The Strange Connections Between the Sensen Papyrus, the god Khonsu and the Semitic Alphabet, Part 2

Where we left off in the last post is about the fact that both the god Khonsu and the wedjat eye are the moon.  Richard Flavin, a researcher, noted that professor Cyrus Gordon identified a “lunar zodiac in the order of the letters of the Ugarit cuneiform alphabet” and that he “sensed a calendary reason behind the number of and the illusory random ordering of the letters of the alphabet . . .  A lunar zodiac refers to various (though uncannily similar) ancient calendars which regulated time by noting which stars, planets, and constellations appeared in the night sky simultaneously with a specific (usually new or full) phase of the moon, thus identifying set hallmarks of the natural year . . .  The 1948 recovery at Ugarit of an abecedary (a sequential collection of the letters of the alphabet) is often regarded as an exercise example from the efforts of an apprentice scribe.  A significant difficulty with this interpretation, as well as other ancient abecedaries, is the apparent disregard for a potential mnemonic contained in the order of the letter-names of the alphabet.  The acrostics in Lamentations 1-4, Proverbs 31, 10-31, Psalms 25 (though the qoph is absent), 34, 111, 112, etc. are late, yet exceptional testimonies to tradition mnemonics as contained in the order of the letter-names of the alphabet.”  (Richard Flavin, The Oldest ABC's: The Ugarit Cuneiform Alphabet, http://www.flavinscorner.com/abc.htm)

In his article, Flavin goes on to note that the sign for the Hebrew letter Aleph (following the Assyrian word alpu) means bull, and that the last Hebrew letter Taw is also the bull, similar to the Aramaic tor or the Arabic thaur.  His conclusions follows the original research of Hugh Moran and David Kelley in their book, The Alphabet and the Ancient Calendar Signs.  Though the work of Moran and Kelley are not universally accepted, some of their deductions have been a key to a lot of my research.

So, Flavin's quote above has a real lot packed in it that we will have to unpack and unravel in future posts.  But, suffice it to say that when I found this article by Flavin years ago, I had a strange feeling in my gut that his analysis would form the basis for a lot of things that would directly relate to the Sensen papyrus and to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.  As we go along in these posts, you will see what I mean, specifically with the weird coincidences/correlations between the Sensen Papyrus, the Kirtland Egyptian Papers/Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, Zodiacs, Calendars, Mithraic Tauroctony scenes (which are star/constellation charts), Abecedaria and Acrostics in the ancient world.  I will focus on the hypothesis I propose that the Sensen papyrus in the usage as the Book of Abraham has something to do with Abecaderia and Acrostics, that is, an ancient derivative document employed Sensen characters in a custom, derivative composition, that combined them with Abrahamic content, and assigned meanings to them for use with that content.

And of course need I mention the fact that Tvedtnes and Crapo originally sensed a mnemonic in the Sensen Papyrus?  (Although I totally disagree with them about the way they believed that worked.)  In some ways, an acrostic can be considered a mnemonic.  But I differ here because I don't believe that this was all for the purpose of being a mnemonic or memory device.  Rather, they were character assignments in a derivative composition, but not explicitly for the purpose of memory recall.  Rather my hypothesis is that there is an art form going on here in a derivative composition.  It is more for the purpose of art in a religious context than for the purpose of memory recall.

So, in summary, I do not accept that the Sensen Papyrus was necessarily a mnemonic for memory recall, but that letter puzzles like acrostics figure in to this derivative composition, even if they were not specifically memory devices in this case, per se.