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| | From:  _vixedjuju_ (Original Message) | Sent: 6/4/2007 3:27 AM |
Egyptian Background Ancient Egypt was a significant player on the world stage because of its strategic position at the crossroads of African and Asia. Divided into southern Upper Egypt (the floodplain, high desert, low desert, and Nile river); and, northern Lower Egypt (the sparsely settled delta region), Egyptians always shared common linguistics, beliefs, traditions, and idealized cultural paradigms, which they continually strove to preserve throughout their history. Flowing from South to North and the longest river in the world, the Nile was their source of sustenance and primary means of travel. The river teemed with fish and when it flooded each year it revitalized the land. The Egyptians journeyed on the Nile in cargo, funerary, passenger and navy boats. Saqqara was the site of the first step pyramids, but, the first "true" funerary complex pyramids were not built until the Fourth Dynasty. The First Dynasty began when King Menes ruled over a united Lower and Upper Egypt. The kings of the first three dynasties were living embodiments of the god Horus. Afterwards, they bore the title of Re, the sun god. They had several different types of calendars: agricultural based on the seasons (inundation, coming forth afterwards, harvesting) with four 30 day months and five 5 epagomenal days for the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys; astronomical based on Sirius (the rising of the star along with the Sun); and moon based (for rituals and events honoring the deities). After the Neolithic Period from 5450-3850 B.C. and the Predynastic Period from 4500-3100 B.C. (Badarian; Naqada I; Naqada II; Naqada III), historians usually divide the history of ancient Egypt into nine dynastic kingdoms or periods which are considered to be the culmination of the formative stage of ancient Egyptian civilization. These periods were followed by the Roman Period from 30 B.C. - 395 A.D. There is also another unrecorded prehistoric story about Egypt which tells of an epoch when some of the Lyran star teachers lived there after the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria. Later on after they relocated to Orion and the Pleiades, the Sirian peoples recycled the earth mounds, temples, and cities, and settled there for a time in an effort to continue and to further advance the evolutionary spiral of their species. For more information about these events please see Lyra and the Lemurians and Orion and Pleiadian Connections to Lemuria.
Nine Dynastic Periods
Early Dynastic Period - 3100-2750 B.C.
(Dynasty I; Dynasty II)
Old Kingdom - 2750-2250 B.C.
(Dynasty III; Dynasty IV; Dynasty V; Dynasty VI)
First Intermediate Period - 2250-2025 B.C.
(Dynasty VIII; Dynasty IX-X; Dynasty XI);
Middle Kingdom - 2025-1627/1606 B.C.
(Dynasty XI; Dynasty XII; Dynasty XIII)
Second Intermediate Period - 648-1539 B.C.
(Dynasty XV; Dynasty XVII)
New Kingdom - 1539-1070 B.C.
(Dynasty XVIII; Dynasty XIX; Dynasty XX)
Third Intermediate Period - 1070-653 B.C.
(Dynasty XXI; Dynasty XXII; Dynasty XXIII; Dynasty XXIV; Dynasty XXV)
Late Period - 664-332 B.C.
(Dynasty XXVI; Dynasty XXVII; Dynasty XXIX; Dynasty XXX; Dynasty XXXI)
Ptolemaic Period - 332-30 B.C.
(Macedonian Dynasty; Ptolemaic Dynasty)
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Useful Vocabulary Amulet A magickal charm made from precious stones or faience that was often fashioned in the shape of an animal, god, or goddess and encrypted with hieroglyphic magical formulas. Used for protection, they were worn as jewelry while alive and encased in the mummy wrappings for use in the afterlife.
Ankh
The Egyptian symbol for eternal life. Various gods and goddesses were often depicted holding an ankh before someone's lips or the king's nose, indicating that they were the purveyors of the "Breath of Life" necessary in both this life and the afterlife.
Ba
The soul force or power of the spirit, "Ba" was the personality released at the moment of death - when "Ka" and the body were united with the assistance of the mummy and "Ka" statue. "Ba" was depicted as either a human headed bird or as a bird to show the ability of the "Ba" to roam freely in the afterlife with the exception of the dangerous hours of darkness when it must return to the tomb.
Bennu (Benu)
The phoenix side of "Ra" that brought the eternal light from the place where the gods and goddesses dwelt to the earth for the benefit of humanity. Also, the Atum who was the benefactor during times of accountability.
Book of the Dead
A compilation of illustrated chapters, written on papyrus, comprised mainly of spells, magick formulas, and prayers for the deceased that was placed in tombs: to guide them on their journey through the Underworld (routes, clues on how to overcome hazards and obstacles, passwords to shapeshift into mythic creatures); and, also to protect them with the help of the deities. Books of the Dead have been found in tombs dating as far back as 1600 B.C.
Canopic Jars
After the embalming, the intestines, liver, lungs, and stomach of a mummy were preserved in a set of four canopic jars which were usually made of cartonnage, faience, pottery, stone, or wood. Different dieties protected each jar and their stoppers often resembled the head of the deity: "Qebehsenuf" with a falcon head protected the intestines; "Imsety" with a human head protected the liver; "Hapi" with a baboon head protected the lungs; and "Duamutef" with a dog head protected the stomach. The four Canopic Jars were usually stored together but separate from the mummy. Coffins The mummy was often covered and protected by an inner set of wooden cases.
Embalming
The process of preserving a deceased body, a practice utilizing chemical and physical methods.
Hieroglyphics
From a Greek word for "sacred carving", hieroglyphs were a pictorial form of writing where the symbols representing sounds were not connected together.
Ka
An exact duplicate of a person's spirit or vital force that was released at the moment of death. The "Ka", depicted as two upraised arms, still needed a body for its eternal home (the tomb "Ka" statue or mummy) in order to survive. Food, drink, and other worldly goods were left as offerings for the "Ka" to use in the afterlife.
Kohl Pots
Because of the popularity of kohl eye makeup, there were numerous small kohl pots in a variety of shapes and designs, the most common being that of the monkey. Also depicted were deities such a Taweret, a protective goddess of pregnant women who also guarded households.
Mummification
Although mummification was available to everyone during the New Kingdom from 1539-1070 B.C., it was only available to kings during the Old Kingdom from 2750-2250 B.C. There were four basic steps to the mummification process which took around 70 days: the removal of all the internal organs except the heart; the packing of the body with natron salt and leaving it to dry out for 40-50 days; the filling of the body cavity with linen, resin and sawdust and shaping it to restore the deceased's form and features; and the wrapping of the body with many layers of linen with charms and amulets while a priest recited prayers and spells before placing it into a shroud.
Mummy
From "moumiya", a Persian word, a mummy was the body of a deceased person that had been preserved by the process of mummification which dried out the body and removed sources of decay.
Mummy Mask
A mask portraying the likeness of the dead person so that the "Ba" and "Ka" would recognize the mummy to which they both belonged.
Natron
A natural mixture of varying proportions of four salts (sodium bicarbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium chloride, and sodium sulfate) that was used for embalming.
Obelisk
Symbolic of a solar ray, obelisks were tapered shaft, pyramid capped, monuments which were placed as pairs at the entrances of temples and sometimes of Old Kingdom tombs.
Great Pyramid
Estimated to be at least 4,617 years old, the Great Pyramid is located on the northern edge of the Giza Plateau near the Sphinx. The original pyramid had 755 ft long sides oriented to the four cardinal compass points that were covered with smooth limestone, a top capped with quartz crystal, and contained numerous interior shafts and two interior chambers that remained at a constant 68 degrees Fahrenheit, the same temperature as the earth's interior. Placed on a harmonic resonance vortex, it covers an ancient sacred mound once used by a group of ancient star teachers from Lyra, after the sinking of Atlantis and Lemuria, when the area was still lushly verdant. Later on when the Lyran star teachers relocated to Orion and the Pleiades, the Egyptian Dynasties who succeeded them, who were no longer under their tutelage, built the Great Pyramid over the once sacred mound and turned the Giza Plateau into a Necropolis in an attempt to try to connect with and to acquire the higher harmonic, immortality resonances of Orion and the Pleaides star systems. For more information about the Great Pyramid see the Sphinx Mysteries and Riddles Explanations Insight.
Papyrus
The primary source of writing material, sheets of papyrus were made by cutting the stem of the papyrus plant into strips which were soaked in baths. Then the strips were laid out in rows and beaten to activate starches which formed a glue that bound sheets together in a roll.
Sarcophagus
A container made of stone into which a mummy and coffins were placed.
Scarab
To the ancient Egyptians, the "Scarab" beetle, which they called "Khepera", represented regeneration and resurrection. It was commonly worn as an ornament, amulet, or buried with the deceased. Often the underside of the "Scarab" was inscribed with the names of long dead kings and sometimes the beetle was depicted with outstretched wings.
Scribes
All Egyptian communications were read and written by the scribes whose patron deity was Thoth. Since the scribes were responsible for administrative records, legal documents, and official proclamations, their training was often severe.
Shabtis (Shawabti, Ushabti)
Shabtis were originally small mummy shaped statues inscribed with offering prayers that were placed inside coffins. Dating back to the early days of the "Middle Kingdom", they were made from clay limestone, faience, and painted wood. As the function of the "Shabtis" changed from prayer offerings - to afterlife servants of the deceased - to farmers, their name changed to "Shawabti" and then to "Ushabti".
Sphinx
Carved from the bedrock of the Giza plateau with the body of a recumbent lion and the head of a human, the Sphinx, faces east towards the equinox. Since the softer layers of stone are badly eroded, much of the original details of the Sphinx are not discernible, but, traces of paint by one of the ears suggested that it was once a colorfully painted figure. Repeatedly buried over the millennia by the shifting desert sands of Egypt, the exact age if the Sphinx is unknown and mystery shrouds its origins and functions. For more information about the Sphinx see the Sphinx Mysteries and Riddles Explanations Insight. Weighing of the Heart After death, the heart (which recorded all the deeds of an ancient Egyptian's life), was weighed against the "Feather of Maat", the goddess of justice. Anubis watched over the scales during the weighing and Thoth recorded the outcome. If one had lived a wholesome life, the feather and the heart balanced each other and eternal life with Osiris in paradise was guaranteed.
Writing (Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Demotic)
The ancient Egyptians had three types of writing: hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic. From the Greek words for sacred, "hieros" and for inscriptions, "glypho", hieroglyphic writing used pictures to express both sound and ideas; and, forms the foundation for both hieratic and demotic writing. With the more cursive Hieratic writing, a reed brush was used by the priests to produce quick hand drawings of signs on a sheet of papyrus, resulting in less details but the writing was still translatable into hieroglyphics. This was not the case with Demotic writing where even swifter reed brush strokes fashioned totally new signs which were used in stories and texts.
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| Egyptian History in Mage Egypt was shaped by magick; nowhere else the barriers between the worlds, the past and present, the dead and living, the gods and men are so weak and convoluted. Through millennia the Nile valley has been shaped by gods and mages as well as the beliefs of sleepers.
Prehistory
The prehistory of Egypt is only conjectural. According to the technocratic archeologists, there were humans there 250,000 BC. The Order of Hermes instead speak of how the Creator (either Atum, Chnum or Ptah) and the Pure Ones created the world from the first mound of order in the sea of chaos, and then created mankind. Some mages speculate that the secret of creation still exists hidden somewhere in the Nile Valley, and eagerly seek any hints of forgotten truths.
Many mages believe that what made Egypt unique was the closeness between the inhabiants and the gods; this explains the sometimes confusing mixtures between different gods and myths, since most umbrood have a very tenuous individuality and change appearance and properties depending on the viewer and his beliefs. In Egypt, human mages interacted freely with the gods, blurring the line between man and god. In these mythical times, time, space and individuality were still undefined and liquid, a state not unlike the Australian concept of the Dreamtime. There was no contradiction between seeing the sun as the eye of Horus, a sphere of gold rolled by a scarab or twelve gods ruling over each hour of day - all were equally true. Everyone consisted of an agglomerate of souls that could move apart and meld together. To bring order and structure to the world the humans developed ritual and eventually magick. According to the old myths the sun god Ra ruled both gods and men in the beginning. But the humans rose up against the gods, destroying their statues and upsetting the Law of Maat. Angered, Ra first intended to destroy the cosmos, but relented and led the gods to a voluntary exile in the worlds beyond the heavens. This may correspond to the first severing between the worlds of spirit and matter, and the creation of the Gauntlet. Needless to say, neither the gods or the humans could survive without each other and soon the temples were yet again inhabited by the manifestations of the gods and prayers rose to the sky, but gods and men no longer lived in the same world. Predynastic Egypt
Predynastic Egypt is largely unknown, but it is known that there were several smaller kingdoms, which were eventually united into Upper and Lower Egypt, which in turn were united by Menes of the first dynasty. Mages believe this corresponds to the mystical battle between Set and Horus, were Set represents Lower Egypt and Horus the victorious Upper Egypt. The struggle between the two gods continued for a long time, and the second dynasty swore allegiance to Set rather than Horus, but eventually Horus became the dominant god and the worship of Set declined.
Much of Egyptian dynastic history is influenced by the complex politics between the various priesthoods. These mage-priests had significant political power, and politics, religion and magick was intimately interwoven. Usually the priests of one city would work together against the priests of other cities, but sometimes political marriages between their respective divinities were arranged. Sometimes the Pharao would be weak enough to be influenced by the priests, sometimes the rulers were strong enough to make the priests obey and support him. The priests of Hermopolis, whose chief divinity was Thoth (by the Greeks identified with Hermes), would latter influence the Order of Hermes, although the Order drew on knowledge from many other priesthoods too. They envisoned the creation of the universe as he interplay between the eight gods of the Ogdoad (representing unformed reality) initiated by the divine word of Thoth. The solar priesthoods of Heliopolis and especially the priests of Amun influenced the Celestial Chorus, although to a much lesser extent. And the priestesses of Isis would secretly influence Egyptian history for millennia. The other priesthoods would play various roles in history, but in the end they died out or were assimilated into later magickal/religious traditions. The Old Kingdom
The Old Kingdom (2682-2181 BC) began with the third dynasty and represented the pinnacle of magickal power of Egypt. The magick of pyramid building was developed during the third dynasty; earlier the egyptian kings and nobility had been buried beneath rectangular monuments called mastaba. But the influential priest- and architect-mage Imhotep realized that by building monuments in the right way, with the correct consecrations, the flows of quintessence could be diverted into magick. He built the staircase pyramid of Netjerykhet Zozer at Sakkara to give his king immortality in the next world. The natural flow of quintessence along the Nile was led into a complex enchantment to provide the dead king with a worthy afterlife and reflect his majesty back into the world. It seems that Imhotep had found the secrets of redirecting ley-lines with the help of architecture and using Quintessence to strengthen the empire by locking the paradigm in a certain shape. After the ascension of Imhotep, the mage was himself worshiped as the son of Ptah and became the patron of scribes and doctors. Mages have sought for his vanished temple near Sakkara for millennia to divine its secrets.
During the fourth dynasty, Egypt had become a powerful and unified empire. The art of pyramid building had developed, and through temple complex and arcades the lifegiving quintessence of the Nile was channeled into the afterlives of the kings. But an unnamed priest-mage, possibly Imhotep himself, had seen further. He had a vision: an immense plan to create a great hieroglyph across the land, invoking the great god Horus, the god of the kings, to protect and empower for all eternity. Each pyramid, housing one of the decendants and incarnations of the God would be a part of this pattern, a kind of huge figurine for the god to inhabit. When he described his great vision to king Khufu (Cheops), the king listened. He ordered the construction of his own great pyramid to act as the center for the Pattern. The successor of Khufu, Redjedef, was not as enthusiastic and built only a minor pyramid at Abu Roasch in the north, accepting but not encouraging the Great Plan. The next king, Khafre (Chefren) was more loyal to the priests of Horus, and built his own sizeable pyramid alongside Khufu. But the Plan had also set dark powers in motion. Set, the ancient enemy of Horus, had awakened to this new threat. If the pattern was completed, the warrior-god would be invincible. But the god of the desert silently reached out with his unseen power and touched the land. He made people see the waste of building the huge monuments and the cruelty of their masters. He undermined the harvests with storms and drought. And he subtly corrupted the priests of Ra with ambition, forcing a subtle conflict between the priesthoods and a greedy amassing of wealth in the temples, undermining the power of the kings. Khufu was warned by the mighty mage Djedi of Djed-Sneferu. The mage prophecied that in three generations time the chest holding the number of the secret apartments in the sanctuary of Thoth would be brought from Heliopolis to the palace by a wife of the priest of the sun god, who would bear three children of extraordinary power - which will inherit the throne of Egypt. But the king accepted this destiny and did not challenge it, thus making it real. The successor of Khafre, Menkaure (Mycerinus), could not afford to create a pyramid as great as his predecessors, it was not finished at his death and instead of granite it was covered with bricks. After him strife and internal struggles followed, until the priests of Ra finally won and put the fifth dynasty onto the throne. Horus was no longer the god of the pharao, and Ra took his place. The great plan was forgotten, and while the next dynasties built pyramids none were as great or sacred as the old, and none were part of the Plan which was forgotten. Most of them crumbled after a few centuries, and the once great empire gradually desintegrated as Set spread dissent. The New Kingdom
During the New Kingdom (1567-1085 BC) beginning with the eighteenth dynasty, glory returned to Egypt. The kingdom expanded into an empire stretching from the Euphrates in the east to Kush (Etiopia) in the south, its enemies were crushed and wealth from foreign lands accumulated along the Nile. The Priestesses of Isis began to assert themselves, and under their guidance Makare Hatshepsut (1503 BC) rose to the throne in the 18th dynasty. Queen Hatshepsut was a formidable woman, probably secretly initiated into the priesthood or even a full mage herself, who had helped her lethargic father Akheperkare Tuthmosis I rule the land even as a small girl. She married her easily manipulated half-brother Tuthmosis II, and ruled through him until he died in 1501 BC. At this point she married away her daughter Neferure with Tuthmosis III, the nine year old son of Tuthmosis II with a concubine and ruled in his place until he came of age. Unwilling to let go of her power she proclaimed herself King and Tuthmosis III as her co- regent. Their relationship was strained, to say the least, but she kept the reins of power.
Under her leadership Egypt prospered, although she let the army gather dust while she and her architect-mage Senenmut built a series of temples and monuments of uncertain use. It appears as the Priestesses of Isis were cooperating with the remaining architect-mages to develop a new occult pattern across Egypt, especially focussed in her famous temple complex in the Valley of Kings. This complex represents one of the major brekthroughs of sacred architecture, and links through a powerful ley-line to the nodes at Karnak. It appears likely that this temple was intended as a sanctuary and stronghold for the priestesses of Isis and Hathor (in later eras a coptic monastry was built in the vicinity, probably to exploit the powerful node). But the cooperation eventually turned into distrust, and other fractions began to support Tuthmosis III. Senenmut fell out of favor, and in 1482 Hatshepsut died. Her son systematically tried to erase her name from all monuments and inscriptions to obliterate her entire existence, possibly as a part of an occult purge against the priestesses. Little is known of the real conflicicts at this time, but it appears that while the kings grew in power and glory (the rulesrship of Amenhotep III is often regarded as the zenith of the new kingdom) other forces were upsetting the magickal balance of the Empire. The nephandic Servants of Nun grew in power, Set was once again worshipped and several magickal traditions were weakened due to vicious infighting. In 1379 the son of Amenhotep III, Amenhotep IV, took the name Akhenaten and retired to his city Akhetaten (²The Horizon of the Aten²). He denounced the worship of Amun and the priesthood of Thebes, and tried to replace it with the monotheistic worship of Aten, the disk of the sun. This was one of the major junctions in the history of magick; the conflict was not only about political power, but also about the paradigm itself as the priests of Amun sought to retain the old system and the priests of Aten to unify all gods, all existence within Aten (it is uncertain how much these ideas influenced the later Celestial Chorus, although many chorist scholars claim it proves that their tradition existed in this era or were founded here by Mentu-hetep the blind priest-seer). The king and his priests isolated themselves to invoke the powers of the new unitary god, but at the same time other groups opposed him and the disturbances in the law of Maat caused instability, invasion and plagues. Eventually the chaos rose to crush the king, and he died of plague. ... the temples of the gods and goddesses... were in ruins. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown. Their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads ... the gods turned their backs upon this land ... If anyone made a prayer to a god for advice he would never respond - and the same applied to a goddess. Their hearts ached inside them and they inflicted damage left right and centre. Stela from the temple of Karnak
The priests of Amun siezed the opportunity and began to influence the young son of Amenhotep III, Tutankhaton (who now took the name Tutankhamun), using him to restore the kingdom. Slowly the strength of Egypt was restored, but the magickal power of the priesthood had been broken, possibly as a result of Sleepers witnessing the conflict. While the 19th dynasty rose to great power, the kings lacked the mystical leadership of earlier ages. The priesthood of Amun became a power equal to the king (during the 21st dynasty the priest-kings ruled Upper Egypt), but seems to have become corrupt and just another mundane power. Gradually the Empire began to decline, and foreign powers conquered the land - the libyans, the etiopians, the assyrians and the persians.
During the second Persian invasion in 343 BC the Cult of Nun took the opportunity of the unrest and vandalized the temple of Hermopolis and managed to steal some of the shards of the world- egg that were hidden in an enclosure of the temple. What happened to them nobody knows; it appears likely that the cultists didn't manage to exploit the powerful relics, but their current wherabouts are completely unknown. The Hellenic Era
Alexander the Great freed Egypt from the Persian rule in 332. Many mages have tried to fathom the true designs of Alexander the Great. It is unknown how much he knew of the nature of reality (although his teacher Aristotele is regarded as one of the major philosopher- mages of his time), but it is clear that his conquests served to bring together the disparate traditions of the orient and occident. It is known that the priests of Amun pronounced him divine, which may mean that he was a powerful true mage (or that the corrupt priesthood simply tried to survive). His ability to cross huge distances safely and quickly, together with the widespread belief in his invincibility gave him an immense tactical advantage. Regardless of his true aims, he died like any other man during his campaign against India and was buried in Egypt.
As his empire was split between his underlings, the Prolemies ascended to the egyptian throne, ushering in the new era of magickal cross-fertilization initiated by Alexander. Ptolemy I Soter began the building of the Library of Alexandria, and his successors continued the work. Hellenic Alexandria became world capital of magick and philosophy, a meeting place for different traditions and the home for some of the most famous mages of all time. This was a golden age for Egypt, both magickally and mundanely. But Rome grew in power, and it was clear that sooner or later Egypt would succumb to the new political and military power of the mediterranean. At the same time there was a resurgence of the Cult of Nun, and the rulers became weaker. The Alexandrian Mob (a mixture between a lynch mob and a political protection racket) became a very real power, and even deposed some rulers; various groups did their best to influence it. The Ptoleies became more and more puppets of Rome and the Mob. Cleopatra used the situation for her bid to the throne, seeking to both protect her land and to achieve her personal goals. She was an initiate of the Priestesses of Isis, but far too ambitious for their taste - while they wanted to spread the cult across the empire, she wanted it to rule the empire. One fraction tried to depose her and force her into exile, but she began to rally an army in Syria to re- take the land from her brother, who was their puppet. Then Ceasar arrived, and she quickly made sure he became her lover and deposed her brother. "As surely as I shall yet dispence justice on the Roman Capital" Cleopatra
Several fractions of mages used the unrest to further their ends, including the Cult of Nun who in 47 BC used the Mob to burn part of the Library of Alexandria during Caesar's war.
For a while it looked like Egypt and Rome would be united as equals. Cleopatra was preparing to start a new dynasty with Caesar, a dynasty that would rule the entire world. But in Rome she had fewer allies, her grandiose plans were anathema to many of the roman customs and ideals. A counter-conspiracy emerged, and Caesar was murdered to prevent the dictator from officially marrying the New Isis, a marriage that would have had profound political and magickal consequences. She had to flee back to Egypt, politically weakened just as the land was suffering from plagues and famines. She did a second attempt with Mark Antony but after his defeat at Actium in 31 BC the dream shattered. Cleopatra comitted suicide in 30 BC, and Egypt became a Roman province. The Priestesses and many other mages retreated to the shadows, and spread away from their enemies among the mystery cults of the empire. The Roman Era
The next centuries were a relatively peaceful period, when Egypt acted as the granary of first the roman and then byzantine empire. The Library continued to act as the premier center of learning and philosophy. But the developing christian faith began to cause trouble during the second century AC. Alexandria became a central point in the growing church, the place where many influential choristers gathered to define the new faith. At first, many of them were allied with the library (the jews of the Library played a significant role in both translating the scriptures into latin, and in uniting greek philosophy with christian faith), but more and more the choristers began to regard the library as unnecessary and pagan. The Library was eventually forced underground, and the choristers stood triumphant. But internal schisms weakened them, and while the Church became stronger many chorist groups were thrown out, including the Coptic choristers of Egypt. As Constantinople grew in power, Alexandria began to decline.
The Arabs
In 639-642 the arabians led by Amr ibn al-As invaded and conquered Egypt. The Copt chorist groups in Egypt aided them, happy to overthrow the corrupt rulership of Constantinople. A secret treaty of mutual tolerance was forged between the coptic choristers, the moslem choristers and the batini which still partially holds. The different groups had completely different goals, and went along with them without disturbing each other. While the copts tended their people and the moslems spread the faith, the Architects of Divine Measure, a group of mystical architects, explored the ancient ruins and buildings, doing their best to learn their secrets.
In time the kaliphate weakened, and the administrator of Egypt, Ahmad Ibn Tulun, became de facto ruler of the land. Although he was eventually murdered, the system he instituted went on and Egypt remained one of the major kingdoms of the arab world. The Fatimids
A group of the Ahl-I-Batin, the Brethren of Purity, desired Egypt's occult power to fulfill their esoteric goals. Their founder, the Persian occultist Abdallah Ibn Maymun, laid down a subtle plan to gain control and defeat the Kaliph in order to set up a more mystical society. He established himself in Tunisia, allied with some of the Berbers, and helped set up the fatimid direction of Shi'i Islam; even as he died in 875 his followers bided their time while the Fatimid dynasty grew in power. They secretly made contact with the Architects of Divine Measure and other groups. In 969, as they had predicted, the ruler of Egypt died and a series of low niles, defections and famines appeared; this was their signal to attack. They met little resistance.
The very night after General Gawhar had conquered the old capital, he founded the new capital. The reason for the speed was astrology: the Brethren had great plans for the new city and planned to use a powerful conjunction together with sacred architecture to make it the most powerful city in the world. The general placed workmen along the poles and ropes marking the planned walls, waiting for a bell signal at the exact moment of conjunction. Suddenly the bells started ringing without anybody giving the signal - a raven had landed on the ropes connected to the bells, and the diggers started digging. Instead of being founded at the supreme conjunction they had intended, the city was founded when Mars was ascendant. Since Mars in arabic is El Kahira, the new city was named El Kahira, "the victorious". Although the founding of the city had been a partial fiasco, the Architects continued their long work of re-channeling the quintessence of the Nile valley. They built the Al-Azar mosque for the Brethren, one of the most powerful nodes ever constructed. The coptic choristers allied with them, and for a time the Batini of Egypt were united and in harmony with the dynamic spread of Shi' i. When contact was made with the Library of Alexandria in 970 it seemed that even the Highest was supporting their plans. But gradually corruption set in, possibly due to influence from the Cult of Nun or opposing batini groups that exploited a series of incompetent or insane rulers (Kaliph al-Hakim was so bizarre that many mages believe he was not human). The Brethren finally lost their grip on power 1074 when the commander of Acre, Badr al- Jamali moved in to restore order, and eventually he and his descendants became viziers. His son al-Afdal destroyed the spiritual leadership of the Shi'i by choosing the younger son of the kaliph as successor instead of the elder son, thus making the spiritual succession of the movement go to Hasan-i Sabbah of Alamut. The purists among the Brethren followed the leadership into the east (where they eventually became the power behind the Aga Khans of India), while the more pragmatic Brethren stayed behind or joined up with the Library. The Ayyubids
In 1169 Salah al-Din (Saladin) became ruler of Egypt, and formally abolished the Shi'i rulership once and for all. He also opened up the royal city, allowing common people to live and work in Kahira; Cairo began to emerge. Egypt began to prosper, and other groups of batini supported the spread of trade, science and culture. During this time the Templars came into contact with the batini and Library. An exchance of secrets occured, and some of the knowledge of the Architects came to europe, where it helped found the Craftsmasons.
The Ayyubids fought off several christian invasions, but grew more and more dependent on their mamluk slaves (slaves mainly from Turkey) as they weakened. In 1249 al-Salih Ayyub died, but his favorite wife Shajar al-Durr kept this secret, and ruled in his name. It appears likely she was yet another of the Priestesses of Isis who got too ambitious; although she had showed her competence and had the support of the mamuluks who proclaimed her sultan, the kaliph and the ortodox were angered by this and forced her to re- marry. When her attempt to re-gain power failed, she was arrested and was thrown under mysterious circumstances from the red tower of the citadel. The Mamuluks
The Mamuluk era was a slow decline for magick in Egypt. The Mamuluk system was based on slavery. Young slaves were converted to Islam, educated and given a military training. If they managed to work their ways up the ranks they were eventually freed and pledged their loyalty to their former masters. Most high government posts were open only to the former slaves. To support their private armies they imported more slaves, creating a hotbed for intrigue, power struggles and violence. The batini tried to use this to regain power, but instead fragmented and became part of the confusing and deadly infighting, sometimes dragging other groups into the struggle. It was a slow descent into chaos, and the Cult of Nun ruled. The Nile shifted, the black death ravaged the land.
When the Ottoman empire invaded in 1517, little changed. During this time some of the mages had become aware of the changes in Europe, and decided to deliberately ignore them. They instituted a policy of closedness, stopped the spread of the printing press and planned to let the european mages fight their own battle; Egypt seemed safe from the Order of Reason. | |
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| Ancient Egyptian Concepts The Bodies of Man The ancient Egyptians believed that man consisted of much more than a physical body and they divided man’s constitution into many parts. The first element was the body. 1. The Body The body, of course, was what you had in life, but it was also present after death. The body was an essential link between the deceased person who had gone on into another realm - eternity and the earth. The ancient Egyptians believed that they needed to have the preserved body in order to maintain the link between the earth and the afterlife. They believed that the body could be used to provide a means of the spirit gaining access to the food and drink offerings that were brought to the tomb. The spirit would enter the body and take in the sustenance from the food offerings. In order to preserve the body that was recognisable to the spirit the ancient Egyptians devised the process of mummification. This was developed firstly for royalty, but even during the Old Kingdom this was available to the upper classes If the body was destroyed, damaged or even stolen, a statue of the deceased could take the place of the body, so the spirit could occupy the statue in much the same way as it occupied the physical body. The statue although magnificent works of art also had a practical use and their use was not primarily an aesthetic object. 2. The Name The word in hieroglyphs for name is ‘ren�? The name was not just a simple means of identification, but to the ancient Egyptians it also had a magical significance. The belief in the power of the true name of something meant that if someone knew you name they could cause you good or harm, which is why you get secret names in Egypt. Sometimes the names of kings are hidden, the names of the gods are sometimes hidden, and if you know someone’s name you can enact magic against them. The name also survived after death, in order to give the statues the reality of the deceased, the name was inscribed upon them. The names inscribed on the statues, was once again done for a magical significance. 3. The Shadow The shadow, the ancient believed that the shadow created by the sun, was an integral part of the composition of the human makeup and the procreative powers of an individual was located in the shadow. Several other elements of the body of man were much more associated with the afterlife than the physical world. 4. The Ka The Ka is given the translation, although not entirely satisfactory, as being the Spirit or the Emotional Body. The Ka was born with you, your alter ego or other self, it was your life force, your double, it was your self or personality. It is what makes one person different to another. The Ka could act in life as a guide or protector, perhaps in a similar context as a guardian angel. The Ka had all these functions, in life it was with the person at all times, and it was part and parcel of the body. After death the Ka and the body separated, the body remained preserved in the tomb, but the Ka becomes a separate entity, it was the bit that was released, free or immortal but it still needed the vital link to the earth and the body provided that link. The Ka still needed spirit food, and it would use the body to absorb nourishment from the food in the tomb. It is often depicted as a human with upraised arms, or in hieroglyphs it is sometimes represented with a pair of upraised arms. 5. The Ba The Ba, is translated as meaning the Soul. It is shown as a bird with a human head. This was the part of the deceased that could be sent outside the tomb, to places that the deceased had visited when alive. So it could enjoy all those things the deceased had enjoyed as a living person. 6. Akh The Akh is the last element of the ‘body of man�? and is perhaps the most difficult concept to explain. This is shown in hieroglyphs as a bird. The akh is a supernatural dynamic force that is present in the universe that can be plugged into. The akh provided the means to partake in the universal life force. The akh could be utilised by both the living and the dead. All these elements constituted the ‘body of man�?and it was essential that there was a link between the living and the dead. It was this link that the deceased’s immortality depended, if the link between the living and the dead was damaged, the immortality of the deceased could be threatened. In order to keep these channels open between the living and the dead required the use of funerary rituals. Along with the funeral service itself; there were perpetual rituals after death, to keep the links open. In particularly to meet the needs of the dead, as the dead were thought to require the same needs as the living; requiring food and drink, to be able to visit outside the tomb, a house to live in. The Ceremony of the Opening of the Mouth. In order to make sure that the mummy, the statues and the figures on the walls on the tombs were functioning and could receive the food offerings; a special magical ritual was performed to activate them. In this ritual the funerary priest would come to the mummy, the statues and wall paintings and he would touch the figures on the mouth, on the hands and on the feet with a carpenters tool called an adze. (The adze was used for cutting wooden statues etc.) This action was believed to bring the figure to life and would be activated and ready to act on behalf of the deceased. In the case of the king, this ceremony would have been performed in the temple attached to the pyramid. Eventually the ceremony was made available to everyone who could afford to have this elaborate funeral ceremony. The ancient Egyptians believed that the figures and statues and inscriptions could be transformed into full size using magic and would become fully functional. The Afterlife Whereas the king was expected to spend the afterlife in the heavens, non-royals expected to continue their existence in the tomb, surrounded by their possessions, and being able to leave the tomb in the various parts of the ‘body of man�?and interact with the world outside the tomb. The ancient Egyptian idea of eternity for the non-royals was a continuation of their life, they wanted an eternity of what they had in life, without the illness, without the dangers and problems; for the ancient Egyptian complete fulfilment was living in a sort of mirror image of Egypt for eternity. This obsession with providing for the afterlife has led some to assume that they were a morbid people, yet in reality they were a people who loved life so much that they didn’t want to give it upon death. The big difference between the tombs of the non-royals and the pyramids was that the pyramids were not decorated on the inside whereas the tombs were. The scenes of the walls of the tombs helped to recreate all the things that they had enjoyed in life, and were a means for the deceased to enjoy the afterlife. The Principles of Egyptian Art When one looks at the religious Egyptian art, one can see the strong influence that the environment had; it is however only one side, as the art used in the homes and palaces of the ancient Egyptians has by and large not survived. The art in Egypt represents a fairly predictable climate, there were no freak kinds of weather, there were no violent contrasts, and every year the Nile had its cycle. Their art represents this repetition that they saw all around them. In terms of the art history and Egyptology, Egypt is the only place where we can see the development of art over a period of 4000 years. Foreign influences during the formative periods are absent in Egyptian art and its symbolism and uses are well established before any outside influences can be seen within it. Egyptian art is usually classed from around c2700BC onwards, the archaic period. The peak of Egyptian art occurs in the Old Kingdom, in later periods, in 600BC for example; literally thousands of years later, we can see copies of Old Kingdom style art. The only time a major break in artistic style occurs is during the Amarna Period at the end of the 18th Dynasty. This is a period of major religious upheaval and is represented in the art produced at that time. Art reflects the form and nature of the religion and most religions have a means of expressing these religious ideas through art and religious iconography. In Egypt the state art, which was also the religious art was not separate and they are one and the same thing. Tomb Art. The art of the ancient Egyptian was there for an entirely different reason than the modern concept and reason for art; it has much more in common with pre-historic painting than it does with western art. Pre-historic cave paintings, as far as we can tell, were used as sympathetic magic, when they wanted to hunt and be successful, capture animals, they would paint these scenes on the caves walls to bring the effect into reality. The figures depicted in Egyptian art, are shown with the head in profile, the shoulders face on, and the lower part of the body and the legs and feet in profile. The basis for this style of painting figures is in magic, the depictions could be magically transformed and made real, and so what could be seen came into existence. You will also notice the eye is shown face on yet the face is in profile. (If you were to view a human figure face on the nose and feet would be foreshortened and the thumbs would be hidden.) It is an example of sympathetic magic. While only one of the eye’s and breasts is shown, it was believed that if one of a pair were visible then they would both exist. Egyptian art could be thought of as a diagram, not of what can be seen, but of what you know to be there and want to recreate in the next world. Another part of the scene was the hieroglyphs; they are an integrated part of the scene. (If a person is not a named person then that person does not exist in eternity.) The hieroglyphs in the lower register describe who the figures are and the title of the scene, whilst the upper registers are the representing the conversation between the figures. In the tombs the scenes are arranged in horizontal registers, usually 2 but sometimes three or four registers going up the walls, and the figures are placed in these ordered bands. There is, of course, some variation in the composition of the tomb scenes, but basically the same pattern of tomb scene can be found throughout ancient Egyptian history because the scenes are there to do the same job. There are offering scenes, scenes showing harvesting, agriculture, and animal husbandry. There will be the pastimes of the deceased, hunting, fishing, partying and listening to music, these scenes are a selection of various activities that the deceased enjoyed in life. These scenes could be transformed magically and brought to life and the deceased could enjoy whatever activity was being depicted. Although there is variation in the detail, they are basically the same. There are also very often scenes showing various stages of the funeral, craftsmen preparing the funerary goods. As well as providing huge amounts of information about funerary practices, they also provide us with information on the daily lives. In the New Kingdom besides the tomb scenes are the models, these are three-dimensional versions of the tomb scenes but provide the same basic use. The main aim of religious art is to provide a place or object or situation that the tomb owner could bring to life by magic and enjoy whatever was being depicted. In Egyptian art the artist knows what exists, not what he can see, but what he knows to be there and this can be brought to life. For example you see the tomb owner and his wife are always young and without any deformities or problems, but lacking any individuality in the faces. It is the description that goes with the figure that gives it the identity, not the face or the way it is shown. (It was only the tomb owners that were shown in this perfect manner, servants and others could be shown as they really were, with rolls of fat or blind as depicted in representations of blind harpists.) Creation Myths. These are called cosmogonies, there are three main cosmogonies, but each have a similar background; in the belief that creation came about through the first god thinking about it and then speaking it. They never explore how that first creative principle created itself. These ideas had been around for a very long time, but the priests of the Old Kingdom tried to rationalise them and arrange them into family groups. What emerged were three cosmogonies from the priests of various cities who put forth their own version of the creation myths: Heliopolis, Memphis and Hermopolis. Each of the priesthoods competing against the other, suggesting that theirs was the first or better, that their god was the first; the creator of other creator gods. Heliopolitan Cosmology. This is the most important creation myth of all the cosmogonies; the name Heliopolis is a Greek name meaning ‘Sun City�? the Egyptian name being Iwnw. This creation myth emphasises the role of the sun god, the evidence we have for this myth comes from the Pyramid Texts. At Heliopolis, the sun god took over from another god called Atum, and Re-Atum becomes the creator of the universe. He has two other forms; Khepri which is a dung beetle and represents the renewal of life, this is the sun god in is early morning form; Re-Harakhte, ‘Re in his horizon�? which is his form at sunset. According to the Heliopolitan myth, Re-Atum emerged from the primeval water that is called Nun, which covered the face of the earth. It is a state of non-existence and nothingness; it was the state of the universe before creation. Re-Atum was self-created, or alternatively the child of Nun. Re-Atum creates the Mound, the Island of Creation and the temple of the priests of Heliopolis was on this island. He brought light and order out of the chaos; he took the form of a bird called the Benu bird, which is the origin of the phoenix. The Benu bird landed on the Benben stone. Re-Atum is said to be bi-sexual, he masturbated and begot two children. A son called Shu (god of the air); Re-Atum spat him out and a daughter called Tefnut (goddess of moisture) and he vomited her forth. Shu and Tefnut married each other, producing two other gods, Geb (god of the earth) and Nut (goddess of the sky). These first 5 gods represent all the qualities and elements of life, the sun, air, moisture, earth and sky. These were the cosmic gods or gods of nature. Geb and Nut married each other producing 4 children; Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys, these nine gods are called the Great Ennead (ennead meaning nine gods). Osiris and Isis marry each other and Seth and Nephthys marry each other. There is one other creation myth that is added in the New Kingdom, which is the Theban Cosmogony, which had its centre at Thebes, whose creator god was Amun. The Memphite Creation Myth. The Memphite creation myth that originated at Memphis, which was the capital of the Old Kingdom, is perhaps the most profound of all the creation myths. It centres on the god of Memphis Ptah. In the Memphite cosmology they identified their god, Ptah with Nun; Nun is the state of non-existence before creation took place, it is darkness and water covering everything, it is the primeval ocean. From himself he created a daughter called Naunet; and by Naunet he fathered Re-Atum. Re-Atum is seen as an agent of Ptah. The Memphite theology is perhaps the one cosmology that comes close to a philosophical explanation of the creation of the universe. They describe Ptah as the supreme creator god of the universe, but not just of other gods, human beings or other living things, the shrines and images, even things such as cities and towns, food and drink. Everything was a concept that the god Ptah thought of and brought into existence. One of the titles of Ptah was ‘Lord of Truth�? by virtue of this role he also created ‘Divine Utterance�?and established ethics. The ancient Egyptians believed that creation came into existence because of two things; first of all through the thoughts of the God, which would be expressed through the tongue and speech and through the Will of the God. He conceived in his heart what he wanted to do and then spoke it. (Anything that was spoken could not be stopped unless you knew the antidote. So anything you say will reach a result.) The texts contain a great many ideas that are quite advanced concepts that are not normally encountered when reading ancient Egypt texts. The language of ancient Egypt is not really complex enough to deal with very abstract concepts so it is rare for these sorts of ideas to come through. These ideas are that Ptah is the originator of everything, that everything is in his mind, he thinks it first and it comes into existence as created reality. Such concepts are very unexpected in ancient Egypt. This concept of the god fitted in very well with Ptah, as he was the patron god of crafts and artisans, who lived in Memphis in large numbers in the Old Kingdom. Ptah was regarded as the supreme creator and architect of the universe. Some gods start out in animal form and gradually ended up with a human body and often an animal head. Ptah was never depicted in this way and he is always shown in human form. But he never took off in a big way, he can be found in many later stories and centres, but he never had a big following because there was never a good story attached to him, like Re-Atum and his family of gods. It is a more cerebral creation myth that was never really popular with most people; strangely enough he was never adopted by any line of kings as their own royal deity. In later periods he merged with Osiris, whom had a very good myth attached to him, so we find Ptah-Sokar-Osiris and others as a composite god containing Ptah. The Hermopolitan Creation Myth. The third of the three major Old Kingdom cosmogonies is the Hermopolitan creation myth of Hermopolis. This provides a whole set of creation myths which are variations on a theme. There is not one supreme creator god at Hermopolis, like Heliopolis there is another family group, this time a group of eight groups called The Ogdoad. There are four male deities and four female deities that make up this group of gods. Male - Serpents
Nun
Huh
Kuk
Amun Female - Frogs
Naunet
Hauhet
Kauket
Amaunet
Nun is the primeval ocean, whose female counterpart is Naunet; Huh, which means ‘millions of years�? or eternity, who is married to Hauhet; Kuk means darkness, who is married to Kauket; finally Amun who is air or that which is unseen, and is married to Amaunet. The male deities had serpent’s heads and the females had frog’s heads.
In one version of the myth the gods ruled the world together on the first occasion, they ruled the universe in the period that followed until they died, they did not die properly and went into the underworld were they continued to make the Nile flow and the sun rise each day. The where also different alternatives of this creation myth at Hermopolis; the ancient Egyptians did not believe in one single truth, and held that all where equally valid and one did not rule out the other. In one version, instead of the primeval ocean, there is a cosmic egg. The cosmic egg had been laid on the mythical island of creation by a bird, it was not limited to being one bird; it could be the Ibis (representing the great god of Hermopolis - Thoth), or a goose called the Great Cackler. Inside the egg was air; the perquisite for life, or the alternative was that the egg contained the sun god Re in the form of a bird who proceeded to create the world. There is another version, in which a lotus flower becomes the means of creation, the Ogdoad brought the lotus flower into existence; it arose in a sacred lake, it opened its petals and inside is the sun god Re. Or the lotus flower contained a scarab beetle that changed into a boy who begins to cry and his tears create everything. Underlying Concepts There are certain underlying concepts to each of these creation myths, most state that creation took place on the primeval island and that this island had emerged from the primeval ocean. Each of the priesthood’s claimed that the island was where their temple was situated. Because the temple was the place were creation began, so the king could approach the gods at the temple. Once the universe had been created, it began to develop slowly, there was a golden age when the gods ruled on earth and that the gods gave everything required for society to man. They gave the laws, ethics, and religion. The gods then left the earth, leaving their heirs, the divine son - the king of Egypt as their successor. Ma’at, who is represented by a woman with a feather on her head, maintained the balance of the universe. She is the goddess of truth and justice, order and balance in the universe. The king was expected to uphold Ma’at, he ruled Egypt by virtue of Ma’at, and he was under control of Ma’at. The Egyptians always had a concept of a perfect world that they aspired to. It was not easily won, and had to be constantly fought for, both on a personal level and on a cosmic or universal level. They were always trying to fight chaos, to restore and maintain order and to prevent chaos that was at the beginning before creation from returning. Symbols The Ankh The loop 'O' is the sun/moon and represents the constant turning of the cycles, the sun that provides light, warm, and makes life possible, the same sun though is capable of making the earth barren and desolate, it is the Eyes of Re. The '_' is the horizon that separates the sky from the earth, the land that we live upon, the O represents the sunrise or sunset and is a constant reminder of the journey of Re has he travels across the sky and descends into the underworld. It has a dual purpose one of life and one of death. It also makes the shen sign the symbol for eternity, just as Re has his barque of millions (of years). It divides the land into East and West. It also could represent the womb from which we all emerge. The '|' is the Nile, and represents the life force, water, dividing the land from South to North, it could also represent the phallus so when joined symbolises the act of fertilisation, the bringing forth of new life. Incense. Incense was an important part of ancient Egyptian life, its religious beliefs, it acts as a purifying agent, in the ritual of the Awakening of the God, performed each day in the Temples, everything that would come into contact with the god had to be purified with water, natron and burning incense. During certain festivals when the god was Going Forth incense is burned, the incense preceding the approach of the God. Incense is associated with arrival of the gods ‘and deck your head with myrrh. Be richly clad in white and perfumed linen; like the gods�?[From Lay of the Harpist]. The burning of incense was also an act to honour the god by paying him courtesy and respect, and to return the blessings and gifts, which he had bestowed upon the land.
The importance of incense in ancient Egypt can be seen in the Temples and tombs, the objects and artefacts found, inscriptions and relief’s, in their religious beliefs and in literature. Kyphi, myrrh, frankincense, jasmine are just a few of the many incenses of the ancient Egyptians, the Cairo Archaeological Museum houses many examples of exquisite perfume bottles. During the reign of Queen Hatshepsut a trading expedition to buy myrrh and myrrh saplings, frankincense and fragrant unguents used for cosmetics and in religious ceremonies, is depicted on her temple walls. The importance of incense can also be found in the literature of ancient Egypt, in the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (2200BC).
They had also discovered the therapeutic properties of many herbs, garlic being especially prized. Their pictorial and hieroglyphic records shows us they had already 5000 years ago, understood the vital role that fragrance could play in maintaining a harmonious balance between body and soul.
Statues
The function of most ancient Egyptian statues was to provide a physical place where a god or spirit could appear. In temples the god took up residence in the cult statue, and the divine royal ka-spirit could reside in statues of the king. Statues of the elite provided a place in the world of the living for the spirits of the dead. Such statues were the focal point of rituals. Offerings were presented to them, incense was burned, and ritual words were recited in their presence. These spirits were not restricted by time and space, but could simultaneously be present in all their statues, wherever the statues were located. The Purpose of Statues Most statues of gods and kings were housed in temples. In addition to the cult statue, larger images of gods, or of gods and the king together, were placed within temple areas. In the Late and Ptolemaic periods, elite people presented offerings at temples of small bronze images of gods and of the animals sacred to those gods. They also put brightly painted wooden statues of funerary gods in tombs to help the deceased pass safely into the afterlife. In the Old Kingdom, small chapels built in temple areas housed statues of the king, where the royal ka-spirit could receive offerings. In the New Kingdom, huge ka-statues of the king stood at the entrances to many major temples. Although most people could not enter the temples, they could come to the entrances, and these statues became places for people to communicate with the gods by addressing the king's ka-spirit. During the Old Kingdom, statues of the elite were placed in many tomb chapels in a special room, which today is called a serdab (modern Arabic for "cellar"). The room was then made inaccessible so that it connected to the tomb chapel only through a small slot in the wall. Family members or special funerary priests performed rituals in front of the slot for the spirit of the deceased. Not all statues were hidden. In rock-cut tomb chapels, statues were carved out of the walls of the chapel and were visible to anyone entering to perform the rituals. By the Middle Kingdom, statues of the deceased, both male and female, had become the ritual focal point in chapels. And from the Middle Kingdom onward, statues of the elite, mainly male, were also placed in the outlying areas of the temple complex. Their purpose was to receive offerings, but they also enabled the statue owner (through his ka-spirit) to take part in the temple rituals and the great festivals that were celebrated on behalf of the deity of the temple. Beginning in the late 4th Dynasty statues of servants and peasants were placed in tombs of the elite to serve them in the afterlife. These servants and peasants appear in a wide variety of poses, performing tasks such as grinding grain, baking bread, and brewing beer. What was important in these sculptures was not the person depicted but the action, which was meant to benefit the tomb owner in the afterlife.
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The ancient Egyptians interpreted every occurrence of everyday life with a god. Those forces that were important in their lives included the annual cycle of the Nile Rivers flood, the enormous size and unchanging dryness of the surrounding desert; and the daily cycle of the suns appearance in the east, gradual movement across the sky , and eventual disappearance in the west. They also included birth and death and many other everyday occurrences. The ancient Egyptians developed a world in which these and other events and conditions were important to the actions of many Gods and Goddesses. The Pharaohs of Egypt Were Worshipped like Gods The rulers of ancient Egypt were called pharaohs They were worshiped as God- kings. Pharaohs were thought to be Gods and provided a link between the Egyptian people and their Gods. Egypt was usually ruled by a man, although a few women did rule in their own right. The pharaoh took part in many ceremonies. They had to dress, eat and even wash in a special way, and every day they went to the temple to offer food to their ancestors. They were expected to be physically strong, expert at hunting and able to lead the army to victory in battle. Their subjects thought the God-kings controlled the flowing and flooding of the Nile and the growth of crops, as well as the countrys success in foreign trade. The pharaohs continued to be worshipped even after they had died and joined the God Osiris in the kingdom of the dead.
The pharaohs had temples built, made sacrifices, and performed rituals so that the Gods would not be angry and that the Nile would rise each year. These ceremonies were performed in temples through Egypt, but most Egyptians did not participate.
When the Egyptian pharaohs died, they were treated to ceremonies that said that they joined the Gods. They continued to be worshipped even after they had died and joined the God Osiris in the Kingdom of the dead.
Peasants could also rise to the status of a God. Imhotep designed the first pyramid called the Step Pyramid. He gained importance as he became the pharaohs architect and eventually he gained the status of a God. Religion was very important to Egyptian society. The ancient Egyptians worshipped hundreds of Gods. Some, such as the Sun-God Re or Amun-Re, were honored by everyone throughout the land in festivals. These festivals lasted for a month in the flood season when farmers did no work in the fields. In addition, each of the 42 regions, called nones, adopted a different God to look after its affairs. At home, people turned to lesser Gods for help with everyday problems. Popular religion took other forms. People used magical charms or amulets to ward off danger. They also worshipped popular Gods and Goddesses to help with with life events such as childbirth. Many Gods were depicted as husband and wife, such as Bastet the cat, Goddess of love and joy - or as human figurines with the heads of animals and birds , such as ibis- headed Thoth, God of knowledge. The Gods also had families. Osiris and Isis were husband and wife with a son named Horus. Why Are There So Many Egyptian Gods? In ancient times each Egyptian city or region had its own God and worshipped many others. These Gods and Goddesses often represented the world around them, for example the sky, earth, wind or sun would be something that the ancient Egyptians worshipped.
Early in Egyptian history, Lower (north) and Upper (south) Egypt were united under one ruler. This union resulted in the merging of several cultural traditions. Ancient Egyptian civilization existed for more than three thousand years, and the Gods and Goddesses and their myths gradually changed over time as a result of new ideas, with other peoples and changing cultural values. There became many versions of the stories about Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. In ancient Egypt there were never any rules as to which God was the greatest. In some cases a God or goddess was adored throughout the country. In other cases, a God was only well known in a certain area of the land. Some cities worshipped a certain group of Gods and another city worshipped another group. When a city became important, so did its Gods. Eventually,as one region became more important or another became less so, the Gods and Goddesses gained or declined in their importance. |
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People Duality was the rhythm, constancy was its flow. Egyptians accepted the red, arid desert and expected human frailty, yet hoped that they themselves, as well as their leaders would be honest and forthright, kind and nurturing. The ancient people aspired to a better life, but accepted thatthey had a role and a place in their society. The people loved life, but prepared for the afterlife. The people who we credit with phenomenal monuments and fantastical myths brought
their sense of duality, into everyday life. The people of the land were
farmers
traders carpenters seamstresses tool makers potters
and various and sundry types of laborers. When the fields were idle, thousands could work on Pharaoh?s monumental building projects.
The Tomb Makers Some worked year-round on these building projects. These were the tomb makers, artists
and craftsmen that created much of the beautiful edifices and monuments that we marvel at to this day. Artists such as, painters and sketchers draftsmen sculptors engineering assistants architects' assistants barge men quarrymen jewelry and furniture designers Lead men and Supervisors
As well as these individuals, there would have been a varitable city of support, including
physicians
physicians' assistants cooks and assistants, bakers and brewers scribes or clerks to coordinate the voluminous records produced by the project priests to minister to the workforce soldiers to provide security and reinforce discipline
In addition, there were Chief Scribes and Gang Leaders and nobles in charge of the entire project. These individuals would have refereed disputes, administered punishment, arranged for promotions and been responsible to the architect, the Mayor of Thebes and ultimately, to pharaoh, for the success of these immense bulding projects.
In The Villages Many of the same positions would have been held, but with members of an entire family, likely to specialize in a single craft. The vast majority of villagers would have been farmers, trading excess crops for furniture, healing skills or clothing. The typical village would have a village leader or headman or woman, who would speak for the villagers. There would likely be elders and individuals who had proven themselves particularly wise, that would consult with the leader on major decisions. Each village would have at least one midwife, a healer, specializing in herbal crafts and spells and at least one priest to attend to the village shrine and to advise on religious matters. Larger villages would have had more complex governing systems, with scribes and web priests to attend to the rulers and priests. But, the model was largely the same. Nomes The villages were eventually allied with other villages and formed provinces, that would provide a means to wide ranging trade and protection from marauders.
Craftsmen were not slaves as the Greek historian and traveler, Herodotus reported, but were highly prized artisans who contributed their efforts to building their nation?s tributes to the
king and Pharaoh in exchange for homes for their families and regularly distributed food and supplies. On their free time, they could freelance, providing artistic services to nobles and courtiers who could afford their wares. Thus, in and around every great king?s monuments are invariably, the tombs of nobles and honored courtiers, who had availed themselves of the skills of the king?s finest craftsmen
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The Two Lands The story of ancient Egypt, is the story of a people and their relationship to their land. The character and belief systems derive from the land. The land was called Kemet, it consisted, as it does today, of two main areas--The desert, or the red land and the nutrient rich, cultivable land, called, the black land. Pharaohs, the ultimate authority in ancient Egypt, were called Lord of the Two Lands. The land, bordered by the Mediterranean Ocean, the Red Sea, was dominated by an inland source of water, that ran south to north, the river, Nile. The cooling waters quenched the thirst, fed the hunger of the ancient people. The Nile was constant. The Nile was so steady, so predictable, that early scientists devised ways to measure the Nile at scheduled intervals, by means of a device called a Nilometer. With these measurements, engineers could predict the level of the waters at its height, so that preparations could be made for the season of high water. Irrigation canals and runoffs diverted, widened or otherwise prepared so that the mineral enriched silt, born by the waters of the Nile, could best be absorbed by the land. The land would be tilled and crop yields maximized. Excess crops were dried and stored in granaries for the dry season, that follows the floods. This was the rhythm of the seasons, the interplay of the land and the waters and the people absorbed the rhythm and worshipped the balance that held their universe.
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| Domesticated animals Cattle, oxen, sheep, goats, pigs and donkeys were raised for their meat, their hides and or for the strength of their backs. Sometime during the middle kingdoms horses were introduced into the kingdom and soldiers and nobles road to battle or on Pharaoh's business, in chariots drawn by prized equine specimens; merchants transported goods along the great trade routes. Chickens, doves and pigeons were kept as were peacocks, panthers, baboons and monkeys. The latter group of animals would, doubtless be held by royals or nobles as pets and would have been obtained in trade from the interior of the African continent. The Apis and other varieties of bulls that represented various deities would have been raised on temple grounds, occassionally slaughtered and offered up for the favor of the gods. Cats were venerated, associated with the god Bast or Bastet. Physicians, healers and magicians would used any number of animal and insect products, including the venom of snames and scorpions, in the preparation of medicines and tonics. Wild life In the deserts on the borders of the fertile Nile Valley, lions ruled the natural order, gazelle, antelope, ibex, ostriches, rabbits and other small wild life lived. Besides tilling the soil, the ancient people, hunted game. Closer in, on the banks of the Nile, fisherman speared or netted varieties of fish. Water fowl and wild birds, such as the ibis, goose, ducks, egrets and others, flourished in the delta and elsewhere along the river. The hippopotamus and Nile crocodile plied the marshes that afforded the most abundant varieties of birds, making the hunt a considerable challenge. Snakes and scorpions were to be found in both the desert and the fertile lands.
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| Mineral wealth In the Eastern Desert, semi-precious stones were mined--Crystal, jaspers, garnets and carnelians. There were deposits of gold and silver and an alloy, electrum. Bronze and copper were mined in this expanse until supplies diminished in the Middle Kingdom, when Egypt traded for the ore, with Cyprus and Syria. The naturally occurring salt, natron, was abundant in the desert. Natron, of couse, was used to desicate the mortal remains of the deceased during mummification, but likewise was used to cure hides, preserve meat and fish and in the preparation of medicines and the manufacture of glass and faience jewelry. Priests in the temples used the salt to purifiy their mouths before approaching the gods; women in the villages used a variety of the commodity to wash their clothes.
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AT THE END OF THE DAY They often wore fetishes and charms for good luck, not unlike pentacles, crosses, St. Christopher's medals, cherished, but the magic was in the faith, not a base metal or polished stone. At the end of the day, the average Egyptian was fatigued by exhaustive work, his share of the humankind's effort to fight back the encroaching desert, and to make the land bear fruit. The people could eat their meals of beans and sweet onions, bread and a mild beer and sustain life. The average Egyptian believed that she had a host of household gods to call on, to ease her pain or enhance her beauty. If they traveled, there were gods for protection, on the hunt, there was a god, in the battlefield there was a god, there was a god or gods to fulfill every need. There were unguents and preparations recorded by wise physicians to refer to when a child fell victim to illness or . One could improve one's lot in life, by aspiring to higher education, via apprenticeship. One could apologize for transgressions, by appealing to the gods. Everyone was expected to enjoy And, could hope for relief from the work and the worries of this world, by believing in the next. And, the strongest, most widely held belief in this world, was that the universe was a static constant and that in all things, natural or ethereal, there was a duality, or a balance.
LIFE & BELIEFS Both Pharaoh and common citizen of Egypt believed in the afterlife, trusted the powers of nature and used the powers of observation to learn the mysteries of the natural world. They revered science and the spoken word, believed that nature in the form of their gods, had to be respected and protected. They know that truth and divine order would prevail and tried to honor them or appease them, whenever they could.
Throughout the the centuries, when Pharaohs ruled the ancient land, Egypt has played host to the gods. As the ancient tribes, villages, grew to become organized communities, cities and, then nomes, each locality contributed a part of its belief system and some of it's gods to the religious structure of greater Egypt. The ancients did not like to discard their gods for new ones, rather when exposed to another influential god, they were as likely to combine the new gods traits, with those of local deity and the name of the new, hybrid god would be an amalgam of the old and new. As part of their religious philosophy, they granted that all animals, humans and all aspects of nature were endowed with life force-Thus, some of the greatest of the pantheons of Egyptian gods took on animal form or had acquired the attributes of revered or feared animals. At the center of all religious belief, was the absolute belief in the need for a balance, an equalizing force in all matters. The ancients believed that the needs of humankind must be balanced with those of nature-that for every action, there was an opposing reaction. The ancients feared chaos above all and believed in Ma'at, the balance between all things.
THE WISDOM
The word was revered, scribes were respected, sages and seers were believed to be blessed with divine insight. The wisest of the ancient land recorded their thoughts, their maxims and as part of the study of letters, young scribes copied the wisdom. Sometime during the Old Kingdom, a wise man, grand vizier of the land, advisor to the king and keeper of secrets, Ptah-Hotep, recorded his much sought after advice for posterity. The teachings of of Ptah-Hotep was recorded in it's entirety, in the Papyrus Prisse, Paris. The manuscript had, no doubt, been edited by the Middle Kingdom and comes to us today as a result of several translations made during the 20th century.
All of Egypt believed in the great gods of Egypt, there were local gods and gods who ascended home city. The ancients did not believe that stones and twigs were animated with magical spirits, but rather, they revered the natural forces of nature that created the natural resources at their command.
They selected animals or men or women who embodied these qualities and assigned a divine respect for these qualities to the symbols. The gods didn't have a single manifestation, they had at a minimum, two sides, a positive and negative pole. A god could metamorphize, be joined with a more prominent god and share the properties and symbolism of the other.
General Background History The history of Egypt covers a 5000-year history, from the Pre-dynastic Era to the Graeco-Roman Period. Such an expanse of history provides certain problems for Egyptologists. During some eras, there is a lack of evidence, whether through wars, natural catastrophes or man made destruction of evidence. Even though we have a good view overall of the ancient Egyptians, there are always new developments and advances in Egyptology. Because of the lack of evidence in certain eras, so Egyptology is open to various views and interpretations of these facts. Monuments The monuments of Egypt have survived well, the climate inductive to preservation. They were also the most visible and were known to Graeco-Roman and medieval cultures. There are two types of Archaeological Sites:- 1 Domestic/Settlement Sites, which includes villages, towns, cities and fortresses. 2 Cemetery Sites. Known in Egyptology as necropolis. These were the royal tombs, pyramids or other type of royal tomb. Non-royal tombs, these were the tombs of nobles, artisans, craftsmen, peasants. These are known as private tombs. Then there are the animal cemeteries, which included cats, dogs, crocodiles, bulls etc. The tombs and monuments were built to last forever, literal Houses of Eternity, and as such were built in durable materials such as stone. Everything else, the Palaces of the King, nobles and homes of the general populace was considered replaceable and were built in materials that were easily reusable, such as mud bricks and wood etc.
So much of our view of the ancient Egyptian way of life is coloured by what buildings and monuments survive. We know more about the Egyptians in death than we do about their lives.
Funerary Artifacts Artifacts are any man made object needed for life after death, there are an abundance of funerary artifacts, from Coffins and Masks to ordinary everyday objects such as pottery, make up containers and jewellery. Artifacts provide Egyptologists with a great deal of information regarding funerary practices, glimpses into the way of life of the ancient Egyptians and the technologies that were available to them. Literature The ancient Egyptians have left us an abundance of written literature, from which we are able to get into the hearts and minds of the ancient Egyptians and give us views on how they perceived things. We also have the accounts of travellers to ancient Egypt, passed down through Hebrew and Greek. When the knowledge of the meanings of the hieroglyphs was lost, the accounts of medieval travellers to Egypt believed that the hieroglyphs were just symbols and not a proper language; it was not until Champollion broke the code to the hieroglyphs that the mystery was unravelled. Human Remains Egyptologists can acquire a great deal of knowledge of the ancient Egyptians by scientific study of human remains, much of ancient Egypt has been glamourised (by the ancient Egyptians themselves), and that the reality was they suffered from all sorts of diseases. Texts Papyrus, stelae (tombstones), potshards or limestone flakes (known as ostracon or plural ostraca), tombs and temples, accounts of Greek travellers and other classical authors, Pyramid Texts all provide the Egyptologist with primary source material. Secondary material, includes more modern interpretations and journals covering a wide range of subjects such as art, religion etc.
Egyptian Names
The many various spellings of personal names of the ancient Egyptians also give rise to problems. Hieroglyphs were written without vowels, using only the consonants, vowels were added when speaking much like Hebrew and Arabic. Coptic gives us a hint of possible vocalisations of Egyptian words, but it must be remembered that Coptic is the final stage in the evolution of the Egyptian language; it is useful to think of the differences in language use between Chaucer and today. Vocalization. Sometimes it is useful to speak the ancient Egyptian words, which presents another problem. As well as the Egyptian name and its variant spellings, as there is no standardized method for inserting vowels in Egyptian words, but also many place and God names also have there Greek name. For example Site Names, could have more than one name, the Ancient Egyptian name, the Graeco-Roman Period name and the modern Arabic name. Egypt and The Nile. It has been said of Egypt by Heredotus, an ancient Greek traveller, who wrote a history of Egypt, that ‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile�? It is true that without the Nile and its annual flood that the civilization that emerged from the Nile valley could never have happened without the Nile itself. Egypt is a land of mostly desert, with the population living around a small-cultivated area of land. The inundation of the Nile occurred every year up until the 1970’s when the dam at Aswan was built. At each side of the Nile is a narrow band of cultivated land; this was for the ancient Egyptians, security, safety, the known world, and life. Outside this was the desert, a place of death, fear and hunting. The Khem �?meaning The Black Land (or sometimes dusky) was a place of life, the Deshret (from which out word desert comes from) �?The Red land, was seen as a place of death. These ideas of life/death were inseparable for the ancient Egyptians whose view on life was coloured by the very landscape itself. Because all the fertile land was given over to cultivation, the ancient Egyptians, except in the very earliest of times, buried their dead in the desert that surrounded them.
North and South Egypt.
Ancient Egypt was also divided into two separate areas:- The North Lower Egypt �?The Delta Area, which comes from the Greek, faces the Mediterranean, is feed by two main branches of the Nile. The people here are open to differing attitudes, being influenced by external cultures. The South Upper Egypt, is hemmed in by the desert, and its people’s were more inwardly looking. Before the unification of Egypt, there also existed 2 kingdoms, the Red Land (the Delta) and the White Land (The South), these were political entities, not to be confused with the Red Land �?The Deshert. The Northern Kingdom is Lower Egypt and the Southern Kingdom is Upper Egypt. Egypt is a country of contrasts between the cultivated areas and the deserts and between the North and South. The political contrasts in Egypt can clearly be seen, during the Heb Sed festivals, mock battles took place between the Followers of Horus and the Followers of Set, probably based on the early dynastic struggles between the two Kingdoms. Because of the differences in climate and geographical locations, sites in the Delta area are not very well preserved, whereas those in the South, Thebes and Luxor, due to the dry climate of the desert are much better preserved. Egypt is a country that far many thousands of years existed in isolation, protected on four sides by natural boundaries. To the North �?the Mediterranean, to the West the Libyan/Western Desert, to the East the Red Sea and to the South North Africa. Chronology and King Lists. The chronology that Egyptologists use is based on work done by Manetho, who complied a list of Egyptian Rulers and divided them into 31 dynasties. The start of Dynasty 1 is around 3100BC and ends at 343BC. Manetho’s King Lists do not stop at Dynasty 1, but that the Gods ruled Pre-dynastic Egypt. Unfortunately, Manetho’s work is no longer extant, and we are left with various passages quoted by other classical authors that do survive. Major Periods. Archaic Dynasty 1 & 2
Old Kingdom Dynasties 3 to 6- Pyramid building
First Intermediate Period Dynasty 7 to 11- Political instability, civil wars.
Middle Kingdom Dynasty 12
2nd Intermediate Period Dynasty 13 to 17 -split/Hyksos
The New Kingdom Dynasty 18 to 20 -Egyptian Empire
3rd Intermediate Period Dynasty 21 to 25
Late Period Dynasty 26 to 31-
Final phase, Assyrian & Persians
343BC �?332BC Ruled by Alexander the Great
Roman Period ends with the emergence of Christianity and the Arabic invasions in the 7th century. The Pharaoh. The Pharaoh in Egyptian is Per-aa which means Great House. Rulers were usually related by family ties, and changes in dynasty could have been brought about by changes in power between families.
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The Duality of Egypt. This concept of duality, life and death, chaos and harmony, coloured much of the ancient Egyptian way of thinking and can be seen in the history of Egypt. If you think of the history as a series of peaks and troughs, with the peaks representing life and the troughs as death. So life would be the Old Kingdom, the time of the unification, the Pyramids, and the foundations of its religious beliefs, this was always considered by the Egyptians themselves to be their golden age, and in later periods often copied the Old Kingdom model. Then we have the First Intermediate Period, with its time of unrest, civil wars, invasions, and political insecurity so this I see as being the death aspect of Atum-Ra. Next comes The Middle Kingdom, again a period of life, expansion, stability and prosperity, followed by another period of instability in the Second Intermediate Period. The New Kingdom (the Empire Period) again is a period of life and stability and expansion, which is once again followed by a period of decline in the 21st-25th Dynasties (sometimes called the Third Intermediate Period), there followed a brief period of the former glories of Egypt in the Saite Period (26th Dynasty). After this Egypt is ruled by Foreign Kings. The Nile represents the lifeblood of Egypt. I would also say that the civilization that emerged from the Nile valley could never have happened without the Nile. Yet the Nile itself as well as being a thing of life could also be destructive and a bringer of death, such as crocodiles, the hippopotamus and the river itself. The Nile displays this dualistic quality that the ancient Egyptians saw in all things, too much or too little in the annual floods would represent a life or death situation. The actual land of Egypt also reflects the two aspects of Ra, from the life giving silts deposited each year, the cultivated strips of land either side of the Nile (The Black Land) and the desert (Deshret the Red Land), a place of inhospitable terrain, a place of emptiness, it was also the places were the dead were buried, as the land that the people lived on was required for the growing of crops. So the desert is in contrast to the busy and ordered world of the ancient Egyptians. There are places in Egypt were it is possible to stand with one foot in the desert and the other in the cultivated area, so this aspect of Ra was clearly visible throughout Egypt, this contrasting view of the land of Egypt most certainly helped to shape the religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. These ideas of life/death were inseparable for the ancient Egyptians whose view on life was coloured by the very landscape itself. The life and death aspects of Ra can be seen through the various cosmologies, the primeval mound was where the sun was born, with the association with Atum, Re-Atum is said to be the coming of the light to disperse the darkness of the Nu. The course of the sun during the day could be seen as the life of man, when it sets in the west, it begins its travels in the Underworld, which could be seen as man’s death and the journey in the afterlife. Re was the sun god who travelled through the skies in a boat, sinking down into the Underworld each night in the West before emerging in the East at dawn to bring light. The deceased is sometimes thought to join with Re on his sky barque and become one with the endless cosmic cycle. Many symbols were used by the ancient Egyptians, some of their associations and meanings are totally lost to us, but others such as; In the bird of light, the Benu Bird, the Ibis, the lotus flower, the temple lakes, scarab beetles etc show that they were acutely aware of the dual aspects of all creation, life and death. The scarab beetle was perhaps the most favoured of all amulets; the sacred beetle symbol represented all of the mystical connotations and links between earth, death and resurrection. The tombs and monuments were built to last forever, literal Houses of Eternity, and as such were built in durable materials such as stone. Everything else, the Palaces of the King, nobles and homes of the general populace was considered replaceable and were built in materials that were easily reusable, such as mud bricks and wood etc. They also reflect the ancient Egyptian belief of what they had in life so they would have in the afterlife; the concept of eternity gave rise to the mortuary rituals and to the religious philosophy. So much of our view of the ancient Egyptian way of life is coloured by what buildings and monuments survive. We know more about the Egyptians in death than we do about their lives. Yet eternity was not a vague place, they believed they would dwell in paradise, in areas graced by lakes and gardens, one ancient name for it was nuheh, but it was also called shenu. Such a belief in eternity gave the ancient Egyptians such exuberance for life that even foreign travellers such as Heredotus and Plutarch commented on it. This symbolism of life, death and rebirth is also acted out each day, in the Rite of The House of Morning, which was conducted each day. Priests and courtiers would attend and the king was washed in water from the local temple lake to symbolise his primordial rebirth. This duality also existed within political structure of ancient Egypt; it was also divided into two separate areas; The North, Lower Egypt �?The Delta Area, which comes from the Greek, faces the Mediterranean, is feed by two main branches of the Nile; and The South, Upper Egypt, is hemmed in by the desert. Before the unification of Egypt, there also existed 2 kingdoms, the Red Land (the Delta) and the White Land (The South), these were political entities, not to be confused with the Red Land �?The Deshert and the Black Land. The Northern Kingdom is Lower Egypt and the Southern Kingdom is Upper Egypt. Egypt is a country of contrasts between the cultivated areas and the deserts and between the North and South. The political contrasts in Egypt can clearly be seen, during the Heb Sed festivals, mock battles took place between the Followers of Horus and the Followers of Set, probably based on the early dynastic struggles between the two Kingdoms.
The Essential Egyptian View of The Self The primary concepts of ancient Egyptian philosophy are expressed through a jargon of the soul. The terminology of these nine elements of the living human individual was known by every citizen of the ancient Nile culture, yet this knowledge survives in the modern world only in the form of the curious superstition of The Cat's Nine Lives. Sigmund Freud divided the human psyche into three parts -- id, ego, and superego -- and this awareness revolutionized our modern view of being human. Carl Jung divided psyche into four parts -- ego, shadow, self, and anima -- taking that revolution immeasurably further. In ancient Egypt psyche was divided into nine parts, or layers of being -- the akh, sekhem, ib, khat, shuit, ren, ba, ka, sahu. It was a revolution of thought by which they built an empire out of the mud, using pen and paper, string, rocks, and conversation. The goal of all these divisions of psyche -- three, four, or nine -- is self-awareness and natural self-control. The only significant difference between Egyptian psychological teaching and modern Western psychology is the place and function of the soul in the economy of the human psyche. The ancients did not question the existence of the divine soul; their entire civilization was built on belief in the soul's absolute reality and its absolute divinity. From ancient Egypt we learn that identity is the divinity of the soul. 1. AKH: the divine substance of the human soul
2. SEKHEM: the energy pattern of the divine spirit, the song of the soul
3. IB: the life-force, territory of the heart
4. KHAT: the soul's container, that which decays, "I stink therefore I am."
5. SHUIT: the living shadow, proof of reality
6. REN: the magic of your name, divine identity
7. BA: the you whom only you can know, the inside of the mask
8. KA: the you as others know you, the outside of the mask
9. SAHU: the natural boundary of the psychic self, horizon of the divine self
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Ancient Egyptian Religion Religion guided every aspect of Egyptian life. Egyptian religion was based on polytheism, or the worship of many deities, except for during the reign of Akenaton. The Egyptians had as many as 2000 gods and goddesses. Some, such as Amun, were worshipped throughout the whole country, while others had only a local following. Often gods and goddesses were represented as part human and part animal. For example, Horus, the sky god, had the head of a hawk, and body of a human. They considered animals such as the bull, the cat, and the crocodile to be holy. Their two chief gods were Amon-Ra and Osiris. Amon-Ra was believed to be the sun god and the lord of the universe. Osiris was the god of the underworld. Stories about him revolved around the idea of immortality. Osiris was the god that made a peaceful afterlife possible. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead" contains the major ideas and beliefs in the ancient Egyptian religion. Because their religion stressed an afterlife, Egyptians devoted much time and wealth to preparing for survival in the next world. The Egyptians had many tales about how the world began. According to one legend, it started with an ocean in darkness. Then a mound of dry land rose up and the sun god Re appeared. He created light and all things. Another version has the sun God emerging from a sacred blue lotus that grew out of the mud, while a third version has him appearing as a scarab beetle on the eastern horizon. Temples were considered dwelling places for the gods. They were everywhere. Each city had a temple built for the god of that city. The purpose of the temple was to be a cosmic center by which men had communication with the gods. As the priests became more powerful, tombs became a part of great temples. Shown below is a typical temple flood plan with the purposes of each section given. The priests duty was to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests had many duties such as funeral rites, teaching school, supervising the artists and works, and advising people on problems.
Death and Funerals The Egyptians saw death as a transitional stage in the progress to a better life in the next world. They believed they could only reach their full potential after death. Each person was thought to have three souls, the "ka," the "ba," and the "akh." For these to function properly, it was considered essential for the body to survive intact. The entire civilization of Ancient Egypt was based on religion, and their beliefs were important to them. Their belief in the rebirth after death became their driving force behind their funeral practices.
Embalming When a person died, the priests recited prayers and a final attempt was made to revive the deceased. The body was then washed and purified in a special shelter called an ibu. The body was then taken the wabet, which was the embalmer's workshop. A cut was made in the left side, and all the organs were removed and stored in containers known as canopic jars. The body was then packed with a salt called natron for a period of forty days. After the forty days had passed, the insides were filled with linen or sawdust, resin and natron. The body was wrapped in bandages with jewelry and amulets between the layers. A portrait mask was placed over the head of the deceased by the Chief Embalmer, who wore a jackal mask to represent Anubis. The wrapped body, or mummy, was put into a coffin.
Burial Tombs After a period of about 70 days, in which the mummification process took place, the mummy was placed in a decorated coffin. Furniture, carved statues, games, food, and other items useful to the next life were prepared to be buried with the mummy. The last ritual performed by the priest on the mummy was called the "Opening of the Mouth." This ceremony was to magically give the deceased the ability to speak and eat again, and to have full use of his body. After placing the mummy in the sarcophagus, the tomb was sealed.
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Homework Exercises
Egyptology Lesson 1
1) Define Amulet. What were thry used for?
2) What was the "Book of the Dead"? What was it used for?
3) What is the difference between between "Ba" and "Ka" if any?
4) What was the significance of the "weighing of the heart" ?
Whose heart was it?
5) What were the "bodies of man"? Explain.
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