Lost Voices of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt

by Charlotte Booth

  Although all families worshipped all or some of the deities discussed, primarily they worshipped their own ancestors, who upon death and rebirth into the afterlife became Excellent Spirits of Re (akh ikr en Re). These spirits were thought to be able to affect the life of the living as well as influence the gods of the afterlife.40 The ancestors worshipped were within two or three generations: parent, spouse, child or sibling,41 presumably those within living memory. However, in the tomb of Paheri at El Kab there are, rather unusually, five generations depicted, including the tomb owner and his wife, their children and grandchildren, as well as the parents and grandparents of the tomb owner and his wife, and their aunts, uncles and cousins.42 It is quite likely that if the women of the family had their children at a young age all five generations were in fact known to each other, which renders this scene well in keeping with the traditional number of generations.

  Normally the ancestors worshipped were depicted on a small stela (approximately 25 centimetres in height), holding a lotus flower and standing before a deity, or seated and being worshipped by their living relatives. These stelae were often dedicated to men, and may have been placed in the second room of the house – the masculine room43 (see chapter two). In some cases the ancestor is depicted on more than one stela and worshipped in multiple homes within the community,44 either representing extended family worship or a wider reverence for a particular individual.

  These stelae were often accompanied by ancestor busts consisting of small (less than 30 centimetres) human heads on a base made of stone, clay, wood or faience. Some figures were bald and others had natural hair or large tri-partite wigs. The only other adornment was a collar with lotus blossoms and buds hanging from it. Over 150 ancestor busts are known, mostly from Deir el-Medina, but only five have hieroglyphic inscriptions, two with the title Lady of the House and a name and another with the name and titles of Hathor, suggesting the goddess was portrayed in this particular case45 rather than a family member. A number of them have red-brown skin indicative of male figures, although these busts represented both men and women.

  Such ancestral busts were designed to be placed in temples and shrines and were the focus for religious offerings. Food and liquid libations were brought and placed in front of the statue in order to appease the ancestors and encourage them to help the family in daily life. When in the homes they were used as protection against evil forces as well as for the family to appeal to them for favours.46 A number of them were found north of the Hathor temple at Deir el-Medina, indicating they may have been part of a procession to the chapels and shrines in and around the village.47

  It is thought the villagers took part in the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, when the statue of Amun was taken from Karnak in procession to the necropolis on the west bank and joined the procession carrying the ancestor busts where they were worshipped alongside the gods at the tombs.48 The Beautiful Festival of the Valley was a festival of the dead between the harvest and the inundation. One element of this festival was that the ithyphallic form of Amun-Re visited the temple of Deir el Bahri and ‘spent the night’ with Hathor. Couples may have used this time to invoke blessings on their sexual relationship and associate themselves with the divine couple. Couples may have slept at the Hathor shrine on this night in the hope of receiving a dream of the goddess49 or even to conceive. They possibly thought that having intercourse at this time would result in conception. It is quite likely that Ramose and his wife also attempted to conceive at this time, but were not fortunate enough to be blessed by the goddess.

  The existence of a large number of the stelae and busts in the home suggest that the ancestors were considered to be a part of the world of the living and it was believed that the Excellent Spirits of Re could intercede on behalf of the living in matters of daily life and also in concerns of the afterlife. Often the families appealed to the deceased in the form of letters to the dead, in which they asked for help in various matters. These letters were often left at the tomb following feast days and celebrations, in the form of clay bowls filled with offerings. The idea being that once the spirit of the ancestor had gained nourishment from the food they would then see the letter and feel obliged to grant the requests. Some letters are written on linen or papyrus, although the majority are on such bowls.

  One letter on a pottery bowl was from a man called Shepsi to his dead parents, asking for them to intervene over a property dispute.50 On the inside of the bowl the inscription reads,

  Shepsi speaks to his father Iinekhenmut. This is a reminder of your journey to the dungeon [?], to the place where Sen’s son Hetepu was, when you brought the foreleg of an ox, and when this your son came with Newaef, and when you said, ‘Welcome, both of you. Sit and eat meat!’ Am I to be injured in your presence, without this your son having done or said anything, by my brother? [And yet] I was the one who buried him, I brought him from the dungeon [?], I placed him among his desert tomb-dwellers, even though thirty measures of refined barley were due from him by a loan, and one bundle of garments, six measures of fine barley, one ball [?] of flax, and a cup- even though I did for him what did not [need] to be done. He has done this against this your son evilly, evilly. but you had said to this your son, ‘All my property is vested in my son Shepsi along with my fields’. Now Sher’s son Henu has been taken. See, he is with you in the same city. You have to go to judgement with him now, since your scribes are with [you] in the same city. Can a man be joyful, when his spears are used [against his own son (?)].

  Here he is clearly unhappy that he did everything he should have done for his brother in regard to funerary rites, even though there was an outstanding debt. As this brother is in the realm of the dead, Shepsi wants his father to intervene in order to solve the problem. On the outside of the bowl he writes to his mother about the same complaint.

  Shepsi speaks to his mother Iy. This is a reminder of the time that you said to this your son ‘Bring me quails for me to eat’, and when this your son brought to you seven quails for you to eat. Am I to be injured in your presence, so that the children are badly discontent with this your son? Who then will pour out water for you? If only you would judge between me and Sobekhotep! I brought him from another town, and placed him in his town among his male and female dead, and gave him burial cloth. Why then is he acting against this your son, when I have said and done nothing, evilly, evilly? Evil-doing is painful for the gods!51

  It seems he had to bring the body of Sobekhotep from another town to be buried in the appropriate cemetery, and yet he feels he is being victimised by him and clearly wants his parents to intervene.

  There are only about fifteen of these letters in existence and all are written to recently deceased relatives. They date from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom and perhaps reflect a much wider practice than the small survival numbers suggest. These letters are often written under stress, which is reflected in the handwriting and the unplanned nature of the requests. They are thought to derive from the oral tradition of going to the tomb to ask the spirits for help, and perhaps indicate an increasingly literate population. They are not ‘chatty’ letters, written solely to communicate with the dead, but rather raise more urgent matters, such as problems encountered in this world or anticipated in the next.

  Unfortunately, not all Egyptian religion was of a positive nature; curse figures have been discovered, which were made of wax or clay and were inscribed with a single name or group of names. Often these figures were broken, which was believed to cause harm to the named individual. During the Harem Conspiracy against Ramses III the conspirators made wax figures of the palace guards in order to overpower them.

  And he began the ritual of consulting the divine oracle so to delude people. But he reached the side of the harem of that other great, expansive place, and he began to use the waxen figures in order that they be taken inside by the inspector Adi-ram for staving off one gang of men and spellbinding the others so that a few messages could be taken in and others brought out.52
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br />   In the British Museum there is a wax figure with a thread running through it which may have been used to curse someone. Although this is thought to be dated to the Roman Period,53 the method described in the Harem Conspiracy Papyrus appears to be the same. While the physical evidence of wax curse figures is lacking, the idea was one familiar to the Egyptians; in Papyrus Westcar a man accused of adultery was thrown into the Nile with a wax figurine of a crocodile, which turned into a real crocodile and devoured him as soon as it hit the water. While this is a fantasy tale, aspects of reality are often used to make stories believable.

  Perhaps the limited evidence for curse figurines reflects a less hateful nature than the political propaganda texts concerning foreign enemies suggest. The worship of ancestors perhaps made it more natural for the Egyptians to turn to their deceased family to help them fight an enemy, rather than the use of such dark magic. On the other hand, as the figures were constructed with wax perhaps they simply did not survive the passing of the millennia in a desert climate.

  As the ancestors worshipped slipped out of living memory and were replaced, so to were the wider pantheon of gods. New gods were created as community needs changed and old gods fell out of fashion. Deity worship and the associated rituals varied from town to town, and each town had its own religious cult and specific rituals. Egyptian religion was flexible, meeting the changing needs of the worshippers. Should there be a gap in the pantheon a new god would be created or an ancestor invoked who could address this need. Egyptian religion was therefore totally inclusive for all Egyptians. They could choose who they worshipped and how, and everyone from the poorest farmer to the king had their favourite deity whom they worshipped above all others.

  They could purchase beautifully crafted statues or stelae or they could fashion them themselves out of clay, and they worshipped wherever they wanted to with no need for elaborate temples or shrines if they were unavailable. The result was that the pantheon of gods was was an evolving entity, accessible to everyone, which was always able to address their particular problems or requirements.

  4.

  LOVE, SEX AND MARRIAGE

  ‘Man is more anxious to copulate than a donkey.

  What restrains him is his purse.’1

  Sex in ancient Egypt was an integral part of life and was not considered shameful or taboo. The Egyptian language had at least a dozen words for intercourse,2 with numerous hieroglyphic signs for male genitalia, although there were none for female genitalia.3 Not only was the penis used as a determinative hieroglyph for numerous words, but it was also used in votive offerings and religious art to represent fertility and rebirth.

  Sex also features prominently in the New Kingdom dream interpretation texts. The Egyptians believed that while asleep they were open to messages from the gods, which were transferred in the form of dreams. However, these messages were complex and a dream about sex could be a positive or a negative omen.

  If a man sees himself in a dream his phallus becoming large: good. It means that his possessions will multiply.

  Having intercourse with his mother: good: His companions will stick to him.

  Having intercourse with his sister: good. It means that he will inherit something.

  Having intercourse with a woman: bad. It means mourning.

  Seeing his phallus erect: bad. It means that he will be robbed.

  Having sex with his wife in the sun: Bad. The god will see his miseries.4

  Sex was considered important for women too and in the medical texts the recognised cure for most female gynaecological problems was penetrative sex; it was thought that if a woman was not sexually active she would be open to all kinds of maladies.5 This does not, however, indicate that extramarital sex was encouraged. Rather, it was expected that all women were married and had intercourse regularly, but only with their husbands. Furthermore, while it was expected that women would dream about sex, the interpretations were always negative.

  If a woman dreams she is married to her husband, she will be destroyed. If she embraces him she will experience grief.

  If a horse has intercourse with her, she will use force against her husband.

  If a donkey has intercourse with her, she will be punished for a great sin.

  If a he-goat has intercourse with her she will die soon.

  If a Syrian has intercourse with her, she will weep for she will let her slaves have intercourse with her.6

  While dreaming about sex may have been enough for some members of the community, others pursued physical contact, and sex manuals have been discovered at Oxyrhynchus from the Graeco-Roman Period that aided men in this quest. None of the ideas are new. One clearly follows the premise of ‘treat them mean, keep them keen’: ‘Concerning Seductions. Accordingly the seducer should be unadorned and uncombed, so that he does not seem to the woman to be too concerned about the matter in hand.’7 Another section encourages the use of flattery, ‘saying that the plain woman is the equal of a goddess, the ugly woman is charming, the elderly one is like a young girl’.8

  Should such blatant attempts at flattery and seduction be unsuccessful, the medical papyri offered medicinal means of snaring the woman of your dreams. One such remedy said to make a woman love her husband was to ‘grind acacia seeds with honey. Rub your phallus with it and sleep with the woman’.9 Another spell was to enable a woman to enjoy intercourse. The man was advised to ‘rub [his] phallus with the foam of the mouth of a stallion and sleep with the woman’.10 Presumably the virility of the stallion was thought to be transferred to the man, who would then prove to be irresistible to all.

  Marriages often took place between young girls and older men, meaning it was likely that girls were expected to be virgins to ensure there was no doubt regarding paternity of the first child, but the same was not expected from men.11 Men were expected to copulate from a young age, and Ankhsheshonq claims that ‘man is more anxious to copulate than a donkey. What restrains him is his purse.’12 Whether he is speaking metaphorically or literally about paying for sex is not entirely clear, but it is likely that men in ancient Egypt visited prostitutes. Most of the evidence for brothels comes from Graeco-Roman Egypt, as prostitution was taxed, meaning a central register probably existed. It is likely, however, that the profession was much older.13 Visiting prostitutes was a common enough pastime to be considered in the Teaching Texts, as one scribe comments to a student, ‘Here you are spending all your time in the company of prostitutes, lolling about … Here you are next to a pretty girl bathed in perfume, a garland of flowers around her neck, drumming on your belly, unsteady, toppling over onto the ground, and all covered in filth.’14

  Herodotus records that King Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid, actually forced his daughter to take payment for sex in order to build her own funerary monument. This pyramid is said to be the one in the middle of the three smaller pyramids near the Great Pyramid at Giza, and was probably owned by Queen Meritetes. However, Herodotus was writing some two thousand years after the pyramids were built and the story may have been propaganda, or even at this point legend, surrounding an unpopular king.

  A section of the cemetery at Deir el-Medina that housed the burials of unattached women and their children has caused some debate. Manniche states there are documents from Deir el-Medina hinting at the existence of prostitutes, naming women who were not wives or mothers but belonged to the ‘others’.15 However, she does not elaborate on what these documents are and they are not identifiable among the available texts from Deir el-Medina.16 The population of the village comprised men with a function in the building of the tombs and their families, so unattached women were conspicuous unless they provided a service. Graves-Brown has suggested these women were unmarried or divorced.17 In general women were buried with their husbands, and this section in the poorer part of the necropolis reserved solely for these unattached women and their offspring separates them from the rest of the community. This could possibly suggest a prostitute class, as Manniche believes,18 or as Bru
yère initially thought, it could indicate the separate burials of dancers and female musicians.19

  The Turin Erotic Papyrus, produced in Thebes in 1150 BCE, is the most compelling evidence of New Kingdom prostitutes. It was initially thought the papyrus recorded the adventures of a Theban priest of Amun and a prostitute, although it is likely to be a number of men as each is depicted differently. They are all elderly, with varying stages of baldness and different facial hair. They are wearing simple, undecorated kilts, are common- to lower-class men – servants, field labourers and workmen – and all have ‘a huge phallus which swings pendulously between the couple’.20 The women are all wearing different wigs, hip belts, jewellery and make-up and occasionally a lotus flower in their hair. Their lower regions are emphasised with narrow waists and large hips, but their breasts are small. The images do not tell a continuous story but rather are a collection of scenes, which indicate what went on in a Theban brothel, punctuated by short inscriptions such as, ‘Oh, sun, you have found out my heart, it is agreeable work,’ or ‘Come behind me with your love.’21

  Although sex was an important element in the life of ancient Egyptian men (and also, to some extent, women) it was considered more important to get married and start a family. As soon as a child was considered an adult they were eligible for marriage. For a girl this was at the onset of menarche, which some estimate was approximately fourteen years old as the age of menarche has decreased over the centuries and was much later in the ancient past.22