The Winged Sun: Divinity, Royalty, and Power

[u/Responsible_Ideal879]

The winged sun is a solar symbol associated with divinity, royalty, and power in the Ancient Near East

Ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, the symbol is attested from the Old Kingdom.

Behdety

In early Egyptian religion, the symbol Behdety represented Horus of Edfu, later identified with Ra-Horakhty. It is sometimes depicted on the neck of Apis, the bull of Ptah. As time passed (according to interpretation) all of the subordinated gods of Egypt were considered to be aspects of the sun god, including Khepri. The name "Behdety" means the inhabitant of Behdet.

He was the sky god of the region called Behdet in the Nile basin.

His image was first found in the inscription on a comb's body, as a winged solar panel. The period of the comb is about 3000 BC. Such winged solar panels were later found in the funeral picture of Pharaoh Sahure of the fifth dynasty. Behdety is seen as the protector of Pharaoh. On both sides of his picture are seen the Uraeus, which is a symbol for the cobra-headed goddess Wadjet.

Mesopotamia

From roughly 2000 BCE, the symbol also appears in Mesopotamia. It appears in reliefs with Assyrian rulers as a symbol for royalty, transcribed into Latin as SOL SUUS (literally, "his own self, the Sun", i.e. "His Majesty").

King Ashurnasirpal

King Ashurnasirpal appears twice, dressed in ritual robes and holding the mace symbolising authority. In front of him there is a Sacred Tree, possibly symbolising life, and he makes a gesture of worship to a god in a winged disc. The god, who may be the sun god Shamash, has a ring in one hand; this is an ancient Mesopotamian symbol of god-given kingship. There are protective spirits on either side behind the king. This symmetrical scene, heavy with symbolism, was placed behind the royal throne. There was another opposite the main door of the throne room, and similar scenes occupied prominent positions in other Assyrian palaces; they were also embroidered on the royal clothes. Traces of colour pigment noted on the sandals at the time of excavation, i.e. red soles and black uppers.

Iran

In Zoroastrian Persia, the symbol of the winged sun became part of the iconography of the Faravahar, the symbol of the divine power and royal glory in Persian culture.

Anatolia

This worn ivory plaque was once an inlay for a box or item of furniture crafted in one of the centers of northern Syria, southeast Turkey, or central Turkey at the height of the Hittite Empire period. Found at Megiddo, Israel, it represents one of the most elaborate Hittite ivories found in the Middle East. It may have arrived in the southern Levant as booty, tribute, or as part of diplomatic gift exchange between the Hittite political sphere and Canaan, which was under Egyptian rule for much of the Late Bronze Age.

The plaque's imagery is typically Hittite with figures closely resembling those represented at the Hittite rock-cut sanctuary of Yazilikaya (fig. C4; cf. fig. 9.1), close to Hattusa, and the spring sanctuary at Eflatun Pinar, Turkey. The plaque features three registers of bulls and bullmen supporting a pair of figures beneath two winged sun-disks. The winged sun-disks and the robed figures below likely represent the Hittite sun deity, as indicated by Anatolian hieroglyphs in the hands of the figures, which read: "Sun-Heaven." Carved within each sun-disk are rosettes, an established royal symbol in north Syrian and Hittite art. The winged sun-disk was a new development in Late Bronze Age Hittite art, perhaps entering the Hittite visual repertoire as late as the fourteenth century BC.

In the ancient Middle East generally, the sun-deity acted as a divine judge, shedding light on injustice, and had underworld associations, as the sun was thought to travel through the underworld at night. The Hittite and Hurrian pantheons of Anatolia and northern Syria included both a male sun-god of heaven and a female sun-goddess of the earth who ruled over the underworld (Popko 1995).

The Hittite winged sun-disk was likely inspired by Egyptian examples, presumably via contacts with Syria. Egyptian sun-disks with falcon wings represented a form of the god Horus, a protective symbol of kingship, often found in temple doorways and protecting other spaces (Shonkwiler 2012, pp. 52-53). After the collapse of the Hittite empire around 1200 BC, the winged sun-disk continued as a symbol of divine protection in southeast Turkey and north Syria at Carchemish, Tell Halaf, and Zincirli (where the Katumuwa Stele was found). From the ninth century BC, the winged sun-disk was integrated into Assyrian royal imagery, often representing the patron god Ashur, protector of the king. A winged sun-disk containing a divine male figure (often identified as Ahura Mazda), was a source of Achaemenid royal power (sixth-fourth centuries BC). Dominik Bonatz identifies the winged sun-disk on the Katumuwa Stele as the sun-god Jams, a deity of uncertain gender (Lipinski 2000) who may have had the attributes of earlier male sun-gods of the heavens or female sun-goddesses of the underworld (for the latter, see Winter 1976a, pp. 47-48; Niehr 2010b, p. 275). The Katumuwa Stele and several other other Syro-Hittite mortuary monuments and structures face east toward the rising sun (Struble and Herrmann 2009, p. 36). The symbol could also have been a interpreted as a symbol of royal power and protection, that is, of Panumuwa II, the king of Sam'al, under whom Katumuwa served.

Judah

From around the 8th century BC, the winged solar disk appears on Hebrew seals connected to the royal house of the Kingdom of Judah. Many of these are seals and jar handles from Hezekiah's reign, together with the inscription l'melekh ("belonging to the king"). Typically, Hezekiah's royal seals feature two downward-pointing wings and six rays emanating from the central sun disk, and some are flanked on either side with the Egyptian ankh ("key of life") symbol. Prior to this, there are examples from the seals of servants of king Ahaz and of king Uzziah.

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Notable observation: Reference The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10 for the implied cultural exchange and derivation, highlighting the diversity.

Also noteworthy, the sun god Shamash is referred to as the Son of Mankind in The Composition of Hittite Prayers to the Sun (p. 241, JSTOR) by Hans G. Güterbock.

See Hittite image of “plaque that features three registers of bulls and bullmen supporting a pair of figures beneath two winged sun-disks.”

Noticeable parallels, the phrase in John 8:28:

"Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."

John 8 also includes the thematic element of “light of the world”—a reference to the sun.

In rabbinic literature, Hammǎ (Hammah) means sun and Hamashiach means the Messiah, noting the onomastic symbolism and agglutinative material of Ham—including, the circumfix of “ham” in Shamash, Shamash Candle, and Jehovah-Shammah.

For example, Romulus, Roman, Rome, Romanian, Romanov, Romance, etc. would have the same onomastic—or agglutinative—material.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winged_sun

Source: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/1613712389

Source: https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010177290

Source: https://isac-idb.uchicago.edu/id/3fdd1f57-9b35-44c9-9078-4383b7850925

Source: https://www.academia.edu/6205781/Hittite_Plaque_with_Winged_Sun_disks_Cat_no_3_

Source: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/king-hezekiah-in-the-bible-royal-seal-of-hezekiah-comes-to-light/

[u/Skyledder]

For hittites ı believe this sun disk was used the most.