Divination

Deities could also provide information to individuals regarding issues such as healing, fertility, increasing wealth, promotions in terms of social status, and even the settling of disputes via divinatory techniques. The evidence for divination is firmly attested from the New Kingdom onwards, and by the Late Period a wide range was used (von Leiven 1999). The most common method of obtaining knowledge from divine beings was through the use of oracles. Powerful Pharaohs, such as Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, publicly proclaimed the guidance they were given by the main state deity through oracles, but other members of society from the elite to workers were afforded the same opportunity, most commonly during festivals. While the statue of a major divinity, such as Amun, was usually housed deep within the sanctuary of the temple, during festivals the icon would be placed with a shrine and carried on a barque by priests through the temple and outside along the prescribed processional route. For many, this would have been their only chance to come close to the usually inaccessible god, and they made the most of the opportunity. Questions related to a wide assortment of concerns, ranging from whether the dreams that the sleeper will have will be good ones, to ones related to the settling of legal disputes, were written on pottery ostraka, and presented to the deity. One method for answering the question seems to have been by the priests moving the icon forwards for ‘‘yes,’’ or backwards for ‘‘no.’’

By the Third Intermediate Period, ‘‘oracular decrees’’ were also worn in cylinders around the neck as amulets (Edwards 1960). The content of the decrees was a divine promise to keep the owner safe from a variety of problems and difficulties which could affect the living. These included a variety of diseases and health problems, dangers which could be met both while travelling and on a daily basis, both foreign and domestic practitioners of heka, the wrath of other gods, hostile demons and malignant entities, and dreams. Designed for the use of both male and female children, the papyri were prepared in advance with a space left blank ready for insertion of the name of the deities who would ultimately be responsible for the oracle. The parents or guardian of the child would take the papyrus to the shrine of the preferred deities who would convey the assurances to an intermediary, and the names of those deities would be inserted into the appropriate sections of the papyrus. The deities most often consulted included the Theban triad of Mut, Khonsu, and Amun, but the deities Montu-Re, Thoth, Isis and Horus were also consulted. The papyrus would be further personalized by including the child’s name and that of at least one parent (often the mother).

A variety of other divinatory practices are attested by textual remains. A Ramesside compendium of dreams and their interpretations (Gardiner 1935; Szpakowska 2003a), as well as a papyrus now thought to date to the Saite period provide evidence for the practice of oneiromancy (Quack 2006), while fragments of a papyrus in the Turin museum testify to the practice of lecanomancy (divination based on the interpretation of shapes caused by oil in bowls of water, see Demichelis 2003). Recent exegesis of demotic texts reveals that the Egyptians also practiced divination through animal omens, throwing dice, and casting lots (Quack 2006). Calendars of days were used as a sort of almanac to predict the auspiciousness of a particular day (hemerology). The earliest known calendar of this kind was found in Middle Kingdom Lahun. This hieratic papyrus features a neat vertical column consisting of the word ‘‘day,’’ followed by either the word good (nefer) in black, or the word bad (dju) in red (UC32192 in Collier and Quirke 2004: 26-7). Three of the days are listed as both good and bad. It is an unfinished papyrus, and even the other side remains blank. However, the large spaces left on either side of the column indicates that it would have been filled in with more details. Later versions inform us that the formulas would have read something like, Day 1: Favorable today, till the coming forth of the moon. Day 4: Bad. Do not offer to your god today (Troy 1989). The question remains as to who would have used these. These are mostly found in temple contexts, suggesting that rather than having been consulted by the general populace, their use might have been restricted to that of priests (Troy 1989). Literate priests may also have been responsible for oneiromancy and lecanomancy, as well as for the other divinatory practices that were in use in the Late Period such as the interpretation of animal omens (Quack 2006).