HR Giger: Apparition of Bes the Egyptian Dwarf God in Spell I

Leading from

Giger's  The Spell I
and
Bes 
 

a) The Bes connection
On the evening 22nd of December 2015, a picture of Bes with two monkeys either side has been posted on Archaeology & Prehistoric & Ancient Wonders which has nothing to do with aliens, Alien or Giger. (Many thanks to Yavuz Tellioğlu for posting this image at a specific moment) Bes was the beast like Hittite dwarf god. I only thought that it seemed almost interesting to see the two monkeys on the shoulders and how they reminded me of the machine gunners in The Spell I but the following day, on the 23rd, I suddenly realised that features of Bes had been incorporated into the image. Giger will have collected at least two different Bes to use as inspiration for the painting.

b) Imagery from a Bes from 500bc

Hittite god Bes with monkeys either side of ears, ca 500 BC?.

The monkeys on Bes' shoulders turn into a machine gun shoulders on the shoulders of 
the crucific in The Spell i.

Bes here appears to be an individual with horns and perhaps the outstretched hands 
represent horns. The woman's occupies the place of Bes' nose.

The eyes of bes become small heads dimly in the darkness and his nose becomes the shape of the exposed parts of the woman's face. His brow becomes the two eyeless head at the beginning of the hand horns, facing each other.

Where this representation of Bes places his hands either side of his protruding belly is where the wings cut away into the belly of the woman.

The Bes here has crescent strips going across the lower belly or groin, we see on Giger painting, ribbing up and down the belly with a defined pelvic girdle



c) features from Bes as an Egyptian deity as depicted on a relief at Dendera

The dwarf deity Bes as depicted on a relief at Dendera (1991–1802 BC)

Bes beard is divided either side of the mouth and Giger has extended it, perhaps in conjunction with the features found on the folds of the robe of the  Cristo Redentor statue of Rio De Janeiro

 

The brow of this type of Bes also inspire the position of the two eyeles faces staring at each other in The Spell I

Bes' ears is divided into an upper and lower part,  ribbed with vertical strips in the upper part and horizontal strips in the lower part. One might take a look at the horizontal ribbing above the space and think about the horizontal ribbing across the eyelids of the Bes and suppose that Giger might have half thought about them being eyes as well, with no wish to be specific about these things being necessarily one thing or the other.