“People are dying to meet us!” So quipped the funeral
home director to my pastoral care placement supervisor when I was a theological
student attending my first ever funeral in preparation for the priesthood
almost forty years ago. I was shocked that he and my boss began cracking jokes.
The whole atmosphere had changed as soon as the door was closed to the funeral
home director’s car. From giving pastoral care to the bereaved family, we were
starting on our way to the cemetery with the casket and funeral procession behind
us. Perhaps my boss and the undertaker sensed my own nervousness about being in
such unfamiliar territory or they were making light for themselves in an effort
to relieve the stress of their own jobs. Yet this experience began more than
thirty years of my work as a priest helping people deal with grief and the
passage of their loved ones.
Dr. Ken Griffin’s course, Funerary
Artefacts of Ancient Egypt, is giving me an excellent opportunity
during these Covid-19 times to become more hands on with a very different
perspective on the afterlife, and grief, an evidence-based approach to ancient
Egyptian funerary beliefs and practices.
Ken describes how during the dynastic Period the Egyptian
belief in the afterlife developed. He said that each major new concept, for the
most part, was first acquired by the king but as time went on these concepts
became available to all. He stated that the idea developed that everybody could
be reborn as Osiris—stating that this is related to a controversial idea in
Egyptology known as the ‘democratisation of the afterlife’ (Hays 2011; Smith
2009). Could it be that different Egyptians had different perspectives on such
matters during different time periods? Certainly as a priest, I find myself
imagining that Egyptian priests involved in performing the various rituals over
the centuries and millennia would have had different ideas. It is also likely that
many of them became deeply attached to the beliefs and liturgies in which they
played a role. To me it seems quite likely that many of the funerary artefacts
were a celebration of such beliefs and attachments.
In my theological studies, we learned about Anton
Baumstark’s Laws of Liturgy, which
dealt with both adherence to ancient tradition as well as liturgical
innovation.[1]
In Christianity, there are many different approaches to death and the afterlife
and for me it is interesting to see how some of these phenomena might have
played out in ancient Egypt as well. According to Coptic tradition, the Holy
Family travelled as far south as Asyut and it does not seem hard to me to
imagine that doctrines in Jesus’ teaching, as recorded in the New Testament,
may have been influenced by what he and his family were exposed to when he was
young. For example, the idea of being born again and even the idea of baptism
at the age of thirty might have had a connection to Heb-sed practices in places
like Bubastis, especially if Jesus’ family was there for the thirtieth
anniversary of Augustus’ conquest, which may have been challenging for Egyptian
traditions to address since he had a more distant relationship than the
Ptolemies had had.
In his first course lecture, Ken talked about Osiris
as the main god of the dead and the importance of the Osiris myth around death,
mummification, and the resurrection of Osiris. He said that Egyptians wanted to
be associated with the resurrection of Osiris and that there was a common
phrase of “the Osiris of N”. While this was clearly associated with the pharaoh
in the times of the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom), perhaps like Jesus as king in
Christian theology, all Christians are invited to become a part of His kingship
and resurrection. As with Christianity, to become an Osiris many tests had to
be passed. For Osiris, all the parts of the individual had to be reunited with
one another. Perhaps this might even have developed into the Pauline doctrine
of the Body of Christ, although for Christianity there may well have also been
an association with the estranged body of the first chapter of Isaiah which
could not be healed with wine or anointing—being healed instead by association
and incorporation into the Body of Christ.
 |
| Fig. 1: Weighing of the heart scene on the coffin of Iwesemhesetmut (W1982) |
Dr. Griffin used a scene from the Twenty-first
Dynasty coffin of a musician from Thebes, Iwesemhesetmut (W1982 from Exeter Royal Albert Museum) and a section
of papyrus (W867) from the Book of the
Dead to illustrate the Egyptian concept of the Judgement of the Dead (fig. 1). As
Ken explained, that having declared his innocence of 42 sins, the deceased had
their heart weighed against the feather of truth. If righteous, they were
declared mꜣꜥ-ḫrw (true of voice). If
they led a wicked life, Ammut devoured their heart and denied them access to
the afterlife. This concept of divine judgement
exists in Judaeo-Christian tradition as well.
Ken
spoke of how the Egypt Centre collection displays are divided between the House
of Life and the House of Death but that, in fact, almost all the artefacts are
taken from funerary contexts. As a priest working in ministry, we were told
that we were seen by society as mainly being there for the ‘hatch, match, and
dispatch’ milestones of life. To focus only on the buried artefacts is
obviously to miss out of many aspects of daily life that are very important to
human existence. However, people still want to place things that were important
in the lives of those they loved to be with them in death so perhaps we can
bridge into that reality as having been true also for the ancient Egyptians.
 |
| Fig. 2: Coffin of Herishefhotep I (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tomb_of_Herishefhotep#/ media/File:%C3%84gyptisches_Museum_Leipzig_Herischefhotep_01.jpg) |
For
me, the concept of Egyptian priests embracing their own participation in the celebration
of Egyptian beliefs in resurrection from the dead, whether being strictly
pharaonic or more universal, may also be illustrated by the offerings as depicted on the Ninth
to Tenth Dynasty(?) inner coffin of the priest Herishefhotep I. This coffin has
interested me for some time now. It was found undisturbed behind a wall at
Abusir and was published by Heinrich Schäfer in 1908.
It is now in the George Steindorff Egypt Museum at Leipzig University (Schäfer 1908, 42–81, 143–145). The
illustrations on this coffin seem to celebrate many areas of priestly life,
which largely revolved around preparing and presenting many offerings of
various kinds.
 |
| Fig. 3: Stela of Pasherienimhotep (W1041) |
Having
worked as a priest doing many funerals and preaching about the afterlife for
decades, I have been finding it interesting to make comparisons. The imagery on
the inner coffin of Herishefhotep I seems to demonstrate a lot of the aspects
of what would have been important in his ministry as a priest as well as of the
theology that would have been central to his faith. A
particular highlight for me from Dr. Griffin’s lecture was the second century
BCE stela of the priest Pasherienimhotep (fig. 3) from Edfu for
which Ken provided the following translation:
An offering which the king gives to
Horus of Edfu, the Great God, Lord of the Sky, Dappled of Plumage, who appears
from the horizon, Horakhty, Foremost of the Great Place, Osiris, Foremost of
the West, Lord of Ta-wer, Lord of Djedet, the Great God, Horus (who) disperses the slaughter of
the Two Lands, Osiris, the Great God in Edfu, the Great Pillar in Edfu, Isis
the Great, the Mistress in Edfu, the widow who dwells within Ta-wer. Hathor,
Mistress of the West, Mistress of the Two Truths in the Hall of Maat. Anubis,
he who is in the wrappings, Lord of the Sacred Land, Anubis, Foremost of the
Divine Booth, (in order that) they may give a voice offering of bread,
beer, cattle, fowl, incense upon the fire, everything good, pure, and sweet
from which a god lives, a good burial in the [western cemetery], his
heirs enduring upon his seat, for the ka of the Servant of Horus, the sḥtp-ḥm.f-priest, Fighting Arm, Lord
of Triumph, Servant of the Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, Elder of the Portal
of Horus of Edfu, Lord of the Sky, one who makes offerings to the gods of Edfu,
Scribe of the Troops, Second Scribe of the Temple, God’s Servant of
Harpakhered, God’s Servant of Amun of the Storehouse, Overseer of the Wab-priests
of Sekhmet, Overseer of Magicians of Serqet, Chief Lector Priest, Scribe of the
Divine Book,???, Overseer of the Priests of Horus of Edfu, the Great God, Lord
of the Sky, Pasherienimhotep, the justified before Osiris, son of the Third
Priest of Horus of Edfu, Harsiese, the justified, made by the Mistress of the
House, she who is upon her throne, the Female Musician, Tantise, the justified.
Be firm, be firm, endure, endure, (may you) not perish for eternity.
Ken discussed the Osirian imagery of
the stela, providing a good overview of the back of the stela also, which is
not usually seen when displayed in the museum case. Ken explained that the
priest’s name Pasherienimhotep means literally “The
child of the god Imhotep”. For me, it is interesting to compare
this stela to the Djoser statue base (fig. 4) that includes the name of Imhotep (Cairo JE
49889, which was discovered at Saqqara in
January 1926.
 |
| Fig. 4: Djoser statue base with the name of Imhotep |
There is a similar prominence of Djed-columns
and Tyet-signs between these two artefacts.
Additionally, although the priestly titles are not exactly the same for Imhotep and Pasherienimhotep,
it is interesting to see significant points of continuity over some two
millennia between the Old Kingdom and the Ptolemaic periods (Romer 2007, 244–245).[2]
For a long time, I have been
interested in the accounts in Josephus and the Talmud of the Judean high priest
Onias’ construction of a Jewish Temple in Egypt. According
to the first century Judean historian Flavius Josephus as well as Rabbinic
sources, the Judean high priest Onias, founded a Zadokite temple in the Nile
Delta in the second century BCE. His temple, known as Beth (H)onias or the
Temple of Onias in Rabbinic sources, is skeptically described as a fulfilment
of Isaiah 19:18–19. The Old Kingdom figure of Imhotep, the famed architect of
Djoser, may have provided a possible Egyptian inspiration, if not role model,
for Onias. The Oniad temple building can also be compared to other Egyptian
Temple reconstructions on many sites throughout Ptolemaic Egypt. For example,
the great temple of Horus at Edfu, begun in 237 BCE, was still under
construction at the time of Onias since the Edfu temple was only dedicated by
Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II in 142 BCE, with additions there continuing until 71
BCE (Arnold 2003, 78). It is thus interesting to compare the only surviving
inscription from the time of Imhotep with the second century stela of the
priest Pasherienimhotep from Edfu. The Old Kingdom statue base containing
Imhotep`s inscription has been translated by Nigel C. Strudwick (2005, 129) as
follows:
The
twin (?) of the king of Lower Egypt.
The
seal-bearer of the king of Lower Egypt, first under the king, administrator of
the great estate/mansion, iry-pat, great seer,
Imhotep, controller of sculptors, maker of stone vessels (?).
The
title mꜣꜣ wr, “Great
Seer”, was a priest at Heliopolis (Wilson 1997).[3] This
title could thus have had a particular importance for Onias. The second century
Ptolemaic Edfu Stela of Pasherienimhotep might be seen as
a much later Upper Egypt parallel.
Dr.
Griffin also points out that the Egyptians appear to have been as reluctant to
use the word ‘death’ as we are, preferring a variety of euphemisms (fig. 5).
 |
| Fig. 5: Words refering to death in ancient Egypt |
As an undergraduate before I was ordained, I took an Ancient
Near East course for which I wrote a paper on Maat in the Story of
Sinuhe. Over the years, I have read books and articles and attended
lectures on ancient Egypt, but since I retired from active ministry I have
become quite passionate about Egyptology. I think it is helping me to
understand all my years of helping people from fresh perspectives as well as
giving me fresh insights into the earliest origins of Christianity.
My first contact with Dr. Griffin was his great
lecture on The Life Cycle of an Object
- The Lintel of the Overseer of Craftsmen, Tjenti as part of the
current ongoing and excellent Egypt Centre online lecture
series. Ken also discussed this artefact as part of his course lecture but
he presented so many more artifacts from the Egypt Centre about which he also
spoke so knowledgeably that I could not help but be drawn further and further
into deeper levels of understanding of the funerary beliefs of ancient Egypt. Ken’s
love for Egyptology and for the objects in the Egypt Centre collection really
shines through, and his careful scholarly enthusiasm is infectious. I am finding
Dr. Griffin’s course very stimulating and it is helping me to better understand
this important area of cultural history.
Bibliography:
Arnold, Dieter 2003. The encyclopaedia of ancient Egyptian architecture. Translated by
Sabine H. Gardiner and Helen Strudwick. London: I. B. Tauris.
Hays, Harold M. 2011. The
death of the democratisation of the afterlife. In Strudwick, Nigel and
Helen Strudwick (eds), Old Kingdom, new
perspectives: Egyptian art and archaeology 2750–2150 BC, 115–130. Oxford:
Oxbow Books.
Schäfer, Heinrich 1908. Priestergräber und andere Grabfunde vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zur
griechischen Zeit vom Totentempel des Ne-user-rê. Ausgrabungen der Deutschen
Orient-Gesellschaft in Abusir 1902–1908 2; Wissenschaftliche
Veröffentlichungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 8. Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs.
Smith, Mark 2009. Democratization of the afterlife.
Edited by Jacco Dieleman and Willeke Wendrich. UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Available at: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/70g428wj.
Strudwick, Nigel C. 2005. Texts from the pyramid age. Edited by Ronald J. Leprohon. Writings
from the Ancient World 16. Atlanta; Leiden; Boston: Society of Biblical
Literature; Brill.
Wilson, Penelope 1997. A Ptolemaic lexikon: a
lexicographical study of the texts in the temple of Edfu. Orientalia
Lovaniensia Analecta 78. Leuven: Peeters.
[1] See, for
example, the helpful summary: http://psallitesapienter.blogspot.com/2009/07/baumstarks-laws-of-liturgy.html.
[2] Romer describes the discovery of this statue base in 1926 at the
south east corner of Djoser’s Pyramid by Jean-Philippe Lauer. He further states
that “there is something rather different about this man Imhotep. Whatever
tasks he may or may not have undertaken in his lifetime, he certainly enjoyed a
long-lived fame. A thousand years after he had died, he was still considered to
have been a founder patron of the scribes and a ‘Son of Ptah’, the fair-faced
god of craftsmen and of manufactory. Later too in Greco-Roman times, his
continuing celebrity earned him an apotheosis so that he became a little god of
wisdom, a doctor and a scribe so popular that today most museums of Egyptian
art have small bronze figures of Imhotep in this later manifestation. as a
slight young man with a tight-fitting cap sitting on a plain Egyptian throne
with a papyrus scroll upon his lap.” I am grateful to Campbell Price for
alerting me to this artefact and reference.
[3] Personal communication with Penelope Wilson (May 19, 2020). Her Ptolemaic Lexicon has been a source of immense inspiration and
powerful insights with references to offerings occurring more than twice per
each of its more than 1300 pages based on the inscriptions at the Horus Temple
at Edfu!
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