Black Athena: Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization; Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence

Chapter 11: Major Egyptian Terms in Greek: Part 2

276 BLACK ATHENA MAJOR EGYPTIAN TERMS IN GREEK Part 2 CHAPTER 11 T his chapter is concerned with just two Egyptian terms: First, nfr(w) “good, beautiful” with the additional meanings of “zero, base line.” Second, ms (i) “child, giving birth.” Both are central to Egyptian culture and had major and intertwined ramifications in Greece. These ramifications require considerable detailed attention. NFR(W)/MS Nfrw The two Egyptian terms are linked in this section because of the intertwining of nymphs and Muses in Greek mytholology. Before considering these together, however. I shall turn to nfr and the Greek nephroí “kidneys.” Pokorny, supported by Ernout and Meillet, attempted to link this form to a stem * negu6h-rós “kidneys, testes” found elsewhere in the Germanic nior “kidney.” Chantraine, not happy with what he saw as a hypothetical * neghw injected a note of caution pointing out that IndoEuropean contains many different roots for these organs. The only words that are clearly related to nephroí, are the Latin nefrendes and nefro–nes and nebrundines, words from the dialects of Praeneste and Lanuvium. All of these mean “kidneys” and possibly “testes,” Nefrendes has another meaning, that of “suckling pig.” This suggests a larger [CH. 11] MAJOR EGYPTIAN TERMS IN GREEK, 2 277 semantic field of “tender morsel.” Ernout and Meillet pointed out that these words look foreign and indeed a loan from nephroí would seem quite plausible. According to Horapollo’s description of hieroglyphics, written in the late fifth century CE the sign for “good” was written with a “heart and a windpipe.”1 His judgment has been accepted by modern Egyptologists who explain the ideogram or triliteral sign nfr Y (F35) in this way. It is impossible to say whether the relationship between the sign and the word was real or merely punning. This still does not link nfr “good, beautiful,” to nephroí “kidneys.” The totally different Egyptian name for these organs is ggt. The connection comes from specialized meanings of nfr “zero” and nfrw “ground level, base line,” demonstrated by the historian of mathematics Beatrice Lumpkin.2 In a fascinating note, the Egyptologist Rosalind Park examined the problem of why during mummification only the heart and the kidneys were kept in the body after the other organs had been removed. She demonstrated that the kidneys were identified with the constellation Libra “the scales.”3 They were seen as the wise and balanced counsellors of the monarch, the heart. She illustrates their position on the Old Kingdom artistic grid system in which the base of the scales is on the midpoint of the canonical drawing of man, hence on the nfrw of the grid.4 Thus nfrw signified both kidneys and perfect harmony. I referred to nfr(w)t “beautiful young women” in Chapter 9.5 As a cattle-herding people, however, the earliest Egyptians saw real beauty in cows. Hathor the goddess of beauty was represented as a cow, and the epithet bow`pi" “cow-faced, cow-eyed” was applied to many Greek goddesses and beautiful women. Thus, it is not surprising to find a term nfrt for cattle. In Chapter 3, I noted that paintings in the Sahara represent bicolored cattle, indicating deliberate breeding; admiration for dappled cattle continued throughout Ancient Egyptian culture.6 In Greek the dappled fawnskins worn by initiates of the rites of Dionysos were called nebroiv (H). Chantraine confidently sees the Armenian nerk “color” as cognate. Given the association with dappled skins and Egyptian influence on Dionysiac cults, this etymology is far less precise semantically than that from nfr. Frisk pushes absurdity still further by proposing to link it to the Latin niger “black.”7 278 BLACK ATHENA Moses and Moschos In detailed artistic representations, the biliteral hieroglyph ms T(F31) is of foxtails tied together. Information from the Sahara and Berber iconography strongly indicates a more fundamental meaning: that of water dividing and pouring into different channels necessary to fertilize the fields.8 Such imagery is appropriate for the breaking of the waters at birth see msˆ TS® (F31, S29, B3) “childbirth.” The vocalizations of the cluster of Egyptian words concerned with birth, written ms, are varied and complicated. To give birth was mise or misi in Coptic. In names denoting “son, child of ” the vowel was rendered /a–/ in Middle Babylonian and /a/ by Herodotos but /o–/by Manetho.9 In this case, however, there was probably a rounded mwa. In many Gurage...