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Ancient Egypt: Egyptian religion Start‑class High‑importance

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

Cleanup.

To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

Standardize the Chronology.

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Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

The word "magic"

The first paragraph of the article states, "The term "Heka" was also used for the practice of magical ritual and, through the Coptic word "hik", is the source of the word "magic". Etymology of Magic: late 14c., "art of influencing events and producing marvels," from O.Fr. magique, from L. magice "sorcery, magic," from Gk. magike (presumably with tekhne "art"), fem. of magikos "magical," from magos "one of the members of the learned and priestly class," from O.Pers. magush, possibly from PIE *magh- "to be able, to have power".

Nothing about "hik" or "heka". If there is an alternate etymology please provide a source for it. Lily20 (talk) 20:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are right this article is confusing and does not give sources for some of the ideas e.g. that Heka means activation of the ka. This may be true but would require He to mean activate which I am not at all sure about. I think what may be being suggested in a rather circular way is that a term for ritual gave rise to a term for magic but Heka is clearly not the source of the English word magic. So I will remove that part.Apepch7 (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you!Lily20 (talk) 18:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Illustration

This looks more like Harpocrates than Heka - the source says its from Denderah and is Heka the child - I have never come across this epithet before. Anyone familiar with Denderah?Apepch7 (talk) 20:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've never been to Dendera (unfortunately), but I do think the image is credible. Wilkinson says that in the Late Period Heka was depicted as a child, so Dendera was built after Heka began to be depicted that way. For the most part, I think the child forms of Egyptian deities loked alike. The notes for the image file call it "Heka-pa-chered", which resembles the Egyptian name of Horus the Child, "Har-pa-chered", which the Greeks rendered as "Harpocrates". I suppose somebody might have confused the two, but it seems more likely that "pa-chered" means "the child", and the Dendera relief is depicting Heka the Child. The file also claims to be taken from a public-domain work by Auguste Mariette, who presumably read hieroglyphs well enough to know what god he was looking at. A. Parrot (talk) 20:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Any relation?

Considering Heka is the god of magic, is there any connection to the Greek goddess Hecate? Given the somewhat overlapping domains and the similarity in the names I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of connection, but I realize it could hypothetically be a coincidence, too, especially as the more-detailed seeming Hecate article makes no mention of Heka (though, strangely, it says her name has been "compared" to the Egyptian goddess of childbirth).

Is there any scholarly study on this possibility? I'm not familiar with anthropology circles enough to know off the bat what would be a Reliable Source in that field.108.188.199.60 (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 This looks more like Harpocrates than Heka - the source says its from Denderah and is Heka the child - I have never come across this epithet before.  Anyone familiar with Denderah?[[User:Apepch7|Apepch7]] ([[User talk:Apepch7|talk]]) 20:02, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
 :I've never been to Dendera (unfortunately), but I do think the image is credible. Wilkinson says that in the Late Period Heka was depicted as a child, so Dendera was built after Heka began to be depicted that way. For the most part, I think the child forms of Egyptian deities loked alike. The notes for the image file call it "Heka-pa-chered", which resembles the Egyptian name of Horus the Child, "Har-pa-chered", which the Greeks rendered as "Harpocrates". I suppose somebody might have confused the two, but it seems more likely that "pa-chered" means "the child", and the Dendera relief is depicting Heka the Child. The file also claims to be taken from a public-domain work by [[Auguste Mariette]], who presumably read hieroglyphs well enough to know what god he was looking at. [[User:A. Parrot|A. Parrot]] ([[User talk:A. Parrot|talk]]) 20:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
+== Any relation?==
+Considering Heka is the god of magic, is there any connection to the Greek goddess [[Hecate]]? Given the somewhat overlapping domains and the similarity in the names I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of connection, but I realize it could hypothetically be a coincidence, too, especially as the more-detailed seeming Hecate article makes no mention of Heka (though, strangely, it says her name has been "compared" to the Egyptian goddess of childbirth).
+Is there any scholarly study on this possibility? I'm not familiar with anthropology circles enough to know off the bat what would be a Reliable Source in that field.[[Special:Contributions/108.188.199.60|108.188.199.60]] ([[User talk:108.188.199.60|talk]]) 18:31, 12 December 2016 (UTC)