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Anyone find it so odd that these two figures are nearly identical? Maybe there is a link between the Yoruba and Egypt/Kush. Anyhow these two are amazing.
The first one is a sculpture of a Yoruba figure called a Child of Obatala. Obatala is a Yoruba god. And the second one is the Egyptian god Bes. And they are both wearing a skull necklace.
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Hey Ebony you maybe on to something If the above is really from Nigeria and of a dwarf..then the similarities is striking...look at the necklace on both.
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So there is no telling if the sculpture is a dwarf figure??? that would be very important. If we can find out that the figure is a dwarf...Then man Wally and others is close to being vindicated.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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This is clearly a Batwa figure. Here is the key, all of the Batwa (dwarf) figures, I should really say usually, have the tongue sticking out. Bes is always seen with his tongue out. It hard to see in the second image. Here is one that you may be able to see the tongue better:
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Hey Aser do the Twa really call themselves Batwa i have never ever heard that term ever used.
I think that Bes and Ptah have a connection with the Twa who are Ptwah or Ptah people.
Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face.
really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia
Posts: 410 | From: Al-Ard | Registered: Jun 2009
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maybe so maybe not, but check out the skull necklace AswaniAswad
quote:Those two have no connection and dont look similar at all first Bes is of course the body of a Twa but not the face of a full human that other one is of a real human face. really much of ancient egypt is more similar to Western African Tradition than to Arab or North Africa. Much of there customs point to central and west africa and the sudan more than the Horn or arabia
And yes Kemet and some cultures in western Africa are similar because they both share the Sahara as a cultural incubator
Yoruba sandstone sculpture compare that with any found in the Nile Valley Kemet or Kush.
quote:Popular household god, recognisable from his grotesque appearance: the body of a dwarf, crooked legs, the mane and ears of a lion, his tongue often sticking out of his mouth. He wears a head-dress with upstanding feathers and there is usually a tail visible between his legs originally belonging to an animal skin the god is wearing.
quote:This statue of a misshapen nude dwarf with overly long arms, bowed legs, and a face combining leonine and human features is the god Bes. Despite his rather unattractive appearance, he was a benevolent deity, and protected people during vulnerable periods by keeping malevolent spirits at bay. He was a particular favorite among pregnant women.
Period: Third Intermediate Period Dynasty: Dynasty 21–24 Date: ca. 1070–712 B.C. Geography: From Egypt Medium: Faience Dimensions: H. 3.7 cm (1 7/16 in) Credit Line: Purchase, Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1926 Accession Number: 26.7.878
In ancient Egypt, several protective deities were depicted as dwarves featuring a lion's mane, ears, and tail, and often wearing a plumed headdress. Such gods are now referred to as the Bes image. The domain of the Bes image was the household. He averted evil with music, knives, or the sa sign as he watched over the occupants of the house. He was particularly protective of women and children, and over time this responsibility gave him a role in some temples when there was a birth house for the deity. Thus, amulets of the Bes image were worn on a regular basis.
quote:Ancient Egyptians Held Dwarves in High Esteem
A painted statue of limestone of the God Bes, the god of love, childbirth, and sexuality in ancient Egypt. Bes is portrayed with hybrid features and sticking out his tongue.
Credit: Louvre Museum, Paris.
Short stature didn't prevent dwarves in ancient Egyptian culture from attaining high positions in society. Some served as assistants to the pharaoh, while others were looked up to as gods.
Chahira Kozma, a pediatrician at Georgetown University, examined remains and depictions of dwarves in ancient Egypt and concluded they were respected and that their disorder was not seen as a physical handicap.
The study was detailed in a Dec. 27 online version of the American Journal of Medical Genetics.
There are more than 100 known medical conditions that can lead to dwarfism. One of the most common is achondroplasia, a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 30,000 children born each year.
In achondroplasia, the trunk of the body is of normal size, but the limbs are extremely short and the head tends to be unusually large. It's believed that achondroplasia was one of the most common causes of dwarfism in ancient Egypt.
Exotic Dancers ...
In the ancient necropolises of Giza and Saqqara, dwarves hailing from various professions were depicted on at least 50 tombs. They included jewelry makers, animal or pet handlers, fishermen, entertainers and dancers, nurses and midwives. Some held more important positions.
"There were several elite dwarves, who worked for the pharaohs and had lavish burials," Kozma told LiveScience.
One dwarf, named Seneb, was one such "elite" dwarf and was honored with a lavish tomb in a royal cemetery close to the pyramids when he died.
The high value placed on dwarfs in ancient Egypt is highlighted by the praise and honor heaped upon Harkhuf, an army general and a high profile official who served two pharaohs, when he returned from an African expedition with precious treasures and a pygmy who performed exotic dances.
The child pharaoh at the time was so delighted by this last acquisition that he appointed people to guard the pygmy on his ship voyage back to Egypt, lest he fall into the water.
... and gods
Ancient Egyptians also worshipped several dwarf gods.
Ptah, a deity associated with regeneration and rejuvenation and who was also worshipped as the creator of the universe, was sometimes portrayed as a dwarf. Another god, Bes, was associated with love, sexuality and childbirth.
"Women during birth would shout to [Bes] to help them with delivery," Kozma said.
One particular prayer, called "the spell of the dwarf," was meant to be spoken four times over a clay dwarf by a woman in labor and went: "O good dwarf, come, because of the one who sent you...come down placenta, come down placenta, come down!"
Tolerance
In addition to dwarfism, the ancient Egyptians were tolerant of other genetic and medical disorders, Kozma said. The tomb of Tutankhamun, for example, contained a funeral gift depicting a female dwarf who also had bowed legs and clubbed feet.
In fact, a respect for the disabled was ingrained into the "wisdom teachings" of the culture. Amenemope, a wise man who lived during the New Kingdom, wrote that care for the old, the sick and the malformed was a moral duty.
"Man is clay and straw, the God is his builder," Amenemope wrote in a book of moral teachings. "The Wise Man should respect people affected by reversal of fortune."
quote:The hieroglyphic words for dwarfs and pygmies are dng or deneg, nmw, and hw. A determinative or a symbol depicting a dwarf with short limbs and a normal trunk usually accompanies these words. While many types of dwarfism were documented in ancient Egypt, most skeletal remains and artistic pictures identify short-limb dwarfism, mainly achondroplasia.
—Chahira Kozma
Historical Review Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt
American Journal of Medical Genetics 140A:303–311 (2006)
quote:The Egyptians knew of the existence of the Pygmies; Pepi II Neferkare, last king of the 6th dynasty (c. 2325–c. 2150 bc), had Pygmies at his court, and they were depicted on Egyptian pottery some 4,000 years ago. The German botanist Georg Schweinfurth, arriving in the Ituri in 1869 from the north, was the first European to see and write about the Mbuti (The Heart of Africa; 1873). Stanley was the first to cross the forest from west to east, following essentially the same route as the present Kisangani-to-Bunia road. In the 1930s the Jesuit missionary Paul Schebesta undertook the first anthropological studies of the people of the Ituri. Since then, many aspects of the behaviour, ecology, and growth and demography of the Bambuti and their villager neighbours have been studied by anthropologists from the United States, Europe, and Japan.
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The Yoruba God makes his rounds in many reincarnations, as do the Egyptian Gods.
See, The Voice of Africa, vol. 1, Rudolf Blind, for a discussion of several versions of the myth of Shango.
In Christian dogma, the death of Jesus is stereotyped as a Roman-style crucifixion on Mount Calvary. However in the Book of Acts in the New Testament, it is explicitly related that Jesus was hanged from a gibbet, rather than being nailed to a cross. There is a strange parallel here to the mythical history of the Yoruba god Shango. Shango rules as one of the first, if not the first, kings of the Yoruba nation of Oyo.
He becomes alienated from his subjects who persecute him and drive him from the throne. In his despair, he hangs himself from a tree (of which the Tet cross is a type), and then falls into a large hole in the ground. Eventually, he ascends into heaven on a chain, a type of the ladder of Ra upon which the beatified souls ascend into heaven, and becomes a powerful orisha or god who is the personification of lightning and thunder. Of further interest is the fact that Shango's avatar is the ram. The common elements shared by Jesus and Shango command attention: the kingly status (Jesus as the "king of Israel"); the persecution by one's own people; the death by hanging; the descent into the lower world (" ... he descended into Hell ... "); the ascension into heaven by an act of self-resurrection; the imagery of a man who becomes divine; the identification with the ram (lamb). These are all conspicuous parallels that suggest much.
Among the Yoruba, the worship of Shango revolves around a figure who - as the first king of the kingdom of Oyo and the orisha of lightning and thunder - is both man and god. Thus the process by which an extraordinary individual becomes the human avatar of a preexisting deity is well-attested throughout history.
The African Background to medical science Charles Finch
-------------------- Selenium gives real life and true reality Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
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Ancient Egyptian religion is an evolution of African Spiritualities, of which Yoruba is at the core.
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Seeing the top pictures reminded me of the Andaman Pygmies, the women there who give birth to a stillborn baby or whose infant died traditionally wore the skull and bones on a necklace. I have never heard of any Congo Pygmy women doing this.
quote:Originally posted by jantavanta: Ancient Egyptian religion is an evolution of African Spiritualities, of which Yoruba is at the core.
I am not sure if it is Yoruban necessarily, but it indeed has an African core that is widespread all over Africa. It even has been confirmed in cultural-anthropology.
Posts: 22235 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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quote:Originally posted by DD'eDeN: Seeing the top pictures reminded me of the Andaman Pygmies, the women there who give birth to a stillborn baby or whose infant died traditionally wore the skull and bones on a necklace. I have never heard of any Congo Pygmy women doing this.
I don't think anyone was talking about Congo.
Posts: 22235 | From: האם אינכם כילדי הכרית אלי בני ישראל | Registered: Nov 2010
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