Think Like an Egyptian (12 page)

The Egyptian writer Ipuwer sums up the cultural ideal of “good” in a text of a very different tone. He begins a series of poetic statements with the phrase “how good it is” and uses them to paint an attractive picture of Egyptian contentment: the sailing of ships on the Nile, the work of fishermen and fowlers, safe passage on the roads, the building of tombs, the creation of lakes and orchards for the gods, the drunkenness of happy people, the wearing of clean linen, the preparation of the master’s bed, and “when every man’s need is satisfied by a mat in the shade.”

 

 

 

 

Out of a primitive aversion to snakes, which probably goes beyond the fear of being bitten, emerges an image of hostility: a long sinuous serpent. While Egyptians could relate to Seth with his human characteristics, serpents were more distant from human understanding. They had an ominous presence in the afterlife, which was simultanously the abode of the gods and of the dead (see no. 47, “Otherworld”). Their sinuous forms contrast with the human shapes that inhabit the Otherworld and wind themselves into its ordered spaces.

Serpents were generally dangerous, hostile creatures. One named serpent, Apep (Apophis), was cast as the enemy of the sun-god Ra. The title of a papyrus text that deals with their struggle is the “Book of Knowing How Ra Came into Being and of Overthrowing Apophis.” The conflict goes back to the beginning of time. This is true for another myth, recorded on the walls of the temple of Edfu (3rd century BC), which explained why certain places were chosen as the locations of temples: they were the places where the forces of evil in the form of serpents had been defeated by companies of divine beings.

Of the various species of snake at home in Egypt today nine are dangerous to humans. A papyrus of the 4th or 3rd century BC lists 38 different types of snake, along with a description of their distinguishing features (hue, unusual size or number of fangs, or behavior), and the effect of their bite and whether this can be treated. In Egyptian mythology the venomous power of snakes could be harnessed for good. The cobra, which can reach more than two meters in length and characteristically raises its head and extends its hood when angered, became an enduring symbol of the power of the king and of the sun-god. Cobras were also a protective power for Egyptian people, who often felt that a world of spiritual forces was closer and more familiar than the gods and goddess of the temples. The fear of ghosts of dead men and women pressed in during the night: one way to protect against them was to make four serpents of clay “with flames in their mouths,” place them at the corners of any room where people were sleeping, and recite over them a short spell of protection. Clay cobra figurines have been found during the excavation of settlements and could well be the remains of this practice.

But not all serpents were even dangerous. One story told the tale of a mariner shipwrecked on a magic island on which lived a giant and genial serpent 30 cubits long (15.5 meters), with the appearance of a living Egyptian statue: “His beard was over two cubits long; his body was overlaid with gold, his eyebrows were of real lapis lazuli.” The serpent reveals that he is the sole survivor from a catastrophe, when fire from heaven burned up the family of 75 other serpents, “not counting a little daughter whom I had obtained through prayer.” Out of gratitude for the temporary relief from his loneliness, he heaps rewards on the sailor at the moment when a ship comes to rescue him (and the island disappears beneath the waves).

 

 

 

 

Prehistoric Egyptians lived in small circular huts. The hieroglyphic system developed, however, toward the end of the 4th millennium BC, when the main material for building was brick, made from mud and dried in the sun, and houses were rectangular in plan. The hieroglyph used to write the word “house,” ;
pr
(
per
)
,
conveys its essence, an oblong room with a single door. In reality few houses could have been as basic as this. From a fairly well documented history of house design in ancient Egypt we can see a tradition of grouping all rooms (and in larger houses they could amount to 20 or more) together under a single continuous roof rather than around a central courtyard. When courtyards were present they were at the side, and it would be here that the cooking was done, inside and over a small cylindrical clay oven that was constantly surrounded by deposits of fine ash. The focus of domestic life was a central room, sometimes furnished with brick benches only ten centimeters high on which people would squat, although wooden chairs and stools were also to be found (see no. 28, “Mat”). The larger the house, the more likely the roof of the central room, and perhaps those of other public rooms, was supported on painted wooden columns resting on circular stone column bases. Bedrooms had a prominent and slightly raised alcove, with space for a single bed. Lesser members of the household might not have had their own bedrooms. It is hard to know whether excavated houses possessed upper floors, since it is rare for walls to be preserved to more than about waist height. The frequent presence of a narrow staircase is no proof, since it might have led only to a flat roof that could itself have been used for storage and as a place for sleeping on hot summer nights.

A “house” amounted to more than a building. A young ship-borne fighter in the war against the Palestinian Hyksos kings, named Ahmose from El-Kab, “founded a house” after his first period of service, which sounds like a phrase for getting married. The “house” included its occupants, presided over by the “lady of the house,”
nbt pr
(
nebet per),
the most common title given to a married woman. We have a fairly detailed picture of a household from the letters written by one Hekanakht (c. 1980 BC), who seems to have been a minor official but also owned land of his own. Away from home he wrote in an argumentative style to his family about farm and domestic matters, and refers to a household of 12 people, each of whom received from him a strictly measured ration of grain. Five were sons, the eldest of whom managed the household in his father’s absence. Most of the others were women, including Hekanakht’s mother, and his new wife (most likely he was widowed) who was a source of conflict (see no. 66, “To love”). Other records of households, urban rather than rural, show smaller numbers, in single figures, with far fewer children than one might expect, perhaps a consequence of a high infant mortality rate (see no. 78, “Child”). Many households made themselves larger with servants or slaves. We do not know whether these servants slept in corners of the house or had places of their own.

As in other traditional cultures, cattle, which were too valuable to leave out at night, would share the collection of buildings that made up the house. In the Tale of Two Brothers (c. 1200 BC) the innocent and unmarried younger brother does all the heavy work, brings the cattle home at night, and after serving his elder brother and wife with food, goes off to sleep among the cattle in a stable that was part of the house compound. This harmonious picture is destroyed by the elder brother’s wife who tries to seduce the younger brother and, when rejected by him, accuses him of attempted rape. It is the cattle who warn the younger brother of the presence of the elder brother waiting behind the door of the house to kill him.

The word “house” also meant lineage. To its enemies in the civil war of the 1st Intermediate Period, the kings of the north were “the house of Khety,” named after the founder. It designated institutions. “The house of silver” was the Treasury, “the house of life” was the place of learning where manuscripts were studied and copied (see no. 82, “Scribal kit”), and “the house of Amun” included the temple’s extensive estates. Combining “house” with a word for “great” created the hieroglyphic group for “great house,”
pr
(
per-aa
), signifying the king’s residence. In time the phrase became a polite way of referring to the king without naming him. Taken up by the compilers of the Old Testament the word has given us, via Hebrew, “Pharaoh.”