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SES Meeting May 2010 - Purity and Order in an Egyptian Household
On the eve of some sort of big political event, necessitating our usual room being used for ballot papers and postal votes, we welcomed a new speaker to our friendly society in a pleasant meeting room at the Gatehouse Theatre. Lucia Gahlin joined us to explain about family life
together with the mysteries of the human life cycle in ancient Egypt.Central to the way every Egyptian lived their life was the concept of maat. This concept of order, truth and stability was crucial to the sense of balance and harmony to social cohesion in the local community and throughout Egypt.
More familiar may be the ancient Egyptians of higher standing and their living in accordance with maat but Lucia wanted to look at the personal level of an ancient Egyptian. Evidence of settlement compared with temples and the pharaohs is harder to find yet key information has been found at Deir el Madina and the tomb builders of the Valley of Kings which actually gives us more specific detail.
Home life needed to be relatively pure and ordered so once the threshold was crossed important rituals ensured they were separated from the chaos outside. One story of two troubled brothers included the important phrase that “Did not pour water over his hands” and another source referred to guests at a banqueting scene being washed and perfumed. Several examples highlight how the “washing” ritual was extremely significant to purify them.
As well as such daily rituals Lucia also explained how stages of the human life cycle were deemed impure and so needed purification. Such an impure stage was child birth. In fact, not just having a child but, to be socially acceptable a woman had to produce!
The state of chaos was associated with demons as we saw from sources from third and fourth century BC with rare representations of a pregnant woman, to a 12th Dynasty papyrus detailing an unborn with sympathetic magic to prevent miscarriage and an example from the British Museum collection of a newly born and mother and child breast feeding.
Their worry over death stealing the infant was justified with infant mortality so high for one to five year olds. An exhibit from the Louvre shows the goddess Tawaret, who was a mixture of hippo, lion and crocodile, as one who “Commands demons” and involved in life and death.
Ancient Egyptian females didn’t know much about adolescent but did know that fertility was important. One inscription quoted said “Do not abandon a woman from your household if she doesn’t bear children” compared with a 20th Dynasty letter found in Berlin’s collection extolling that “You’re not a man if you can’t make your wives pregnant”. When happiness is defined by the ability to have a family no wonder the ancient Egyptians sought support from so many sources.
Lucia took us around collections from all over the world to show the rituals and their importance and we saw how the women even carried little scrolls in tubes worn around the neck to help save them from miscarriage or twins! Rather similar to the type of help given to Egyptians meeting problems after death.
Other mysterious aspects of life were the menstrual cycle and ‘danger of demons by open orifices’ and the rites of passages for young virgin boys. Lucia related examples of enthusiastic circumcision rituals. The word for circumcision is also used for purity (but excuse me while I
type this sitting crossed legged) and there were tales of the act being carried out during late puberty. Evidence from a Chicago museum relates to an example from the 1st Intermediate period of circumcision with 120 men at the same time.
Even entry to see the Nubian king was denied to the uncircumcised and whether or not they ate fish cropped up as well !!! One Egyptian envoy was allowed in because he was pure and didn’t eat fish!So purification was important at different stages of human life. After child birth – cleansing for 14 days would take place. A religious text at Edfu reflects the divine world and a mortal breast feeding while water was poured over her. The ancient Egyptians knew that demons like polluted female blood but not sweetness of honey.
SES Meeting April 2010 - Patricia Hall - Pharaohs, Felas and Amilia Edwards
An interesting and informative talk about the Victorian traveller and Egyptophile Amelia Edwards (1831 – 1892) was presented to the Stafford Egyptology Society on Wednesday 7th April by Patricia Hall. Patricia has been a member of the society for 3 years although, like many of us, she has long had an interest in Egyptology. This interest first began after Patricia had watched the 1930s film ‘The Mummy’ starring the horror legend that was Boris Karloff.
We learned about Amelia’s early life in which she was educated at home being taught first by her mother and later by tutors and a governess. Amelia was obviously a typical teenager as she decided to get rid of her governess because she thought that she could teach herself better!
The written work for which Amelia Edwards is best known, amongst Egyptologists at least, is her book ‘A Thousand Miles Up the Nile’ (first published in 1877) in which Amelia narrates tales of her travels along the Nile on a dahabiyah - an old fashioned Nile sailing boat. Actually the navigable part of the Nile is only 964½ miles but, as a book title, it wouldn’t have had quite the same ring about it! Amelia proved that she wasn’t above letting the truth get in the way of a good story as she often told a tale or two in order to make her book more entertaining for her readers. An example of this is the story Amelia describes about a mummy, that was stowed on the boat, which began to get rather smelly. Amelia tells us that the fate of this mummy was to be thrown overboard when, in fact, apparently this didn’t happen and the mummy is now to be found in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The trip along the Nile was to prove a life changing experience for Amelia. When she returned to England she became one of the founders of the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society). Amelia was appalled at, what she saw as, the needless destruction of ancient artefacts in Egypt that was caused by tourism and modern development. Thus an aim of the Society was for the preservation of these artefacts, an aim which the modern Society stills maintains.
Towards the end of her life Amelia began a lecture tour, which included travelling to the USA to give a gruelling 37 lectures in 44 days - all this despite the fact that she did not enjoy the best of health. Amelia was to further prove her dedication to Egyptology on one occasion during her US tour when she broke her arm but still managed to give a lecture 2 hours later!
Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards (to call her by her full name) had many talents, not only being a published author of at least 10 novels, but she was also the author of poetry, newspaper and magazine articles as well as being an artist producing sketches and watercolour paintings. She frequently spent all day from morning till night with a pen in her hand and was known for the extensive and painstaking research she undertook when completing a piece of writing.
Amelia Edwards must have been quite a formidable character with boundless energy and a huge personality. An image of a grand dame like Queen Victoria herself sprung to mind during this talk. It was the thought provoking life story of a typically English Victorian lady.
Wendy Bristow
Acting Society Scribe
SES meeting March 2010 – Chris Naunton – The Tomb of Harwa (TT37)
Although the cold spell was still with us, it was nice to welcome a new speaker to the Society to take us to a little known part of a very well known part of much warmer looking Egypt.
Christopher Naunton is Deputy Director of the Egypt Exploration Society and gave us a delightful presentation concentrating on the tomb of a most important non-royal person, Harwa.
His main area of research and field work is 25th Dynasty tombs and especially TT37. Recognisable to nearly everyone in the audience as being near that mud brick area over from the lorry park when visiting Thebes and the Tomb of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahri.
In reality, the Tomb of Harwa has no mud brick structure but by the structure there is a very nice hole to look into! Certainly Goggle-earth image shows only the hole but as we found out, there is much more to see. A delightful view from up on the cliffs showed a number of Theban Tombs past the lorry park and beyond to Medinet Habu.
The hole is much more extensive than apparent from above and we discovered how three of the largest non-royal tombs from the 25th Dynasty butt up to each other and even break into each other. In fact there is a story behind the reason the Italian director of the project first came to work on TT37 – to work on a particular spell from the “Book of the dead” – as he had been told he would find in this tomb. When, after searching the tomb, he finally located the text it was in the adjoining tomb. Unfortunately he wasn’t allowed to change so due to an archaeological accident is still there.
The tomb, some thirteen metres below the present surface, is very large, complex and incredibly well designed. It was cut out of bedrock rather than built as we found when we were taken on a virtual tour starting with the entrance hall. Only relatively recently has the entrance been the way in for field workers who previously had to go via the hole – not quite ‘Indiana Jones’ style- but the vaulted chamber
leading to the initial courtyard had a much different purpose.
Egyptian authorities had utilised the chamber for storing antiquities from other tombs/ excavations by blocking it off with concrete and an iron door. This modern intervention has now gone and Chris showed us
how over a number of years the debris had been removed to reveal a much tidier tomb.
The Portico isn’t in the best condition but gave us a practical insight into problems of excavation and emergency conservation work. The work may be arduous but worthwhile to reveal the decorations. Interesting in non-royal tombs are the insights into daily life with illustrations rather than textual epresentations. The raised reliefs were fine and detailed as Chris was delightfully able to point out. There were a lot of dancers but more importantly they portrayed different dances.
Also there was one area where there was a reddish outline of the proposed design with an incision before the background was to have been removed. It may not have told us whether it was the work of one craftsman or more. The finished article is only slightly raised from the surface but sufficient to be able to show definition of muscles or movement of clothing. We saw a completed relief of a fishing scene and a man crouched down with the catch. So detailed was the work that each fish shows a different species. This was also highlighted by a look at similar scenes in the neighbouring TT279 which was later although the reliefs were not quite the same standard as Harwa’s. A look in a ‘find tray’ displayed a number of small items that had come out of the ground with none being bigger than your fingernail but each had finely carved detail from about 680 B.C.
Then onto the First Pillared Hall – It has been cleared down to the bedrock with the ceiling badly ruined and what should be eight squared based pillars as just stubs. We saw how in 2002 the pillars had been restored with wood to give a truer feeling of the room. Rather than an open area as we had seen from the early excavation slide it is now more enclosed. Chris had a composite photo which stitched together pictures of the five side chambers and the decoration that has been preserved. While earlier in the tomb we saw daily life, scenes the decorations are now from two distinctive texts concerning the rituals of the hours of the night and the hours of the day.
While the pillars had disintegrated the excavators had recovered thousands of fragments of the decorative texts that had fallen of the pillars. The insight into the reconstructive decoration work certainly created an image of the field workers being extremely good at jigsaws – very big jigsaws with often small pieces in a tiny hall we saw a four foot high representation of Harwa standing next to Anubis before moving through in a westerly direction into the next chamber. Again the fine detail showed Harwa to be a little portly, obviously well fed and important, before we progressed into the Second Pillared Hall.
Each chamber is quite distinct and the texts recovered from this section of the tomb had larger hieroglyphs about rituals to do with the funeral. The image of Harwa with Anubis may have been repeated but the tomb owner now had a flat stomach and better muscle definition so going into the afterlife as a fine figure of a man!
We then looked into the Osiris Chamber and, although the statue isn’t complete or life sized, the optical illusion looking through the first and second pillared halls it looks even further away. So Harwa had
travelled westward from daily life to rejuvenation, on to and finally reaching the afterlife. Time prevented Chris giving more detail about the functions of the side rooms but an enjoyable tour straight through the tomb.
So far the excavations haven’t revealed a burial! Was there ever a body buried there?
They don’t know yet but there are lots of shafts being explored. One intriguingly hidden goes below the Osiris Chamber and there was excitement when possible pieces of a sarcophagus were found on the last day of one year’s dig. Disappointingly it turns out to be part of a stone shrine rather than a sarcophagus.
The work continues and there may never be evidence found of a burial because there was a time and trend when a lot of nobles were buried in, for example, the Tomb of Hatshepsut.
A photo from the E.E.S. archive shows Deir el Bahri in 1893/94 with a striking mud brick tower of a Coptic monastery by now long since removed although historic itself. Again another delightful photo showed a handwritten envelope recovered when removing debris in the Courtyard addressed to “H Carter, Superintendant, Deir el Bahri near Luxor”.
Chris created a lovely image of taking a break from his work to study and appreciate the panoramic view, and what a view! Even with all the tourists visiting so close by, he was relatively unbothered and even unnoticed. His musings about not looking at the scene as one moment in time but realise how they have been created, re-used and now preserved as a time capsule was thought provoking.
Chris enjoyed his first visit to us and we certainly enjoyed his talk. He has agreed to return to speak to us again and the Society wishes him success with his current research which focuses on the extensive Egypt
Exploration Society archives and the EES Oral history project.
Society Scribe
Keith Alldritt
February meeting 2010
Martin Davies “The Valley of the Tombs of the Kings”.
How nice that even during our coldest winter for years, and experiencing definitely un-Egyptian weather, we welcomed back a regular visitor to Society for the first meeting in our preferred room at the new venue. Martin Davies was venerable last year so even more venerable
this year and just as enthusiastically entertaining.
His interest in Egyptology and his many visits to the country gave us a familiar and a not so familiar look at the Egypt that enthralled us all. He succeeded in his hope that we would relive happy experiences of the valley yet give us the chance to see in tombs not generally (or
definitely not) open today. It was especially nice to be given an insight into tombs back in and around 1962.
He began with the familiar - how the valley was used in the 18-19-20th dynasties after the great pyramids had failed to protect mortal remains of the ancient Egyptians so pharaohs went for secrecy. We had a lovely view down from range of mountains into valley see what pharaohs had hoped we would never see – holes and entrances into the tombs!
One view taken 45 yrs ago showed the valley with nobody about in afternoon – too hot!! Slightly busier nowadays...
Thankfully, as he has been there forty times, he could show us images from tombs that you can’t enter now. We saw examples of the effects of flash flooding, tomb constructions involving very steep staircases and various ideas to fool robbers.
Martin showed us a burial chamber where (in 1962) the lid of a sarcophagus lay shattered on the floor as left by tomb robbers even showing us the marks of crowbars they had used. It is now replaced and in its proper position on top.
Equally fascinating were his slides of the earliest constructed tombs showing forms of decoration using stick figures and Mother Isis as a tree suckling the pharaoh -made more interesting because if you visited it today the face has been worn away by being touched over intervening years.
Next we saw how the tomb designs got more elaborate with additional colourful decoration and interesting inscriptions shown based on a twenty square technique. There was one scene uniquely showing the four sons of Horus as human beings definitely not the usual!
We saw views of Horemheb’s tomb – he was a great military man- and we saw one of the finest tombs made followed by looks at, Ramesses I and Sety I’s tombs the latter of which which is closed now but in 1962 Martin was able to take photos which he used to explain so much. Belzoni may not have taken much away in comparison to the French -as we saw raised relief from the tomb which is on display in the Louvre- but Belzoni did build a smaller scale model of the tomb in 1821 in an exhibition in Piccadilly. We saw a delightful print of the exhibition which created a great deal of interest in Europe. The tomb has a strange long tunnel under the burial chamber which even Zahi Hawasss as yet to get to end of!
Later developments meant that ancient Egyptians began to have more heavy sarcophaguses, having given up secrecy, and going for a greater reliance on police/ military guards so they started to have but it meant they could have more grandiose entrances.
Inevitably I suppose, with all the tombs being built in the valley we saw an example where the construction of a tomb shaft had collided with another tomb causing the abandonment of that work.
We couldn’t leave without a visit to the Valley of the Queens and a look, with Martin’s excellent photos, at the tomb of Nefertari which had deteriorated but fortunately is being restored thanks to some wonderful skilful work.
Also we looked at the village of workmen who were an honoured community and we know more about villagers than medieval villages in England never mind the kings themselves in the nearby valley. Names and professions plus what they got up to have been found and deciphered. We looked at more of the detail of the village encircled by walls and statues plus a brief look at the life of its occupants.
Turin museum holds a plan of tomb of Ramesses IV with Martin highlighting that those lines around sarcophagus stand for the number of shrines that were fitted one within another around the coffin. Amusingly the photo showing Christmas puddings incorporated in one decoration will take
some finding...
There were examples of artwork/ cartoons the villagers left on limestone flakes – one in Turin Museum showed a dancing girl whose arms seem too long and as the artist obviously rotated piece as he drew it meant that her earrings hang wrong way.
Martin invokes interest and goodwill and his delightful delivery took the audience on such a tour of changes that have taken place in Egypt during the last forty-odd years- from vandalised piece to restoration work completed or ongoing. From Greek/ Roman graffiti and the Coptic/
Christian era to where hermits lived and left their marks
Many would know the background of the cache of royal mummies discovered in 1881 which provide an insight into what happened at the end of the New Kingdom. Due to robberies the decision to investigate all known tombs and rewrap the mummies to store them in DB320 but
photos in Cairo catalogue 1911 illustrated how mummies had been treated before and after robberies. We also saw onions inserted into eye sockets, death wounds by an axe and learnt of the mummy of a baby that was really a baboon but definitely over-packing did mummies no favours at all.
It’s been the policy to prevent photographs been taken in the tombs for quite a while but with the new ruling banning photography outside the tombs once past the entrance it is even more of a pleasure to enjoy an evening with such a learned Egyptologist like Martin Davies whose
enthusiasm to share his knowledge and pictures is a real delight.
Scribe
Keith Alldritt
January Meeting 2010
Dylan Bickerstaff “Hidden Treasures of Ancient Egypt”
On a night when snow and ice had made only the main roads passable,
the brave souls that had been able to get not only to Stafford but
found a new venue were treated to Dylan’s look at hidden treasures
found in often familiar places.
We started at the ‘Colossi of Memnon’ – tall imposing statues- yet on
the rear of the one nearest the road there’s an interesting cartouche,
made more interesting because it hadn’t been scrubbed off!. As big as
the Colossi are, it was the small figures of Amenophis III’s queens
that have detail often missed. Definitely overlooked by most but thanks
to Dylan we discovered more nice detail about his mother and wife Queen
Tiye.
On the other Colossi which has been reconstructed we saw how part of
Queen Tiye has been cut off but her name / cartouche can be seen.
Looking around we also saw where erasures of Akhenaten had made a right
mess of his dad’s temple!
What proved interesting were the fascinating clues as to the past on
odd pieces. A beautiful carving on white background presented an
intriguing thought about what it originally said – alternatives were
shown but intriguingly there is the possibly it said "Tutankhamen"?
At the entrance to the second court at Medinet Habu, two statues stand
proud but we looked at the difference in colour of the stone used
compared to other stonework and wondered why? We looked at an old photo
of the excavations and a very large head lying on the ground which is
now found in the Cairo museum and can be identified as Queen Tiye. What’
s remarkable is that it is the same size as the king yet often queens
were carved to a smaller scale than the king.
The real delight of the evening was Dylan’s infectious enthusiasm to
hunt around large structures or, on a much smaller scale, the enjoyment
of discovering odd blocks lying around such sites which reveal detail
otherwise missed. There were blocks which revealed soldiers fighting
and Nubians being crushed. Also interesting were the clues to the harem
activity –the King sniffing a lotus flower presented by a young woman-
so although these odd blocks are often seen when flying over the site
by balloon the surviving stone blocks, when looked at more closely,
revealed more intriguing detail. The more we delved the more Dylan
identified blocks, statues and other pieces that gave clues as to where
they had been re-utilised from.
At Luxor temple it was interesting to start spotting where the
different dynasty’s work could be identified. Again hunting around the
back of some statues there were hieroglyphs to tell their own stories.
If I see sheep... well that’s another interesting tale.
Feeling that we were following directions to treasure Dylan led us
through courtyards, taking time to look back to note something here or
there until looking out from a chamber behind a chapel at the far
right doorway to find lots of blocks jumbled up but clearly etched with
distinct sun rays that relate to one special era . We saw where the
posture of the figure i.e. two hands on the chest and not crossed over
meant something...
You get the idea!
A site new for many was “Mary’s Tree” at Matarria, Cairo and its nice
little museum supposedly where the Holy family had sheltered on the
route through Egypt. The spring of water and the sun cult temple again
provoked that desire to visit. In fact there were so many intriguing
sights that with Dylan’s easy reading of hieroglyphs and enthusiastic
delivery it wasn’t just looking at photos of trips to Egypt but the
opening up of possibilities that may have been seen but not realised.
Not only did every member who managed to get to the meeting deserve
congratulations but as a society we thank Dylan for his dedication to
get to frozen Stafford and take us on such a thoroughly enjoyable
treasure hunt to sunnier climes.
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