Religion was also integrated into all facets of life - there was no artificial division between the secular and religious spheres. The king was also a god, while a temple functioned as a proclamation of his power, a home for the god(s) associated with it, and an economic institution. Even the space upon which a temple was built was sacred, while rituals provided further purification at every stage, including the burial of a foundation deposit. In the Middle Kingdom these deposits included food offerings, vessels, jewelery, building materials and model tools. The temple, with its architectural grandeur and multitude of reliefs, was perhaps the most obvious physical manifestation of religious beliefs and practice. As is discussed later (see Spencer ch. 14), temples played a crucial role as centers of economic administration, storage, and distribution, as vehicles for the proclamation of the king’s power and unique relationship with the gods, and as homes for the major gods with the priesthood in attendance upon them literally as servants of god (hemu-netjer). They were not generally the center of worship for the general populace, and access was likely restricted. The icon of the deity affiliated with the temple was housed deep inside, in an area only accessible to the high priest, while the people were allowed no deeper than the first forecourt. That distance between the gods and mankind was alleviated by the many festivals which afforded people an opportunity to view the deities and partake in rituals as well as to receive the largesse of the bounty of goods that had been offered to temples.
A list from the Middle Kingdom Fayum settlement of Lahun keeping track of the attendance of singers and dancers who were to work at the festivals provides us with details of some of the ones that were scheduled in one particular year. Although the list is incomplete, it includes no less than 33 festivals, which can be considered indicative of the types of festivals that would be celebrated by the inhabitants of settlements throughout Egypt. Some festivals appear only once, while others are repeated. Other texts mention festivals associated with the new moon, full moon, ‘‘wag’’ festival (a festival associated with Osiris and the dead), Thoth, Sobek, and Anubis (Luft 1992). Many of these could be considered as national festivals that were celebrated all over Egypt; others were regional, yet others seem to have been local to Lahun and would not be expected to be celebrated elsewhere. For example, the festival of ‘‘cloth of Khakheperre’’ (Senwosret II) who was the founder of the town of Lahun would have had less relevance for the rest of Egypt. Others were not related to any particular deity, but were rather seasonal or timely, such as festivals of the month, half-month, and year. Attendance lists from Deir el-Medina reveal that workmen were given time off to attend many of the festivals - some of which would last for days - as well as their own private group rituals. Presumably, they would be attended by the women, children, and elders as well. The festivals thus also fostered and strengthened the overall sense of community as a whole.
Particularly important national festivals that were held in a specific location would draw Egyptians with the means for travel from all over Egypt. The celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris that were held on an annual basis in Middle Kingdom Abydos is an example of these. Along with cemeteries, private chapels, and the temple to the god Osiris, an area was set aside for the votive dedications testifying to the involvement of Egyptians in the festivities. Participation guaranteed the participant an opportunity to witness the god and people flocked from different areas of Egypt to attend the event. To commemorate their visit, Egyptians would erect stelae with an image of the participant, hymns or offering formulae, or prayers, as well as often the names or images of spouses, children, and other relatives, co-workers and even the sculptor of the stele itself. Having one’s name forever marked in stone at the sacred site offered one permanent access to the event, and a brush with divinity, even if one had not actually attended the event (Leprohon 1978).
Figure 27.1 New Year’s flask in faience (EC733) 17 cm high. New Kingdom-Third Intermediate Period. These two-handled flasks, often called “pilgrim flasks,” begin in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty. Courtesy the Egypt Centre, Swansea.
While for the most part the interior of major temples were not accessible for the populace, local chapels may have provided more opportunities for closer direct access to the divine. These have been found at small settlements such as the New Kingdom workmen’s villages of Deir el-Medina and Amarna. Architecturally they incorporated the main features of the large temples, but they were built of mud-brick rather than stone. Many had benches in them; some at Deir el-Medina were seemingly reserved for specific individuals who recorded their names, while the benches in the sanctuary area of the Amarna chapels might have supported images. Some of the chapels also included ovens and there are signs that food was consumed there. That the chapels were a nexus for interaction between the living and supernatural beings is clear. In some cases these were gods, which at Deir el-Medina included Hathor, Ptah, Amun, and the agricultural goddess Renenutet, and at Amarna Amun, Isis, Shed, and Aten (Bomann 1991), while in other cases, the divine entities also included the revered dead.
The need to commune with the divine also led to the consecration of sacred spaces that were less formally constructed but that took advantage of natural environments that must have seemed particularly numinous. A prime example of this can be found on a barren desert hillside lying between Deir el-Medina and the Valley of the Queens. A rocky outcropping there was carved out by the villagers to form a series of rough chapels ideally suited for solitary communion with the divine. Their need for privacy combined with their desire for public expression of their piety led to them carving small stelae right in the rock itself - some on the outside of the chapels, some deep inside. Some of the hymns of praise here were dedicated to the god Ptah, the patron of craftsmen. Ptah was also popular in Memphis, where indeed he was the main god, but as many of the villagers of Deir el-Medina worked as craftsmen, it is no surprise that he enjoyed immense popularity there as well.
Many were directed to the deity Meretseger, ‘‘Lover of Silence,’’ a goddess who was often either wholly or partially represented as a snake. The multivalent nature of Egyptian deities was exemplified by Meretseger as she shared her snake iconography with Renenutet, a goddess of the harvest and grain, and on some stelae both deities were worshipped in tandem as Meretseger-Renenutet. Meretseger was a more local goddess than Ptah, and she was closely associated with the harsh bleak landscape, as indicated by one of her epithets was ‘‘Mistress of the Peak.’’ In this guise she was known to be swift in retaliating against transgressors who were stricken with anguish or blindness. The readers of the stela of a man named Neferabu are also warned that ‘‘she strikes with the strike of a fierce lion when she is after the one who transgresses against her’’ (McDowell 1999). In the typical Egyptian fashion of not emphasizing one’s own negative or anti-social conduct, the nature of the transgressions was not revealed on the stelae, but instead the texts focused on extolling her virtue and mercy for healing those afflicted. Modern visitors to the site have noted the distinct resemblance that the peak has to the head of a lioness, and if it had the same shape 4000 years ago, one can readily see why this particular barren silent location in the desert was selected as the area to erect votive stelae to the goddess who loved silence, and whose wrath was like that of a lioness when her peace was disturbed.
Active appeals to the gods through ritual and prayer took place in a variety of environments. At the west end of the Valley of the Queens (called by the Egyptians the ‘‘ta set neferw’ ‘‘Place of the Beautiful Ones’’) there was a natural grotto down which the torrential rain water would have poured during rare cloudbursts and storms (Vernus 2000; Leblanc 1989). A retaining wall was built there in the Ramesside period to protect the tombs from flooding, but it would also have acted as dam to collect water into a pool. The grotto, with its 22 m-high ceiling of stone and waters cascading via two levels into a natural pool would have been imbued with sanctity and resonated with divine power. Its strategic location at the far west end of the valley meant that it would have served as a natural boundary, not only on the physical earthly level as the end of the landscape of the valley, but also as a boundary between the valley as a liminal area that housed the tombs of the queens and princes, and the Duat, the divine landscape that was also called the Beautiful West and was inaccessible to mortals. In particular, the cascade grotto was linked to the Lady of the West, the goddess Hathor who is represented there in graffiti. This is likely the area that is described by the scribe, Qenherkhopshef the Younger, who recounts a series of five sacred rituals he performed for the goddess Hathor that included walking in the Valley of the Queens, ritual breakage (possibly of red pots), watering of reeds and lilies, spending the night in the shadow of the goddess herself within the natural sanctuary, and finally erecting stelae near Deir el-Bahri to exalt her magnificence (Szpakowska 2003a; Vernus 2000).
The force of personal piety was strong and recent research is just beginning to give us an idea of the extent of the freedom which even the non-elite had to express and make manifest the depth of their devotion to a deity outside of the carefully controlled temple environment. One dramatic example is the trove of over 500 votive stelae and about 50 figurines that were found in the Salakhana tomb at Asyut, in Middle Egypt (DuQuesne 2007a; 2007b). The tomb itself was the final resting place of the nomarch Djefaihap III who lived during the Middle Kingdom, but the rock-cut tomb clearly garnered a hallowed reputation over time, for the objects found within it date from the New Kingdom to Third Intermediate Period. Made of limestone, sandstone, alabaster, and (unusually for stelae) clay, the stelae are dedicated primarily to the gods Wepwawet and Anubis, whose cult was prominent in that area from the time of the Middle Kingdom. Other gods such as Hathor of Medjed (the consort of Wepwawet), Amun-Re, Osiris-Khentiamentiu, Reshep, Ptah, Taweret, Sobek, Hathor, Harsaphes, and Re-Harakhty (DuQuesne 2007a: 468) also appear. While many of the stelae are inscribed with divine epithets of the dedicatee, the name of the donor, hymns, prayers, and the offering formula, others have no inscriptions at all. The titles that do appear reflect class levels spanning the lowly to the elite - a spectrum that is also supported by the range in quality, style, and material. While an alabaster stela was certainly commissioned by a more wealthy individual, there are many examples of uninscribed ones made of clay that would have been readily available even to the poorer members of society. In their very simplicity, however, these stelae reveal a deep piety and reverence for the gods and confirm that neither the desire to interact with the divine nor access to the gods was restricted to the literate or the wealthy. Both men and women are represented, including women who seem to have no affiliation to any man, and can be considered to have acted independently. Finds such as these testify to the impact of religion on Egyptians of all walks of life and regions, regardless of gender or class.
Some of the clay stelae had holes in the top, suggesting that they were meant to be hung either in the tomb, or perhaps in a household shrine. Perhaps the most common sacred spaces were those found in the everyday dwelling places of the Egyptians. Homes had a practical use of course, but their very construction also incorporated religious beliefs and elements that activated heka. Front doors, which act as barriers between the safe interior space and the unpredictable outside world, were often painted red - a color that represented not only the potent energy of the sun, but had apotropaic potential as well, and thus helped to repel uninvited entities whether they were earthly creatures such as humans or snakes, or demons crossing over from the other world. Even furniture and household items such as headrests, legs of beds or chairs, chests, mirrors, spoons, could be decorated with apotropaic or protective divine entities. Towns such as Amarna, Deir el-Medina, Elephantine, Lahun, and Tell el-Daba reveal that religious emplacements, furnishings, libation basins and reliefs were a part of many homes, whether they were elite estates or simple workers’ homes (Stevens 2006). Stepped platforms that have been interpreted as altars made of stone and mud-brick were integrated as architectural features in some of the larger homes. Across the range of homes small shrines or niches have been found embedded in walls or columns.
Figure 27.2a and b Decorated leg from a bed with Bes, painted blue (a), and snakes (b), probably from Akhmim. Bes appears to be standing on a sa-sign. Household objects were often designed with reference to religious beliefs appropriate to their function. It is possible that the leg is part of a “woman’s bed” upon which a woman would have given birth and/or rested shortly after birth (W2052a). Courtesy the Egypt Centre, Swansea.
Nevertheless, whether large or small, it is clear that the niches, shrines, and altars would have held stelae, ancestor busts, or figurines that were the focus of domestic worship and prayer. This is confirmed by a household shrine in Askut which was found in situ with its accompanying stela still intact (Smith 2003). That particular shrine contained a funerary stela, suggesting that rituals for the dead could be carried out in the home and were not exclusive to cemeteries. The presence of ancestor busts and akh iqr en Re stelae within the homes confirm that even after the dead were buried, they were remembered and revered. That these icons were the focus of formal rituals is also confirmed by the discovery of a small stela depicting a woman, the Lady of the Estate, offering libations to an ancestor bust. The figures and stelae were not hidden, but would be exposed and visible, and there is no reason to suggest that all members of the family - men, women, children, and the elderly would not have participated in the rites. The objects may have acted as a conduit for communication with recently deceased relatives and community figures. In the New Kingdom, clay and limestone figurines of females in association with beds (type 6, according to Pinch 1993, 207-9; 218) may also have served as foci for remembering the dead. Some of the figurines were found attached to a model bed, some were represented with a child, and some had separate beds, but most are depicted as nude and wearing heavy wigs, often with a cone on top. These have been found mostly in homes, though some also in tombs (rarely in chapels or temples) and it may be that these were meant to commemorate the loss of a woman (and perhaps her child) during childbirth.
A wide range of deities were represented in the form of figurines or depicted and named on household stela including deities that also enjoyed cults on a larger scale such Amun, Ptah, Hathor, Thoth, and Min, deities whose presence was rare in the temple sphere such as Bes, Taweret, Meretseger, Shed, and Renenutet, as well as deities whose origins lay outside of Egypt such as Reshep, Qadesh, and Astarte. Other figures may have been generic or polyvalent. A particular class of stelae featured representations of ears, suggesting that the petitioner hoped that his prayer would be heard. Some were dedicated to specific deities, but others featured ears only and could have been used to amplify petitions to any deity. Certain types of female figurines may also have been meant to represent goddesses. Throughout the Ancient Near East, figures are found of a naked goddess who may be, but is not necessarily, associated with fertility - the warrior goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qadesh, and Baalat, are also depicted this way. As in the rest of the Near East, it is likely that the Egyptian female figurines served a multitude of purposes from being used to pray for or in gratitude for a successful birth, as icons of the female dead, or as a goddess. Male figurines and phalluses have also been found, as well as ones of animals such as rams, donkeys, canines, birds, and hippopotami. A variety of snake figurines remain, some at the bottom of bowls that may have been filled with oil and used for divination, some freestanding with their own offering stands attached, others were simple coils of clay. Their use probably varied according to type, location, and time (Szpakowska 2003b). Some could have been presented as votive offerings, some could have been used in conjunction with apotropaic spells, while others may have formed a decorative and sacred frieze above a shrine. They were likely associated with any number of goddesses who could be represented in serpent form such as Meretseger, Renenutet, Wadjet, Neith, or Weret-Hekau. Divine figures also appeared
Figure 27.3 Red pottery figurine of a nude female (EC446). Similar to examples from Kom Rabia. Clay figures of women lying on beds have been found in domestic, temple, and grave sites. They may have been used to ensure fertility. Courtesy Egypt Centre, Swansea.
In homes as depictions on ostraka and amulets. Whether they took the form of large statues or tiny amulets, the presence of these objects reflects the intensity and integration of religion in all areas of life in Pharaonic Egypt.
All of these religious artefacts, ranging from chapels to amulets, were also embedded in life at Egypt’s borders. Military installations, fortified centers, and administrative complexes from Egypt’s southern outposts in Nubia to those running along the Mediterranean from Libya up the Levantine Coast include within their enclosure walls clear signs of the integration of religious beliefs and practices (Szpakowska forthcoming). Some of these take the form of temples dedicated by the Pharaoh, but cult emplacements as well as small religious artefacts such as figurines of clay and wood, remarkably similar to those found in settlements, are also found. These include ubiquitous clay balls, figurines shaped into the form of male and female humans, as well as animals such as ducks, rams and snakes, as well as artefacts associated with domestic life such as spinning bowls, whorls, pendants and scarabs. While some seem to have been transported from Egypt, others were clearly fashioned abroad. An example of these are the clay cobra figurines found at Beth Shan, whose shape combines that of the figures found in Egypt with the iconography prevalent in the local
Figure 27.4 New Kingdom limestone stela from Deir el-Medina depicting a woman presenting offerings to Thoth as a baboon (W1326). Courtesy the Egypt Centre, Swansea.
Goddess cults. This reflects not only an integration of different methods of technology, but also the intermingling of Egyptian beliefs with those of the local region to create a new icon that could be readily embraced by both cultures. It is seems that while religious beliefs were deeply embedded in their culture and self-identity, to the extent that the Egyptians brought them with them and continued to engage in the same religious practices associated with their native homes, the syncretistic nature of Egyptian religion allowed for its peaceful co-existence with foreign faiths.
World History
