Eye of Horus
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The Eye of Horus is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power and good health. The eye is personified in the goddess Wadjet (also written as Wedjat,[1][2][3] Uadjet, Wedjoyet, Edjo or Uto[4] and as The Eye of Ra)[5] or "Udjat"[6] The name Wadjet is derived from "wadj" meaning "green" hence "the green one" and was known to the Greeks and Romans as "uraeus" from the Egyptian "iaret" meaning "risen one" from the image of a cobra rising up in protection.[7]
Wadjet was one of the earliest of Egyptian deities who later became associated with other goddesses such as Bast, Sekhmet, Mut, and Hathor. She was the tutelary deity of Lower Egypt and the major Delta shrine the "per-nu" was under her protection.[7] Hathor is also depicted with this eye.[8] Funerary amulets were often made in the shape of the Eye of Horus. The Wedjat or Eye of Horus is "the central element" of seven "gold, faience, carnelian and lapis lazuli" bracelets found on the mummy of Shoshenq II.[9] The Wedjat "was intended to protect the king [here] in the afterlife"[10] and to ward off evil. Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern sailors would frequently paint the symbol on the bow of their vessel to ensure safe sea travel.[11]
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[edit] Horus
Horus was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was usually depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner or peregrine falcon.[12] His right eye was associated with the sun Ra. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth).[13]
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| wedjet – Eye of Horus in hieroglyphs |
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In one myth, when Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Osiris's death, Set gouged out Horus' left eye. The eye was restored by either Hathor or Thoth.[14]
[edit] The eye as hieroglyph and symbol
There are seven different hieroglyphs used to represent the eye, most commonly "ir.t" in Egyptian, which also has the meaning "to make or do" or "one who does."[4] In Egyptian myth the eye was not the passive organ of sight but more an agent of action, protection or wrath.
[edit] In arithmetic
In the Ancient Egyptian measurement system, the Eye Of Horus defined Old Kingdom number one (1) = 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64, by throwing away 1/64 for any rational number. Eye of Horus numbers created six-term rounded-off numbers. The Old Kingdom definition has dropped a seventh term, a remainder 1/64, that was needed to report exact series. During the Middle Kingdom that included the eleventh through fourteenth dynasties, exact series definitions and applications were often written by 6-terms, or less. The Egyptian fraction notation scaled to volume unit remainders to 1/320 hekat. For example, the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll, the RMP 2/n table and the Akhmim Wooden Tablet wrote binary quotients and scaled remainders. The metaphorical side of this information linked Old Kingdom fractions 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, and 1/64, to separate parts of the eye.
In the Middle Kingdom the 1/64 symbol denoted "rest" and "healing" as connected to the hekat, with the word dja being attached.
The "Eye of Horus" fractions were further discussed in the Egyptian Mathematical Leather Roll following elementary definitions that built the Egyptian fraction system. Weights and measure subunits of a hekat were also connected to Eye of Horus numbers in the quotient, and as an exact remainder, the remainder including an Egyptian fraction and a ro unit, correcting the Eye of Horus 1/64 roundoff error. The ro unit, 1/320 of a hekat, is cited in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and applied in the medical texts, i.e. Ebers Papyrus in two ways. The first replaced the hekat by a unity, 64/64 (in RMP 47, 82 and 83), and the second by 320 ro (in RMP 35–38). Exact divisions of 64/64 by 3, 7, 10, 11 and 13, written as 1/3, 1/17, 1/10, 1/11 and 1/13 multipliers, are also found in the Akhmim Wooden Tablet.
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Arithmetic values
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Wooden case
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Faience vessel, Bes holding Eyes
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Collection of amulets in the British Museum Room 62
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Earthenware Wedjat amulet on display at the Louvre, c. 500–300 BC
[edit] References
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- ^ Pommerening, Tanja, Die altägyptischen Hohlmaße (Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Beiheft 10), Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, 2005
- ^ M. Stokstad, "Art History"
- ^ Chapter 14, Egyptian Art in David P. Silverman, Ancient Egypt, Duncan Baird Publishers, 1997. p.228
- ^ a b Butler, Edward P. "Wadjet « Henadology". Wordpress.org. http://henadology.wordpress.com/theology/netjeru/wadjet. Retrieved October 4, 2010.
- ^ Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache 1, 268.13
- ^ Alessandro Bongioanni & Maria Croce (ed.), The Treasures of Ancient Egypt: From the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Universe Publishing, a division of Rizzoli Publications Inc., 2003. p.622. According to the editors, "Udjat" was the term for amulets which used the Eye of Horus design.
- ^ a b The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, George Hart ISBN 0-415-34495-6
- ^ "Lady of the West at". Hethert.org. http://www.hethert.org/ladyofthewest.html. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
- ^ Silverman, op. cit., p.228
- ^ Silverman, op. cit., p.228
- ^ Charles Freeman, The Legacy of Ancient Egypt, Facts on File, Inc. 1997. p.91
- ^ Wilkinson, Richard H. (2003). The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. p. 202.
- ^ "Eye of Horus, Eye of Ra (Udjat, Wedjet)". Symboldictionary.net. http://symboldictionary.net/?p=519. Retrieved 2012-01-17.
- ^ Pinch, Geraldine (2004). Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. pp. 131–132
