In Latter-day Saint theology (also known as Mormon theology), Egyptus is the name of two women in the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.[1] One is the wife of Ham, son of Noah, who bears his children. The other is their daughter, who discovers Egypt while "it was under water" (1:23). The younger Egyptus places her eldest son on the throne as Pharaoh, the first king of Egypt (1:25).
The word Egyptus is considered to be an anachronism in the Book of Abraham among non-Mormon Egyptologists and historians,[2] since the origin of term "Egypt" is believed to have come from another source much later in history from the time of the narrative described in the Book of Abraham. The word "pharaoh" is also considered to be an anachronism in the Book of Abraham for similar reasons.
The Babylonian name for "Egypt" was written in syllabic cuneiform as Ḫikuptaḥ, which was taken from an Egyptian name for Memphis, the old capital of Egypt, Ḥwt-kЗ-Ptḥ, "House-of-the-Spirit-of-Ptah" (i.e., the Temple of Ptah), which by extension became the name for "Egypt/ Aegyptus/ Egyptus" = Coptic ekepta), and Αἴγυπτος in Homer as both Nile River and country,[3] and in Apollodorus (Bibliotheca, 2:1:4-5), as the eponymous son of Belus & Anchinoe, who first conquers Egypt.
The etymological source of the name of Egypt is important since three 1835 prepublication manuscripts of the LDS Book of Abraham read Zeptah instead of Egyptus in the 1842 published text (1:25).[4] This variant name could very well reflect the Egyptian name SЗt-Ptḥ, "Daughter-of-Ptah" (the -t- in SЗt is silent) which is known from the Middle Kingdom into the late period.[5] Moreover, This recalls the syncretic mythology in the Late Egyptian Hieratic story of "Astarte and the Sea," wherein Semitic Astarte is also called "Daughter-of-Ptah."[6] She is, therefore, the equivalent of Hathor (Eg. Ḥt-Ḥr "House-of-Horus [Sky]"), who is also the daughter of Ptah,[7] and who is the same constellation as Virgo, and which is the first month of the Inundation season (on the Palermo Stone, each king is accompanied by his mother's name and by the measured height of the inundation in September[8]). For, after all, "when this woman discovered the land it was under water" (Abr 1:24). Moreover, Hathor is the Eye and Mother of Re`, the first king of Egypt (Book of the Divine Cow).
The "Mother of the King of Upper & Lower Egypt" (mwt niswt-biti or mwt niswt), i.e., of the living king, was addressed as "God's daughter" sЗt nṯr,[9] namely the daughter of Ptah, as is the apparent case here with Zeptah/Egyptus, who is both mother of the king of Egypt and the granddaughter of Noah. This is significant since Ptah is a parallel for Noah in that, as the Blacksmith-God of Thebes (Hephaistos-Vulcan), he is the equivalent of the Phoenician Craftsman-God Khousor, which is Ugaritic Kṯr, Kothar, Kothar-wa-Khasis, "The-Very-Skillful-and-Intelligent-One," which is the same character as the Sumero-Akkadian Noahs: Utnapishtim (in the Gilgamesh Epic), Atra-Ḫasīs, and Ziusudra (Khousor = Ptah at Ugarit).[10]