The Identity of the Island Statue
Sorry, had some issues with posting links….
Over the last week, as I’ve been watching the seasons again, and reading more and more on theories, I’ve seen a lot of inconsistencies about the identity of the islands token statue. ABC.com reported in it’s recap of the season 5 finale that it was Taweret, the Egyptian goddess/protector of pregnant women. That would really jive well with the modern islands issues, seeing as the statue has been destroyed….but look at this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawaret
Taweret is believed to have the head and limbs of a lioness. However the island statue obviously has the head of a crocodile, and the body of a human…
This makes it look more like the Egyptian god Sobek…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobek
The island statue does show similarities to Taweret, like the ankh (the cross with a handle) and the the headdress looks like Taweret’s. So it is not a carbon copy of Sobek by any means….I found more inconsistencies in the statue while trying to match it with Sobek. From what I can find, Sobek is always seen carrying an ankh AND a spear. The island statue is carrying two ankhs. And like I mentioned before, Sobek’s headdress was different. Usually tall and extravagant.
Taweret and Sobek actually have a bit of history together. In later Egyptian history, Sobek was seen to be a consort to Taweret, sometimes seen on her shoulder. If the statue is Sobek, could the island itself be a manifestation of Taweret, with Sobek peaked on it’s shore? I’ll admit…that’s a bit out there…Most of their relationship revolved around Ra, who, interestingly enough, is seen in the hieroglyphs in the underground temple where Ben saw a manifestation of Alex, and also on the cloth that Jacob was fashioning in his dwellings inside the statues foot.
http://www.scottking.info/Pics/lostglyphs.jpg
http://i39.tinypic.com/ilzsoz.jpg
Taweret married Apep, who for a lack of better words was the god of darkness and chaos. Apep’s nemesis was Ra himself. Sobek, Taweret’s consort, eventually became Ra (known as Sobek-Ra). Sounds like quite the love triangle…and Losties know love triangles.
So what’s my point? The statue shows inconsistencies with the ancient Egyptian identities that people are so quick to assign to them. The minds behind Lost have more in store for us than we could possibly figure out from a couple of hours on Google….which makes it so damn fun to try and figure out!
I think the statue could be some sort of a pairing of the two deities. Both gods carried an ankh, this one has two. While the physical looks like Sobek, the clothing looks like Taweret. I think that the explosion/incident will cause the future death of the pregnant women on the island…but not due to radiation. Radiation may kill the fetus, but isn’t going to kill the mother…at least not during child birth. The incident is what destroyed the statue, and the protection of pregnant women impregnated on the island was somehow dependent on that statue.
Nice find. Very nice.
I don’t think The Incident could have destroyed the statue because it was obvious from Ben’s reaction to Sun’s Question about the statue that it had happened since Ben had last seen it.
Hey, definitely some nice thoughts. I believe I know which Egyptian god the statue is. It is Anubis.
start with this :http://www.michtoy.com/MTSCnewSite/newplastic_folder/plastoy/PLASTOY_EGYPTIAN_GODS.gif
then look at this one: http://api.ning.com/files/QTH1Ov9r7UR3UV*rJ6bjkJ0tYpSD-SaTFte1*4952YmwlhzeFJmBOrvnsEQqG8zktLtJkD3dwa*dc0R4EyyiHSskstPehOv6/Anubis.jpg
then Wiki Anubis. If you start to think it is Anubis and not the other two you mentioned then it actually does make some sense. Anubis was known for embalming the dead and the mummification process. He was the god to protect the dead and bring them to the afterlife. Oddly enough, the Egyptians believed when you died your heart was weighed against the “Feather of Truth” to determine your worthiness of an afterlife… well, Anubis was the one that did the weighing.
And I think that makes a whole lot of sense in the context of lost. I had posted some stuff about this in another thread, you can see it here: http://www.theoriesonlost.com/2009/05/jacob-ra-the-light-nirvana-nemesis-esau-apep-darkness/#comment-17636
Lastly, I would not rule out the incident as destroying it, because we know at the end of season 2 when Jack, Kate and Sawyer go to meet the others and they sail by it, that it is in its present form. Which Ben would have had to have seen, or at the very least, have gotten word from the others. not sure, maybe i missed something, somewhere.
Hope this helps.
Holdem, I am familiar with Anubis but I’m not so sure that he is the island statue. Anubis has the head of a jackal, and from what we can tell by the season 5 finale, the island statue probably has the head of a crocodile. The angle of the shot is undoubtedly ambiguous, but for me the give away are the ears. In pictures we have of Anubis his ears are tall and perked up like a jackal, but the island statues ears are tiny in comparison to the rest of the head. Anubis does appear in the hieroglyphs found in the temple though…
http://www.scottking.info/Pics/lostglyphs.jpg
I’m not convinced that the deity in the last picture is the same as the one represented by the statue. There are too many obvious differences in their appearance.
MightyEide I will agree there is no way to tell for sure, my wife pointed out the same thing about the ears. It just doesn’t seem fat enough to be Tawaret, the ankh looks different and I know some one else somewhere said maybe its Sobek, but it doesn’t have the proper headdress to be him and his story does not fit at all, Id be more likely to go with Tawaret than sobek given the pregnancy thing, which again, i will agree that fits in with the island and the show also. It is too hard for me to say which, but if i had to bet, I’d bet Anubis.
I do think there is no way any of us will be able to figure out exactly what is going on until the very last episode… at least I Hope so… and i think that is why we are all so hooked.
ok, so I admit, I am most likely wrong and it is Tawaret. We’ll see.
What do the crosses that the statue is holding mean? Isn’t it the same one that Paul had?
missalex99, the cross with a handle the statue is holding is called an Ankh. It is a very prominent symbol in mythology and represents life.