Morning Star (Egyptian)

MORN-ing star

egyptian: sbꜣ-dwꜣw

Definition

The morning star, in Egyptian sky-religion, is the brilliant planet Venus seen low in the east before sunrise. Egyptians did not at first call it "Venus": one important name for the planet was Bennu, "the phoenix bird" (also "the heron bird"), linked to the god Osiris. The designation "the morning god" (a planet-name for Venus) came in only later, in the Late Period — distinct from the older Pyramid-Texts term sbꜣ-dwꜣw, "morning star," whose exact identity is debated.

In Tradition

Egyptologists treat the morning star as a long-running thread whose planet-identity is debated. A "morning star" (sbꜣ-dwꜣw) appears already in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts, sometimes tied to the divine falcon, "the Horus of the Duat" (the underworld) — earlier than, and separate from, the Late-Period planet-name "the morning god." Many scholars connect this older term to Venus, but some caution that it might just mean whichever star is brightest at a given dawn.

In Practice

Two questions tend to arise with the morning star. The first is which planet it names. Venus is the obvious candidate — by far the brightest of the planets, and a dramatic pre-dawn object — and several scholars read the Pyramid Texts' "morning star" that way, while others hold back, since the phrase can float. The second is how the Egyptians handled Venus's two appearances: it shows both as a morning star and as an evening star, and the older Bennu and "crosser" names, alongside the late "morning god," suggest the Egyptians were tracking those apparitions. In the sky-images Venus is shown as a heron — the Bennu bird — surmounted by a star, or later as a two-faced figure, perhaps marking its morning-and-evening double life. Keep this planetary morning star distinct from the Bennu phoenix in its purely funerary, rebirth-symbol role, even though the two share the same bird-name; here the focus is the planet in the dawn sky.

Historical Origin

A "morning star" (sbꜣ-dwꜣw) appears in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts; the Bennu / heron names for Venus are attested on New Kingdom ceilings (Senenmut TT 353; Seti I KV 17); the planet-name "the morning god" ((pꜣ)-nṯr-dwꜣw) is a later, Late-Period designation. Belmonte and Lull, Astronomy of Ancient Egypt (2018), survey the Venus identifications (after Krauss 1997, Faulkner 1966); Quack discusses the names in Brown (ed.), The Interactions of Ancient Astral Science (2018).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading