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395556

A Life-bestowing Body Part of the Demiurge Atum in the Ancient Egyptian Religious Context: Textual and Archaeological Evidences

Article

Last updated: 25 Dec 2024

Subjects

-

Tags

EGYPTOLOGY

Abstract

As a life-giving body part, the hand played a great role in both creating deities and perpetuating humans in ancient Egypt. The Pyramid Texts described the creative power of the hand of the self-engendered god, Atum, in creating the earliest divine couple. This conception of the life-bestowing hand emphasizes that from the very first moment of the world, it was the responsibility of the hand of the demiurge to create life. By the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the beginning of the New Kingdom, the “Hand of Atum" became a special title borne by the mothers of the children of Atum. In the iconography of the New Kingdom, the creative hand of the self-rejuvenated dead, who in this case incarnated Atum, was also very essential for surviving after death. This paper seeks to characterize the culture of the fertile hand through the textual and iconographical acts, which were of prime importance in activating the procreative ability of both the creator god, Atum, and the risen dead.

DOI

10.21608/shedet.2024.241654.1217

Keywords

Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Hand, Creation

Authors

First Name

Youmna

Last Name

Nasr

MiddleName

Adel Zaki

Affiliation

Lecturer, Department of Tourist Guiding, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

Email

youmna.adel@alexu.edu.eg

City

-

Orcid

-

Related Issue

-2

Receive Date

2023-10-09

Publish Date

2024-12-06

Print ISSN

2356-8704

Online ISSN

2536-9954

Link

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/article_395556.html

Detail API

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=395556

Order

395,556

Type

research articles

Type Code

1,264

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Shedet

Publication Link

https://shedet.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A Life-bestowing Body Part of the Demiurge Atum in the Ancient Egyptian Religious Context: Textual and Archaeological Evidences

Details

Type

Article

Created At

25 Dec 2024