Word 'deseret' comes from ancient sources
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The word deseret, commonly used in the Church, comes from Ether 2:3, "And they did carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees. . . ."
LDS scholar Dr. Hugh Nibley has written:"Now it is a remarkable coincidence that the word deseret, or something very close to it, enjoyed a position of ritual prominence among the founders of the classical Egyptian civilization, who associated it very closely with the symbol of the bee. . . ."
Dr. Nibley noted further that "the founders of the two main parent civilizations of antiquity [Babylonian and EgyptianT entered their new home lands at approximately the same time from some common center - apparently the same center from which the Jaredites also took their departure [the Tower of BabelT. . . .
"The Egyptian pioneers carried with them a fully developed . . . symbolism from their Asiatic home. Chief among their . . . objects would seem to be the bee, for the land they first settled in Egypt was forever after known as `the land of the bee.' " (Lehi in the Deseret and the World of the Jaredites, pp. 184-85.)
