Harpocrates

Harpocrates is the Greek name of a Hellenized Horus child of God. It is not identical with the occupied since the third interim deity Hor -pa - chered. With Serapis and Isis Harpocrates formed a triad of gods and was particularly revered in the region of Alexandria.

Former genus name " Harpocrates "

The term Harpocrates, known as the Greek equivalent Egyptian Horus child. Plutarch ( about 45 to about 125 AD ) coined the first descriptions of Harpocrates. After that Harpocrates was hampered by his posthumous birth to the legs and was considered a " Lord of Silence ", as Plutarch misinterpreted the representation of the located at the mouth finger. Other ancient Greek and Roman authors also indicated the iconographic attributes in a similar way. In the years 1881-1884 published Ridolfo di Lanzone the multi-volume work Dizionario in which he used Harpocrates as a collective term for seven different gods Horus child. In retrospect, Lanzones analysis of the associated reliefs from Armant flawed because in the meantime could be shown that it is seven separate child deities.

The views of Lanzone found 1913 entrance into Pauly's Real - encyclopedia of classical archeology, with Harpocrates there was the personification of the "ideal child ". Hans Bonnet defined in 1952 under " Harpocrates " all young gods with the name component " Horus". The in the past more often to in the Old Kingdom reaching back for child gods collective term " Harpocrates " introduced the Encyclopedia of Egyptology in 1975, but without regard to the temple documents. Due to a new study from 1988, the term " Harpocrates " was amended later by the year 2002. Now all Egyptian gods child of the Late Period and Greco-Roman period were considered as " Harpocrates ". Other Egyptologists as Hellmut Brunner went one step further, all the deities under the generic name " Harpocrates " aufführte in the Encyclopedia of Egyptology, which are as a child deity represented and forth.

After a detailed study in 2006, and the related studies of all available ancient Egyptian sources, the genus name " Harpocrates " will no longer be used as evidence for the early existence of an " original Harpocrates " or for a matching genealogy, as it is in the Horus Child gods did not act to local " Harpocrates - forms ", but every child God Horus was regarded as an independent deity and worshiped.

Documents

The " Ptolemaic Harpocrates " is the first time BC is in the Greco-Roman period in the year 243 in a dedicatory inscription of Isis sanctuary at Philae, Ptolemy III. and his family settled install. In the Ptolemaic aspect of Harpocrates is in proportion to the ancient Egyptian Hor -pa - chered relatively rarely occupied. In Egypt, Harpocrates is called in only seven sources during the Ptolemaic period; to the fourth century AD in seven other mentions during the Roman Imperial period. Outside of Egypt him less importance has been attached as Anubis.

By Herodotus and Manetho traditions, the tradition is known that well-known gods of ancient Egypt was equated with a deity of Greek mythology. For Harpocrates, however, no Greek counterpart could be detected.