Strange is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass’d the door of Darkness through Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too.1023
The recently deceased and the distant dead were viewed differently. Both could behave malevolently, but only the recently deceased seemed to be in direct communication with the living and to be responsive to requests for help. Their names, characters and relationships with the living were common knowledge, whereas the distant ancestors - whether akhu or mwt - whose names were forgotten, represented the unknown and might therefore be expected to behave in a manner that was inherently more chaotic and disruptive.
As in many cultures, ancient and modern, cults of individual ancestors in Egypt had a finite existence. Once those who remembered the deceased died and there was no direct link to the past, the cults were abandoned and artefacts associated with them were discarded or reused. The deceased passed into the realm of the collective dead and as part of this community they could be blamed for illness (including possessing the victim), death,1024 crop failure, infertility, and other inexplicable disasters. This was also the case in Mesopotamia, where texts deal specifically with ghost-induced illnesses.1025 The malevolent dead could be male or female.1026 There were differences between the gender manifestations of the dead, and perhaps between the manners in which they affected the living. Medico-magical texts often list antagonistic beings in a specific, perhaps hierarchical, order: male and female akhs, dead men and women, male and female adversaries, and demons.1027 According to Donnat,1028 the dead were the principal adversaries of the living, but demons, deities, snakes, and scorpions too were responsible for various afflictions. The Egyptians dealt with malevolent entities through execration rituals, intended to separate the living from the dead (smashing pots, for example), or to annihilate them altogether.1029
The deceased, once buried, could exist without the assistance of the living, since the magically effective tomb decoration would provide for their needs.1030 Equally the living could survive without intervention from the deceased, since they had the gods and human society to support them. The situation, however, was far more complicated. Not only were doubts expressed about the efficacy of preparations for the next world (for example in the harpers’ songs), but the dead were vulnerable to neglect as much as by attacks from vandals and robbers. The living turned to their deceased kin for help in times of emergency, for fertility issues, protection from malevolent entities, or with family disputes (as recorded in letters to the dead), and provided offerings not just out of duty or respect but from fear of the consequences should the dead become hostile. Alan Gardiner concluded that the Egyptians felt no great fear of their ancestors,1031 given the ‘extreme prevalence of tomb-robbery’. The two attitudes need not have been mutually exclusive: practicality may well have overridden concerns regarding retribution by the deceased. In Papyrus Leopold-Amherst, dating to Year 16 of Ramesses IX,1032 craftsmen and priests are named among the robbers: poverty-stricken farmers were not the only ones to supplement their income by stealing from the dead.
The popular conception that the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death and mortuary provision is unsurprising given the weight of evidence for burial preparation and the costs involved. However, Howard Williams1033 suggests that in prehistory generally, death was probably more visible, and that there was little sanitising of its reality. The visibility and effects of death may have been amplified at specialist villages given their comparative isolation from other settlement sites, and at Deir el-Medina in particular, with its proximity to the cemeteries on its east and west. This village, which provides the majority of New Kingdom information regarding ‘daily life’, is unlikely to be representative of the many communities that were not planned and first occupied for the purpose of creating and furnishing tombs. Thus while the dead were presumably commemorated in some manner in outlying regions, this may not have taken the form of the cults and rituals found at the artisans’ village, where access to texts, skilled labour and materials facilitated the production of artefacts and monuments that formed the focus of cult practices and the memorialisation of the deceased.
According to Howard Williams:1034
Some might regard [the] current obsession [in contemporary archaeology] with death in ancient societies as merely ghoulish and voyeuristic, perhaps replicating the contemporary media’s fascination with every intimate detail of people’s lives and (particularly violent) deaths. But it might be suggested that the popular interest with tombs, mummies and graves has a deeper psychological and social significance which archaeology has encouraged and mediated. Such a view is supported by the consideration that we are in a society in which death, in its mundane and common forms, is hidden from view, medicalised, privatised and sanitised.
It could indeed be argued that there is a need to look beyond Western concepts and practices associated with death and burial in order to approach those of ancient cultures, and here ethnographic material is particularly valuable. This is especially true for ancient Egypt since, as Baines and Lacovara point out:1035 ‘Relatively little textual evidence relates directly to the attitudes of living society towards death and the dead themselves.’ An additional benefit of incorporating anthropological research is the parallels it offers for sensory aspects of ancient life that might otherwise be overlooked, such as the audibility of grief - the chanting of laments, the weeping for the deceased, and the shrieking and wailing that accompany the announcement of a death.1036
Throughout this book I have relied heavily on material from elite sources because there is so little comparable evidence for the burials and beliefs of the poorer classes. In the absence of written documents and undisturbed graves it is very difficult to reconstruct the eschatological concerns of the majority of the populace. Did the religion of officials and literate artisans filter down through the social hierarchy, or were non-elite concepts and rituals associated with death, burial, and the afterlife entirely different? The excavations at the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna are proving instructive, insofar as there seems to have been some provision for the dead at burial and possibly a form of mortuary cult. The act of burying in reed matting in itself, rather than mass inhumation, speaks of respect for the dead,1037 but the apparent general lack of permanent grave markers suggests that long term memorialisation was not intended.
John Taylor states:1038 ‘After the New Kingdom, the role of the tomb as the chief focus of the mortuary cult diminished. The tombs themselves were less conspicuous and relatively few possessed a dedicated cult place.’ It could be argued, however, that during the New Kingdom, notably at sites such as Deir el-Medina, the house formed an equally important venue for interaction with the dead. The desire to communicate with ancestors within the domestic space indicates the close-knit nature of the family unit. A similar belief that the relationship between the living and the dead is intrinsic to the survival of the entire family operates today in parts of Upper Egypt.1039 At Deir el-Medina, the deceased could enter via doorways, through the media of busts, statuettes or stelae, or by means of false doors that linked the house to the tomb. The desire of the dead to return to their homes is expressed in mortuary texts, where their role as protectors of their kin, particularly their children, is clearly stated.1040 Ancestor worship was not, however, confined to the house:1041 chapels, shrines, temples, and ‘pilgrimage’ sites such as Abydos, were all places of potential interaction between the living and the dead.
If stelae from the Theban area can be taken at face value, then women were much involved in local cults and participated to a greater extent than men in interaction with ancestors, since only females are shown in the presence of busts. Literacy would not have been a barrier, because requests could be made orally; as with laments,1042 rituals may have been passed from one generation to another. Votive stelae dedicated by or on behalf of women depict them worshipping various gods including statues of deified kings.1043 At Deir el-Bahri several stelae and votive cloths were dedicated by mothers and daughters.1044 Women as ancestors were themselves the focus of cult, as is shown by akh iqer stelae,1045 female akhs mentioned in medico-magical texts, and probably in the form of anthropoid busts. The separation of women and men in images of funerals, and to a lesser extent, in banquet scenes, may reflect on gender divisions in everyday life, which might be comparable, for instance, with the Kota in the Nilgiri Hills of South India: ‘In the funeral procession, at the feast, and in all other ceremonies the ‘normal’ order of rank is maintained. Thus men come before women, elders before the young men, etc. In this way the funeral ceremony highlights the central motifs of the culture.’1046
Social aspects of the relationship of the living with the dead include the manner in which men and women deal with bereavement, or at least how they are depicted as doing so, since texts generally do not record peoples’ responses to death. The focus is on the bereaved and on the corpse but never on the dying,1047 explicit causes for individual deaths are rarely mentioned,1048 and the process of dying is never depicted. In funeral scenes, women are shown in states of distress that vary from one tomb to another. Aside from weeping and raising their arms, other typical actions include throwing dust onto their dishevelled hair, as is paralleled in modern Luxor, and rending their clothes.1049 These images may represent socially acceptable performance enhanced by the presence of professional mourners, genuine, unpremeditated reactions to loss, or artisans’ renderings of standard mourning behaviour. The laments that accompany these scenes may be deliberately ambiguous - partly conventional expressions of grief but combined with a counter-cultural questioning of the prevalent beliefs regarding death and the afterlife. Funeral scenes themselves combine control and chaos. Formal lines of offering bringers contrast with hysterical mourners, while the solemn professionalism of the priests responsible for the Opening of the Mouth ritual outside the tomb entrance is at variance with the weeping widow crumpled on the ground clinging to her husband’s coffin or mummy. They are pictures of extremes.
The funerary banquet with its formal representations of seated guests contrasts with the mortuary banquets of the 18th Dynasty.1050 In the latter, the apparent atmosphere of solemnity and duty present in the former is replaced by one of relaxed entertainment. The fear, chaos, and formality of funerary scenes is no longer present. This difference is perhaps due to the control the living now have over the dead, who were encouraged to come at the voice for offerings and invited to participate in banquets, or to listen and respond to requests for assistance - they were not expected to be present unless called upon. The breaking of barriers during communication with the dead was thus done largely at the behest of the living and on their terms. This relationship is also apparent in modern rural Egypt, where ‘much effort is normally undertaken to dissuade the soul of the departed to return to the land of the living except for specific feast days and for specific feasts.’1051
The relationship between the living and the dead in New Kingdom Egypt was based on principles of reciprocity, yet was at the same time highly complex. Part of the reason for this may have be the multifaceted nature of the deceased, discussed in Chapter 1. Ambivalence of the dead toward the living as well of vice versa is apparent in medico-magical and didactic texts and other sources such as letters to the dead, where it is clear that fear and the need to appease {ship) the deceased were factors behind some aspects of mortuary cults. The tomb was not the only location where interaction with ancestors took place. Equally important were installations in the house, while chapels and temples, festivals and banquets were other potential focal points for communication with and rites involving the dead {Chapters 3 and 4). Objects related to mortuary cults including statues, stelae, and offering tables {Chapter 2), were a tangible, durable media simultaneously foci for ritual activities and memorials to the dead. Long-term memorialisation was evidently recognised as an unattainable goal {Chapter 5), and yet investment in tombs and funerary equipment continued. Perhaps it was sufficient to prepare for burial and arrange a mortuary cult.1052 By doing so one was both complying with cultural norms and guaranteeing, as far as possible, a place in the afterlife, regardless of the inevitable robbery, reuse, and decay that would follow the sealing of the burial chamber.
World History
