A Powerful Smell, Supernatural Virtues : The Religious Symbolism of the hdn-plant

De Maré, Charly (2022) A Powerful Smell, Supernatural Virtues : The Religious Symbolism of the hdn-plant. In: Aegyptus et Pannonia VII. Magyar-Egyiptomi Baráti Társaság, Ókori Egyiptomi Bizottság, Budapest, pp. 77-110. ISBN 9786156571014

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the term hdn attested in ancient Egyptian textual sources of various kinds, ranging from Pyramid Texts through magico-medical papyri to inscriptions related to temple rituals, and spanning three thousand years from the Old Kingdom to the Ptolemaic Period. Despite its regular occurrences, hdn has so far escaped all scholarly efforts to disclose its proper taxonomical identification and to fully explore both the wide semantic scope this term appears to have covered and the rich theological background that surrounds it. A revision and considerable expansion of the available textual sources is provided with notes on the pictorial attestations. This paper aims at studying the physico-chemical properties of the plant that might have formed a basis for its rich religious connotations and for the attribution of supernatural virtues. A combined approach is used, embracing conventional philological and lexicographical methods, a survey of the botanical properties of plant species considered as likely candidates for hdn, and an in-depth analysis on a theological and mythological plane. When it comes to the plant’s occurrences, the plant is distinguished, as early as the Pyramid Texts, by its strong odour, which led to its eponymous goddess Hedenut, and purifies the deceased king in front of the primaeval gods. In the Coffin Texts, it is part of the mythical family of cosmogonic plants involved in the birth of Ra. Associated with Sia in the Litany of Re, it is reputed to provide knowledge. This extraordinary plant is also deeply linked to Thoth, through its role as scribe and ritualist. Used in the exit rites of several funerary and cultic rituals, it is notably well known as forming the broom of the jnt-rd ceremony in the daily ritual. Indeed, since its offensive smell frightened away pests, its stems were rubbed on the sacred ground to ward off evil forces According to recent publications, it also gives its name to processional festivals celebrated in honour of Hathor at Karnak (New Kingdom) and Lahun (Middle Kingdom) and participates in the ritual pacification of the Dangerous Goddess. Regarding the botanical identification, the former hypothesis of Ceruana pratensis Forsk. is discussed and discarded. The physico-chemical properties that make the plant repellent are determinant. The idea of a “fairy tale herb” is swept away, since it is an unsatisfactory short-cut solution. It has been shown that the determinative of the term in the Pyramid of Pepi I strongly argues for a classification among the umbellifers. The research presented tends to confirm Jean-Claude Goyon’s botanical identification proposal of hdn as the umbellifer called “lanceleaf thorow-wax” (Bupleurum lancifolium Hornem.). Indeed, it meets the most important taxonomical criteria and is very much in line with available data about material attributes and uses of the plant. In its various forms, the plant embodies three main symbolic aspects linked with deities: cosmogonic (Ra, primaeval gods), knowledge-linked (Thot as scribe, Sia), and odorously apotropaic (Hedenut, Thot as ritualist; sometimes associated/equated with the Eye-of-Horus; this latter aspect including pacifying Hathor-Sekhmet).

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