Holy Elephantnoses

i think youre assuming too much on that one. you dont worship the icon representing the religion. that would be blasphemy. i dont worship the Bible. jews dont worship the Star of David. if the ancients had worshipped the rain instead of the rain god, the rain god probably wouldnt have done much for them.
 
My particular elephant nose is not sacred because its not MY religion. HOWEVER, your all welcome to come to my house and worship him/her if you want..beers on me.. :)
 
Originally posted by jiggerpolebill
i think youre assuming too much on that one. you dont worship the icon representing the religion. that would be blasphemy. i dont worship the Bible. jews dont worship the Star of David. if the ancients had worshipped the rain instead of the rain god, the rain god probably wouldnt have done much for them.


I like that one... :) Funny ... your right of course.. made me laugh though..
 
theres still no info on what Mormyrus oxyrhynchus is.

Oxyrhynchus was a town... and Mormyrus is the species name for elephant fish.

So its not a real fish? :confused:

So your saying the fish from lake tang that has the species name Mormyrus is scared also?
 
So the end result of this discussion is that they were held Sacred and not worshipped... just SACRED...



well.. BEING Sacred aint to Shabby :)
 
slip: only the Mormyrus that lived in the NILE. Which the "common" elephant nose as well as alot of the bigger ones live in..
 
where did you get that?

whats the species name for the "common" elephant nose anyways.
 
Well, for reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me I went over and got the Webster's Unabridged down and it actually says (under sacred):
"sacred fish: any one of various fresh-water fishes of Africa; a large number of species, found in the river Nile, were venerated by the ancient Egyptians. Mormyrus oxyrhynchus is the best-known species."

There were also listings for sacred bean (the lotus nut), sacred beatle, and sacred baboon. So JB, you're right on this ONE point: its in the dictionary, at least some of them.

Animism, sacred, deity, venerate are also in the dictionary. I think there may be some confusion as to how the Egyptians thought of these fish and as to what constitutes a deity in an animistic religion.

You put up a hell of a fight though…
 
Gnathonemus petersii is the scientific name of the "common" elephant nose- this is the one you can find at alot of the LFS.

However. the term Elephant nose can be used on different fishes in that same family. The one that egyptians found SACRED was the ones living in the NILE. Gnathonemus petersii was one of them.

Gnathonemus petersii lives in various places throughout africa, including the nile.
 
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