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To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org
From: [HMH]
Subject: Khu = Akh; Khab = Shwt
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 23:12:07 -0600

93

M. Allcock wrote:
> As to your question about the khu & the khabs I suggest you peruse any
>good textbook
>on  ancient egyptian language.

The following deals exclusively with transliterating the sounds of the
Egyptian language into the Latin alphabet and with ancient Egyptian words:

Prior to the turn of the century, two transliteration systems were in use;
one eventually won over the other and is now universally used by
Egyptologists.  The older transliteration system was the one employed by
the French Egyptologist who translated Boulaq 666 in 1904.

Khu = Akh

Baphemetis Continuity mentioned:
>the seven parts of the soul (of which the khu and
>khabs are but two).

See page 243 of Eq III.9 for the word "khu" in the 1904 transliteration.

The word formerly transliterated "khu" is now read "aleph", "circle h"
(together pronounced "akh") and is listed in this way in the dictionaries.

The ancient meaning of akh has received a great deal of discussion; the
most thorough attempt at circumscribing its significance is Gertie Englund
1978.  Akh:  une notion religieuse dans l'Egypte pharaonique.  Uppsala,
Sweden:  Uppsala University.  According to her, akh refers both to a state
of being, or condition, and to an actual kind of being.  Thus one can have
akh; one can be an akh.  Although she feels that theoretically the quality
indicated by the word could be attained during life, she refrains from
conclusively arguing toward this, and instead only shows that the quality
could be attained upon (physical) death.  According to her, akh, as both a
being and a state, represents the power of self-generation and the element
of life, and is continuous throughout all of one's manifestations
(kheperew), which is to say external changes of form.  This is as much as
to say that an akh is immutable and, being the essence of life itself,
deathless.

The etymological meaning of akh seems to be "the brilliant one" or the
like.  It is figured as a crested ibis (Ibis comata).

Incidentally, akh can appear in secular contexts in relation to a living
person; but in such cases a translation involving the meaning "effective"
is typically employed.


Khab = Shw.t

In respect to what is said on p. 81 of The Law Is for All, no reliable
dictionary attests any reading "khabs" for a word meaning "star".

There is however a word kha-ba.w=s, variant kha-b(a).w=s, a collective
whose translation "stars" or "sea of stars" (HWB p. 582; see also Wb iii
230) is somewhat misleading.  The word kha-ba.w=s is a name for the
sky-goddess Nut meaning "a thousand of her ba's/souls" or perhaps even "her
souls are one thousand."  It appears in the Pyramid Texts (PT 785):  "You
[the king] have taken to yourself every god who bears his boat that you may
make them *stars in Kha-ba.w=s" (trans. from Blackman).  It appears also on
the sarcophagus of Thutmosis III and on that of Hatshepsut, where Re (the
sun-god) says "On behalf of Kha-b(a).w=s, I establish the king" (my trans.
from Blackman's text).  (On kha-ba.w=s, see A. M. Blackman in JEA 21 (1935)
1-9).

Baphemetis Continuity mentioned:
>the seven parts of the soul (of which the khu and
>khabs are but two).

See page 243 of Eq III.9 for the word "khab" in the 1904 transliteration.

The word formerly transliterated "khab" (a guess from Coptic ha(e)ibes,
"shadow") is now read "shin", w, .t (together "shw.t"), and is listed in
this way in the most recent dictionary, Hannig's Grosses Handwoerterbuch
(HWB).  Older dictionaries such as Faulkner give slightly different
transliterations.

Shw.t means "shadow," and, according to H. Bonnet, Reallexikon der
aegyptischen Religionsgeschichte, p. 675, the shw.t is to be ranked
alongside akh, ba, body, and other terms as referring to a component of
(the human) being.  It appears to have a close connection with the ba,
which is often translated as "soul," and with the physical body.  "It is
thus depicted [in pictorial art] as the corporeal form of the deceased,
except that the same is filled in with black."  In Late texts, "the
deceased himself is referred to as a shadow"; in such texts it seems that
the shw.t is not just a component of being, but represents the fullness or
totality of the same.

Less research has been devoted to shw.t than to akh; this is probably to be
owed to the fact that, unlike akh, the word is relatively rare.  It is
unfortunate that Bonnet does not really discern any greater significance
for the term and that I myself am not presently aware of a more detailed
work on it.




Christopher Weiss wrote:
>Isn't the Khabs associated with light?
>E.g. Khabs am pekt (sp?), light in extention.

Khabs am pekht, appearing for example in the GD Festival of the Equinox, is
perhaps legitimate albeit distorted Coptic:

haybs em peht:

haybs ("ay" here representing eta; "h" is rough)
-if haybs, then here meaning "lamp" (comparable to Greek luxnos)
-haybs etymologically might mean "that which shines" (W. Vycichl.
Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue Copte, p. 290)
-perhaps there is another word of similar spelling that makes better sense,
but I cannot find such a one in Crum, Westendorf, or Vycichl
-it is odd that there is no definite article

em
-perhaps sonet-n/mmo=, with nu assimilated to mu before pi
-but the "e" sound has somehow been made into an "a" sound
-if sonet-n, here meaning "in/while/as"

peht ("h" is rough)
-this appears to be a Faiyumic qualitative of the verb poh, a qualitative
frozen in this form and used as an infinitive
-infinitives do not take a definitive article after n/mmo=, so that it does
not have one here is not a problem
-if poh, then "reached/stretched" or, strictly as an infinitive, "to
reach/to stretch"
-(English _extend_ literally means "to stretch out")

"Lamp in having been/being stretched (out)" = "lamp in extension" or
"extended lamp."
Since it sounds silly, perhaps "khabs am pekht" isn't Coptic.

On the other hand, if it really is Coptic, the distortion of letters (the
unusual use of the qualitative and the transformation of em to am) could
suggest that this phrase was not invented in the last century, e.g. by
Mathers, but rather was corrupted through verbal transmission and/or
inaccurate copying.  (This would be significant for historical purposes.)


93 93/93

Harold


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