DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12654#0070
42
THE BENNU AND REKHEET.
[Part I.
figure which I cannot doubt to be Orion. Plutarch
tells us that Orion was the constellation of Horus, who
is one of the gods whom we find represented on the
monuments with a hawk's head.
I have shown in the preceding remarks, that an
asterism or constellation partly or wholly corresponding
to Cygnus, and, perhaps, also to Aquila, is represented
in the sculptures of the ceiling of the Rameseum of
El-Kurneh by the Phoenix, called in hieroglyphics " the
Phoenix of Osiris," Bennu Osir. There can be no
doubt that the Bennu is the Phoenix. The figure of a
bird with human hands*, which some have supposed to
represent the Phoenix, is known from its name, Rekheet,
properly to signify " a pure soul." This, indeed, is
shown also to emblematize some period or cycle, by a
passage in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Sarco-
phagus of Queen Ankh-nes, in the British Museum,
which speaks of " the period of pure souls."t It, how-
ever, evidently does not refer to the true Phoenix
Cycle, but to the cycle of the separate state of the soul,
which I have already shown to have been probably a
longer period than what I shall prove the Phoenix Cycle
to be. The Phoenix is historical; but the other period,
merely mythical, and not commencing from any one fixed
date, but from the time of each person's death, accord-
ing to the mythology of the ancient Egyptians. Still,
as the period of the separate state of the soul was em-
blematized by a bird, generally represented with a
partly human form, but sometimes by a simple bird, it
is very easy to see that it may have been confounded,
in late times, with the Phoenix Cycle.
* See Plate I., Nos. 8 and 9.
f Ibid., No. 9,
THE BENNU AND REKHEET.
[Part I.
figure which I cannot doubt to be Orion. Plutarch
tells us that Orion was the constellation of Horus, who
is one of the gods whom we find represented on the
monuments with a hawk's head.
I have shown in the preceding remarks, that an
asterism or constellation partly or wholly corresponding
to Cygnus, and, perhaps, also to Aquila, is represented
in the sculptures of the ceiling of the Rameseum of
El-Kurneh by the Phoenix, called in hieroglyphics " the
Phoenix of Osiris," Bennu Osir. There can be no
doubt that the Bennu is the Phoenix. The figure of a
bird with human hands*, which some have supposed to
represent the Phoenix, is known from its name, Rekheet,
properly to signify " a pure soul." This, indeed, is
shown also to emblematize some period or cycle, by a
passage in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the Sarco-
phagus of Queen Ankh-nes, in the British Museum,
which speaks of " the period of pure souls."t It, how-
ever, evidently does not refer to the true Phoenix
Cycle, but to the cycle of the separate state of the soul,
which I have already shown to have been probably a
longer period than what I shall prove the Phoenix Cycle
to be. The Phoenix is historical; but the other period,
merely mythical, and not commencing from any one fixed
date, but from the time of each person's death, accord-
ing to the mythology of the ancient Egyptians. Still,
as the period of the separate state of the soul was em-
blematized by a bird, generally represented with a
partly human form, but sometimes by a simple bird, it
is very easy to see that it may have been confounded,
in late times, with the Phoenix Cycle.
* See Plate I., Nos. 8 and 9.
f Ibid., No. 9,