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November 2, 1958
mailed Nov. 3

Dear Dr. Federn:

     I have received the rest (pp. 11-20) of your notes to my Oedipus. Thanks! In the meantime I went over the first part, and there are a few things that I would like to remark.

     In an article “Thebes” in Enc. Brit., 14th ed., by F. Ll. Griffith it is said: “Its Egyptian name was Wesi (or Wis?), later Ne: ‘the city’ (sometimes Ne-Amun, hence No-Amon in Nahum iii,8). Amon, Amen Ra, or Amerasonther (‘Ammon-Ra king of the gods’) was its deity, with his consort Mut and their child Khons. Mont also was a local deity and Hathor presided over the western cliffs of Thebes. In very ancient times the city lay on the east bank, the necropolis on the west. The chief nucleus of the ancient Wesi was a town abou the temple of Karnak: it probably reaches back to the prehistoric period... The temple of Karnak is no doubt of immemorial antiquity.”

     Here you find reference to Thebes’ antiquity (though somewhere else I read that Thebes was founded by the Hyksos); to Ammon being the same as Amen or Amon; and to Hathor presiding over the western (therefore not the valley of the kings) cliffs of Thebes. “Presiding” in such a case would in my understanding signify a figure of Hathor on a cliff. I believe also of having read that the great Sphinx at Giza represents Hathor who destroyed the human kind.

     The article “Sphinx” in the same Encyclopaedia refers to a sphinx mentioned by Hesiod and to a rather often reference to it in Greek literature and often representation in art; yet it is admitted that the origin is Egyptian. In my own view, as you can easily guess, Sphinx represents some cosmic appearance, whether in the days of the Deluge (then it should have been connected with Osiris, who as I understand, was Saturn), or at some other ancient time. What is the name of Sphinx in Egyptian?

     At the present time this is all.

    Cordially yours,                 

Im. Velikovsky


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