Saturday, March 10, 2007

Totafot, She Who Rears Up

כ"א באדר תשס"ז

While researching the knot of Isis, I came upon the formation that developed in the wax of my reversal candle Friday night (the 8th night of the ritual)! It looked like the Uraeus (shown).

From About.com:




The Uraeus is the serpent emblem found in Egyptian portrayals of Royalty and Deity. It is a symbol of divine authority, representing the Goddess Wedjat as the all seeing eye of Ra, who was believed to protect the Pharoahs by spitting fire, and the emblem of the Lower Kingdom of Egypt. According to legend, the Cobra was given to the pharoahs as a sign of kingship by the God Geb.

From Wiki:

The Uraeus (plural Uraei or Uraeuses) is the stylized, upright form of an Egyptian spitting cobra (or snake / serpent / asp), used as a symbol of sovereignty, royalty, deity and divine authority in ancient Egypt. Uraeus is a Greek word that may have its origins in ancient Egyptian, meaning "she who rears up".

According to the Story of Re, the first uraeus was created by the goddess Isis who formed it from the dust of the earth and the spittle of the sun-god. The uraeus was the instrument with which Isis gained the throne of Egypt for her husband Osiris.

Another name for this is the term "Totaf" found also in the Bible.

Totafot has an Egyptian etymology. Moreover, it too, the the tyet, is an amulet. Dave at Balashon writes on the etymology of totafot:

Significantly in ancient Egyptian, ftu or fot means four, while tot can denote a gathering, resemblance, divine, or hard leather. Hence, totafoth may have had the connotation of a fourfold amulet, made of leather, as the Tefillin indeed are.


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