Crook and flail
The shepherd’s crook and the flail, emblems of rule that a hymn to Osiris says the god received as prince of gods and men.
Meaning
Petrie gives the crook’s name as heqt, the “crook of the flocks” used by shepherds, and the flail’s as nekhekh, and for both the meaning of rule in Heliopolis. In the hymn to Osiris in Budge’s translation, the god “hath received the crook and the whip, and the dignity of his divine fathers”; Petrie calls the flail a scourge.
Origin and history
Full-sized flails of limestone were found broken up in tombs of the Twelfth Dynasty at Riqqeh, Petrie records.
See also
Eye of Horus, Scarab, Djed pillar, Was sceptre, Shen ring, Cartouche.
Sources
- Amulets, illustrated by the Egyptian collection in University College, London, W. M. Flinders Petrie, 1914, Constable and Company, London (Internet Archive), Nos. 52, 53
- Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life, E. A. Wallis Budge, 1899, Project Gutenberg, Hymn to Osiris
Last reviewed September 25, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research