Shapeshifters “avant la lettre”

Iris C. Meijer has loved and studied ancient Egypt since she was 10 years old. Although she holds a master’s degree in International Law, ancient Egypt will always be her true love. She has now lived in Egypt for well over 18 years. Active in animal rescue and animal welfare awareness education there, she is of course also fascinated with the relationship of the ancient Egyptians to their animal deities and to animals in general, as well as many other topics.

Anyone who has ever visited Egypt or museum housing ancient Egyptian antiquities, could be forgiven for thinking that the ancient Egyptians practiced zoolatry – the worship of animals. Scene after scene, object after object, one will find many weird and wonderful animal-headed or fully animal-form deities and spirits. But, as per usual with ancient Egypt, things are little bit more complex and multi-layered than they seem. 

In actual fact, except in rare cases that I will get to later, the ancient Egyptians did not worship the animals themselves, but took a certain essence or trait that they saw in that animal and used it to communicate an essential power of their divine forces (gods), or in ancient Egyptian: netjeru. The ancient Egyptians were very keen observers of nature and lived in much closer proximity to it than we do nowadays. That proximity could be hazardous or beneficial, or even both, depending on the animal in question of course. However, by assigning even the qualities of the most dangerous animals (lions, scorpions, snakes, etc) to their divinities, the ancient Egyptians hoped to be protected from this danger, or even harness these fearsome qualities for the good of the pharaoh, the country, and themselves (fig. 1). And using the images of the beneficial animals such as cows would make clear that the god or goddess concerned could bestow such blessings as well.

Fig. 1: The nurishing qualities of the cow on display with Hathor feeding Hatshepsut

Just take the lion, or even more common in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, the lioness, for instance. Lionesses are the providers of the pride, fearsome hunters and predators, supremely powerful. They are also the nurturers and bearers of offspring, and so they have two faces – one beneficial, one dangerous. When one thinks of a lioness goddess in the ancient Egyptian pantheon, Sekhmet (whose very name means “The Powerful One”) immediately springs to mind (fig. 2). However, in this fantastic course on Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, taught with an incredible wealth of knowledge by Dr Ken Griffin of the Swansea Egypt Centre, we find out that there is a multitude of goddesses who can and do appear with the head of a lioness! Dr Griffin, who is a hunter of sorts himself and takes delight in seeking out obscure gods and goddesses, showed us numerous goddesses who do or can appear like that. All of these, then, signify the essence or one particular essence of the lioness. And there are many! Nevertheless, unlike in true zoolatry, that does not mean that all lions and lionesses were sacred animals, not to be touched. On the contrary, they were hunted by elite hunting parties – even though Ramesses II was famous for having a pet lion that also went into battle with him, this did not mean they were not fair game in general.

Fig. 2: The lionine goddess Sekhmet (https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/museo-gregoriano-egizio/terrazza-del-nicchione/statue-della-dea-leonessa-sekhmet.html)

The essence of the animal, which is what was revered or harnessed, not the animal itself. And it was symbolised by using the imagery of the animals for many gods and goddesses of the ancient Egyptian pantheon, which was incredibly large – we are talking over 1500 at least, some worshipped throughout all of Egypt, and some only in very specific geographical locations. The powerful venom-spitting quality of the cobra was put to use to protect the pharaoh, and so he appears with this symbol, called the uraeus, on his brow. The kindness and loving nurturing qualities of the cow were seen in the goddesses with mothering essences, and so they were often associated with that animal (fig. 3). The symbol of the scorpion was bestowed upon the Goddess Selket, who could protect against venoms of any kind.

Fig. 3: Hathor emerging from the Western mountain

 

The ultimate metamorphs, gods and goddesses could also shift into different forms, different animals, and even in what we see most often, a human body with an animal head. Shapeshifters supreme – and that is why it gets confusing when you really delve into the mystical magical world of ancient Egyptian religion. As I said before: if you see a lioness-headed lady with a solar disk on her head on a wall or as a statue, most will often immediately think of Sekhmet. But there are many others who can appear with this shape, the most well-known being Mut, Tefnut, and even Bastet, who most know as the much less ferocious cat deity (fig. 4). But as all cat owners know, there is a fierce lioness inside every cat, and provocation can bring her out in a flash! As this course drove home over and over again, one really needs to be able to find the names in the hieroglyphic inscriptions to identify the god or goddess in question without question – if there is any writing to tell us so. Some images will remain enigmatic, if there are no inscriptions or if they date so far back that they are prehistoric. The fact that we are talking about a period of time that spans well over three millennia, doesn’t simplify matters of course, because the nature of or the view on certain gods and goddesses could change over time, and some of them were merged, and others even almost completely subsumed by others who grew to greater prominence over this huge stretch of time.

Fig. 4: Lionine goddesses (L-R) Tefnut, Menhyt, Pakhet, Sekhmet, Mehyt

Is your head spinning yet (as mine was after each excellent session of this course)? Let me add another complicating factor to the mix. I think I have made quite clear now that ancient Egyptian religion did not practice zoolatry, right? But! There were sacred animals! So what was their role in this whole of things? 

Sacred animals are known for several deities – and interestingly enough, the animal that was scared was not always the animal that the deity was depicted as. A marvellous example can be found in the sacred bulls, of which there were three separate cults: the Apis Bull, the Buchis Bull, and the Mnevis Bull. They were chosen on the basis of specific physical characteristics, and were given a life of luxury and pampering at the temple before being buried in truly gigantic sarcophagi with all the trappings, including mummification. Even the mother of the Buchis Bull was held in high regard (fig. 5). They were seen as the incarnation of the “ba” (soul) or the “ka” (life force) of the God in question: the Apis for the God Ptah (who himself never appears with animal characteristics), the Buchis for Montu (who himself usually appears falcon-headed), and the Mnevis for Ra (who has human and animal-headed forms). That didn’t mean, however, that all bulls were sacred – in fact, they were often used for offerings to the gods in temple rituals, as other animals such as cats, dogs, jackals, ibises, and others were used as votive offerings (offerings of gratitude or to beseech favours) for gods they were associated with as well.

Fig. 5: Stela of the Mother of the Buchis Bull (W946)

The only way to understand all of these seeming contradictions and complications, is to look at ancient Egyptian worship not through modern eyes, but to try to approach it with open and, if we can, ancient eyes. It was a different world back then. Not everything was neatly categorised and labelled as this or that. In fact, the whole ancient Egyptian mindset was very different from ours. Whereas we look at the world as an either/or place (something is either good or bad, either white or black, either frightening or soothing), the ancient Egyptians had a more inclusive, what I call “and+and” way of looking at things. Things could easily be one thing, and the opposite at the same time. The world could have been created by a certain god, or by a different one, or by a group of gods (depending on where you lived and worshipped), but this did not lead to strife – it was accepted that matters had many different appearances, but that ultimately, the universe consisted of a balanced duality, of opposite concepts that needed each other to form one whole, to be complete (fig. 6). And therefore many different traits, aspects, gods, goddesses, sacred animals, and animals for offerings could all exist at the same time, side by side, each being as valid as the other, all there, all worthy of respect, admiration, fear, worship. There is of course much more to it than this brief observation – but that is a whole different blog article.

Fig. 6: Creator gods of the Ogdoad

For now, I would like to say thank you with great gratitude to Ken Griffin and Sam Powell of the Egypt Centre for a fabulous course full of new and wonderful information, delivered with great passion and finesse.