The term "jmjwt" had two related meanings in ancient Egypt: 1) It was an epithet of the god Anubis related to his role as patron of mummification. 2) It referred to a particular sacred emblem of Anubis, consisting of an upright pole set in a pot with an animal skin attached. Representations of Anubis and the jmjwt emblem occur continuously from before the dynastic period through the Roman period. The emblem symbolized healing and rebirth and was closely associated with Anubis in funerary rituals and the afterlife.
The term "jmjwt" had two related meanings in ancient Egypt: 1) It was an epithet of the god Anubis related to his role as patron of mummification. 2) It referred to a particular sacred emblem of Anubis, consisting of an upright pole set in a pot with an animal skin attached. Representations of Anubis and the jmjwt emblem occur continuously from before the dynastic period through the Roman period. The emblem symbolized healing and rebirth and was closely associated with Anubis in funerary rituals and the afterlife.
The term "jmjwt" had two related meanings in ancient Egypt: 1) It was an epithet of the god Anubis related to his role as patron of mummification. 2) It referred to a particular sacred emblem of Anubis, consisting of an upright pole set in a pot with an animal skin attached. Representations of Anubis and the jmjwt emblem occur continuously from before the dynastic period through the Roman period. The emblem symbolized healing and rebirth and was closely associated with Anubis in funerary rituals and the afterlife.
The term "jmjwt" had two related meanings in ancient Egypt: 1) It was an epithet of the god Anubis related to his role as patron of mummification. 2) It referred to a particular sacred emblem of Anubis, consisting of an upright pole set in a pot with an animal skin attached. Representations of Anubis and the jmjwt emblem occur continuously from before the dynastic period through the Roman period. The emblem symbolized healing and rebirth and was closely associated with Anubis in funerary rituals and the afterlife.
eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library
University of California Jmjwt إميوت Terence DuQuesne
EDITORS
WILLEKE WENDRICH Editor-in-Chief Area Editor Material Culture University of California, Los Angeles
JACCO DIELEMAN Editor University of California, Los Angeles
ELIZABETH FROOD Editor University of Oxford
JOHN BAINES Senior Editorial Consultant University of Oxford
Short Citation: DuQuesne, 2012, Jmjwt. UEE.
Full Citation: DuQuesne, Terence, 2012, Jmjwt. In Willeke Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz002bp8x1
The Egyptian term jmjwt (imiut) had two meanings: it was both an epithet of the god Anubis, relating to his role as patron of mummification, and a designation of the deity’s particular sacred object, which took the form of a pole set into a pot, with the hide of an animal attached to the pole.
فھو صفة معروفة لإلله أنوبيس متعلقة:التعبير المصري القديم إمييوت كان له معنيان الشعار المق ّدس الذي مثّل اإلله و الذي ِ المعنى الثاني ھو إشارة إلى.بدوره كراعي التحنيط .أخذ شكل عود موضوع داخل آنية و مربوط به جلد حيوان mj-wt as an Epithet of Anubis Anubis and images of it occur virtually J One of the most frequently continuously from the Predynastic until the Roman Periods. Although many variants of its encountered epithets of the god form are found, the fundamental elements are Anubis is jmj-wt, which occurs from the Old an upright pole, a pot or vase, and an animal’s Kingdom until the Roman Period (Leitz 2002: pelt. The pot serves as a base for the pole, to 232 - 234). It is first found in the 4th Dynasty, which the animal skin is attached in two after which it becomes increasingly common places (fig. 1). It makes its earliest appearance (DuQuesne 2005: 157 - 160). Most scholars on a vessel of the Naqada II Period (Logan have translated the expression as “He who is 1990) and occurs on a number of in the place of embalmment” or “He who is Protodynastic labels from Abydos. in the mummy-wrappings.” The term wt does Representations of the jmjwt on four blocks indeed refer to the bindings used for the body from the temple of Niuserra (Dynasty 5) show after mummification, and it would be that the emblem may have been planted in the appropriate to describe Anubis, who presided ground and/or carried at the Sed Festival over the preservation of the body, as one who (DuQuesne 2005: 102 - 109). In the Pyramid was in the wrappings himself: hence the Texts (§2080), the rungs of the ladder on frequent use of pectorals and other amulets which the king ascends to the sky are bearing representations of the jackal god. On composed of “leather of imiut,” the name the other hand, wt may have been a toponym being written with a schematic figure of the (Gauthier, H. 1925: 202, 208ff.): perhaps it jmjwt emblem followed by the falcon-on- was originally read as wHAt, “oasis,” as first standard signifier. The object is there stated to suggested by Jéquier (Gauthier, J.É. and have been born from the cow-goddess Hezat. Jéquier 1902: 52 n. 1). Indeed representations of the jmjwt on which the color survives indicate that the pelt often, The jmjwt Emblem if not always, belonged to a cow or an ox. An Iconography. Like the divine epithet jmj-wt, the actual example of the jmjwt has survived from jmjwt emblem is closely associated with the Middle Kingdom. This was discovered in the pyramid temple of Senusret I at Lisht
Jmjwt, DuQuesne, UEE 2012 1
now be identified (Lythgoe 1915a; 1915b: 151 and fig. 8). In the tomb of Tutankhamen (Dynasty 18) two replicas of the emblem were found: they are made of wood and gilded, and stand 1.67 m tall (PM I,2: 586). Throughout the New Kingdom and later, the jmjwt is an essential component in the funerary iconography, appearing particularly in the judgment scenes in the Book of the Dead, in close proximity to Osiris (Seeber 1976: 35, 50, 127, 182, 191). Interpretation. The Jumilhac Papyrus, which is probably of late Ptolemaic date, contains numerous, often etiological, myths about the XVIIth nome of Upper Egypt, and particularly about its local deity Anubis. One of these stories records how Hezat, named as the mother of Anubis, separated the god Anti’s bones from his soft organs, placed the assemblage in an jmjwt, and squirted her milk over it, with the result that Anti was restored to life (Vandier 1961: XII 22 - XIII 14, pls. 12 - 13). Although this version is of late date, the myth that it records is, as we have seen, Figure 1. An imiut from the 12th Dynasty, Lisht. already discernible in the Pyramid Texts, where an jmjwt is stated to have been born of (Dynasty 12). It is 62 cm high and contains Hezat. The emblem is a powerful symbol of remnants of the pelt of an animal that cannot healing and rebirth (DuQuesne 2000).
Bibliographic Notes Fundamental for study of the jmjwt is the monograph by Rössler-Köhler (1975), which provides a thorough taxonomy and documentation of images of this object. The same author has provided a brief overview of the jmjwt (Rössler-Köhler 1980). Logan (1990) has studied the earliest forms of the jmjwt. The author has published an analysis of the object’s iconography up to the 10th Dynasty (DuQuesne 2005: 102 - 109, 157 - 160) and also an account of its symbolism (2000).
References DuQuesne, Terence 2000 Milk of the jackal: Some reflections on Hezat, Anubis and the imywt. Cahiers Caribéens d'Égyptologie 1, pp. 53 - 60. 2005 The jackal divinities of Egypt I: The Archaic Period to Dynasty X. London: Prebendal Publications. Gauthier, Henri 1925 Dictionnaire des noms géographiques contenus dans les textes hiéroglyphiques. Vol. 1. Cairo: Institut français d'archéologie orientale pour la Société royale de géographie d'Égypte.
Jmjwt, DuQuesne, UEE 2012 2
Gauthier, Joseph Étienne, and Gustave Jéquier 1902 Mémoires sur les fouilles de Licht. Mémoires publiés par les membres de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire 6. Cairo: Institut français d'archéologie orientale. Leitz, Christian (ed.) 2002 Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen. Vol. 1. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 110. Dudley, MA, and Leuven: Peeters. Logan, Thomas 1990 The origins of the Jmy-wt fetish. Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 27, pp. 61 - 69. Lythgoe, Albert Morton 1915a The Egyptian Expedition II: Excavations at the south pyramid of Lisht in 1914. Supplement to the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 1915, pp. 1 - 22. 1915b Excavations at the south pyramid of Lisht in 1914: Report from the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Ancient Egypt 4, pp. 145 - 153. Porter, Bertha, and Rosalind Moss 1989 Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs, and paintings (PM), Vol. I: The Theban necropolis: Part 2: Royal tombs and smaller cemeteries. 2nd edition. Oxford: Griffith Institute. Rössler-Köhler, Ursula 1975 Das Imiut: Untersuchungen zur Darstellung und Bedeutung eines mit Anubis verbundenen religiösen Symbols. 2 volumes. Göttinger Orientforschungen 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. 1980 Imiut. In Lexikon der Ägyptologie, Vol. 3 (columns 149 - 150), ed. Wolfgang Helck, and Wolfhart Westendorf. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Seeber, Christine 1976 Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Totengerichts im Alten Ägypten. Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 35. Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag. Vandier, Jacques 1961 Le papyrus Jumilhac. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.
Image Credits Figure 1. An imiut from the 12th Dynasty, Lisht. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 14.3.19, Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift. http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the- collections/100002037.
LeBlanc. "In Accordance With The Documents of Ancient Times" The Origins, Development, and Significance of The Ancient Egyptian Sed Festival (Jubilee Festival) PDF
F. Tiradritti, "I Have Not Diverted My Inundation". Legitimacy and The Book of The Dead Ina Stela of Ramesses IV From Abydos, VO Quaderno I, 1997, Pp. 193-203
LeBlanc. "In Accordance With The Documents of Ancient Times" The Origins, Development, and Significance of The Ancient Egyptian Sed Festival (Jubilee Festival) PDF
F. Tiradritti, "I Have Not Diverted My Inundation". Legitimacy and The Book of The Dead Ina Stela of Ramesses IV From Abydos, VO Quaderno I, 1997, Pp. 193-203
