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)

able) alternative would be presuming an etymological connection between OEg. bs and CCh.: Bura ab3a "1. a person or animal stunted in growth, 2. an epithet of reproach, an insult" [BED 1953, 2] hereby, however, the correspondence of Bura -3- vs. OEg. -s- would be phonologically irregular (secondary voicing of Bura -3- < *-è- under the influence of -b-?). To sum up, the name of Bes might have perhaps primarily meant "small child' (or perhaps "embryo"), which originated in Afro-Asiatic *b-s "child". There is, however, an unresolved large gap between the supposed scanty Old Kingdom occurence of the word bs and the appearence of Bes in the late New Kingdom. The problem could be satisfactorily settled only by further philological evidence for the obscure PT bs before the New Kingdom. Gábor Takács Székesfehérvár & Frankfurt a/M Institut für Afrikanistik