Tamil Nadu graffiti Double mountain symbol

/in /by

Double mountain indicates ‘Aker.’

Abstract

The double mountain symbol origin seems to be from Egyptian Hieroglyphics. This double mountain indicated the mountains through which the Nile river flowed. Egyptians thought the ‘netherworld’ lay beyond these two mountains, and the two lions were considered the protectors of that realm. It looks like Indus people also believed in a similar idea. It is likely; the Egyptian immigrant priests could have brought this idea to the Indus Valley civilization. Already, I have explained in a separate article that the Indus valley civilization was an amalgam of Egyptian and Vedic civilization ideas.

Aker was first described as one of the earth gods guarding the “gate to the yonder site”. He protected the deceased king against the three demonic snakes. (1)

Picture courtesy -Wikipedia (1)

Aker was first depicted as the torso of a recumbent lion with a widely opened mouth. Later, he was portrayed as two recumbent lion torsos merged and still looking away from each other. (2)

From the Middle Kingdom onwards, Aker appears as a pair of twin lions. When depicted as a lion pair, a hieroglyphic sign for “horizon” (two merged mountains) and a sun disc was put between the lions; the lions were sitting back-on-back. (3)

Mythology

Aker was first described as one of the earth gods guarding the “gate to the yonder site”. He protected the deceased king against the three demonic snakes. By “encircling” the dead king, Aker sealed the deceased away from the poisonous breath of the snake demons. In other spells and prayers, Aker is connected with Seth and even determined with the Set animal. (2) (4)

The above-given hieroglyphics indicate the name of ‘Aker’. Note that the name is determined by the last figure(dog-like figure) in the title, which is called the ‘Seth Animal’. This hieroglyph gives a connection to god ‘Seth’ and ‘Aker’. This dog-like figure could be indicating god ‘Anubis’ also. It is not clear which god is meant by this ‘double mountain’ symbol.

In the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom period, Aker replaces the god Kherty, becoming now the “ferryman of Ra in his nocturnal bark”. Aker protects the sun god during his nocturnal travelling through the underworld caverns.[1]

It looks like that the Indus Valley people also worshipped this god, ‘Aker’. This god, ‘Aker’ was a protector of the netherworld realm. I have already said, the Hieroglyphic way of writing had influenced Indus script. Read my article,’ Indus symbols follow the Egyptian hieroglyphics way of writing and ideas‘ for more information. (6)

Statistical analysis of ‘Aker symbol’:

The following data is extracted from the research paper of Sundar et al. (7)

symbol

meaning

frequency

Double mountain (Aker)

25

Double mountain (Aker)

(Variant)

21

Aker -Kavu

21

The double mountain symbol occurs 46 times in the Indus seal inscriptions; this frequency is quite significant. The symbol pair reads as ‘Aker- Kavu’. It is not clear whether the symbol is indicating a god or a place. There is a possibility this Aker symbol could have indicated the netherworld.

The conclusion is that it gives a feeling that Aker was not merely a god but a kind of representation of the underworld itself. Like the triple mountain indicating ‘Kur’, the double mountain symbol could have indicated the underworld.

Acknowledgements

1. All logos are taken from the research papers of Iravatham Mahadevan, Asko Parpola (4) and Sundar

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia(Aker). Aker_(deity). Wikipedia.org/wiki. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aker_(deity).

2. Leitz., Christian. Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen (LGG) (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 6). . Leuven, Belgium. : Peters publishers., 2002. ISBN 9042911514..

3. Remler., Pat. Egyptian Mythology, A to Z. s.l. : Infobase Publishing., 2010. ISBN 1438131801..

4. Meurer., Georg. Die Feinde des Königs in den Pyramidentexten (= Orbis biblicus et orientalis, vol. 189). . s.l. : Saint Paul, 2002. ISBN 3525530463..

5. Jeyakumar(Hieroglyphic-wayof-writing). Indus-script-follows-the-egyptian-hieroglyphic-way-of-writing. https://sites.google.com. [Online] January 2010. https://sites.google.com/view/indus-script-dictionary/indus-script-follows-the-egyptian-hieroglyphic-way-of-writing.

6. Sundar. -The-Indus-Script-Text-and-Context.pdf. http://45.113.136.87/wp-content/uploads/. [Online] http://45.113.136.87/wp-content/uploads/43-The-Indus-Script-Text-and-Context.pdf.

7. Parpola, Asko. Deciphering the Indus Script. New Delhi : Cambridge University Press, 2000.