...An ignorant explanation of the Egyptian Sign Language was begun by the Greeks,
who could not read the hieroglyphics. It was repeated by the Romans, and has been
perpetuated by "Classical Scholars" ever since....Ignorance of primitive sign language
has been and is a fertile source of false belief. For example, Juvenal asks, "Who does not know what monsters Egypt insanely worships?" (Sat., 15,1) And having seen or
heard of the long-tailed Ape in an Egyptian temple, assumed without question that this animal was set up as an object of worship. He did not know that the Ape itself was the
worshipper, as an image in Sign-Language and as the Saluter of the Gods. Ani, the name
of this particular Ape, denotes the Saluter, and to salute was an Egyptian gesture of ad-
oration. The Ape, with its paws uplifted is the typical worshipper as Saluter of the Light. It was, and still is looked upon in Africa generally as a pre-human Moon-worship-
er who laments and bewails the disappearance of its night-light and rejoices at the renewal and return of that luminary. In the 'Vignettes to the Ritual', Ani the Ape is the Saluter of the rising Sun, that is of Ra, upon the Mount of Sunrise.
Comments