"Re... first appeared on the waters of the Nun as a beautiful child floating on a great blue lotus. To the Egyptians, the water-lily... was the most perfect type of flower. In contrast to the white lotus (Nymphaea lotus) the sacred blue lotus (Nymphaea cerulea) had a delightful perfume which suggested to the Egyptians the perfume of Re's sweat, the divine essence."
__
Watterson, Barbara. Gods of Ancient Egypt. Sutton, UK, 1996.

Tags: lotus

"... Pharaoh belongs not to the order of mankind but to that of the gods. Consequently, we need not be astonished to find him assuming that curious mixture of animal and human features which distinguishes the gods of Egypt. On the inside of the war chariot of Thutmose IV, the only purely human forms are the agonizing enemies. The king is shown as the winged lion of the war-god Monthu, who himself appears falcon-headed."

The sphinx "represents the king, not only as a being of superhuman physical power, but of a quality of power which is, in Egypt, characteristic of the gods."
__
Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods: a study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978. (p. 11)

Tags: sphinx

In Hungary, witches took the form of flies. To the Aztecs, fireflies were witches and wizards who cold throw fire from their head or their mouth. (Curran, C.H. Insect lore of the Aztecs revealing early acquaintance with many of our pests. Natural History 39, 1937, pp 196-203.

Big Fly in Navaho mythology. (Wyman, L.C. and F.L. Bailey. 1964. Nahavo Indian Ethnoentomology. U New Mexico Press. Albuquerque, New Mexico.)

Grinnell, G.B. 1899. The butterfly and spider among the Blackfeet. Am. Anthropol. New Series 1:L194-196.
Hitchcock, S.W. 1962. Insects and Indians of the Americas. Bull. Ent. Soc. Amer. 8:181-187.
Fewkes, J.W. 1910. The butterfly in Hopi myth and ritual Am. Anthropol. New Series 12: 576-594.
Cheshire, R.A. 1997. The butterfly and moth as symbols in western art. Cultuiral Entomol. Digest. Fourth issue: 22-31. (Also cited as by Gagliardi, R.A. ?!)
__
Krisky, Gene and Ron Cherry. Insect Mythology. Writers Club Press, Lincoln NE, 2000.

Herons perched above the flood waters of the Nile suggested Re on the primordial mound above the waters of chaos.

In his tomb at Deir el-Medina, foreman Inherkha is portrayed worshipping Re and Osiris in the form of a heron wearing Osiris' crown.

"perched on the sacred tree of Heliopolis"

In Kingship and the Gods, Frankfort suggests the meanings "animated", "manifestation", and "emanation" as meanings of the word ba, and says that "the Benu bird is called the Ba of Re" (p 64).
__
Frankfort, Henri. Kingship and the Gods: a study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978.
Germond, Philippe. An Egyptian Bestiary: Animals in Life and Religion in the Land of the Pharoahs. Thames and Hudson, London, 2001.

Tags: benu, phoenix

The Uraeus, or Egyptian Cobra, Naja haje

Horapollo states that the Greeks called the Egyptian cobra the basiliskos and the Egyptians called it uraios (Latin, uraeus). The Egyptian word iaret means 'she who stands up again'.

One myth says that Re lost his Eye, and replaced it; when the Eye returned, it was furious about having been replaced; Re put it on his forehead in the form of the uraeus.

Cobras are found throughout Egypt, and encounters with them would have been part of Ancient Egyptian life.

The goddess Wadjet was usually represented as a cobra rather than in human form.

___
Germond, Philippe. An Egyptian Bestiary: Animals in Life and Religion in the Land of the Pharoahs. Thames and Hudson, London, 2001.
Watterson, Barbara. Gods of Ancient Egypt. Sutton, UK, 1996.

Tags: cobra

The Ichneumon, or Egyptian Mongoose, Herpestes ichneumon

Known to modern Egyptians as "Pharoah's cat". Associated with the god Atum, who in one myth transformed himself into an ichneumon to fight off a snake, although he wasn't depicted as an ichneumon.

Egyptian mongooses eat snakes, birds' eggs, and crocodile eggs. Ichneumons are shown raiding birds' nests in tomb reliefs at Saqqara; in one, the tomb of Mereruka, a man is shown holding onto the mongoose's tail, suggesting it's a domesticated animal being used in fowling. In the later tomb of Khnumhotep III, a fishing scene shows a cat, two genets, and a mongoose hiding in the reeds.

Diodorus claimed that the mongoose would cover itself in mud, wait for a crocodile to sleep with its mouth open, then run inside, fatally chew its way through the crocodile's innards, and escape. Didorus also describes the Ancient Egyptians patting cats and mongooses and feeding them with bread and milk, and fish; perhaps these were domestic animals, or the Egyptians just wanted to encourage animals that killed vermin and snakes.

The mongoose was associated with (and sometimes conflated with) the shrew.

Many Late and Ptolemaic Period bronze statues of mongooses have been found, often attached to boxes containing mongoose mummies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumsliverpool/769101578/in/set-72157594385807290/
http://www.eternalegypt.org/EternalEgyptWebsiteWeb/HomeServlet?ee_website_action_key=action.display.element&story_id=&module_id=&language_id=1&element_id=61956

__

Germond, Philippe. An Egyptian Bestiary: Animals in Life and Religion in the Land of the Pharoahs. Thames and Hudson, London, 2001.
Malek, Jaromir. The Cat in Ancient Egypt. British Museum Press, London, 1993.

Tags: mongoose