THE LANGUAGE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

THE LANGUAGE IN ANCIENT EGYPT

An ignorant explanation of the Egyptian Sign-Language was begun by the Greeks, who could not read the hieroglyphics. It was repeated by the Romans, and has been perpetuated by “Classical Scholars” ever since. But, as the interpreter of Egypt, that kind of scholastic knowledge is entirely obsolete. Ignorance of primitive sign-language has been and is a fertile source of false belief.

For example, Juvenal asks, “Who does not know what kind of monsters Egypt insanely worships?”. And having seen or heard of the long-tailed Ape in an Egyptian temple, the satirist assumed without question that this animal was set up as an object of worship. He did not know that the Ape itself was the worshipper, as an image in Sign-Language and as the Saluter of the Gods.

Ani, the name of this particular Ape, denotes the Saluter, and to salute was an Egyptian gesture of adoration. The Ape or Cynocephalus with its paws uplifted is the typical worshipper as Saluter of the Light. It was, and still is, looked upon in Africa generally as a pre-human Moon-worshipper, who laments and bewails the disappearance of its nightlight and rejoices at the renewal and return of that luminary.

The Mother and Child of all mythology are represented in the Tree and Branch. The Tree was a type of the abode, the Roof-tree; the Mother of food and drink; the giver of life and shelter; the wet-nurse in the dew or rain; the producer of her offspring as the branch and promise of periodic continuity. Was it the Tree then the Egyptians worshipped, or the Giver of food and shelter in the Tree? On the Apis Stele in the Berlin Museum two priests are saluting the Apis-Bull. This is designated “Apis-worship.” But the Apis carries the Solar Disk betwixt its horns. This also is being saluted. Which then is the object of worship? There are two objects of religious regard, but neither is the object of adoration. That is the God in spirit who was represented as the Soul of life in the Sun and in the Tree, also by the fecundating Bull. In this and a thousand other instances it is not a question of worship but of sign-language.