The circumstance that, in 4, the flower is surmounted by a goose, one name for which being aq=ak, shows that, like the hawk, bak, it may well have served as a rebus for ak=the middle. An instance of the direct association of the sacred goose with the four quarters is given in the bas-relief at Medinet-Abu, described by Brugsch (op. cit. ii, p. 297). This represents “Ramses III ... offering sacrifice to the god ‘Khimti,’ i. e. Pan of Panopolis, the Theban form of which was Amon Generator.... A white bull (the symbol of Pan) and four geese, which are represented as flying towards the cardinal points, constitute the sacrifice.”
The striking association of the goose with the bull=Apis, the astronomical symbolism of which has been shown, gains in significance when it is realized that another name for goose is apt and that this also constitutes an anagram of pta=ptah, one form of Amen-Ra. It is a curious fact that the third name for goose, se or sa, combined with ankh=flower, as in pl. [vii], 4, furnishes the word ankh-sa, which recalls the word An-sah obtained by the mummy and serpent rebus and the name of the god of Assyria, Anshar.
In connection with the above Egyptian rebus, expressing the syllables ankh and sa, it surprised me, to find that the Sanscrit name for goose is hangsa, while in ancient Hindu it is hamsa and in modern Hindu hanassa. It is well known that in Hindu mythology the goose was “the bird of Brahma,” the “supreme one who alone exists really and absolutely,” that the birth of Brahma from the lotus is frequently represented in Hindu religious art, and that the lotus is the attribute of the “sun-god” Surya, termed the “lord of the lotus, father, friend and king.” What is more, the goose, [pg 419] associated with “solar” symbolism, i. e. with the circle and central dot, with the swastika, four-petalled flower and the wheel, occurs on the oldest monuments of Greek art; on the prehistoric bronzes and pottery of Italy (where the sacred geese were kept on the Capitoline at Rome); on the bronzes of Hallstatt, of ancient Gaul and of prehistoric Sweden. Pointing out that we thus obtain a whole chain of associations which link the syllables am and an to deities and pole-star symbolism, I next present, for reference, the names for the bird given in Webster's dictionary.
Sanscrit, hangsa; Latin, anser, for hanser; German, gans (in Germany, according to Pliny, the small, white geese were called ganzoe al. gantoe lib. x, 22); Greek, khen; Danish, gaas; Swedish, gos; Welsh, gwydd; Anglo-Saxon, gos; Irish, geadh; Icelandic, gas; Slavonic, gusj and gonsj. Noting that in the Sanscrit, Latin, Greek and German alike, the syllable an or en is present in the name for goose, I return to the Egyptian symbols which express the words an and ankh, and, bearing the “birth of Brahma from a lotus” in mind, refer again to the Egyptian title Neb-ankh, “lord of life,” which, as I point out, also signified “the lord of the lotus flower.” Let us now briefly examine some Egyptian texts relating to pl. [v], 12 and 15, which represent the boat (am and its synonyms) and the flower=ankh, associated with the boy and the serpent.
In an astronomical text from Edfu, published by Brugsch, New Year's day is mentioned in connection with the “coming forth of the great lotus blossom in the form of a bud in its symbolical interpretation as the god ahi (literally, boy).... The count of his rulership begins from the first day of his rising or birth....” In another text it is said: “New Year's day, the sun (Ra) comes forth from a lotus flower in the great sea,” and there are numerous allusions in other inscriptions to “the lotus blossom in the great waters, from which the sun-child arises in radiance towards heaven.” The text accompanying (pl. [v], 15), where a serpent rises from the lotus in the boat, states “the sun, uniter of the world, in Tentyra”=the New Year.
In another inscription it is said: “thou risest like the sacred serpent, as a living spirit, in thy glorious form in the bark of the sunrise;” and this passage forms an interesting parallel to that already cited where the sun is said to rise “like a hawk from the midst of its lotus bud.” Pl. [vii], 14, exhibits a nine-petalled lotus [pg 420] growing from a pedestal and a head issuing from it. As the name for head tep (also tap or tpa, and apt cf. pta), signifies chief, or beginning, we must accept this as another variant of the previous signs.
Deferring the discussion of the so-called “birth” and cult of the diurnal sun, as one form of Amen-Ra, let us now rapidly survey the following figures copied from Mr. Goodyear's work.
Pl. [vii], 9. A circle encloses a group consisting of the five-petalled lotus between two buds and the hawk-headed sphinx, which has already been met with in the astronomical texts and, according to Egyptologists, represents Horus, the sun, “who lights the world with two eyes” and is addressed as “a powerful lion,” “the master of double force.”[115] I need scarcely recall here that the combination of a bird and quadruped would naturally symbolize air and earth, the Above and Below and that the hawk-headed sphinx, seated on four petals, clearly expresses the idea of the “lord of Heaven and Earth, the father and mother of all, the ruler of the Four Quarters and lord of the circle.”
Pl. [vii], 10. The plain circle or disk, supported by two uplifted arms=ka, arising from (akh) the ankh sign, is another ingenious mode of expressing the idea of the Middle, the circle, duality and life.
No. 13 constitutes as charming and ingenious a play upon the word ankh=life as can be imagined, and a close examination reveals its subtle, hidden and deep significance. It exhibits, in the first case, the ankh sign combined with the flower=ankh, which might, at a first glance, be taken as an example of purely decorative art. But the ever-present thought of the duality of nature manifests itself in the arrangement of the two flowers towards each other and enclosed in the open ring of the ankh sign, and it is evident that the artist took pains to draw the central petal of the lower blossom in the form of a triangle, below which an oblong square and a square may be distinguished.