PRESUPUESTO DE LA COMUNIDAD AUTONOMA DE ANDALUCIA 2010 ESTADO DE INGRESOS CONSOLIDADO

Texts and the archeological records document the religious practices of the elite of the society – those who had the resources to leave documents of their faith. As a result, religious beliefs of the non-elite are essentially unknown, although it is speculated that they were similar to those of the elite.

A large percentage of the elite population, both male and female, served as some category of priest/priestess/temple musician. Even among the upper ranks, these individuals married and had children. Part-time priests reverted to their other occupation(s) when off duty. Strings of titles in genealogical texts show that a priest could also serve in profes- sions such as the Overseer of the Store Rooms, Seal Bearer, or a scribe. This combination of a quasi-secular with a priestly title is a rel ection of the way that religion was embedded into the overall society.

Hundreds of priests worked in the temples. In theory, Egypt was a meritocracy and advancement was due not to class but to ability. Autobiographical texts refer to promotion from one rank to the next, sometimes after a number of years in a single position. 22 _{Yet, in practi-}

cal terms, being from a privileged background was an important factor, as indicated by references in these texts to the king installing priests from “families that are known.” Genealogical texts document that a son commonly assumed the post of his father, suggesting that jobs were kept within specii c social circles or families.

The priesthood was inclusive, employing a great number of men and women, some of them in posts that seem to have required a very low level of specialized training or literacy. The priesthood was bureaucratic, being composed of levels of priests and priestesses with specii c duties in the temple or mortuary cult. The best-documented organization is the domain of Amun at Thebes that was headed by the First Priest, who served as the highest officiant in the cult. He, or another ranking priest, was deputized by the king to act for him in the daily offering ritual. Immediately below the First Priest were the Second, Third, and Fourth Priests, then ranks of other priests such as God’s Father, and then Lectors. Each group had its own supervisor. Priests had administrative

as well as sacred duties, an indication of how little separation there was between the secular and sacred worlds.

Priests were not ordained for life. Until the New Kingdom, most worked part time for a specii c cult (or cults). They were organized into four or i ve (depending on the time period) service groups or saw (trans- lated as phyle from the Greek), who served in rotation for thirty days (the duration of the Egyptian month). As indicated by strings of professional titles, priests could work for several cults, presumably rotating among them in the phyle system. Some priestly titles appear to have been de facto hereditary, although there are references to priests being appointed to specii c posts by the king.

Although men and women had the same legal rights, gender and class placed restrictions on women’s involvement in religious rituals. In the Old and Middle Kingdoms, elite women appear with the title Priestess of Hathor. Others appear with the more modest priestly title “pure one.” By the New Kingdom, few women had priestly titles, but many elite women, some of them of the royal house, served as priestess- singers whose music was believed to placate and amuse the god(s).

From early Dynasty 18, the daughter of the First Priest of Amun appeared with the title “God’s Wife of Amun.” These women are shown primarily officiating at a variety of rituals, but their actual duties are unclear. Thereafter, the title was held by females of the royal family. 23 _In

the Third Intermediate period, the God’s Wives of Amun were princesses who acted as the virtual rulers of Thebes, controlling huge economic resources. Although these women were considered to be the spouses of Amun, it is debated whether they had mortal husbands.

Gender was not an impediment for women even becoming pharaoh. In the Dynastic period, at least four women claimed that office, the best- documented being Hatshepsut (r. c. 1473–1458 BCE ), who was the daugh-

ter and the wife of pharaohs.

Although images of ithyphallic gods in temples and references to regeneration are very common, there is no tradition of temple sex or sacred prostitution for either women or men. As already mentioned, there was no prohibition against priests and priestesses marrying and having children. But this tradition changed dramatically in the late third century CE with the rise of the monastic movement with the desert

fathers (and some sisters) who removed themselves from society. Religion and politics were completely interwoven. Most funda- mentally, the living king was the earthly incarnation of the solar god Horus. Upon death, he assumed the identity of Osiris, the father of Horus, thereby creating an unbroken succession of father-son regardless

of the actual biological ties of the king to his successor. The gods sup- ported the semi-divine king and, in return, the king promised the gods that he would rule justly and support the cults of the gods. The nature of this reciprocal relationship is illustrated by offering scenes. 24 _These

scenes are normally narrated by three brief formulaic inscriptions. The i rst is the recitation by the god, “It is to you that I have given life. . .,” which indicates that the god created (past tense) the king, enabling him to rule and, in turn, to honor the gods. The king’s offering is framed in the active: “Giving to him. . . .” In the third text, the god reciprocates by promising the king continued life: “May he (the god) make the state of ‘given life’ (for the king).”

One of the king’s main obligations to the god was to rule the land in accordance with maat , the interconnected concept of cosmic balance and truth that was personii ed by the goddess Maat. This commitment to maat is illustrated by offering scenes where the king presents a i g- ure of the goddess Maat to the deities as a visible affirmation of his just

Figure 1.1. Ramesses IV offering food to the god Khonsu. Relief from the Khonsu Temple, c. 1153–1147 BCE . Photo: Emily Teeter. Ramesses IV offers a tray of food (geese, bread, fruits, and vegetables) to the god Khonsu. Four trussed oxen sur- rounded by more food offerings are laid before the god. The texts relate that Khonsu granted the king “a lifetime as king.” The king’s text reads “Presenting things to his father Khonsu Nefer-Hotep. May he [the god] make [a state of] given life for the king.”

rule and the acknowledgment that he will uphold the tenets inherent in maat . In the New Kingdom, the king’s coronation name was often com- pounded with Maat, another indication of the association of the king and principle of truth. Some New Kingdom kings are shown presenting a rebus of their name captioned “presenting Maat,” suggesting that the king himself was imbued with, or personii ed, Truth. 25

The judicial system was also heavily inl uenced by religion. The king was a semi-divine ruler from whom all policy and laws emanated. In the New Kingdom and later, divine oracles became an important adjunct to the judicial system when dealing with civil matters such as theft, inheri- tance, and business dealings, and rarely even to coni rm the royal suc- cession. Oracles were delivered by the god (the most common at Thebes are of Amun) when the god left the temple in procession, either in the course of festivals or specii cally for the purposes of giving a judgment. Oracles could be posed in the form of written yes/no questions, or by the recitation of the names of the accused. The boat that carried the image of the god in processions could move toward or away to indicate yes or no, or the divine will could be made known by the god causing the priests at the bow of the boat to bend down, or by the entire boat shaking when the god became agitated.

There is no tradition of divination by extispicy or augury, of priests using other omens to advise the king, or of court astrologers. In only a few instances the king claimed that the god came to him in a dream during the course of a battle promising to give him strength (Amunhotep II and Merenptah), or that he would accede to the throne (Prince Thutmose). 26

Success on the battlei eld was often attributed to the help and favor of the gods, and in the New Kingdom, failure in war was ascribed to the gods “turning their backs against the land.”

The Egyptians were not philosophers in the same manner as the Greeks. They had no tradition of discourse and debate. It was not in their nature to ask “why?”; rather, their question was “how?” This resulted in a very clear, but superi cial, understanding of the workings of the universe expressed through analogies with visible physical phenomena rather than with the unseen philosophical world.

5. Research

Sources for research on ancient Egyptian religion include written sources such as Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Books of the Dead, Underworld Books, prayers, hymns, mythological papyri, autobiographies, and

historical and literary texts. Wall reliefs and paintings in temples and tombs provide copious data for the performance of offering ceremonies, purii cation rituals, divine processions, and festivals. These sources are augmented by statues that functioned in the cult, objects from offering ceremonies and funerary cults (mummies, artifacts related to embalm- ing and burial and amulets) and materials that rel ect magical practice (magic rods, knives, engraved gems). These texts and objects are contex- tualized by the remains of temples, tombs, and chapels that provide the setting for religious practice. Our understanding of Egyptian religion is constantly being sharpened by the discovery of new texts, and especially by the reinterpretation of already known sources.

The study of Egyptian religion started in antiquity. Herodotus’ accounts are of variable reliability. Assessments given by some classical writers such as Juvenal and Lucian are often unl attering and rel ect a lack of understanding of the underlying theology that they criticize or ridicule. Religious practices of the Isis cults of Italy in the Classical Age are so far removed from the original Egyptian theology that they are not helpful for interpreting the original tradition.

More recently, one of the recurring questions about Egyptian reli- gion is whether monotheism underlay the evident polytheism. 27 _Le

Page Renouf ( 1880 ) viewed this in evolutionary terms, suggesting that Egyptian religion was initially monotheistic, and only later became a degenerate polytheistic system. The “neo-monotheism school,” led by Etienne Drioton, posited the opposite – that monotheism grew out of polytheism. Most recently, Jan Assmann has suggested that a single transcendent god arose in the New Kingdom. 28

Closely related to this still-ongoing discussion is the nature of the religion of the Amarna period (late Dynasty 18) and its relationship to the theology of earlier and later periods. Over the years, the interpreta- tion of Amarna theology as monotheism has been tempered by growing awareness of the movement’s goal of proclaiming the divinity of the king and queen as a feature of their relationship to the Aton. The concept of henotheism, which was i rst championed in the early nineteenth cen- tury, has again come to the forefront of the argument. In 1989, James Allen described the Amarna theology as a philosophy rather than as a belief system.

A third line of current inquiry is in regard to the growth of per- sonal piety in the New Kingdom, specii cally how widespread the trend was and whether it was an outgrowth of the Amarna experience, while others have questioned how pervasive personal piety was in any period. 29