Hair and Horns in Ancient Egypt Imagery.

The chapter 218 has different versions of the same text, in one coffin the deceased Osiris is called « the bull of the plait hnskt » while in other one and in the same sentence he is « the Lord with two horns ». It seems quite clear the assimilation between the plait hnskt and the horns. In Ancient Egypt, as in many cultures, horns are a symbol of the crescent of the moon, when the star begins its way to the full moon; in fact in those religions where the bull is a prominent divinity, that animal is usually identified with the moon or with lunar gods[1]. So, in Egyptian funerary thought horns are related to the lunar resurrection of the dead.

At this point we need to come back or minds to the Hathor clergy, those ias priest who had the sincipital baldness. If maybe that baldness was related to a Hathor’s loss of hair, could it be also possible to think of a loss of the horns as a cow goddess? Then, is the Ramesseum Papyrus XI we have seen before making allusion to a mutilation of the horns of Hathor? Maybe in the Myth of Osiris Isis suffered a loss of hair; due to the fact that Isis and Hathor are interchangeable, in some moment of the Egyptian history appeared a version of the Myth of Osiris where it was supposed Hathor to lose her horns, instead of Isis to lose her lock of hair. In any case, the priests of Hathor were the “Bald of Hathor” because of their baldness in the wpt, just the place where bulls and cows have their horns.

If horns are assimilated to the crescent of the moon and, as we have read in chapter 218, the plait hnskt is assimilated to the horns, it would be reasonable to think of a comparison between the hair element and the crescent of the moon, both symbols of resurrection.

Then, it would make sense why Hathor, as a cow, is also a lunar deity and why her two ringlets of hair wprty, maybe assimilated to both horns, are a grant of lunar resurrection for the deceased[2]. The two ringlets would compare with the horns; both elements sprout in the wpt and are at both sides of the Hathor’s head; ringlets fall down at both sides of the face, while horns point upwards. We can find the graphic result of that in the Egyptian art legacy; we just need to turn face up the frontal image of Hathor and we notice that her ringlets become the horns/crescent and her face the full moon as in the head-dress of lunar deities.

Comparison of image of Hathor from Deir el-Bahari (Photo: http://www.1worldtours.com) and lunar head-dress of Thot in Medinet Habu (Photo: Mª Rosa Valdesogo Martín)

The imbalance here is how to fix two different aspects of the hair (hnskt and wprty) with the horns of Hathor. Were the wprty the two ringlets of Hathor while still in her head and the hnskt plait the mutilated hair not in her head anymore but in a mop of hair? And belonged this cut mop of hair to the deceased Osiris?

Many questions, whose answers we will try to clear up later. In any case, we keep reading about hair, resurrection and Myth of Osiris. And these three elements refer us again to the funerary ceremony, where mourners cry the death and makes gestures with the hair before the final regeneration of the corpse.