![Facsimile 2 copy with lacunae circa 1842](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Facsimile_2_copy_with_lacunae_circa_1842.jpg)
The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus (also known as the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq) was a
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
fragment, part of a larger collection of papyri known as the
Joseph Smith Papyri
The Joseph Smith Papyri (JSP) are Egyptian funerary papyrus fragments from ancient Thebes dated between 300 to 100 BC which, along with four mummies, were once owned by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Smith said that ...
, found in the Gurneh area of
Thebes, Egypt
, image = Decorated pillars of the temple at Karnac, Thebes, Egypt. Co Wellcome V0049316.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Pillars of the Great Hypostyle Hall, in '' The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia''
, map_type ...
, around the year 1818.
The owner's name,
Sheshonq
Shoshenq (also commonly spelled Sheshonq, Sheshonk, Shoshenk) was the name of many Ancient Egyptians with Libu ancestry since the Third Intermediate Period.
People named Shoshenq
Several pharaohs with this name are known, as well as many import ...
, is found in the hieroglyphic text on said
hypocephalus
A hypocephalus is a small disk-shaped object generally made of stuccoed linen,British Museum Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities, ''A General Introductory Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum'', Published by Trustees of the British ...
. Three hypocephali in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
(37909, 8445c, and 8445f) are similar to the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus both in layout and text and were also found in Thebes.
A woodcut image of the hypocephalus was initially published on March 15, 1842, in Volume III, No. 10 of the
Latter Day Saint
The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by J ...
newspaper ''
Times and Seasons
''Times and Seasons'' was a 19th-century Latter Day Saint newspaper published at Nauvoo, Illinois. It was printed monthly or twice-monthly from November 1839 to February 1846. The motto of the paper was "Truth will prevail," which was printed u ...
'', two years before the death of Joseph Smith, who was the editor of the Times and Seasons. This image is included as one of several appendices to the
Book of Abraham
The Book of Abraham is a collection of writings claimed to be from several Egyptian scrolls discovered in the early 19th century during an archeological expedition by Antonio Lebolo. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pu ...
, where it is called Facsimile No. 2. The Book of Abraham has been considered
scripture
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...
by members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...
(LDS Church) since 1880. The location of the original document is unknown.
Hypocephali
Hypocephali are small disk-shaped objects, generally made of
stuccoed
linen,
[British Museum Dept. of Egyptian Antiquities, ''A General Introductory Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum'', Published by Trustees of the British Museum, 1971, p.146] but also of
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
,
[William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Edward Russell Ayrton, Charles Trick Currelly, Arthur Edward Pearse Brome Weigall, ''Abydos'', 1902, p.50] bronze,
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
,
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...
, or
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
, which
ancient Egyptians from the
Late Period onwards placed under the heads of their dead.
They were believed to protect the deceased, causing the head and body to be enveloped in light and warmth, thereby making the deceased divine. Hypocephali symbolized the Eye of Ra (later the Eye of Horus), which represented the sun, and the scenes portrayed on them relate to Egyptian ideas of resurrection and life after death, connecting them with the
Osirian resurrection myth.
To the ancient Egyptians, the daily setting and rising of the sun was a symbol of death and rebirth. The hypocephalus represented all that the sun encircles — the world of the living, over which it passed during the day, was depicted in the upper half, and that of the dead, which it crossed during the night, in the lower portion.
They were part of the burial materials created by Egyptians from the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty
The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXVI, alternatively 26th Dynasty or Dynasty 26) dynasty was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC (although others followed). The dynasty's reign (664–525 ...
onward and are considered
anachronistic
An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...
to the time period that Abraham would have lived.
Chapter 162 of the
Book of the Dead version of that period contain directions for the making and use of hypocephali.
[Harris, M. L., Bringhurst, N. G., & Mauss, A. L. (2020). The LDS gospel topics series: A scholarly engagement. Salt Lake City: Signature Books. e-book location 6445 of 8366]
LDS Scholar
Royal Skousen
Royal Jon Skousen (; born August 5, 1945) is a retired professor of linguistics and English at Brigham Young University (BYU), where he is editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. He is "the leading expert on the textual history of th ...
has argued that Smith made a mistake when he connected the facsimiles to the revealed text. For Skousen, sentences referencing the facsimiles were interlinear or margin notes that were not part of the actual revealed text. As such, he believes the facsimiles themselves are not part of the Book of Abraham and are extracanonical.
Within the large circle of hypocephali are compartments containing
hieroglyphic text and figures which are extracts from Chapter CLXII of the Egyptian
Book of the Dead. P. J. de Horrack stated that the scenes portrayed in hypocephali relate in all their details to the resurrection and the renewed birth after death...symbolized by the course of the Sun, the living image of divine generation. The circle is divided to represent two
celestial hemispheres and the cycle of renewal.
Lacunae and reconstructions
As stated by LDS Egyptologist
Michael D. Rhodes:
Interpretation of images (Figures No. 1-7, 22-23)
There is still some ambiguity regarding how these Egyptian names and text may have been pronounced.
The numbers labeling the figures were added to correspond to explanations of the images and text given by
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was 24, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death, 14 years later, ...
.
Figure No. 1
Figure 1 has been described as the god
Re-
Atum
Atum (, Egyptian: ''jtm(w)'' or ''tm(w)'', ''reconstructed'' ; Coptic ''Atoum''), sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology.
Name
Atum's name is thought to be derived from the verb ''tm'' which means 'to c ...
, typically depicted with four heads. The original copy is missing the head portion of this figure, and it is possible Smith copied the heads and shoulders of Figure 2.
[Ritner, Robert Kriech. The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: a Complete Edition ; P. JS 1-4 and the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq. The Smith Pettit Foundation, 2013. page 268]
Left of center is the
''was'' scepter, or DJAM scepter.
Joseph Smith explained figure 1 as;
Figures No. 22 and 23
Figures 22 and 23 are apes with lunar disks appearing above their heads.
Joseph Smith explained figures 22 and 23 as: "the medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers (figures) 22 and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of
Kolob."
Figure No. 2
On this shoulders are jackal heads. In his left hand is the staff of
Wepwawet
In late Egyptian mythology, Wepwawet ( hieroglyphic ''wp-w3w.t''; also rendered Upuaut, Wep-wawet, Wepawet, and Ophois) was originally a war deity, whose cult centre was Asyut in Upper Egypt (Lycopolis in the Greco-Roman period). His name means ...
. The figure to the right was not present in the damaged original.
Joseph Smith stated that this figure;
Michael D. Rhodes identified the hieroglyphs to below as: "The name of this Mighty God."
Figure No. 3
Figure 3 is located in the missing section of the hypocephalus. Prior to printing, the section was filled in. The text on the rim surrounding the figure has been replaced by text from the unrelated
Breathing Permit of Hôr
The Breathing Permit of Hôr or Hor Book of Breathing is a Ptolemaic era funerary text written for a Theban priest named Hôr. The breathing permit or Book of Breathing assisted its owner in navigating through the afterlife, being judged worth ...
.
[Nibley, Hugh, et al. One Eternal Round. Deseret Book, 2010. pg. 269] Similarly, figure 3 is also foreign to the hypocephalus. As
Hugh Nibley
Hugh Winder Nibley (March 27, 1910 – February 24, 2005) was an American scholar and an apologist of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who was a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) for nearly 50 years. He was a ...
noted, "The boat in the picture is identical with another piece of Joseph Smith Papyrus, namely
JSP IV, which accompanies chapter 101 of the Book of the Dead."
Despite the striking resemblance, Nibley and some other apologists feel that the boat is inspired, because boats sometimes do appear in that section on hypocephali. Egyptologists dispute this, arguing that just like the surrounding text, the inclusion by Joseph Smith (or his engravers) is irrelevant.
[
]A
solar barque
Solar barques were the vessels used by the sun god Ra in ancient Egyptian mythology. During the day, Ra was said to use a vessel called the Mandjet ( egy, mꜥnḏt) or the Boat of Millions of Years ( egy, wjꜣ-n-ḥḥw), and the vessel he ...
carrying the seated falcon headed god
Re,
holding a
''was'' scepter. The solar disk is over Re's head. A divine
Eye of Horus (
) is on both sides of Re and the solar barque.
Also on the barque is an offering stand. The two characters farthest to the left may be an attempt to engrave dp.t ntr, which would translate as "Divine Ship":
R8-P1
Joseph Smith's interpretation:
Figure No. 4
A falcon, representing Sokar sitting on a mummy case, with outstretched wings, sitting upon a papyrus boat. The Coffin Texts state; "He takes the ship of 1000 cubits from end to end and he sails it to the stairway of fire."
Joseph Smith's interpretation:
Figure No. 5
A cow, representing Hathor
Hathor ( egy, ḥwt-ḥr, lit=House of Horus, grc, Ἁθώρ , cop, ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ, Meroitic: ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sk ...
, the heavenly cow. Behind is a standing female figure with the Eye of Horus depicted on her head and holding out a water lily in her left hand.
Joseph Smith's interpretation:
Figure No. 6
Four standing figures, representing the four sons of Horus. They are the patron gods of the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines, and were the gods of the four quarters of the earth.
Joseph Smith's interpretation: "Represents this earth in its four quarters."
Figure No. 7
This figure has been identified with Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Am ...
or the god Amon.[ To the left is a figure with a bird's head, presenting the ]Eye of Ra
The Eye of Ra or Eye of Re is a being in ancient Egyptian mythology that functions as a feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and a violent force that subdues his enemies. The eye is an extension of Ra's power, equated with the disk of the sun ...
, identified as Nehebka or Nehebkau,[ a provider of life and nourishment.]
Joseph Smith's interpretation:
Text to the left (Figures No. 8-11)
Theodule Deveria gave the following translation: "O great God in Sekhem; O great God, Lord of heaven, earth and hell. ... Osiris S'es'enq."
Michael D. Rhodes gives the following translation: "O God of the Sleeping Ones from the time of the creation. O Mighty God, Lord of heaven and earth, of the hereafter, and of his great waters, may the soul of the Osiris Shishaq be granted life."
Robert K. Ritner gives the following translation: "O noble god from the beginning of time, great god, lord of heaven, earth, underworld, waters nd mountains,/nowiki> cause the ''ba''-spirit of the Osiris Sheshonq to live." (brackets and italics in original)[http://user.xmission.com/~research/mormonpdf/hypocephalus3.pdf ]
Joseph Smith said of figure 8 in particular, "Contains writings that cannot be revealed unto the world; but is to be had in the Holy Temple of God."
Text to the right (Figures No. 12-15)
The right portion of these characters are hieratic and appear to have been copied from Joseph Smith Papyrus XI.
Included is sn-sn:
N35:O34-N35:O34
Val Sederholm has identified that the surviving traces of the original content parallel other hypocephali, and suggested the reading ''j nTr pfy 'A, 'nx m TAw, jw m mw: 'q r' jw rsDm md.t=f. j nWsjr'', explaining that "the officiator, calling upon that special, particular, transcendent god, who lives by breathing, who negotiates the waters, pleads from the depths: May Re descend to hear Osiris' words! Come to Shoshenq, who is dead!"
Text at the bottom (Figures No. 16-17)
Michael D. Rhodes gives the following translation: "May this tomb never be desecrated, and may this soul and its lord never be desecrated in the hereafter."
Robert K. Ritner gives the following translation: "Back, injury, back! There is none who attacks you. This ''ba''-spirit and his lord will not be attacked in the underworld forever."
Text around the rim (Figure No. 18)
One third of the rim contains characters taken from another papyrus.
Michael D. Rhodes provided a possible reading of the text in its original state:
Ritner translated it as:
Text to upper left (Figures No. 19-21, numbered 19,21-22 in Times and Seasons)
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...
gives the following translation: "You shall ever be as that God, the Busirian."
See also
* Archaeology and the Book of Mormon
* Book of Abraham Egyptian mummies
* Critical appraisal of the Book of Abraham
The Book of Abraham is a work produced between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a ...
* Joseph Smith Papyri
The Joseph Smith Papyri (JSP) are Egyptian funerary papyrus fragments from ancient Thebes dated between 300 to 100 BC which, along with four mummies, were once owned by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Smith said that ...
* Kirtland Egyptian papers
The Kirtland Egyptian papers (KEP) are a collection of documents related to the Book of Abraham created in Kirtland between July and November 1835, and Nauvoo between March through May 1842. Because some documents were created in Nauvoo, the col ...
* Kolob
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
1842 documents
Book of Abraham
Book of the Dead
Egyptian papyri containing images
Pearl of Great Price (Mormonism)
Works originally published in Times and Seasons