Figs. 70 to 72.—British. From English Coins and Tokens (Jewitt & Head).
The Egyptian hieroglyph here illustrated depicts the speculum of Thoth, a deity whom the Phoenicians rendered Taut, and to whom they attributed the invention of the alphabet and all other arts. The whole land of Egypt was known among other designations as “the land of the Eye,” and by the Egyptians as also by the Etrurians, the symbolic blue Eye of Horus was carried constantly as an amulet against bad luck. Fig. 69 is an Egyptian die-stamp, and Figs. 70 to 72 are British coins of which the intricate symbolism will be considered in due course. The arms of Fig. 73 are extended into the act of benediction, and utat, the Egyptian word for this symbol, resolves into the soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Tat. That the utat or eye was familiar in Europe is evidenced by the Kio coin here illustrated.
Fig. 73.—From The Correspondences of Egypt
(Odhner, C. T.).
Fig. 74.—From Numismatique Ancienne (Barthelemy, J.B.A.A.)
Spica, which is also the same word as spook, meant ear of corn; the wheatear is proverbially the Staff of Life, and loaf, old English loof, is the same word as life. Not infrequently the Bona Dea was represented holding a loaf in her extended hand, and the same idea was doubtless expressed by the two breasts upon a dish with which St. Agatha, whose name means Good, is represented. Christianity accounts for this curious emblem by a legend that St. Agatha was tortured by having her breasts cut off, and it is quite possible that this nasty tale is correctly translated; the original tyrant or torturer being probably Winter, or the reaper Death, which cuts short the fruit fulness of Spring. In the Tartar emblem herewith the Phrygian-capped Deity is holding, like St. Agatha, the symbol of the teat or feeder, or fodder.[278]
Fig. 75.—From Symbolism of the East and West (Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).