Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 98. (Budapest, 2003)

GYŐRY, HEDVIG: A Pataikos with Hawks on the Shoulders

LINKS WITH Isis AND NEPHTHYS The fact that the two birds appear together with protective goddesses (at the back and at the sides of the Pataikos) from the Late Period may also be telling in another way. After his birth, the Horus child was nursed and protected against disease and evil by the goddesses Isis and Nephthys, who earlier had mourned the death of Horus' father, and had tended to the corpse of Osiris to help him to get revived.

102 In their role of mourning women, Isis and Nephthys were weeping beside the body of Osiris in the shape of two birds.

103 Usually they were represented as two identical birds, namely two kites,

104 although some texts speak of two different birds.

105 In these bird-forms, they also watched over Osiris' son.

106 Moreover, Isis had been united with the revided Osiris in the shape of a hawk, and in that shape she had conceived her son, Horus.

107 In this light, the two birds of prey on the shoulders of the Pataikos could also have been (re)interpreted as the two protective goddesses, nursing and guarding the new-born Horus and curing him from poison and disease. It is not surprising to find Horus being connected to an amulet, which helps at birth and protects from snakebites, since Horus had personal "experiences" in both fields.

108 In the texts of the 21th Dynasty oracular amuletic decrees, the protection of the god Amun was explicitly requested against the "Horus birth".

109 Although we do not have contemporaneous explanations for this expression, the textual context clearly shows that it was meant negatively.

110 It is certain that in the myth, both Horus and his mother experienced serious troubles at the time of delivery / birth. In addition, the life of Ho102 A similar nursing role they played for the rising (new-born) Sun and all reborn dead; cf. RÄRG. title "Nephthys", pp. 519-520, and Cf. Sternberg-el-Hotabi. Götterdarstellungen (n. 63) pp. 51-52. 103 Cf. vignettes of the BD 17, like, e.g., Naville, É., Livre des Morts. Paris 1886. pl. 28. 104 E.g., CT 24, 1.74: "The two kites (dr.tj), who are Isis and Nephthys, are calling for you". Cf. Pyr 312-313 (Utt. 259): "H is ill is removed by the Two Kites of Osiris.

. .the Two Attendants who mourned for Osiris have mourned for him"

. 105 E.g. Pyr 1255 (Utt. 532) = CT I. 303, Sp. 73: "Isis is coming and Nephthys is coming, one of them from the West and one of them from the East, one of them as a 'screecher' (hit-bird), and one of them as a kite (dr.t). They have found Osiris, ...when his name changed to Sokar." 106 For the New Kingdom, see Urk V, 18-19, a comment to BD 17, 9: Min with the two feathers on his head is, at his birth, equated with "Horus who protected/avenged his father" (Harendotes), and the two feathers are identified with Isis and Nephthys, who "put themselves on his head (in a Late Period variant: behind him) when they were the Two Kites"

. 107 For some ancient texts and depictions concerning the event, see Manniche, L., Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt, London 1997, pp. 58-59. I0K Pyr 681 (Utt. 388): "Horus. who escaped from the Sn.t-snake, ... Horus has shattered its mouth with the sole of his foot"

. 109 Edwards, E.S., Oracular Amuletic Decrees of the Late New Kingdom. Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, Fourth series I, London 1960, pp. 66-67, II, pi. 23-34. Papyrus T2. 110 Györy H., Providing protection to the new-born on the day of birth - Extra- and Intrauterine complications and Abnormalities in Ancient Egypt, Orvostörténeti Közieménvek 170-173 (2000) 103119.