100 quotes from 100 hieroglyphs
Jul. 10th, 2011 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wedjatWhile I'm reading books, I have a tendency to dog-ear the pages that have interesting facts on them. If I have a pencil with me, I usually put a little star next to the paragraph (or paragraphs) that I think are relevant, with the intent on typing up the quote at a later date. I've been dog-earing pages in a variety of books for a long time, but I've only gotten around to typing up the quotes from a couple of titles.
The citation to go along with them is:
The work of the sculptor was to 'bring to life' the statues and images he created, and so we read of a 'living statue'. This was not just a turn of phrase. The final stage in the making of a statue (as well as the making of a mummy) was the performance of an elaborate ceremony, the Opening of the Mouth, in which the priest touched the mouth of the statue with an adze (a tool similar to an axe, with an arched blade at right angles to the handle) and so symbolically opened it. No statue or memorial was complete without its name (far more important than its resemblance to the owner). The person (usually a relative) who commissioned the work might add his own name as the person who had 'brought to life' the owner's name. (Kemp 2006, pp. 10)
The hieroglyph 'horizon' also refers to the place of sunset, and more widely to the rim of the sky and the abode of the gods. It gave rise to the word 'horizon dwellers', an evocative term for the inhabitants of a land to the south that was so far distant as to not have a proper name (in modern terms probably central Sudan). (Kemp 2006, pp. 15)
It was home to a goddess whose name was either simply that of the tree itself (Nehet) or Hathor. She was a kindly goddess often approachable in places of natural spiritual presence. One of her titles was 'mistress of the sycamore', and she was especially symbolic of one particular tree, 'the southern sycamore', which grew at Memphis. (Kemp 2006, pp. 28)
Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead is a spell first encountered around 2000 BC and was in use to the end of Egyptian civilization. It was a spell of substitution. When called upon to do so, a manufactured figurine would stand in for the deceased person when the summons for conscription arrive. Who, in the net world, would issue that summons is never stated. Even kings faced the same fate. It was evidently a visceral dread which tells us something very important about the quality of life in ancient Egypt. You never knew when your name would appear on a list, even though you might be one of the elite. (Kemp 2006, pp. 39)
The god Seth was a complex figure in Egyptian thinking who defies simple definition. Occasionally the myth referred to Seth as Osiris' brother (and thus Horus's uncle): his identity varied and mutated in much the same way as his symbolic significance. He symbolized a frequently dangerous 'alternative', against which positive characteristics could be defined. One text described him as the 'oldest magician of the sacred place of the first occasion' (the time of creation). (Kemp 2006, pp. 51)
Before interpreting the dream of the client, it was necessary to place that person in a particular group, perhaps comparable to modern horoscope groupings. A surviving fragment of the papyrus lists the characteristics of a person with 'Seth' qualities: he has red hair, drinks beer and becomes aggressive, attracts women with his passion, and fights murderously with weapons. In spite of this he can be long lived, reaching 84 years, and he is not an outsider. He can remember his dreams, and according to the details they can be interpreted as either a good or bad omen. (Kemp 2006, pp. 52)
The belief in Seth illustrates how ancient Egyptian thinking at a serious level differed from our own: whereas modern learning tends to seek logical explanations for the world around us which feed into a single grand scheme, Egyptian logic and meaning could shift depending on immediate context. (Kemp 2006, pp. 53)
In some contexts, red could stand for 'otherness', rather in the way that Seth did, which explains why Egyptians with red hair were associated with Seth. A word derived from 'red' meant 'wrath', as did the phrases 'red of heart' and 'red of face'. Red was the colour of enemies. One inexpensive way of safeguarding Egypt from attack was to write the names of hostile foreign leaders in red ink on clay figurines or pottery vessels and then bury or smash them. The gods would do the rest. (Kemp 2005, pp. 55)
Of the various species of snake at home in Egypt today nine are dangerous to humans. A papyrus of the 4th or 3rd century BC lists 38 ifferent types of snake, along with a description of their distinguishing features (hue, unusual size or number of fangs of behaviour), and the effect of their bite and whether this can be treated. In Egyptian mythology the venomous power of snakes could be harnessed for good. The cobra, which can reach more than two metres in length and characteristically raises its head and extends its hood when angered, became an enduring symbol of the power of the king and of the sun-god. Cobras were also a protective power for Egyptian people, who often felt that a world of spiritual forces was closer and more familiar than the gods and goddesses of the temples. The fear of ghosts of dead men and women pressed in during the night: one way to protect against them was to make four serpents of clay 'with flames in their mouths', place them at the corners of any room where people were sleeping, and recite over them a short spell of protection. Clay cobra figurines have been found during th excavation of settlements and could well be the remains of this practice. (Kemp 2005, pp. 60)
They sought security by winding string either between the ends of a bolt across a double-leaf door or, when the door was of a single leaf, between a bolt and a peg fixed to the door jamb. A mud sealing was then applied over the string stamped with a distinctive design from a personal seal. The security of storerooms could be monitored and written about in reports. Transferred to the full daily temple order of service, the unsealing and opening of the doors of various shrines became a significant act of ritual. (Kemp 2005, pp. 65)
At a deeper religious level doors were also seen as a means of access and closure. With their surrounding portals they marked stages on a journey through the imagined realm of the Otherworld. The dead faced a sequence of 21 doors manned by door-keepers who had to be addressed by their correct names before they would grant admission: 'Make way for me, for I know you, I know your name, and I know the name of the god who guards you.' A set of 12 similar portals, one for each hour, marked stages of the sun's perilous journey through the imagined realm of the night, painted in great detail in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. (ibid)
Male cats, sometimes armed with a knife, appear as demons in the Otherworld, helping to kill the serpent foe of the sun-god. More people worshipped a female cat, however, incorporating images connected with a fierce lioness-goddess, Sekhmet. The cult of a cat goddess was associated with the sun-god Ra, with child-bearing and with protection. The cult developed especially strongly in the city of Baset in the Nile delta, and the cat goddess was known simply as 'She of Baset' (thus, Bastet). Her festival became a major event, attracting (according to Herodotus) several hundred thousand people. Beside the city there developed a huge cemetery for cats, which had been bred, killed and carefully mummified as an expression of piety. (Kemp 2005, pp. 69)
By creating a safe zone inside, walls became a symbol of protection. A myth recorded on the walls of the temple of Edfu imagined that, in a primeval age, the sacred sites of Egypt were the places where the forces of evil in the forms of serpents had been defeated by companies of divine beings. According to this myth, temples were then built with a large enclosure wall to protect the sacred area from evils. During the second half of ancient Egyptian history, the enclosure walls around the larger temples resembled fortresses, with towers projecting from the wall faces, and battlements along the top 9the temple of Medinet Habu is the best surviving example). The military style was continued on the decorated walls of the temple itself, where large-scale scenes showed the Pharaoh battling his enemies. It was on such temple walls, at themes and the Eghyptian colonial city of Napata in Sudan, that around 1420 King Amenhotep II hung the bodies and severed hands of seven slain princes on his return from warfare in Syria. A model of the enclosure wall around the temple of the god Ptah of Memphis has a human ear carved at the top of each tower, and an accompanying text proclaims that this is 'the place where prayed is heard'. The pious citizen excluded from the temple and stationed outside its ramparts still hoped that his prayers would make their way through and be heard by the god hidden away inside. (Kemp 2005, pp. 77)
The library of the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu included a 'specification of the mounds of the first primeval age', which would have been an annotated list of the sacred places -- later chosen as the temple sties. Traces int he foundations suggest some were built on artificial mounds. This architectural ritual had a counterpart in mounds built over the burial chambers of tombs in the early dynasties. The square flat-topped construction concealed within the Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Sakkara is perhaps the most elaborate example. (Kemp 2005, pp. 80)
Their portals and mansions have crumbled, their mortuary priests have gone; their tombstones are covered with dirt, their graves are forgotten. Their name is pronounced through their writings which they made whilst they were yet alive. (Kemp 2005, pp. 85)
Boats, like today, were named. 'The Wild Bull', 'The Northern' and 'Arising in Memphis' were successive boats of the Nile battle fleet in which an officer, Ahmose of El-Kab, served during the war against the Hyksos. 'Strong of Prow is Amun' was the grand state barge which conveyed the statue of the god Amun on feast days. (Kemp 2005, pp. 101)
The dark starry sky was the background against which the sun-god and his attendants journeyed. To this extent, 'sky' deserves the translation 'heaven'. It was not, however, the kingdom of Osiris or a paradise for the dead ,the Egyptians holding in their minds several parallel versions of the afterlife and abode of the gods. (Kemp 2005, pp. 107)
The Book of the Dead was a particularly popular source of words of power. In Chapter 42 a dead person states: 'I am yesterday, one who views a million years; my name is one who passes on the paths of those who are in charge of destinies. I am the lord of eternity.' (Kemp 2005, pp. 118)
A creature which combined the head of a crocodile, foreparts of a lion and hindquarters of a hippopotamus and whose name meant 'Eater of the Dead' stood waiting, in case the balance did tilt. (Kemp 2005, pp. 139)
Particularly during the Middle Kingdom, scribes wrote lists of the enemies of the state on pottery vessels or on figurines of bound captives, which we term Execration Texts. After reading out a curse the figurines were probably symbolically knifed or, in the case of the pottery vessels, deliberately smashed. When excavating one place where the ceremony was performed, outside an Egyptian fortress in Nubia named Mirgissa, archaeologists found the bones of a man who had probably been beheaded at the time along with many examples of the Execration Texts. Presumably he was a captured Nubia. (Kemp 2005, pp. 145)
Oils and unguents were so valuable they were usually transported and stored in small and often distinctive containers. The hieroglyph shows a slightly flaring tubular stone jar, its flat lid secured with string. According to present evidence the Egyptians did not practise distillation and could not make perfumes, which are distilled from scented parts of plants. Instead they steeped fragrant plant substances in oil or fat, either by cold pressing or by boiling, to created scented unguents or ointments. We know that the wood and resin of various trees not native to Egypt, including cedar from Lebanon, were some of the ingredients used They would have given off a warm, rich, tangy aroma. (Kemp 2005, pp. 154)
'Amun, lend your ear to the lonely in court. He is poor; he is not rich,' says one prayed included in a scribe's practice book. Statues of gods and kings in temples, and even the heavy stone frames of temple gateways, had the capacity to 'hear prayers'. A way to encourage this was simply to carve one or more ears on a little stone table, perhaps adding the name of the god and one's own name, and leaving it with the priests. In these cases ,however, the ears are human. One man paid for a statue of himself holding a battlemented wall of the temple of Ptah at Memphis with a human ear carved at the top of each of its towers. (Kemp 2005, pp. 164)
For religious practices, speech was a vehicle of power. The Egyptians believed in 'magic' (Hk3), that could be summoned through 'utterances' or 'spells', the common word for which, r, was derived from that for 'mouth'. A god would be praised for his 'spells of magic'; a lector priest who read the temple liturgy boasted that he 'knows his spell'; the temple library of Edfu describe its holdings as books, instructions, laws and 'Spells for averting the Evil Eye'. In all these cases it is likely that, to be most effective, the spells were spoken aloud. The recitation of the sacred liturgy accompanied by the uttering of spells at particular moments would have been another sound in ancient Egypt. (Kemp 2005, pp. 168-169)
In the 13th Dynasty a priest named Amenysenb, of the temple of Osiris in Abydos, received a command from the king to 'purify' the temple. His description of the purification, however, mainly covers cleaning and repairs to fabric and its wall decorations, for which draughtsment were supplied who could retouch the painted reliefs and hieroglyphs. For completing this task Amenysenb was rewarded with 'ten heaps of offerings garnished with sweet cakes, and half a young ox'. (Kemp 2005, pp. 228)
Although their duties were often administrative, some of the priests expressed reverence towards their office: 'I did nothing wrong in his [the god's] domain. I did not neglect what I ought to do in his presence. I trod his ground, bowing and in awe of his dread. I have not been fierce towards his staff, I being [as] a father to them,' wrote the hight-priest Bakenkhensu looking backing over a lifetime of service to the temple of Amun-Ra at Thebes. (ibid)
An impure person was barred from sacred spaces including chapels attached to private tombs. Curses in tombs were directed at impurity rather than at robbery. 'As for any man who enters this tomb unclean, I shall seize him by the neck like a bird, and he will be judged for it by the great god,' states Harkhuf in his tomb chapel at Elephantine. Modern visitors to Egyptian tombs who worry about the curs of the Pharaohs should bear this in mind, and prepare themselves with a course of natron ingestion starting ten days beforehand. (ibid)
The central focus of a temple was the statue of the presiding deity. It normally stood in a shrine at the back of the building, a place of little light reached by priests through a series of wooden doors that were ritually opened and closed. The statue was kept clean and pure through libations of water, was draped with linen, surrounded with the smell of incensse and presented portions of food and drink as 'offerings'. The spirit of the god that dwelt in the statue also inhabited a portable image, which was paraded outside the temple and seen by the general population. From at least the New Kingdom onwards statues communicated messages by means of an 'oracle'. Some were set up in more accessible shrines on the edges of the temple enclosure and could 'hear prayers' from the local populace, though in a carefully managed atmosphere. (Kemp 2005, pp. 230)
The making of statues of the gods was an especially important act of creation, to the extent that the brief and selective annals of early kings include the creation of several statues as major events in the royal calendar. Once finished, a special set of priests brought the statue to life through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony (performer also over the mummified bodies of the dead before burial), where the mouth of the statue was touched with an adze. (Kemp 2005, pp. 237)
From the New Kingdom onwards the word 'wonder' took on the special meaning of 'oracle'. Oracles were a direct communication from the statue of a god ,either through its motion while being carried or through a message. King Thutmosis III recorded how, while still child, he was present int eh temple of Amun at Karnak and the statue of the god Amun was steered by its bearers towards him, choosing him to be the next king. to us now, this sounds stage-managed. Egyptian kingship was hereditary. There must often have been several princes, born to different mothers. In the family of Tuthmosis III his aunt, Hatshepsut, was also a successful claimant to the throne, ruling as if she were king for perhaps 15 of the years when Thutmosis III should have been sole ruler. Although few records survive of the affairs of the court, who became the heir to the throne must sometimes have been disputed, as in this case. Using the portable barque-shrine of Amun would have been a way of adding authority to the reigning king's choice of his heir. The senior priests, having been appointed by the king, probably had little influence in this matter. (Kemp 2005, pp. 240)
A well-documented oracle was a portable statue of the dead king Amenhotep I in the village of necropolis workmen at Deir ek-Medina. Villagers would consult the statue by presenting a written question -- 'Shall I buy this bull?' -- to which the /statue would give a silent answer by moving forwards of backwards. Guided by the men who carried it on their shoulders. the oracle helped solve crimes in the village, by picking out in a similar way one name from a list of villagers as it was read out.It could, on occasion, deliver a more complicated verdict, read aloud by a living scribe. The priests ( who were some of the senior workmen) and scribes were part of the same small village community. The oracle's authority rested upon a communal agreement to accept the verdict delivered, and the divinity of the statue. The safe Amenemope warned against abusing the practice: 'Do not falsify the oracle on papyrus and so harm the plans of god. DO not assume for yourself the power of god as though there were no fate and destiny.' (ibid, pp. 240-241)
One of them reads: 'A protective spell for guarding the limbs, to be recited over a child when the sunlight rices. You rise, Ra, you rise. Have you seen the dead who has come against her [the name of the child is inserted here] to lay a spell on her, laying plans to seize her from her [the mother's] embrace?' The mother of amulet man would then speak the words of Ra: 'I shall not give you, I shall not give your charge to a male or female robber from the West. My hand is upon you, my seal as your protection!' The seal was a concoction of 'magic' ingredients: 'a pellet of gold, 40 pellets of bread, and a carnelian seal-stone [bearing[ a crocodile and head. To be strung on a strip of fine linen, made into an amulet, placed around the neck of the child. Good!' In later periods dangers were written on strips of papyrus, blessed by the gods in a special ceremony, tightly rolled inside little cylinders, and given to young children. The dangers included blindness ,the collapse of a wall, the evil eye, magical books, angry gods and goddesses and even goods 'who seize someone instead of someone [else]'. Outside the walls of the temples the gods were not to be trusted. (Kemp 2005, pp. 245)
All the typing errors are my own!
The citation to go along with them is:
- Kemp, B. (2006). 100 hieroglyphs: think like an egyptian. London: Granta UK.
The work of the sculptor was to 'bring to life' the statues and images he created, and so we read of a 'living statue'. This was not just a turn of phrase. The final stage in the making of a statue (as well as the making of a mummy) was the performance of an elaborate ceremony, the Opening of the Mouth, in which the priest touched the mouth of the statue with an adze (a tool similar to an axe, with an arched blade at right angles to the handle) and so symbolically opened it. No statue or memorial was complete without its name (far more important than its resemblance to the owner). The person (usually a relative) who commissioned the work might add his own name as the person who had 'brought to life' the owner's name. (Kemp 2006, pp. 10)
The hieroglyph 'horizon' also refers to the place of sunset, and more widely to the rim of the sky and the abode of the gods. It gave rise to the word 'horizon dwellers', an evocative term for the inhabitants of a land to the south that was so far distant as to not have a proper name (in modern terms probably central Sudan). (Kemp 2006, pp. 15)
It was home to a goddess whose name was either simply that of the tree itself (Nehet) or Hathor. She was a kindly goddess often approachable in places of natural spiritual presence. One of her titles was 'mistress of the sycamore', and she was especially symbolic of one particular tree, 'the southern sycamore', which grew at Memphis. (Kemp 2006, pp. 28)
Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead is a spell first encountered around 2000 BC and was in use to the end of Egyptian civilization. It was a spell of substitution. When called upon to do so, a manufactured figurine would stand in for the deceased person when the summons for conscription arrive. Who, in the net world, would issue that summons is never stated. Even kings faced the same fate. It was evidently a visceral dread which tells us something very important about the quality of life in ancient Egypt. You never knew when your name would appear on a list, even though you might be one of the elite. (Kemp 2006, pp. 39)
The god Seth was a complex figure in Egyptian thinking who defies simple definition. Occasionally the myth referred to Seth as Osiris' brother (and thus Horus's uncle): his identity varied and mutated in much the same way as his symbolic significance. He symbolized a frequently dangerous 'alternative', against which positive characteristics could be defined. One text described him as the 'oldest magician of the sacred place of the first occasion' (the time of creation). (Kemp 2006, pp. 51)
Before interpreting the dream of the client, it was necessary to place that person in a particular group, perhaps comparable to modern horoscope groupings. A surviving fragment of the papyrus lists the characteristics of a person with 'Seth' qualities: he has red hair, drinks beer and becomes aggressive, attracts women with his passion, and fights murderously with weapons. In spite of this he can be long lived, reaching 84 years, and he is not an outsider. He can remember his dreams, and according to the details they can be interpreted as either a good or bad omen. (Kemp 2006, pp. 52)
The belief in Seth illustrates how ancient Egyptian thinking at a serious level differed from our own: whereas modern learning tends to seek logical explanations for the world around us which feed into a single grand scheme, Egyptian logic and meaning could shift depending on immediate context. (Kemp 2006, pp. 53)
In some contexts, red could stand for 'otherness', rather in the way that Seth did, which explains why Egyptians with red hair were associated with Seth. A word derived from 'red' meant 'wrath', as did the phrases 'red of heart' and 'red of face'. Red was the colour of enemies. One inexpensive way of safeguarding Egypt from attack was to write the names of hostile foreign leaders in red ink on clay figurines or pottery vessels and then bury or smash them. The gods would do the rest. (Kemp 2005, pp. 55)
Of the various species of snake at home in Egypt today nine are dangerous to humans. A papyrus of the 4th or 3rd century BC lists 38 ifferent types of snake, along with a description of their distinguishing features (hue, unusual size or number of fangs of behaviour), and the effect of their bite and whether this can be treated. In Egyptian mythology the venomous power of snakes could be harnessed for good. The cobra, which can reach more than two metres in length and characteristically raises its head and extends its hood when angered, became an enduring symbol of the power of the king and of the sun-god. Cobras were also a protective power for Egyptian people, who often felt that a world of spiritual forces was closer and more familiar than the gods and goddesses of the temples. The fear of ghosts of dead men and women pressed in during the night: one way to protect against them was to make four serpents of clay 'with flames in their mouths', place them at the corners of any room where people were sleeping, and recite over them a short spell of protection. Clay cobra figurines have been found during th excavation of settlements and could well be the remains of this practice. (Kemp 2005, pp. 60)
They sought security by winding string either between the ends of a bolt across a double-leaf door or, when the door was of a single leaf, between a bolt and a peg fixed to the door jamb. A mud sealing was then applied over the string stamped with a distinctive design from a personal seal. The security of storerooms could be monitored and written about in reports. Transferred to the full daily temple order of service, the unsealing and opening of the doors of various shrines became a significant act of ritual. (Kemp 2005, pp. 65)
At a deeper religious level doors were also seen as a means of access and closure. With their surrounding portals they marked stages on a journey through the imagined realm of the Otherworld. The dead faced a sequence of 21 doors manned by door-keepers who had to be addressed by their correct names before they would grant admission: 'Make way for me, for I know you, I know your name, and I know the name of the god who guards you.' A set of 12 similar portals, one for each hour, marked stages of the sun's perilous journey through the imagined realm of the night, painted in great detail in the tombs in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. (ibid)
Male cats, sometimes armed with a knife, appear as demons in the Otherworld, helping to kill the serpent foe of the sun-god. More people worshipped a female cat, however, incorporating images connected with a fierce lioness-goddess, Sekhmet. The cult of a cat goddess was associated with the sun-god Ra, with child-bearing and with protection. The cult developed especially strongly in the city of Baset in the Nile delta, and the cat goddess was known simply as 'She of Baset' (thus, Bastet). Her festival became a major event, attracting (according to Herodotus) several hundred thousand people. Beside the city there developed a huge cemetery for cats, which had been bred, killed and carefully mummified as an expression of piety. (Kemp 2005, pp. 69)
By creating a safe zone inside, walls became a symbol of protection. A myth recorded on the walls of the temple of Edfu imagined that, in a primeval age, the sacred sites of Egypt were the places where the forces of evil in the forms of serpents had been defeated by companies of divine beings. According to this myth, temples were then built with a large enclosure wall to protect the sacred area from evils. During the second half of ancient Egyptian history, the enclosure walls around the larger temples resembled fortresses, with towers projecting from the wall faces, and battlements along the top 9the temple of Medinet Habu is the best surviving example). The military style was continued on the decorated walls of the temple itself, where large-scale scenes showed the Pharaoh battling his enemies. It was on such temple walls, at themes and the Eghyptian colonial city of Napata in Sudan, that around 1420 King Amenhotep II hung the bodies and severed hands of seven slain princes on his return from warfare in Syria. A model of the enclosure wall around the temple of the god Ptah of Memphis has a human ear carved at the top of each tower, and an accompanying text proclaims that this is 'the place where prayed is heard'. The pious citizen excluded from the temple and stationed outside its ramparts still hoped that his prayers would make their way through and be heard by the god hidden away inside. (Kemp 2005, pp. 77)
The library of the Ptolemaic temple of Edfu included a 'specification of the mounds of the first primeval age', which would have been an annotated list of the sacred places -- later chosen as the temple sties. Traces int he foundations suggest some were built on artificial mounds. This architectural ritual had a counterpart in mounds built over the burial chambers of tombs in the early dynasties. The square flat-topped construction concealed within the Step Pyramid of King Djoser at Sakkara is perhaps the most elaborate example. (Kemp 2005, pp. 80)
Their portals and mansions have crumbled, their mortuary priests have gone; their tombstones are covered with dirt, their graves are forgotten. Their name is pronounced through their writings which they made whilst they were yet alive. (Kemp 2005, pp. 85)
Boats, like today, were named. 'The Wild Bull', 'The Northern' and 'Arising in Memphis' were successive boats of the Nile battle fleet in which an officer, Ahmose of El-Kab, served during the war against the Hyksos. 'Strong of Prow is Amun' was the grand state barge which conveyed the statue of the god Amun on feast days. (Kemp 2005, pp. 101)
The dark starry sky was the background against which the sun-god and his attendants journeyed. To this extent, 'sky' deserves the translation 'heaven'. It was not, however, the kingdom of Osiris or a paradise for the dead ,the Egyptians holding in their minds several parallel versions of the afterlife and abode of the gods. (Kemp 2005, pp. 107)
The Book of the Dead was a particularly popular source of words of power. In Chapter 42 a dead person states: 'I am yesterday, one who views a million years; my name is one who passes on the paths of those who are in charge of destinies. I am the lord of eternity.' (Kemp 2005, pp. 118)
A creature which combined the head of a crocodile, foreparts of a lion and hindquarters of a hippopotamus and whose name meant 'Eater of the Dead' stood waiting, in case the balance did tilt. (Kemp 2005, pp. 139)
Particularly during the Middle Kingdom, scribes wrote lists of the enemies of the state on pottery vessels or on figurines of bound captives, which we term Execration Texts. After reading out a curse the figurines were probably symbolically knifed or, in the case of the pottery vessels, deliberately smashed. When excavating one place where the ceremony was performed, outside an Egyptian fortress in Nubia named Mirgissa, archaeologists found the bones of a man who had probably been beheaded at the time along with many examples of the Execration Texts. Presumably he was a captured Nubia. (Kemp 2005, pp. 145)
Oils and unguents were so valuable they were usually transported and stored in small and often distinctive containers. The hieroglyph shows a slightly flaring tubular stone jar, its flat lid secured with string. According to present evidence the Egyptians did not practise distillation and could not make perfumes, which are distilled from scented parts of plants. Instead they steeped fragrant plant substances in oil or fat, either by cold pressing or by boiling, to created scented unguents or ointments. We know that the wood and resin of various trees not native to Egypt, including cedar from Lebanon, were some of the ingredients used They would have given off a warm, rich, tangy aroma. (Kemp 2005, pp. 154)
'Amun, lend your ear to the lonely in court. He is poor; he is not rich,' says one prayed included in a scribe's practice book. Statues of gods and kings in temples, and even the heavy stone frames of temple gateways, had the capacity to 'hear prayers'. A way to encourage this was simply to carve one or more ears on a little stone table, perhaps adding the name of the god and one's own name, and leaving it with the priests. In these cases ,however, the ears are human. One man paid for a statue of himself holding a battlemented wall of the temple of Ptah at Memphis with a human ear carved at the top of each of its towers. (Kemp 2005, pp. 164)
For religious practices, speech was a vehicle of power. The Egyptians believed in 'magic' (Hk3), that could be summoned through 'utterances' or 'spells', the common word for which, r, was derived from that for 'mouth'. A god would be praised for his 'spells of magic'; a lector priest who read the temple liturgy boasted that he 'knows his spell'; the temple library of Edfu describe its holdings as books, instructions, laws and 'Spells for averting the Evil Eye'. In all these cases it is likely that, to be most effective, the spells were spoken aloud. The recitation of the sacred liturgy accompanied by the uttering of spells at particular moments would have been another sound in ancient Egypt. (Kemp 2005, pp. 168-169)
In the 13th Dynasty a priest named Amenysenb, of the temple of Osiris in Abydos, received a command from the king to 'purify' the temple. His description of the purification, however, mainly covers cleaning and repairs to fabric and its wall decorations, for which draughtsment were supplied who could retouch the painted reliefs and hieroglyphs. For completing this task Amenysenb was rewarded with 'ten heaps of offerings garnished with sweet cakes, and half a young ox'. (Kemp 2005, pp. 228)
Although their duties were often administrative, some of the priests expressed reverence towards their office: 'I did nothing wrong in his [the god's] domain. I did not neglect what I ought to do in his presence. I trod his ground, bowing and in awe of his dread. I have not been fierce towards his staff, I being [as] a father to them,' wrote the hight-priest Bakenkhensu looking backing over a lifetime of service to the temple of Amun-Ra at Thebes. (ibid)
An impure person was barred from sacred spaces including chapels attached to private tombs. Curses in tombs were directed at impurity rather than at robbery. 'As for any man who enters this tomb unclean, I shall seize him by the neck like a bird, and he will be judged for it by the great god,' states Harkhuf in his tomb chapel at Elephantine. Modern visitors to Egyptian tombs who worry about the curs of the Pharaohs should bear this in mind, and prepare themselves with a course of natron ingestion starting ten days beforehand. (ibid)
The central focus of a temple was the statue of the presiding deity. It normally stood in a shrine at the back of the building, a place of little light reached by priests through a series of wooden doors that were ritually opened and closed. The statue was kept clean and pure through libations of water, was draped with linen, surrounded with the smell of incensse and presented portions of food and drink as 'offerings'. The spirit of the god that dwelt in the statue also inhabited a portable image, which was paraded outside the temple and seen by the general population. From at least the New Kingdom onwards statues communicated messages by means of an 'oracle'. Some were set up in more accessible shrines on the edges of the temple enclosure and could 'hear prayers' from the local populace, though in a carefully managed atmosphere. (Kemp 2005, pp. 230)
The making of statues of the gods was an especially important act of creation, to the extent that the brief and selective annals of early kings include the creation of several statues as major events in the royal calendar. Once finished, a special set of priests brought the statue to life through the Opening of the Mouth ceremony (performer also over the mummified bodies of the dead before burial), where the mouth of the statue was touched with an adze. (Kemp 2005, pp. 237)
From the New Kingdom onwards the word 'wonder' took on the special meaning of 'oracle'. Oracles were a direct communication from the statue of a god ,either through its motion while being carried or through a message. King Thutmosis III recorded how, while still child, he was present int eh temple of Amun at Karnak and the statue of the god Amun was steered by its bearers towards him, choosing him to be the next king. to us now, this sounds stage-managed. Egyptian kingship was hereditary. There must often have been several princes, born to different mothers. In the family of Tuthmosis III his aunt, Hatshepsut, was also a successful claimant to the throne, ruling as if she were king for perhaps 15 of the years when Thutmosis III should have been sole ruler. Although few records survive of the affairs of the court, who became the heir to the throne must sometimes have been disputed, as in this case. Using the portable barque-shrine of Amun would have been a way of adding authority to the reigning king's choice of his heir. The senior priests, having been appointed by the king, probably had little influence in this matter. (Kemp 2005, pp. 240)
A well-documented oracle was a portable statue of the dead king Amenhotep I in the village of necropolis workmen at Deir ek-Medina. Villagers would consult the statue by presenting a written question -- 'Shall I buy this bull?' -- to which the /statue would give a silent answer by moving forwards of backwards. Guided by the men who carried it on their shoulders. the oracle helped solve crimes in the village, by picking out in a similar way one name from a list of villagers as it was read out.It could, on occasion, deliver a more complicated verdict, read aloud by a living scribe. The priests ( who were some of the senior workmen) and scribes were part of the same small village community. The oracle's authority rested upon a communal agreement to accept the verdict delivered, and the divinity of the statue. The safe Amenemope warned against abusing the practice: 'Do not falsify the oracle on papyrus and so harm the plans of god. DO not assume for yourself the power of god as though there were no fate and destiny.' (ibid, pp. 240-241)
One of them reads: 'A protective spell for guarding the limbs, to be recited over a child when the sunlight rices. You rise, Ra, you rise. Have you seen the dead who has come against her [the name of the child is inserted here] to lay a spell on her, laying plans to seize her from her [the mother's] embrace?' The mother of amulet man would then speak the words of Ra: 'I shall not give you, I shall not give your charge to a male or female robber from the West. My hand is upon you, my seal as your protection!' The seal was a concoction of 'magic' ingredients: 'a pellet of gold, 40 pellets of bread, and a carnelian seal-stone [bearing[ a crocodile and head. To be strung on a strip of fine linen, made into an amulet, placed around the neck of the child. Good!' In later periods dangers were written on strips of papyrus, blessed by the gods in a special ceremony, tightly rolled inside little cylinders, and given to young children. The dangers included blindness ,the collapse of a wall, the evil eye, magical books, angry gods and goddesses and even goods 'who seize someone instead of someone [else]'. Outside the walls of the temples the gods were not to be trusted. (Kemp 2005, pp. 245)
All the typing errors are my own!
