Samedi: Pictures

Why not random pictures on Saturday? When I was in middle school and really in to Ancient Egyptian mythology, I always imagined these two as a couple. I love this piece for that reason. That, and the rings on Bastet's tail...

~ Bast and Anubis by Wolfraven via Dieties & Demons

Mercredi: The Art of Beauty

Though many of our female ancestors were given no end of trouble over their penchant for cosmetics, jewels and other fripperies, the ladies of Ancient Egypt never seem to have had that problem.  From the earliest recorded times they were not only encouraged but expected to maintain a clean, lean, healthy appearance.  Elegance was over the top by the dawn of the New Kingdom, around 1,550 BCE, and this was especially true at the royal court where both ladies and gentlemen primped, plucked and groomed like modern celebrities.

One of the most interesting things about Ancient Egyptian culture, at least to me, is its unusual lack of change.  Things were pretty well set in place for close to 3,000 years as far as politics, religion, etiquette and so on.  This was true of fashion as well and so, with only a few fluctuations, we can look at the Ancient Egyptian’s beauty regimen as being fairly static throughout the culture.

Women in particular but men as well had a mania for removal of body hair.  This may have been due to a combination of the hot, arid climate of the Nile Valley, the ever-present threat of parasites and the cult of the body developed in Ancient Egypt.  Bodies, even those of the common folk, were worked over with a pumice stone virtually daily to remove all possible hair.  Among the working poor it was not unusual to remove one’s clothing to attend to heavy labor.  Bodies were easy to wash; linen was not.

Bathing was considered a must, even if it only meant pouring water over the body in the evening.  Many queens were notoriously addicted to bathing; Queen Nitocris required an hour long bath in cool water sprinkled with a pinch of natron every morning.

The head and hair were particular focuses of care.  Men routinely shaved and wore either wigs or cloth headdresses.  Depending on the era, women either did the same or wore their natural hair intricately dressed with jewels, metal and extensions of human or horse hair.  By the middle of the 18^th dynasty, baldness for women had become the norm.  Ladies polished their heads with precious oils and wore long, intricately plated wigs to formal occasions while wrapping their heads in elegant scarves at home. 

During the reign of Akhenaton, his daughters’ unusually elongated heads became a fashion icon.  The rumor was that a sorcerer had reshaped the girls’ heads in the womb to spare their beautiful mother Nefertiti the worst pains of childbirth.  Whatever the case, fashion historian Mila Contini tells us that court ladies tried to emulate the princesses’ unusually shaped heads by wearing false headpieces of vegetable fiber or wood.

Cosmetics were applied to face and body with regularity.  A fashionista would not think of leaving home without her hair in a perfect coif and her limbs perfumed with oils of lotus, myrrh or acacia.  Her complexion would be whitened with a lead-based paste followed by a delicate sienna blush at cheeks and temples.  The lips would be tinted the same red-orange color, as would the finger and toenails.  Eyes were heavily painted, usually with three or four different colors.  Black kohl rimmed the eyes and elongated the eyelashes while sparkling green malachite was swept over the eyelids.  The eyebrows were extended with antimony powder which was dark gray in color.  Very wealthy women might sweep a bit of gold dust just over the brow as a final highlight.

The ladies must have cut a very beguiling figure as they swept into a temple festival or royal feast.  It is no wonder that we are to this day fascinated by the beauty of Ancient Egypt.

Header: Two of Akhenaton’s daughters from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vendredi: Chthonian Histories

The above illustration, from the papyrus scroll known as Ani’s Book of the Dead, illustrates beautifully the modern imagining of the Ancient Egyptian underworld.  In the place where all those who once lived are judged for their actions, known as the Hall of Two Truths, Ani and his wife Tutu approach with reverence on the far left as demigods sit above them to witness the fate of the deceased.  

Ani, who was a scribe in life, next stands before the scales of afterlife judgment.  Ani’s Ba, one of the three “souls” that would survive after the death of his body, perches to the left of the scales in the form of a bird with a human head.  Ani stands facing Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming and necroplei who will handle the delicate balance of the scales.  Behind Anubis the ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the divinities and lord of learning, waits with pen in hand to write down the outcome of the test.  Will Ani’s heart be pure enough to prove lighter than the feather that represents the goddess of truth, Ma’at?  Or will his unjust deeds in life weigh it down?

In fact, the pivotal moment portrayed in this portion of the papyrus is almost more of a dénouement than an all important climax.  To get to this point, Ani – and his faithful wife, a musician in the temple of Amun – had to pass through a seemingly unending series of tests that would make a professional athlete who happened to also be a doctorate student dizzy. 

There were rivers of lava, dark caves and endless wastelands to slog through on the road to face the Lord of the Dead, Osiris.  All that taken into consideration, though, stamina was only half of the equation.  Just as important was being able to answer riddles and knowing names.  An uncountable number of talking objects and body parts would ask Ani if he knew their names.  If he did not, or his answers were incorrect, his journey to the Hall of Two Truths would end, and an everlasting afterlife of wandering, wraithlike and deformed, around the underworld waited.

Spells and amulets, most provided in various versions of the Book of the Dead, could help a soul avoid being disemboweled or having its head cut off.  The answers to the riddles that would be posed to the deceased were also written in the Book.  Whether or not all of these had to be memorized in life or were at hand if the Book was entombed with an individual is still up for debate. 

An example of the kind of quizzing Ani and Tutu could experience went like this:

Upon encountering a door, the lintels on the left and right ask Ani for their names.  He is to respond that they are “scale pan of wine” and “scale pan that carries Ma’at.”  When this correct answer is given, the doorjamb asks if Ani knows its name.  He does, of course: “plummet of the place of truth.”  The questions keep on coming from the door’s bolt, “toe of his mother”, the threshold, “Ox of Geb”, and so on until he passes to the floor beyond.  The floor changes up the line of questioning.  It asks Ani not for its name, but for the name of Ani’s own feet.  (If you’re curious, they turn out to be “who enters before Min” and “wenpet of Nephthys.”)

The final danger – the one that no amount of knowledge and spell casting can help a soul wriggle out of – is Ammut “the devouress of the dead.”  This strange creature, who sits to the right of Thoth in the picture above, is a combination of crocodile, lion (or sometimes leopard) and hippopotamus.  Should Ani’s heart prove heavier than the feather of Ma’at, it will end up in the eager jaws of the demon/goddess Ammut.  This was the worst possible fate for any Ancient Egyptian: total annihilation.

This complex and convoluted maze of travails would lead the happy soul to the its reward: the Field of Rushes.  Here men and women would live simply as agrarians, working part-time for the gods and spending the rest of the afterlife in feasting, music and dance.  A just reward, it seems, for so much trouble.

Header: The Hall of Two Truths from Ani’s Book of the Dead c 1400 BCE