the other side of the afterlife, the ka and the ba recognized this refuelling point by the hieroglyphs naming the particular person. The hieroglyphs communicate the correct information and ensure that the dead continue to be fed, watered and anointed in the afterlife.
    Within the temple, the images of the gods were named on the walls, ensuring that they took part in the correct rituals and took their places in the cosmic symmetry of the temple. To some extent, the naming of these images brings them to life, activates them and makes the roving essence of the gods immanent within their phs
    images, be they falcon statues, as at Edfu Temple, or Hathor reliefs, ogly
    as at Dendera. It seems to have been important that each being was Hier
    in its correct place.
    The opposite of this idea was also appreciated by the Egyptians. If it were true that hieroglyphs in themselves were images of animals, people, birds, and even reptiles and that hieroglyphs were imbued with some kind of animating power, could it not also be the case that these creatures could come to life on the tomb walls where they were written? In this case might they not threaten the dead person and their continued existence? Indeed, this was believed to be the case and in the Pyramid Texts of Dynasty 5 written inside the burial chambers of the pyramids of kings such as Teti or Pepi I, the animal hieroglyphs were individually mutilated. The animal signs were written without legs, birds had their heads cut off, knives were inserted into the bodies of snakes or crocodiles, human figures were drawn incomplete, and sometimes certain signs were completely substituted if they could not be disabled in some other way.
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    Taking this idea further, the