Priest wearing leopard skin, New Kingdom, 19th–20th Dynasty, c. 1200BC. Tomb of Nakhtamon (TT335), Deir el-Medina...
The earliest depiction of a priest wearing leopard skin can be found on the Narmer Palette, dated to c. 3100BC...
Leopard skins were worn by Sem-priests during the "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony, a crucial ritual that enabled the deceased to live, eat, and breathe in the afterlife...
A mural depicts King Ay (right) wearing a leopard skin, performing the "Opening of the Mouth" ceremony on Tutankhamun (left) depicted as Osiris. Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62), Valley of the Kings, West Thebes...
This makes me wonder what is exactly depicted on the Narmer Palette. But that is another story, for another time...
In ancient Egyptian religion, leopard skin was linked to rebirth, transformation, and the afterlife. The skin was believed to act as a magical guardian, protecting the body against the fragmentation of death, allowing the deceased to be reborn...
Pyramid texts describe the king wrapping himself in a leopard skin to travel with the sun god Ra, emerging rejuvenated and "reborn" at dawn...
"...[King] will live with his ka, his leopard-skin on him, his staff in his arm, his baton in his hand..."
Now here is an interesting question: Why was leopard linked with rebirth? Leopards never lived in Egypt and leopard skins were imported into Egypt from down south, Nubia and Sudan...
So why leopard? I am boring myself at this stage repeating the same thing over and over and over again...But I think it is because of animal calendar markers. Check this out:
In Ancient Egypt, rebirth was directly linked with water and terrestrial and celestial Nile. I talked about it in my post Nut...
Ra-Horakhty (Ra as Horus) in his Solar Barque, traversing the horizon on a Heavenly Nile, during the day (the time when we can see the world) from east, dawn (left eye) to west, dusk (right eye)...
Ankh, symbol for life and eternal life was also directly linked with water.
Ankh symbolises union of father sky and mother earth...
Ankh was known as the Knot of Isis...
Ankh was also called the Key of Life...
Ankh was also known as the Key of the Nile...
Ankh Symbolises union of father sky and mother earth...
In Sumerian: Father sky (An) + Mother earth (Ki) = Life (AnKi) = Ankh?
I talked about this in my posts Riddle, Square and compasses, An-Ki Ankh, Living nature
Ankh was known as "the Knot of Isis"...
Interesting...This knot? Like Inanna's knont? A relief from the ancient Egyptian Temple of Hatshepsut. It shows a platter with food arranged to look like a duck by making an ankh knot using lotus, the symbol of the Nile flood without which there will be no food in Egypt...
Sycamore tree goddess, Hathor, Isis, Nut, all goddess of flood, pouring water which is depicted with ankh (life) symbols inside it...Tomb, Siwa Oasis, 400-600 BC. Egypt...
I talked about this in my post Sycamore tree goddess...
Ankh was also known as the Key of the Nile...
It is the Nile river flood that makes life in Egypt possible. Hence the sacred knot = Ankh = Nile flood = Life
Ankh = Life = Water...
I talked about this in my post "Crux Ansata"...
Ok, what does any of this have to do with leopards?
The mating season of African leopards in Nubia and Sudan peaks in Apr/May, at the beginning of the rainy season in Nubia and Sudan...
And the birthing season peaks in Jul/Aug, the peak of the rain season in Nubia and Sudan...
Climate Nubia/Sudan
African leopards are typically silent, solitary, and elusive, but become exceptionally loud, vocal, and aggressive during mating season. Not something you would miss easily...
So, I could bet that, leopard soon became the animal calendar marker for the rain season in Nubia and Sudan. And it is this rain that revives the dead parched land and causes its rebirth...
I already talked about plant calendar markers linked to the rain season in Nubia in my post Meroitic language, where I analysied very interesting offering tables (altars) from the Ptolemaic Period, 306–30 BC. Like this one frome Northern Upper Egypt, Dendera, currently in the Met Museum, New York...
I also talked about animal calendar markers linked to the rain season in Sudan in my post Sacred Ibis, in which I analysed this fresco from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, built at the beginning of the 1st c. BC. Currently in the Archaeological Museum in Naples...And the reason why ibis was a sacred bird in Ancient Egypt...
Now I can hear you all ask: What does this have to do with Egypt?
Guess when the rain season started in Green Sahara? You can read more about this here...
You can see that the rain season started in May/Jun and peaked in Jul/Aug/Sep...
Today, the similar rain pattern is still found in Nubia and Sudan, and more importantly in the Ethiopian highlands. It is the monsoon rain that falls in the Ethiopian highlands that feeds the river Nile...
Causing the water level to rise in May/Jun and causing the annual flood in Jul/Aug/Sep...
Annual flood which causes the (annual) rebirth of Egypt...I talked about this in my post Min, the Egyptian god of fertility and his link to the source of the river Nile...
Pleased to meet you. Actually very very pleased to meet you, as you can clearly see. The name is Min. I am Ancient Egyptian god of fertility, but you have probably already guessed that from my main "attribute"...
Is this why leopards were linked to resurrection? Because their breeding season overlapped with the old Green Sahara wet monsoon season?
BTW, the reason why I suspected that leopard from the Egyptian mythology could have originally been linked to rain (water, flowing water), is because leopard has been linked to rain (water, flowing water) in Eurasia too...
Article, The oldest narative scene with symbolic analysis of this 11,000 years old relief from Anatolian Neolithic, where leopard was used as an animal calendar marker for the cool wet season...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...
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