I begin by apologizing. I couldn’t resist a reference to the hilarious portrayal of King Tut by Steve Martin.
Nomen est omen:Latin for “the name is everything!” or “The name is a sign, the name speaks for itself.”
Very often, the first piece of information we have about a person is their name. It’s often the first thing you learn about someone and we form judgments about people very rapidly. I have four names—something I have gladly born all these years: William—from my maternal grandfather, Gilbert (the middle “G” in my author name) for my paternal grandfather, and Wilson for my Dad. Collins is apparently an Irish name, but I don’t know much about it.
For the ancient Egyptians—names were everything! For Pharaoh’s, the poor guys usually had five names. The Horus name, the Nebty name, Gold Horus name, Throne name and the Personal name. The image above on the left, are the five names given KingTut.
The Egyptians believed that if you knew something’s name, YOU HAD POWER OVER IT. If you wrote the name of a dangerous animal or evil spirit on pottery and smashed it, you were symbolically killing the evil. So called “execration texts” have been discovered all over Egypt particularly near burial areas. According to one myth, all Egyptians were give a secret name at birth by the goddess Renenutet which was never disclosed to protect them from harm.
I wonder if Pharaoh Tutankhamun ever allowed anyone to call him just “Tut.”
