The Hair smA

and the Healing of the lunar

Eye.

www.hairanddeathinancientegypt.wordpress.com
M Rosa Valdesogo Martn.

1) What do the Chapters in the Coffin Texts say to us?

We have seen how the reading of the Coffin Texts shows many different aspects
of hair related to renovating practices or regenerating symbols. The main symbol of
renovation, resurrection and regeneration in Egyptian religion is the Udjat eye. The eye
of Horus, injured during the
fight against Seth, was
identified with the moon,
and the process of the
increasing from crescent to
full moon was assimilated
with the combat between
both gods. The full moon
was the evidence of final
victory of Horus over
Osiriss murderer, which
finished with the
Eye of Horus. Detail from an image of Horus in the tomb of Roy in
Dra Abu el-Naga. XVIII Dynasty. Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo
resurrection of Osiris as
Martn.
king of the Hereafter.
Many chapters of the Coffin Texts mention the hair smA in an Osiris context of
healing. Lets have a look of each and deduce some ideas:

Chapter 133:

Those ones who are in their temples they blink and make the Great One.
The Great One belongs to me; the eye of the Great One belongs to me.
I have spitted1 over the hair smA of Sw2 for his healing.

Iw
1
2

psg.n.i

smA

%w

nDm.f

iw sDm.n.f is a narrative tense and it stress a very important fact of the story.
According to Barguet, it is the city of Seth in the Heracleopolitan nome.(P. Barguet, 1986, p. 256, n. 6)

Everything has been given to me, I feel triumphant, and I stand up triumphant. I
have created all my family, for whom I have spoken. I am Re, the suns father

Chapter 164:

I treat the great god because of his harm

Which one is the suffering of the great god?
It is his head, his shoulder and his leg. I came for spitting in his shoulder, for
refreshing the hair smA

skbb.i

smA

And for healing the two legs of the great god

Chapter 610:

This N. has spitted over the hair smA of Atum, he has refreshed Hdd3

iw

psg.n N pn

smA

pn n (I)tmw

qb.(n).f

!dd

Shu and Thoth, beloved, being together behind the great god, Shu and the hair
smAthis N, has spitted (over) the hair smA, this N has refreshed his vertebra. It is a
medicine inside the body of this N4

Chapter 667:
He has spitted (over) the hair smA

psg.f smA
He carries a leg and he gives breath to who does not have. This N has brought
his ba soul; his has taken his power and magic .

3
4

The attacked one, eye of Horus?

Healing properties of saliva.


Chapter 335:
I have recovered the eye after it was damaged the night of the combat
between the Two Fellows5. I have raised the hair from the Udjat eye
when he was furious

iw

Ts.n.i

Sny m

wDAt

tr.s

nSni

Who raises the hair from the Udjat eye? Who is the Udjat eye in his moment of
anger?
It is the right eye of Re and Thoth is the one who raises the hair from it

in grt

DHwty

Ts

Sn

pn

im.s

We find a common denominator: the hair, mainly smA, but in one case also Sny,
is linked somehow to the Udjat eye, it gets involved in fight and suffers damage; in the
mythic sphere this hair is treated and healed with a spit.

2) The Hair smA

and the damaged Eye of Horus.

We find already in the Old Kingdom the belief of

Thoth being the god who healed the injured eye of Horus
Thoth in
with sputum:
the
He has come with that one that splits the hair
ptolemaic
temple in
(smA), for his hair (smA), which is sick at the beginning of
Deir el6
7
each month and sick at the beginning of middle month .
Medina.
This passage belongs to a chapter of the Pyramid
Photo: M
Rosa
Texts which mentions two lunar festivities (Abd8 and
Valdesogo
9
smdt(?) ); they are Helioplitan celebrations with some
Martn.
rituals for the reconstruction of the lunar eye, to give it the
health back10. These festivities appear also in the Coffin
Texts when the deceased has to be transformed into Thoth:
this N. is the one who makes the rite ibd (the second day of the month) and
he is the one who controls the rite nt (fifteenth day of the month).The plait of hair of

Horus and Seth.

The word nqm, parallel to "sick", in reality designates a bad property of the hair(Wb II, 344, 3).
7
Pyr., 521.
8
Wb I, 65, 10.
9
Wb IV, 147, 1.
10
S. Rati, 1984, p. 179.
6

Horus is on the hand of this N. in the Thoths entourage11 (important to remember

that chapters 167 and 674 mention mourners hair smA joint with two lunar festivities:
snwt and dnit).
There is an equalisation between lunar eye and hair smA, which we will see
many times. After splitting at the hair smA, chapter 133 says how the deceased gets up
triumphant, it seems that after healing the eye, he can rebirth again. In chapter 164 again
the act of splitting at the hair smA is a healing action, here the god splits first over the
shoulder. According to P. Barguet the passage relates the healing of the Osiris injured
shoulder and hair smA, that is, the lunar eye12 ; the chapter mention mutilations that have
happened in the myth of Osiris and that have been solved after the battle.
In chapter 610 the healing is over the hair smA of Atum and also over Hdd. In
Egyptian mythology the moon, that is, the Udjat eye, is one of the eyes of Atum, the
other one was the sun. Hdd is a name coming from the verb hd, which means attack13.
It is a 2-lit. verb with second radical geminated in perfect passive participle. So, the
meaning of hdd could be attacked, the one who has been attacked. This way, Hdd
would be personifications of the attacked eye of Horus, hence the need of refreshing it
for its cure. But it is also interesting to notice how in chapter 667 the healing of the hair
smA is at the same level of offering a leg and giving breath, both gestures for giving life.
Finally, we find a very visual moment in all that process of healing the
damaged lunar eye. We have translated chapter 335 as the action of raising the hair from
the Udjat eye. P. Barguet considered that m was an equivalence preposition, so for him
the text was saying that the hair Sny was the same Udjat eye. But if we take preposition
m as from, the passage makes more sense. It would be describing the gesture of
moving the hair away from the lunar eye for healing it, and also from the face for
allowing seeing the light after the darkness.
The eye, as the vision organ, symbolizes the light and its disappearance or
mutilation is a synonym of darkness. The sacrifice
of the eye and its following recovery supposes a
regenerating act, in the same level of creation after
the chaos. Restitution of vision means access to
light after the darkness of the death.
We have already seen in chapter 533 how
the face of Hathor gets visible and clear after
separating the two lateral ringlets, opening them as
if they were curtains the deceased can see the full
moon. When moving the hair Sny away from the
Falcons have an excellent vision. In
face allows healing the eye and makes the Udjat eye
the image a Lanner Falcon. Photo:
visible, the healthy eye, that is, the full moon. On
www.ibc.lynxeds.com
the other hand, we know that hair Sny is similar to
hair smA, the same hair that did not allow to see the brightness and could be a symbol of
darkness and shadows14. The one who moves the hair away from the eye is Thoth
because, according to the legend, he is the lunar god who heals the lunar eye after the
fight against Seth.

11

iw dnt irt r Hr(y)-a n N pn m smswt DHwty CT IV, 277.

P. Barguet, 1986, p. 377, n. 10.
13
Wb II, 504, 15.
14
According H. Kees, Sni and sm3 have both the same relationship with the lunar legend (H. Kees, 1925,
p. 8).
12

The connection between the hair and the eye of Horus is clear, but if Thoth
splits over the hair smA for
healing the eye, this one cannot
be the Udjat eye (the healthy
one), but the damaged eye of
Horus, which in Egyptian was
nknkt15 or nkkt16 and who needs
a cure for becoming the Udjat
eye. Once again we find the hair
with a negative nuance; we have
seen previously that the hair smA
was a symbol of the chaos, the
Left: mourner in the tomb of Minakht covering her face
primeval waters, it was the Nun
with her hair in nwn gesture. Right: detail in the stele C15
that dominated the world before
where the two mourners are making the nwn gesture over
the final creation. H. Kees
the corpse.
considered that the hair smA in
the context that concern us could be the damage suffered by the lunar eye 17, which
makes the darkness of the night; in the same way that the hair smA over the faces of the
mourners covers their eyes and they cannot see. So, to split over the hair smA would
eliminate that damage, in the same way that to move the hair away from the face means
to see the light.
The hair smA would then symbolize the
disorder dominating during the fight
between Horus and Seth. This combat is
full of sense, since, as says J.E. Cirlot, the
fight is the primeval sacrifice 18; it is the
combat between two apposite forces, and it
contributes to stimulate the vital energy,
whose result is the victory of the order over
the chaos. This victory means the world
creation, and the winner goes out from it as
a hero with an extra power. In the funerary
context that meant the resurrection of the
deceased, the access to the light to his new
life.
Seth in a relief from a block in the Open Air
Museum of Karnak. Photo: M Rosa
Valdesogo Martn.

15

Wb II, 347, 6.
Wb II, 347, 9.
17
H. Kees, 1925, p. 8.
18
J. E. Cirlot, 1991, p. 282.
16