[382] Müller, Quibell, Maspero, and Sethe regard the "round cartouche," which the divine falcon often carries in place of the ankh-symbol of life, as a representation of the royal name (R. Weill, "Les Origines de l'Egypte pharaonique," Annales du Musée Guimet, 1908, p. 111). The analogous Babylonian sign known as "the rod and ring" is described by Ward (op. cit., p. 413) as "the emblem of the sun-god's supremacy," a "symbol of majesty and power, like the tablets of destiny".
As it was believed in Egypt and Babylonia that the possession of a name "was equivalent to being in existence," we can regard the object carried by the hawk or vulture as a token of the giving of life and the controlling of destiny. It can probably be equated with the "tablets of destiny" so often mentioned in the Babylonian stories, which the bird god Zu stole from Bēl and was compelled by the sun-god to restore again. Marduk was given the power to destroy or to create, to speak the word of command and to control fate, to wield the invincible weapon and to be able to render objects invisible. This form of the weapon, "the word" or logos, like all the other varieties of the thunder-weapon, could "become flesh," in other words, be an animate form of the god.
In Egyptian art it is usually the hawk of Horus (the homologue of Marduk) which carries the "round cartouche," which is the logos, the tablets of destiny.
[383] I quote Professor Canney's notes on the word dūdā'im (Genesis xxx. 14) verbatim: "The Encyclopædia Biblica says (s.v. 'Mandrakes'): 'The Hebrew name, dūdā'im, was no doubt popularly associated with dōdīm, דוֹדִים , "love"; but its real etymology (like that of μανδράγορας) is obscure".
"The same word is translated 'mandrakes' in Song of Songs vii. 13.
"Dūdā'īm occurs also in Jeremiah xxiv, 1, where it is usually translated 'baskets' ('baskets of figs'). Here it is the plural of a word dūd, which means sometimes a 'pot' or 'kettle,' sometimes a 'basket'. The etymology is again doubtful.
"I should imagine that the words in Jeremiah and Genesis have somehow or other the same etymology, and that dūdā-īm in Genesis has no real connexion with dōdīm 'love'.
"The meaning 'pot' (dūd, plur. dūdā-īm) is probably more original than 'basket'. Does dūdā-īm in Genesis and Song of Songs denote some kind of pot or caldron-shaped flower or fruit?"
[384] The Mother Pot is really a fundamental conception of all religious beliefs and is almost world-wide in its distribution.