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Aani

The word for baboon in ancient Egyptian was jꜥnr, with later variants such as jꜥnj and jꜥnꜥ, rendered in the obsolete Lepsius romanization as respectively ȧāni and ȧānā. Attested over fifty times in extant literature, this word simply refers to the animal itself. In ancient Egyptian religion, the baboon was considered sacred to the Egyptian god Thoth. Many Egyptian gods can manifest in a baboon aspect or have other associations with the animal, includingHapy, a god who protects the canopic jar containing the lungs after embalming. Khonsu, a god known as “eater of hearts” in the Pyramid Texts. Thoth, a god of reason and writing: “And so the Baboon of Thoth came into being,” says one 18th Dynasty text.

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The word for baboon in ancient Egyptian was jꜥnr, with later variants such as jꜥnj and jꜥnꜥ,1 rendered in the obsolete Lepsius romanization as respectively ȧāni and ȧānā.2 Attested over fifty times in extant literature, this word simply refers to the animal itself.3 In ancient Egyptian religion, the baboon was considered sacred to the Egyptian god Thoth.456 Many Egyptian gods can manifest in a baboon aspect or have other associations with the animal, including

  • Hapy, a god who protects the canopic jar containing the lungs after embalming.7
  • Khonsu, a god known as “eater of hearts” in the Pyramid Texts.8
  • Thoth, a god of reason and writing: “And so the Baboon of Thoth came into being,” says one 18th Dynasty text.9

Animal iconography does not imply the Egyptians identified the animals concerned as deities themselves. Rather, the animal could serve as an icon, or a large hieroglyph, representing a god.10 The Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen also notes that a number of gods are given the epithet "the Baboon" in ancient Egyptian texts, including Osiris, Khonsu, and Thoth.11

References

References

  1. Bell, Lanny, Interpreters and Egytianized Nubians in Ancient Egyptian Foreign Policy: Aspects of the History of Egypt and Nubia, 1976, page 8 et seq.
  2. Compare the Lepsius-style transcriptions in Budge, E. A. Wallis, An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, volume 1, 1920, page 29.
  3. Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae, jꜥnꜥ “baboon.” (Lemma ID 850186): Wb 1, 41, 5-6; vgl. FCD 11; LÄ IV, 917. Uses in Pyramid Texts spells PT 275, 315, 320, 570B, 698B, especially from the Pyramids of Wenis and Pepi. Book of Dead usage occurs in spells BD 5, 75, and 126. Online at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/850186
  4. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, repeated in Benet, The Reader's Encyclopedia (1948) and in Gertrude Jobes. Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Stymbols, Part 1. New York:The Scarecrow Press, 1962.
  5. Coulter, Charles Russell; Turner, Patricia (4 July 2013). Encyclopedia of Ancient Deities. Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-135-96397-2. Aani Aana (Egypt): Also known as: Dog-faced Ape.
  6. William Ricketts Cooper, An Archaic Dictionary: Biographical, Historical, and Mythological, 1876: "One of the Egyptian names of the Cynocephalus Baboon, which was sacred to the god Thoth."
  7. Taylor, J., Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Univ. of Chicago Press, pp. 65-66.
  8. Pinch, G., Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt, Oxford, 2002, p. 155.
  9. "Myth of the Heavenly Cow," line 73. Simpson, W.K., The Literature of Ancient Egypt, Yale Univ. Press, 2003. p. 295
  10. Hornung, Erik, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many, Cornell Univ. Press, 1996, p. 124
  11. Leitz, Christian et al., Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, volume 1, 2002, page 136–137