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The God of Silence and Secrecy

By John, on May 18th, 2010

buff pink pottery figure of harpocrates seated in indian attitude on oval base basket on right surrounded by another figure of hourse the child The God of Silence and Secrecy

Description – Buff/pink pottery figure of Harpocrates, seated in Indian attitude on oval base, basket on right surrounded by another figure of Hourse the Child; hollow, traces of white paint (or slip on surface)
Period – Roman Period (30 BCE – 395 CE)
Found at – Hawara ?
Material – pottery
Measurements – height 13.5 cms width 9.0 cms
Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, University College, London

The God of Silence and SecrecyHarpocrates

In late Greek mythology as developed in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Harpocrates is the god of silence.

Right: Ptolemaic bronze Harpocrates as the child Horus (Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon)

Harpocrates was adapted by the Greeks from the Egyptian child god Horus.

To the ancient Egyptians, Horus represented the new-born Sun, rising each day at dawn.

When the Greeks conquered Egypt under Alexander the Great, they transformed the Egyptian Horus into their Hellenistic god known as Harpocrates, a rendering from Egyptian Har-pa-khered or Heru-pa-khered (meaning “Har, the Child”).

Harpocrates, the child Horus, personifies the newborn sun each day and the first strength of the winter sun.

Egyptian statues represent the child Horus, pictured as a naked boy with his finger on his mouth, a realization of the hieroglyph for “child” that is unrelated to the Greco-Roman and modern gesture for “silence”.

Misunderstanding this sign, the later Greeks and Roman poets made Harpocrates the god of Silence and Secrecy, taking their cue from Marcus Terentius Varro, who asserted in De lingua latina of Caelum (Sky) and Terra (Earth):

These gods are the same as those who in Egypt are called Serapis and Isis, though Harpocrates with his finger makes a sign to me to be quiet. The same first gods were in Latium called Saturn and Ops.

Hawara

William Flinders Petrie excavated at Hawara, in 1888, finding papyri of the first and second centuries, and, north of the pyramid, a vast necropolis where he found 146 portraits on coffins dating to the Roman period, famous as being among the very few surviving examples of painted portraits from Classical Antiquity, the “Fayoum portraits” illustrated in Roman history textbooks.

Hawara is south of the site of Crocodilopolis (Arsinoe) at the entrance to the depression of the Fayyum oasis.

The God of Silence and Secrecy Petrie unearthed a number of vivid Fayoum mummy portraits in 1911.

Among the discoveries made by Flinders Petrie were papyrus manuscripts, including a great papyrus scroll which contains parts of books 1 and 2 of the Iliad (the “Hawara Homer” of the Bodleian Library, Oxford).

Hourse Temple

The Temple of Horus at Edfu was built during the Ptolemiac era on top of an earlier temple to Horus, which was oriented east-west instead of the current north-south configuration.

The God of Silence and Secrecy The first pylon at Edfu Temple

The oldest part of the temple is the section from the Festival Hall to the Sanctuary; this was begun by Ptolemy III in 237 BCE and completed by his son, Ptolemy IV Philopator. The Hypostyle Hall was added by Ptolemy VII (145-116 BCE) and the pylon was erected by Ptolemy IX (88-81 BCE). The final touches to the temple were added under Ptolemy XII in 57 BCE.

The falcon-headed Horus was originally the sky god, whose eyes were the sun and moon. He was later assimilated into the popular myth of Isis and Osiris as the divine couple’s child. Raised by Isis and Hathor after Osiris’ murder by his brother Seth, Horus avenged his father’s death in a great battle at Edfu. Seth was exiled and Horus took the throne, Osiris reigning through him from the underworld. Thus all pharoahs claimed to be the incarnation of Horus, the “living king.”

The Temple of Edfu was abandoned after the Roman Empire became Christian and “paganism” was outlawed in 391.

Gallery: Asians in the West

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  4. Persian, Greek and Roman syncretism in the Kharga Oasis
  5. The Gospels According to Hadrian, Part III: The Aelian Canon and the Main Hand of God
  6. An army of divine men and the secret army of Mithras
  7. Romans at Stonehenge: from standing stones to cosmic pillars
  8. The Sun of Righteousness
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May 18th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Archaeology, The History of Antiquity, The Ptolemies and Lysimachi, Theurgy
  • Solomon

    On the right is Our Mother of Perpetual Help, a famous medieval icon of Mary and Jesus; on the left is a bronze statue of Isis nursing Horus dating from the Ptolemaic era of Egypt.

    Members and guests,

    The Greco-Roman name of this god – Silence and Secrecy – seems appropriate for this period, when Alexandrian philosophers, used to creating divine men to give human form to Helios, are developing a christology with which to neutralise Messianic Judaism.

    The nice little statuette of Harpocrates here makes some good points:

    - There is the strong Indian influence. Was this made by an Indian? A Greco-Indian, perhaps, a visitor from one of the eastern Alexandrias, perhaps even one of the ascetics who visited Western courts, or a craftsman who had made Buddhas for the Kushans.

    This is a good reminder how Persian and then Alexander’s conquest made Egypt and the eastern satrapies of Persia (Greco-India) at times a part of the same empire.

    We should also bear in mind how there had been trade between India and Africa for a very long time. In the Roman period, this sea trade was massive. We have, for examples, records of sex slaves being imported from India into Egypt and at high prices, and sold onwards into the Roman empire.

    We also know of both diplomatic contacts and the arrival of eastern ascetics. See, as an example of a burial: An Asian in an estate of Augustus.

    Petrie found quite a lot of hard evidence for Indians in Egypt – see the slideshow in the post. we have found much more since Petrie.

    - Then we have the Greco-Roman screwup. They didn’t understand fully Egyptian mythology when they made this version. Now, doesn’t this remind us of other twisted attempts to ape Egyptian myths?

    One of the more common accusations thrown at Christianity comes each time the similarity appears to somebody, between the Egyptian resurrection beliefs and Christ. Here’s one:

    Parallels suggested about the lives of Jesus & Horus, an Egyptian God
    One of the more controversial theories — sometimes called the “copycat thesis” — suggests that many of the miracles, other life events, and beliefs about the supernatural status of Horus, an ancient Egyptian God, were incorporated into stories about Jesus as recorded in Gospels and other books in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament).
    - ReligiousTolererance.org

    The counter is that there are differences – to the Christian apologists (and nobody else) – important differences.

    But here, we see that such differences occur out of ignorance. The Greco-Romans did not fully grasp a mythology that was more ancient than the Ptolemaic dynasty.

    Not that it matters: when the 1st-century christology was composed and later, Hadrian tried to rid the world of Judaism, theological niceties become irrelevant. Christianity had no supernatural impetus, nor did it evelove naturally: it is a contrivance to achieve a political effect – the continuance of imperial income on trade and to keep the Greeks happy.

    When we look at ‘Ancient Egypt’ we should remember that much is not Egyptian, but Greek. Greek, as with the great temple we see here. The pharaohs and pyramids are of earlier ages, brought to an end by Alexander the Great.

    Best regards,
    Solomon