Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

GÁBOR TAKÁCS: The Origin of the Name Bes (bs)

pects of Bes. There were surprisingly few attempts at an etymological interpretation. Touching the problem only very marginally, L. Kákosy

4 wrote: "Der Name Bes (Bee) klang ägyptisch ähnlich wie bs (sic) 'geheime Gestalt', darum ist es verständlich, daß gerade durch diesen Gott das Äußere der alle Macht zusammenfassenden, pantheistischen Gottheiten bestimmt wird". This seeming resemblence might be, in my opinion, purely accidental. An etymological connection to MEg. bzw. "secret image of god" (above) is highly improbable. W. Vycichl,

5 in turn, surmised an etymological (!) connection between the name of Bes and Dem. bs "Pantherfell"'" just because of the lion skin worn by Bes. This hypothesis is similarly improbable. Besides, it should be noted here that several Semitologists

7 combined mistakenly a certain non-existing Eg. bsj "Fell" (sic) with Sem. *basar- "1. hide, skin, 2. flesh". This baseless comparison has rightly been ruled out already by F. von Calice

8 and V. Blazek

9

. Earlier, in another paper, I suggested two hypothetic alternative etymologies

10 with regard to different characteristic features of Bes: (1) Connection to Brb. *b-s, cf. Qabyle i-was (pf.) "to help", o-bbss "help (noun)"." (2) Or derivation from Afro-Asiatic *b-s "bad". These two plausible solutions are now challenged by a third proposal presented here. II. The proposal by Meeks Following the Belegstellen of the Wörterbuch, D. Meeks tried to connect the name to an Old Egyptain hapax bs (written without determinative),

12 which occurs solely in the Pyramid Texts (PT 1186): tyvt bs hmjt-fn rh-k mw.t-k "you 4 Kákosy, L.: Der Gott Bes in einer koptischen Legende, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 14 (1966) p. 192 (published also in: Studia Aegyptiaca 7, Budapest 1981, pp. 119-130). 5 W. Vycichl, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue copte, Leuven 1983, p. 31. * W. Erichsen, Demotisches Glossat; Koppenhagen 1954, p. 122. H, Holma, Die Namen der Körperteile im Assyrisch-Babylonischen. Eine lexikalisch-etymologische Studie. Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Toimituksia. Sarja B. Nid. 7. No. / (1911), X, 1, fn. 2; Gesenius, op. cit. (note 1), p. 120; Brockclmann, op. cit. (note 1) p. 82; D. Cohen, Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langues sémitiques. Fascicules 1-2, Paris-La Haye 1970, p. 88. * F. von Calice, Grundlagen der ägyptisch-semitischen Wortvergleichung, Wien 1936, #596.

a. * V. Blazek, Omotic Lexicon in Afroasiatic Perspective: Body Parts Cognates. MS. Paper presented at the 2nd International Symposium on Cushitic and Omotic Languages (Torino, November 1989), Torino 1989, Manuscript, p. 26, #91. "' Takács, op. cit. (note 1), p. 13, #3.3. " Ajhenval'd 1991, p. 204. 12 D. Meeks, Le nom du dieu Bès et ses implications mythologigucs, Studia Aegyptiaca 14 (1992), p. 423.