(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 80, #1, Autumn 2025)
In Lewis Carrol’s Alice Through the Looking Glass, the walrus and the carpenter go for a walk on a beach. “The time has come”, the Walrus said, “To talk of many things … and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”
This article will be talking about many things, not about wings on pigs, but about wings on horses, bulls, sun disks, seal impressions, mythical creatures and cherubs, not about whether, but why, they have wings. It will look at possible reasons why the wings symbol was introduced in ancient Egypt, what it came to symbolize, and its spread into other Middle East civilizations, including the Kingdom of Judah despite its monotheism.
In 1967, Johannesburg’s new Berea Synagogue commissioned the Hungarian sculptor Herman Wald to create a sculpture to be placed on either side of its Holy Ark [1]. He designed a huge copper relief, which he called ‘Wings of the Shekhinah’. The son of a rabbi and brought up in the Chasidic tradition, Wald wrote: “It is no simple matter to reconstruct a conception derived from Biblical days, when the Covenant was carried in the desert … Bezalel … did the carving of the Cherubim in which the Covenant was carried … I had to take into account that the Law forbids the use of living figures in sculpture, so I could only use the non-figurative part of the Cherubim theme – namely, wings to embrace the Ark in which the Law is carried”. [2]
Wald’s ‘The Wings of the Shekhinah’ were suspended in the synagogue above and on each side of the Holy Ark as though sheltering and protecting it. Although the word ‘Shekhinah’, referring to the presence of Hashem in the place, is not found in the Tanach, and only dates from Talmudic times, the image of protective wings was used for a thousand years before the Exodus. Why wings?
According to the Book of Exodus, Hashem instructed Moses to build the Ark during his third 40-day stay upon Mount Sinai. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he told the Children of Israel to construct an Ark, giving them precise details as to how it was to be built and what materials were to be used (Shemot/Exodus, chapter 25).
From the two ends facing each other there were to be cherubs made of beaten gold with wings spread upwards to overshadow the throne of mercy. Verse 20 states that “the cherubim shall have their wings spread upwards, shielding the ark cover with their wings, with their faces toward one another; [turned] toward the ark cover shall be the faces of the cherubim.”
As Moses had just given them the Ten Commandments with strict instructions that they were not to make a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth, this was a surprising instruction. Having just told them not to make any images, Moses now tells them to do so. (Herman Wald would not do so.) And why winged cherubs? This question has also concerned rabbis whose theories were outlined by Rabbi Dr. Zev Farber, senior editor of TheTorah.com, and a Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Kogod Center [3].
Rav Katina explains the symbolism of the cherubs’ wings touching each other as representing love, calling to mind the love of Hashem to His people, Israel. He writes, “What Rav Katina does not explain is how the love of two creatures who are exactly the same should come to represent Hashem and Israel”. Rashbam and Chizkuni both suggest that a cherub is a bird because it is depicted with wings. R. Bachya ben Asher says they are angels. As the cherubs are on top of the Ark, not underneath, Raanan Eichler suggests that the cherubs’ wings were spread in a protective capacity over the Ark. The cherubs functioned as cover for what is below them, not support for what is above.
Is there another possible reason why winged cherubs were to be placed on top of the ark?
Moses was born in Egypt and grew up in the Egyptian royal court. He would have attended funerals and ceremonial events; he would have seen paintings and carvings of winged deities, winged discs, winged beasts, and winged dung beetles (scarabs) spreading their wings on either side of a king or deity as guardians and protectors. They played a crucial protective function in the iconography in Egypt and the Levant.
There was the winged sky goddess Nut. There was the winged goddess of justice Ma’at. There was Ra the sun god and creator of all the other gods who could fly across the sky on wings. Ra was also shown as a hawk, or as Khepri, the winged dung beetle, who rolled up the Sun in the mornings. Or as a man with the sun disk on his head. Or as a phoenix, heron, ram, serpent, bull, cat, or lion. Sometimes he was shown as a golden calf, where the rising sun was seen as a newborn calf emerging from the horizon. This latter association has been suggested as a reason for Moses’ fury when the children of Israel built a golden calf to worship. [4]
There was Horus, the god of the sky and the midday sun, depicted as a hovering winged falcon. Falcon cults were widespread. Feathered festival garments were worn when pharaohs wished to show visible symbols of their divinity, with long falcon tails sticking out from their garments[5]. Why falcons? For centuries falcons had been trained for hunting and feeding the family. Petroglyphs depicting falconry on horseback were found in Teymareh, Iran dating back as far as 7000 years ago. It was practiced in the Al Rafidein region, Iraq, about 3500 BCE and seen in 3rd millennium pottery sherds at Tell Chuerae, Northern Syria[6].
Although falcon hunting was found in Egypt’s neighbors, there is no evidence that it was practiced in ancient Egypt until the discovery in Cape Town’s IZIKO Museum of the mummy of a force-fed kestrel (a falcon), perhaps as a votive offering to Ra or perhaps an indication that they were bred for falconry [7]. Maybe the bird was only worshipped for its exceptional powers of vision and ability to fly at high speed to the heavens, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Egyptian temple walls, sanctuary gates and coffins had depictions of Horus the Behdetite as a solar disc with falcon wings. Horus was also a god of war, and the two wings could refer to his ability to protect the two lands of Egypt [9]. A later origin myth explained that he attacked the enemies of Ra, who then ordered Thoth, the moon god, to place the winged disk of the Behdetite in every temple. “You shall make this winged disk in every place that I have rested in the places of gods of Upper Egypt and the places of gods of Lower Egypt” [10].
The winged disk appeared above nearly every temple doorway, on coffins and the tops of many stelae, and was the most commonly depicted deity. It might have served like a protective evil eye talisman. The earliest example was found on the lintel of Pharaoh Pepi 1 (2332- 2283 BCE), when it first got the name of the Behdetite, and was on his wife Queen Meretites’ funerary monument. Below is one found a thousand years later from a temple at Luxor. The custom even extended into Graeco-Roman times.
These images would have been seen by Moses, who is thought to have lived in the 13th or 12th centuries BCE. The enslaved Children of Israel would have seen them as they went around their daily work, not only as bricklayers, but also as skilled craftsmen, carpenters and jewelers who might have been making these images for their overlords. How else could they have possessed the skills to build the Ark, and cast the golden calf and the winged cherubs (most likely using the cire-perdue (‘lost-wax’) technique used in the Nachal Mishmar hoard of copper objects, possibly from a chalcolithic temple in Ein Gedi found in a Dead Sea cave (4500–3500 BCE), and used by the Egyptians from ca. 3500 BCE)? [11].
Winged cherubs spreading their wings in the symbolic protection of the Ark with its precious contents would have fitted into Moses’ cultural background. To the escaped Jews they would have formed a logical decoration to protect the Ark just as winged objects did in the Egypt they had left.
But why wings? How else but with wings could the sun travel across the sky? How else but with wings could one travel to the heavens, to the gods who played a crucial role in determining the harvests?
This article looks at ideas recently advanced for another reason why winged images were so significant to ancient people and traces the use of winged images across three thousand years to the present.
Imagine the lives of early people, living a long time before agriculture and urbanisation, without telescopes or an understanding of science, gravity or electricity. They were as intelligent as we are, only lacking the knowledge we have accumulated since then. What did they think when they watched the changing night sky from their caves or grass shelters, in a world without light pollution? They understood causation – if they rubbed two sticks together, they could cause fire. If they hit an animal with a stone or arrow, they could cause the animal’s death, if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, women would dig up roots or berries causing them to have food to eat.
There must be answers to the inexplicable phenomena they sometimes observed. Why did the moon change shape regularly? Was rain caused by tears from above? Whose anger created the thunderous shouts and fire-producing lightning? Even in Judaism there is a blessing to be recited upon seeing lightning. “… He who does acts of creation.” To early people there must have been some enormous creative power up there in the sky. If they had wings, they would be able to go up and find out – wings that bees, birds and bats had, but humans lacked. If they had wings, they would be like the divine.
When the hunters became farmers, it became necessary to propitiate the mysterious power above that sometimes produced rain, sometimes withheld it, leading to famine. Religious beliefs developed as early as 140 000 years ago when skulls with polished smoothed-off edges were found in Herto, Ethiopia [13].
As they lacked wings, in order to be closer to this power above, people built places of worship on high hills. There they burnt incense and offerings so that the smell or the smoke would waft up to the heavens to ensure that the gods would look on them with favour and provide rain for their fields. Thus, the Parthenon on the Acropolis, the Aztec and Mayan temples, Babylonian ziggurats, and even the towering spires of churches and minarets of mosques were built. To this day Buddhist pilgrims climb many stairs to reach sacred temples erected high above.
The Ancient Egyptians also sought explanations. The sun must be a great god. How did it move? Wings must be an answer. The earliest winged image excavated was on a comb belonging to King Djet at Abydos from about 2980 BCE [14]. It showed a winged falcon in a boat sailing on a pair of wings, representing the heavens [15]. Amun Ra, the sun god, travelled across the sky in a boat and was depicted as a falcon-headed man with a solar disk above his head. Was the sun was moved across the sky by Khepr, a winged dung beetle? In the Old Kingdom period (2649–2150 BCE) Egyptians associated Ra with Khepr and scarab symbols became increasingly popular.
During the reign of King Snefru (2575 – 2551 BCE) the falcon wings image was changed and a round disk representing the sun was inserted between the wings. This sun disk was found on the coffin of his wife Queen Hetepheres (2500 BCE) [16] and became ubiquitous. Sir E.A. Budge has translated c.110 BCE hieroglyphic inscriptions found on the wall of a temple in Edfu built by Cleopatra which provided an origin myth for the winged sun disk called Behedti that represented the sun god Ra [17]: “Horu-Behutet (Behedti) flew up into the horizon in the form of the great Winged Disk, for which reason he is called “Great god, lord of heaven” unto this day. And from that day figures of Horu-Behutet in metal have existed. And Ra said unto Horus of Heben “O Winged Disk, thou great god and lord of heaven, seize thou them … and he slew them and … brought one hundred and forty-two enemies to the forepart of the Boat of Ra and with them was a male hippopotamus which had been among those enemies … Then said Thoth to Ra, Horus shall be called Winged Disk, Great God, Smiter of the enemies in the town of Heben from this day forward.”
And so it happened, and the winged disk was adopted in the town of Heben and all the other Egyptian towns. Israeli archaeologist Tallay Ornan has written that the age-old motif of the winged sun disc, which symbolised divine protection, is one of the most prominent Egyptian symbols that was adopted into the visual traditions of the ancient Near East [18]. Through inter-cultural exchanges resulting from commercial, political and military interaction the wings began to appear in Anatolia, Syria, and Israel. Around 1785 BCE the Hyksos from the Levant, including areas of Canaan and Syria, invaded Egypt and adopted the Egyptian winged disc, which started appearing on Syrian cylinder seals in the middle of the eighteenth century, Canaanite scarabs between 1750-1550 BCE and in Hittite art. It was found on Nuzi, Mitanni and Middle Assyrian seal impressions dating to the fourteenth and early thirteenth centuries BCE.
The winged disk was a remarkably persistent symbol. As an aside, when Sir Leonard Woolley was excavating the Hittite city of Carchemish in 1911 with the help of TE Lawrence (later Lawrence of Arabia), he wrote that on the lintel of the house erected for them to stay in “Lawrence amused himself by carving the winged sun-disk which was the emblem of the Hittite godhead.” Forty years later an archaeologist wrote to enquire about this ‘unpublished’ monument [20].
Fifteen hundred years after King Snefru, either Assyrian kings Tiglath-pileser I (1114-1076 BCE) or Assur-bel-kala(1073-1056 BCE) used the winged disk on the Broken Obelisk near the Ishtar temple at Nineveh. It was found on Neo-Babylonian cylinder seals dating to the 9th and 8th centuries [21]. From the 9th Century, the Assyrians went one better, erecting colossal, winged bulls and lions to protect the entrances to Nineveh. With wings the beasts could carry messages to the heavens. Judging by the protection offered by wings as in those of the cormorant in the picture below, it would be of little use in practice but psychologically it performed a reassuring (if symbolic) protective function that might remind the gods to look after them. But what if they actually saw an unusual large, winged object in the sky?
Rens Rezelmann, Daily Maverick, 3/2/2025 [22]
Like a comet? The cyclical moon was regular and predictable. Rain, thunder and lightning from above often occurred. Not so comets. They seldom appeared and when they did, they were the most remarkable objectsin the night sky, unlike anything else. What did they mean? Were they messengers of the gods, or omens of disaster? Was that winged object the cause of, or a prediction of, famine, disease or military disaster? Even Noah’s flood, it was claimed in Tractate Brakhot of the Babylonian Talmud, was caused by two stars that fell from khima toward the earth, khima [23] meaning a star with a tail, i.e. a comet.
In January 2025 many South Africans saw a large, winged object flying through their skies. This was Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS), a non-periodic comet, which reached its closest point to the Sun on January 13, 2025. Three months previously, another winged object had come hurtling through our skies. From 13-15 October 2024 South Africa was visited by Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, the brightest comet since Hale-Bopp in 1997[25]. When Hale-Bopp last visited 4,200 years ago, Pharaoh Pepi 1 had it carved in the Pyramid Texts on his burial chamber walls at Saqqara as a star followed by the hieroglyph for long hair to describe its wings [26]. This might be why from the time of Pepi and his wife, the winged disk was used instead of wings alone. (The word comet comes from the Greek komētēs for long haired star.) As for Comet A3, it completes an orbit around the sun every 80,660 years so we shall not see it again, but human beings 8S,660 years ago would have seen it as it flashed by in their night sky dragging its wings or long hair behind it.
Seventy-five thousand years ago people living in Blombos Cave, in the Southern Cape (known as the cradle of human culture) were producing art by crosshatch patterns on a piece of ochre that had first been scraped and ground to create a smooth surface. They also drew on stones with pieces of ochre sharpened like crayons. These early humans would have noticed the passage of these rare comets, as well as the regularly repeated changes every 28 or 29 days in the shape of the moon, and in 1973, while excavating a cave in the Lebombo Mountains, near South Africa’s border with Swaziland, Peter Beaumont found a piece of a baboon fibula with twenty-nine notches carved across it [27]. The bone is between 44,200 and 43,000 years old, according to radiocarbon datings. It looks like the calendar sticks still in use by San clans in Namibia. Could it have been a very early lunar phase counter? If so, it would be the first known attempt to record astronomical observations.
Fast forward many thousands of years, people were still observing the sky, had better equipment for carving and painting, had learnt to write, and there was still no light pollution. Using these skills they were able to record the appearance of such wondrous and unusual objects flying across the heavens with their wings trailing behind them. Such extraordinary sights would have been noticed all around the world.
During the Shang dynasty in China, around 1486 BCE, astronomer priests noticed a comet that they described as being one of the largest ever observed with an astonishing ten tails. The event was recorded in the Divination by Astrological and Meteorological Phenomena [28] in the Mawangdui Silk Almanac, compiled by Chinese astronomers of the Western Han dynasty before c.168 BCE, which accurately depicted the planetary orbits for Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn and lists 29 comets that appeared and the disasters associated with them, with information dating as far back as 1500 BCE [29].
Graham Phillips [30] has suggested that this awe-inspiring comet with its ten wings inspired superstitious fears around the world, influencing religious ideas. It was so spectacular that the Chinese portrayed what they had seen. They carved a round disk with rays or wings emerging from it, like a comet, like the comet in the Bayeux tapestry. The Chinese decided that the comet must be a new deity which they called Lao-Tien-Yeh, “The Great God”, and illustrated it as a circle with ten straight lines radiating from it, like the comet.
Egypt was already worshipping the sun god. At the same time, also in 1486 BCE, during the 22nd year of the reign of the Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, a bright rival to the sun arrived in the sky. Its priests recorded its appearance in the Tulli Papyrus as a brilliant disk much larger than the full moon, “a marvel never before known since the foundation of this land”. They also concluded that it must be a deity that they called Aten (meaning “sun disk”). Similar to the symbol for Lao-Tien-Yeh, the Egyptians depicted their new deity by a circle with a fan-shaped series of lines radiating from it. Both carvings look like a comet with tails – or wings.
During the Amarna period (c. 1353 – 1336 BCE), Pharaoh Akhnaton made Aten the sole god of ancient Egyptian state worship. Aten was the creator of all countries and peoples and cared for every creature. No statues of Aten were allowed as that was seen as idolatry. Aten was visualized as a disk with wings, like a comet, and the solar disk became the primary focus of worship [31].
When Akhnaton died, the priests who had lost their controlling positions and tithes, regained their powers under his son Tutankhamen who reopened the state temples to their many other gods and re-positioned Amun Ra as the pre-eminent solar deity among all the other gods. The sky goddess Nut was shown earlier on his pectoral. His father would have been horrified.
Around this time, according to Phillips, other societies also started to worship winged gods looking like a comet. Phillips concluded that when they saw this spectacular winged comet flashing across the sky, they too decided it must be a god. The Hittite god Kumarbis, the Assyrian god Antum, the Mitannian god and the Persian god Ahura Mazda – all were shown as a winged disk hanging in the sky.
Let us get back to Jews. There has always been cross-cultural transfers of information. That is how we learn. We notice what our neighbors are doing, we adapt and adopt their practices and possessions to fit our own ideas and uses. We learn how to spin, how to domesticate the animals our neighbors have, and plant the crops the neighbors grow. Camels, horses, cattle, wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, tomatoes, all were adopted from others. Bar mitzvah brochas started featuring Japanese sushi alongside Ashkenazi herrings. Jews adopt and adapt spiritual practices, but, as the Tanach describes, it is often a battle to get them to change the practices they have adopted from the neighbors.
In August 2024 a 2700-year-old winged protective figure was found engraved on a black stone seal in Jerusalem’s City of David National Park. It had belonged to “Yehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu”. His name is written in the Hebrew script, yet the figure engraved on it clearly shows the influence of the winged demons worshipped in the Assyrian Empire. It is the first time that a winged ‘genie’ has been found in Israeli archaeology and shows the extent of Assyrian influence even in Jerusalem [32].
Jews are monotheists. They do not believe in a god of the sun, of the moon, of thunder. They do not believe in the divinity of dung beetles. They do not need winged sun discs for protection. Ho’ezer ben Hosh’ayahu, living in First Temple times, should not have thought it necessary to wear around his neck a personal seal with a protective winged Assyrian demon engraved on it. This shows how difficult it is to counter the cross-cultural influence of the people around one, especially when they are powerful and threatening one’s independence.
The Northern Kingdom of Israel was captured by Sargon II, king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, in 722 BCE. In 701 BCE its King Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, capital of the Kingdom of Judah, which was conquered by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, in 587 BCE. They all used winged disk imagery. Wings that could fly to the heavens. Wings that gave protection to their kings and their gods. So, what effect did this have on the Jews?
These winged emblems were found on Hebrew seals associated with royal usage in Judah, and its highly developed state administration. They are seen on excavated seals belonging to servants of Kings Uzziah (791-739 BCE) and Ahaz (735-715 BCE). Dr Eilat Mazar discovered the royal seal of King Ahaz’s son King Hezekiah (715-c. 686 BCE) in an archaeological dig on the southern wall of the Temple Mount in 2009, but the writing identifying his name was only deciphered in 2015.
As Hezekiah tried to abolish idolatry, it is unlikely that he was aware that these winged sun disks had originally represented the Egyptian sun god Horus the Behedti or had stood for kings in contemporary Assyrian and Syrian imagery. To Hezekiah it would not have symbolised the winged cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant either but probably Hashem’s protection [33].
As Hezekiah was an Assyrian vassal, it is not surprising that his seal shows a winged sun disk, but there could be another reason for its use. The wings in the lmlk seals are usually upturned, but on King Hezekiah’s personal seal above left, the wings are turned down [34]. When King Hezekiah became seriously ill, he prayed “O Lord, the G-d of Israel, enthroned above the winged creatures, [also translated as “Who dwells between the cherubim”] you alone are G-d, ruling all the kingdoms of the world.” (Isaiah 37:16)) and asked for a sign that he would get well again. Isaiah replied that the shadow on the sundial would recede ten degrees and this miracle occurred. (Isaiah 38:8). Hence the sun symbol on his seal. No self-respecting king would depict his authority with lowered wings! Yet here we have a unique, humbled expression shown by the lowered wings. Based on the description of Hezekiah’s life, the post-illness period certainly fits well with this seal” [35]. There is no such excuse for Ben Hosh’ayahu.
The seal on the right also belonged to King Hezekiah and shows a scarab with two upturned wings. The appearance of the scarab beetle (representing Ra) was influenced by Egyptian culture across the region. Judah had made an alliance with Egypt and the southern kingdom against the joint threat from the invading Assyrians. People make meanings through images, but those meanings can change. Like the winged disc on lmlk impressions, the winged scarab on the lmlk seals represented a divine emblem, not the sun god, not a dung beetle, not a cherub, but Hashem.
Numerous Jewish scriptures compare God’s attributes to the sun and refer to symbols of wings of birds (e.g., Psalm 84:11) but when the Torah refers to wings, it symbolizes ideas, not protective gods, and those are bird wings, not those of imaginary beasts or demons. The strength of eagle wings appears in Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11, to represent the power and loving kindness of Hashem, “I will carry you on wings (kanaf [36]) of eagles”.
Maimonides has written that whenever wing/cherub is used in reference to the Deity, it must be translated as “that which conceals” or “covers” [37]. The passage “carried upon the wings of eagles,” was taken to heart by Yemenite Jews, who had never seen planes before they were airlifted to the new state of Israel in 1949-1950. Likewise, immigrant Ethiopian Jews, who arrived on aliyah in the 2020 Operation on Wings of Eagles, knew they were not travelling on eagles’ wings. There was nothing divine about these crowded noisy winged metal monsters.
The cherub wings are not meant to be eagles’ wings, although Moses certainly intended his people to obey and keep the covenant. Unlike the Egyptian images above tombs or coffins that Moses would have seen, the wings of the cherubs were not serving as a protective cover over the children of Israel; they were just covering the ark.
Religious iconography, once developed, can be remarkably persistent. It often becomes an indelible part of religious tradition, so the winged sun disk, whether derived from Ra or from the 1486 comet as suggested by Phillips, was repeated in Egypt and Mesopotamia for two thousand years and found in Israel. There is also historical continuity of symbols in Jewish traditions. As recounted above Herman Wald, asked to design something for the Holy Ark, in the 20th Century CE, chose the wings of the Shekhinah.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive. This image on an Austro-Hungarian silver breastplate looks like the winged sun disks illustrated in this article. The silversmith who made it in the late 19th Century CE was unlikely to have known that the winged image had represented the sun god. He thought his winged image represented the Torah as a source of light [38].
In the valance above right dated to 1718/1719 designed to hang above the curtains covering the Holy Ark in a Prague synagogue, the embroiderer had no idea that her design harked back to designs made 3000 years earlier. Compare this picture with the earlier picture of the wings above Pharaoh Seti’s 1279 BCE tomb. That winged sun disk protected the tomb below. The winged cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant protected the objects below. The bird wings on this valance protected representations of ritual Temple implements below including the menorah, altar, laver, table for the shewbread and portions of the high priest’s costume [39]. These wings however belong not to cherubs or mythical beasts, but clearly to recognisable birds, with wings, beaks and legs. The Jews have adopted the symbols and practices of their neighbors but transformed them to fit their own beliefs and, unlike Ben Hosh’ayahu, have rooted them firmly within their own specific Jewish identity and values.
Rabbi Jeremy Rosen [40] has written that Moses had the unique advantage of having seen other systems of governance (and religion) both in Midian and in Egypt. He grew up in two different worlds. First there was the world of his birth parents, which was identifiably Israelite. Then there was his life in the court of Pharaoh as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He was able to see exactly how the Egyptian royal system worked. There could be a reason other than those suggested by Rav Katina, Rashbam, Chizkuni, R. Bachya ben Asher or Raanan Eichler why the Children of Israel were commanded by Moses in the Book of Exodus, to place cherubs above the Ark despite having been told about the Second Commandment. Historical and astronomical reasons firmly based in time and place.
It is small wonder that when it came to constructing something so important and so precious as the Ark, in which Aaron was to place a sample of the manna, his rod and the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments, winged cherubs would have been placed above it to protect it. Winged figures which had already been in use in Egypt for fifteen hundred years as a protective image and which Moses and the Children of Israel would have seen. Winged figures that might have been adopted in Egypt in the belief that these might be able to fly up to heaven to their gods. Winged figures that might have been adopted from wonder at the daily movement of the sun and the power of the gods responsible for light and rain. Winged figures that might have been adopted by those filled with awe and fear who had seen overhead travelling from the heavens a flaming comet with wings.
- Gwynne Schrire, a veteran contributor to Jewish Affairs, is a former Deputy Director of the SA Jewish Board of Deputies – Cape Council. She has authored, co-written and edited over twenty books on aspects of South African Jewish and Western Cape history.
NOTES
[1] Ben Yosef, Ute, http://www.lifeandartofhermanwald.co.za/, Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Cape Town.
[2] https://www.hermanwald.com
[3] Farber, Dr. Rabbi Zevis, ‘The Cherubim: Their Role on the Ark in the Holy of Holies’, TheTorah.comhttps://www.thetorah.com › article › the-cherubim-their-r…
[4] Langner, Allan, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Vol 31, No 1, 2003, THE GOLDEN CALF AND RA – Jewish Bible Quarterly
[5] Shonkwiler, Randy L, The Behdetite: A Study of Horus the Behdetite from the Old Kingdom to the Conquest of Alexander, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2014, PhD dissertation
[6] Additional information from Falcons and Man – A History of Falconry PBS https://www.pbs.org › falconer › man. A History of Falconry International Association for Falconry, https://iaf.org › a-history-of-falconry
[7] The researchers from the American University in Cairo, Stellenbosch University and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, carried out a virtual autopsy and concluded that their findings have implications for the use of birds of prey in falconry for hunting. News & Views, Birdlife South Africa, Nov/Dec 2015. ‘Kestrel provides first proof of bird breeding in ancient Egypt’, Birdlife South Africa, https://www.birdlife.org.za › 13_News_Views-2 Salima Ikram, Ruhan Slabbert, Izak Cornelius, Anton du Plessis, Liani Colette Swanepoel, Henry Weber. ‘Fatal force feeding or gluttonous gagging? The death of Kestrel SACHM 2575.’ Journal of Archaeological Science, 2015; 63: 72 DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2015.08.015
[8] Illustrations from Timeline of Falconry – Virtual Exhibit at … The Archives of Falconry, (https://falconry.org). Falcon hunting is a popular and expensive hobby in the Middle East, with an Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital offering a training program for veterinary students specializing in falcons.
[10] Shonkwiler,Randy, op cit, 535, 98
[11] Lost-wax casting
[12] https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftetisheri.co.uk%2Fbelzoni-watercolours-seti-bristol%2F&psig=AOvVaw0C4PQ6feq4O4lYh7m5StFh&ust=1738525851772000&source= images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBcQjhxqFwoTCKCxjYGgo4sDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE.
[13] Maller, Rabbi AS, The Evolution of Human Spirituality, 2007: https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article= 2376&context=lnq
[14] Ivory Comb with the name of King Djet, Early Dynastic Period, 1st Dynasty, around 2980 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 47176
[15] Winged sun Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Winged_sun)
[16] Shonkwiler,Randy, op cit, 550
[17] Budge, EA Wallis, translator, The Legend of Horus of Behutet and the Winged Disk,. hieroglyphics from Edfu, c 110 BCE, Horus of Behutet and the Winged Disk – Egyptian Texts
[18] Tallay, Ornan, A complex system of religious symbols, The case of the winged disc in Near Eastern imagery of the first millennium BCE, 2001, The case of the winged disc in Near Eastem imagery of the …https://menasymbolism.wordpress.com › solar-disk.
[19] Tallay, Ornan, op cit. 217, 237
[20] Woolley, Sir Leonard, Spadework, Lutterworth, London, 1953, 64
[21] Tallay, Ornan, op cit.
[22] Phillips, Graham, op cit.
[23] Khima , https://www.varchive.org/itb/khima.htm
[24] Thorpe, Lewis, The Bayeux Tapestry and the Norman Invasion, The Folio Society, London, 1973, plate 34
[25] Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in South Africa discovered Comet C/2023 A3 on February 22, 2023. https://earthsky.org/space/comet-c-2023-a3-sep-oct-2024-tsuchinshan-atlas/#:~:text=Comet%20A3%20was%20the%20brightest%20comet%20in%2027%20years! https://www.google.com/searchca_esv=3e442d82a2bc1fe8&rlz=1C1MRUS_enZA1140ZA1140&q=Comet+2024+October&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7xd7Qj6KLAxX_S0EAHcl7B58Q1QJ6BAhHEAE&biw=1536&bih=730&dpr=1.25#:~:text=from%20the%20web-,Comet%20C/2023%20A3%20Tsuchinshan%2DATLAS,-Comet%20C/2023
[26] Weeks, Kent, The Lost Tomb: The Greatest Discovery at the Valley of the Kings since Tutankhamun, Phoenix, Weidenfeld & Nicholson,1998. It reads “I see what the nhh-stars do, because so fair is their shape; it is well for me with them and and it is well for them. I am the nhh-star, the companion of the nhh-star, I become a nhh-star.” It must be remembered that pharaohs were considered as divine and as the reincarnation of Ra and Horus therefore Pepi I was Hale-Bopp. p.198.
[27] OLDEST Mathematical Object is in Swaziland, at Buffalo: https://www.math.buffalo.edu › Ancient-Africa › lebombo.
[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divination_by_Astrological_and_Meteorological_Phenomena#:~:text= Externl%20links-,Divination%20by%20Astrological%20and%20Meteorological%20Phenomena,-4%20languagesI It contained two dozen pictures of comets, some in fold out/pop-up format. One of the comets has four tails and resembles a swastika.
[29] In their 1985 book Comet, Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan argue that the appearance of a rotating comet with a four-pronged tail as early as 2000 BCE could explain why the swastika is found in the cultures of both the Old World and the pre-Columbian Americas. Goldman, Noah, Science: Comets in Ancient Cultures, Deep Impact, University of. Maryland, College Park Scholars. Science: Comets in Ancient Cultures – Deep Impact. Deep Impact – University of Marylandhttp://deepimpact.umd.edu › science › comets-cultures
[30] Phillips, Graham, op cit
[31] The solar disk in ancient Egypt – World History_Edu
[32] ‘Extremely rare, beautiful’ First Temple-era ‘genie’ seal …; The Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com › extremely-rare-beautif…
[33] Tallay, Ornan, op cit.
[34] Grellet, Rachael ‘To the King’ Seals Point to Hezekiah, 2018,Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology https://armstronginstitute.org › 103-to-the-king-seals-po… ‘To the King’ Seals Point to Hezekiah
[35] Eames, Christopher, ’Analysis: The Hezekiah Bulla’, 2019, Analysis: The Hezekiah Bulla, Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology https://armstronginstitute.org › 169-analysis-the-hezek
[36] The word kanaf, wings, is exactly translated as “that which conceals” and refers primarily to the “wing” of flying animals, but it also became synonymous with “birds” themselves (e.g. Gen. 7:14)“Upon the Wings of Eagles” and “Under the …
[37] “Upon the Wings of Eagles” and “Under the …
[38] Weinstein, Jay, A Collectors’ Guide to Judaica, Steimatzky, Thames & Hudson, London, 1985, 84
[39] Altshuler, David (Ed), The Precious Legacy: Judaic Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections, Summit Books, New York, 1983, 131
[1] Rosen, Rabbi Jeremy, Exodus Chapter 1-6:, ‘Moshe as Innovator’, January 2025. Lockdown University
