Returning to the Wonder of Djadjaemankh, there are a couple of additional items I have discovered which add to the astronomical theme.

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Westcar Papyrus
Then the chief lector priest Djadjaemankh said his magic spell and put one side of the water of the lake on top of the other, and found the fish-pendant lying on a shard. He then fetched it and gave it to its owner.

There is something that has kept me thinking about this passage, especially the importance of the pendant lying on a shard. I have established in my prior posts that the fish glyph used in the passage is K5 in Gardiner's list. K5 is broadly interpreted as an elephant fish. Researching the family of Elephant Fish known as the "Mormyridae" and their importance to Ancient Egyptians, I came across a paper by Maite Mascort Roca & Esther Pons Mellado on the site of site of OXyrhynchus (El-Bahnasa, Egypt) where a religious cult appeared dedicated to the fish. In this paper, it identifies:

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Roca and Mellado
As a result of clandestine excavations in the area of El-Bahnasa and Zawiyet Barmacha in the 1960s and 70s, large quantities of bronze oxyrhynchus fish of the Saite-Persian Period began to arrive on the antiquities market. Many of these bronze fish wear an Hathoric crown and rest on a sled-shaped base, which in all likelihood indicates that they represent the goddess Thoeris. In some cases a figure of a priest kneels in front the fish.

This raises the question of whether the fish pendant (which I think is an Elephant Fish or Oxyrunchus fish) lying upon a shard being picked up by the chief lector priest is representative of the goddess Thoeris? Discussing one example that they retrieved, the authors note "Unfortunately we only have one example of these bronze fish. In 2010 we found one bronze oxyrhynchus (mounted on a plain base, not a sled) in Room 3 of Tomb 23." According to Brill online, Thoeris can be traced to "Egyptian protector-goddess, presumably identical with Ipet. Both of them are represented in the shape of a hippopotamus with the paws of a lion and the tail of a crocodile."

Another intriguing piece of information has also been bothering me about the story. In the story, we are explicitly told about a certain number of people being on the boat. There are the 20 female rowers, Snofru and Djadjaemankh making a total of 22 people on the boat. The number 22 being a key number for the approximation of pi at 22/7.

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Roca and Mellado
The oxyrhynchus fish is also of central importance in Plutarch’s account of Set’s fratricidal fight with Osiris in order to wrestle from him the throne of Egypt. After cutting Osiris ́s body into fourteen pieces he spread the pieces throughout Egypt. The phallus was thrown into the river and devoured by three fish (a lepidote, a phagrus and an oxyrhynchus) in some part of the XIX Nome of Upper Egypt.

This provides a linkage of the Oxyrunchus fish to the number 14, which is a multiple of 7. Therefore, does the story also provide evidence for knowledge of pi?

References:

Maite Mascort Roca & Esther Pons Mellado, Fish offerings found in Area 32 of the archaeological site of OXyrhynchus (El-Bahnasa, Egypt), Proceedings of the XI International Congress of Egyptologists Florence Egyptian Museum Florence, 23-30 August 2015, pp389-393, accessed from [www.oxirrinc.com]

Brill online accessed from [referenceworks.brillonline.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28-Jul-19 12:30 by engbren.