Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Seth Inscription

It appears that in ancient times before the rise of Egypt, Seth was worshiped by people in the Sahara. Recently a very interesting inscription has been found that relate to this worship.

The symbols on the engraving are written in the so-called Libyco-Berber writing which is really made up of Mande signs. Using the Vai signs we are able to read the inscriptions in the Malinke-Bambara language.








On the left side we see a figure of a cannine and on the right we have a figure of Seth. Reading the inscriptions from right to left I will decipher the writing.


Under the cannine figure we have: Be tu a ka na or "To exist obedient to the order in joy [with the] Mother".


Reading the inscriptions under the Seth figure we have reading the inscription from right to left: i lu i gyo fa yo gyo, or " Thou hold upright this divinity of the cult, [our] Father, the vital spirit of the society consecrated to (Seth's) cult".




This figure is important in relation to the Western Sahara and the Seth cult. Michael Rice, in Egypt's Making: The Origin of Ancient Egypt 5000-2000 BC, makes it clear that Seth was the god of the Southern people and that Anubis (the canine god) was the protector of the people of the South.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I want to bring to your attention that the reading of this inscription is completely inaccurate. The inscription was discovered by the North Kharga Oasis Survey team in the Egyptian western desert and has been thoroughly examined. It is, in fact, an ancient Egyptian inscription, written mainly in hieratic. The reading is made up here to simply support the blogger's strong, biased, Afrocentric sentiments.
N. Lazaridis (epigrapher of the North Kharga Oasis Survey team)