Crouching Idea-Man, Hidden Power:
(Tutu U Tuu)

© Joan Lansberry, 9-19-09
The original sketch was done on 11x14 bristol board,
once its irregularities were smoothed out, I printed it out and colored...
(Julia said he has 'hindsight'!)
A lot of things were stewing together in my mind before I took pen to paper for this piece:

The three headed deity that I'd studied the day before, the "astonishing example[s] of calligraphy and art on a par with The Book of Kells and the illuminated manuscripts of William Blake" in Yung's Red Book (description via Amazon.com), and the deity Tutu, as I was also celebrating in my own odd way his festival. As I pondered the "earthy powers and divine might" (words Kaper), I felt the best way to ponder was via my art pen.

There's things I like about this drawing and things I don't like. Of course the arm and leg further from us are both mangled. Also, the man would not draw the image the way I did, the lettering would face him. But what I like is the way color is balanced through out the composition. The three blue pen-swords are nicely balanced by the five blue idea-blobs. I also like the way he looks truly inspired, as though he's listening for his inspiration.

Here's the drawing of Tutu I did two years earlier:


©JAL, 8-18-07
I still might color him someday...

I did some study before this line drawing, gathering together various images of Tutu that I'd saved, observing the commonalities, and combined them with photos of stalking lions, cobras, men's head in profile and the nemes headdress.

A book description reveals that:

Tutu (Tithoes) was a popular god in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history, with his origins in the earlier Egyptian religious tradition. The god provided protection against demons, and his appearance as a striding sphinx was often combined with symbols of his power and visual references to demons and other divinities. The god Tutu demonstrates the continuing vitality of the pharaonic religion under the pressure of foreign cultures and ideas. This monograph provides the first comprehensive study of the god Tutu. It is based upon a collection of attestations, largely unpublished, which derive from monuments in various parts of Egypt and from museum collections all over the world. Moreover, the results of recent archaeological field work in Shenhur and in the temple of Tutu in the Dakhla Oasis have been included in full. The catalogue of monuments is accompanied by an analysis of the god Tutu, his iconography and his place in the Egyptian religion.
[Peeters Publishers] about _The Egyptian god Tutu : a study of the sphinx-god and master of demons with a corpus of monuments_

I find it particularily fascinating that there was a "temple of Tutu in the Dakhla Oasis", as this was one of Set's regions.

A little net digging, and I turn up this, from writings about excavations at this temple:

"On the east wall south of the central niche are black ink drawings of a cult image of Seth, a small figure of Tutu as a sphinx and a vulture with wings outstretched. On the south wall there is a single bust of Bes, bearded and wearing a feather crown. These depictions confirm the identification of the structure as a shrine; they are discussed in this volume by Olaf Kaper and the classical paintings are described by Helen Whitehouse." (page 199)

Olaf Kaper is the author of the earlier mentioned book.

Still more searching about the Dakhla area turns up the Dakhleh Oasis Project, where I learned a bit more. Not only is there a temple of Tutu there, a temple of Seth is there, too, but it is in bad shape, as this page explains:

"The site to-day is a temple temenos, a heavy wall enclosing the remains of a stone temple dedicated to Seth, and many associated mud brick buildings. Finds include blocks dating to Thutmosis III, Psamtik and several other Late Period rulers of Egypt and two hieratic stelae dated to the XXI and XXV Dynasties.

The temple has been largely destroyed by subsequent building activity in the modern town."

But the Dakhleh Oasis archeologists are doing their best to salvage it:

"Colin also gave an account of the work at Mut, which is anything but straightforward. Here there is much work to be done on the temple to Seth where the recovered material ranges from Second Dynasty to Mamluke."