Asklepios, Imhotep, and Onias’ Temple

The entry for this week is written by the Reverend Jim Collins, a retired Anglican priest from Ottawa, Canada. Jim is very grateful for all he has been learning from the Egypt Centre and the Egypt Exploration Society lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

For someone who has dabbled in Egyptology since an undergraduate essay on ma’at in the Story of Sinuhe more than forty years ago, it has been both an honour and a privilege to be attending Dr Ken Griffin’s online courses from the Egypt Centre, Swansea University. Ken brings such a depth of knowledge of his subject and an enthusiasm that his courses can be both daunting and incredibly inspiring. I love the way that he brings in artifacts as well as pictures and drawings to illustrate his lectures. I feel as though I am actually visiting the sites and monuments he is describing. He and Sam Powell create a welcoming and respectful environment online and over time I feel that I am also getting to know at least some of the other course participants who ask such interesting questions and bring some of their own insights.

 

Fig. 1: Plaster cast relief of Ptolemy III offering to Ptah and Imhotep (EC1959)

The importance of Imhotep to the Ptolemies is illustrated by a scene depicting Ptolemy III Euergetes I with Imhotep and Ptah in the Ptah Temple of Karnak (fig. 1). Pharaonic involvement in the building and restoration of temples in ancient Egypt has a long history. Although Imhotep’s involvement with king Djoser is well known, contemporary documentation from the Third Dynasty is sketchy at best. However, as pointed out by Jadwiga Iwaszczuk (2015), there are important historical features of royal temple building and restoration evident by the Eighteenth Dynasty. It may be observed that there are parallels between political motivations in Eighteenth Dynasty temple construction and the Ptolemaic Period, but also differences. Among the inscriptions, Iwaszczuk cites is one from the western wall of the so-called “Birth Portico” in the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, in which the gods of Egypt, whom the queen had visited with her divine father, are depicted as saying to her: “…you will see your instructions in the land which is in your possession, you will restore (srwḏ) what was decaying, you will raise your monuments in your temples, you will enrich your altars of him who begot you” (Iwaszczuk 2015, 35). It may be that this divine command to build was a form of justification for political office that was used by Hatshepsut, which may not have been lost on either the Ptolemies nor Onias, the Judean high priest. Might Imhotep have served as a role model in this or was he seen only as a healer?

Fig. 2: Copper alloy statue of Imhotep (BM EA 11060)

Although Apollo was the father of Askelpios, already in Homer there was an emphasis on healing art through the use of medicines and surgical intervention. Arguably for the Judean high priest Onias, the biblical patriarch Joseph served as more of a role model than Imhotep, but on the other hand, the Ptolemies were clearly committed to temple building and refurbishment, so surely it is possible that Imhotep may have proved useful as well (fig. 2). Arguably, for Ptolemaic kings there were similar periods of chaos in Egypt to which their building programs were similarly addressed. Could it be that the Judean priest Onias, in a manner similar to Hatshepsut but in the mid-second century BCE, took advantage of such traditional Egyptian policies around temple building and reconstruction to justify his own unorthodox position in traditional Egyptian society?

Fig. 3: Screenshot of the SITH Projet Karnak

Ken says that he debated how best to teach the subject of Karnak and decided on a historical approach. He says that it probably would have been better to make the course longer because so much material has had to be dropped but still this course has been an amazing learning experience. Throughout the Karnak course, Ken showed how the SITH Projet Karnak website can be used to find photographs and transcriptions of the scenes at Karnak (fig. 3). The fifth week was both a survey of the Graeco-Roman developments at Karnak as well as a historical summary using the UCLA video animating most of the various constructions over two thousand years. It was of particular interest to me because of my own interest in the mid-second century building project of the Judean high priest Onias. This sixth week was an added bonus over the five originally advertised and was a final overview of the gods and festivals, which for me was also a continuation of my own interest in these areas. It also tied in further to my interest area because of various connections to Memphis and the Heliopolis Nome in the Ptolemaic era.  

Fig. 4: Block 37, “Ritual Burning of Fans” Magical Practice from Hatshepsut’s Chapelle Rouge 

In the final week of the course, he explained further surviving evidence from Hatshepsut’s Chapelle Rouge, of what is sometimes described as a magical practice of “Burning of Fans” (perhaps irt ꜥḫ m ḫfty). The hieroglyph symbol of the bound captive signifying enemies appears on the fans as well as in the text. As explained by Mariam F. Ayad (2009, 92), the burning of the signs of the enemy symbolized that, without a body, the enemies of Egypt would have no place in the after life. The rekḫyt-people were also involved in this ceremony (figs. 4–5). Robert K. Ritner (1993, 210ff), notes Pascal Vernus, “Un témoignage cultuel du conflit avec les éthiopiens,” in interpreting the the fourteen-day Festival of Behdet at Edfu, where their symbolic interpretation is clearly stated: the palms of dom-palm are the hair of their enemies. Although perhaps not the same ceremony as depicted at Karnak, Ritner argues “The crucial importance for this ‘magical’ act for Egyptian ‘religion’ can be seen not only from the numerous manifestations of the rite, but by its transmission from temple to private concerns.”

Fig. 5: Participants in the Ritual Burning of Fans

Bibliography:

Ayad, Mariam F. 2009. God’s Wife, God’s Servant: the God’s Wife of Amun (ca.740–525 BC). London; New York: Routledge.

Griffin, Kenneth 2018. All the rḫyt-people adore: the role of the rekhyt-people in Egyptian religion. GHP Egyptology 29. London: Golden House Publications.

Iwaszczuk, Jadwiga 2015. Rebirth of temples under the rule of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III: vocabulary. Études et Travaux 28, 29–58.

Ritner, Robert Kriech 1993. The mechanics of ancient Egyptian magical practice. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 54. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Wildung, Dietrich 1977. Egyptian saints: deification in pharaonic Egypt. Hagop Kevorkian series on Near Eastern art and civilization. New York: New York University Press.

——— 1977. Imhotep und Amenhotep: Gottwerdung im alten Ägypten. Münchner Ägyptologische Studien 36; Münchener Universitätsschriften, Philosophische Fakultät für Geschichts- und Kunstwissenschaften. München; Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag.