Egypt and its culture

The civilisation of Ancient Egypt was rediscovered about 200 years ago, and since then millions have had time to fantasize over it and spread wild misconceptions. Most of these can be traced back to the early projections of Western minds of what little they knew of the Middle East upon this still little-known culture. Indeed it is easy to see where Europe's relationships with Turkey, at the time the only contact between the two continents, influenced their perception of ancient Egypt, as we find traits and words characteristic of the Ottoman Empire applied to Egypt. Egyptologists have since enormously expanded their knowledge of the field and amended their views, but the urban legends survive tenaciously. After reading Christian Jacq's book: "Les Egyptiennes", concerned mainly with the status of women in ancient Egypt and full of stunning facts, I decided to put together some cultural traits that should be known by anyone with a serious interest in the civilisation.

The Queen
Every pharaoh was considered to be Horus. Queens can be considered incarnations of many goddesses but they play the part of Isis. Isis (Ast) means Throne: she is therefore the one who determines Osiris' kingship. In other words Osiris was king because his wife was the Throne; the queen achieves the same for the Pharaoh. Also, the same way Isis bore Horus in herself, the queen "contains" in her essence the Horus who is pharaoh (it is the Throne that gives birth to the Pharaoh). Among the titles of an unmarried queen is that of "father and mother": by becoming pharaoh, she acquires the quality of man and becomes her own spouse, making up the royal couple by herself. The purpose of having a reigning couple is to preserve the natural balance, which demands the presence of both the male and the female essences. Since a queen possesses both essences, she does not need to get married, while male pharaohs cannot reign alone (notice that every pharaoh in history was married, but several female pharaohs reigned single).

This double nature served all women in death: To pass the tests that lead to the Underworld, a man must become Osiris. So must a woman, but she has the advantage of being both Osiris and Hathor (Hathor being in one aspect a guiding deity of the Underworld).

State Magic
The role of the royal couple was to maintain Maat on earth. According to Christian Jacq: "One can translate the word Maat by Rule, as long as one includes in this the ideas of universal order, cosmic harmony, eternal balance of the universe, celestial justice inspiring human justice, rectitude, solidarity among living things, truth, just distribution of duties, social cohesion, wisdom." This State magic called particularly upon the queen: "It is the woman's spiritual role, her active participation to creation in spirit, that is emphasized and practiced" (women were considered the link between Heaven and Earth). One essential magical act among many was for the queen (or a high priestess) to "sustain, by her love, the energy of the god Amon, so that the divine love could sustain Egypt". The queen is also called "She who sees Horus and Seth" -- in other words it is in her that the two enemy brothers are reconciled. The divine energy was considered a vital reality without which the country could not live in harmony with the Invisible. The offerings done to Pharaoh were not a servile tribute but a way to magically contribute to the prosperity of Egypt through honoring him/her, the servant of the land of Egypt.

Another kind of State magic consisted in identifying the powers of destruction and to dare manipulate them and invert them in order to turn tem into constructive forces.

Speaking of magic, here are a few very clear indications that the Egyptians were familiar with the notions of magical visualization and subtle senses. The offhand manner in which they are mentioned betray that they were common knowledge at the time.

In this passage that mentions visualization, we encounter the notion of the heart-conscience, a "place" that I would call the seat of intuitive consciousness: "Hatshepsut directed the ritual of foundation of the temple; in a small ditch, she lay down the objects that made up the "foundation deposit": hammers, brick molds, string etc. Once covered with sand, the tools of the stone cutters were united in secret forever and continued to serve on the invisible [level]. Hatshepsut planted the symbolic sticks to delimit the place of the temple, then strung them, therefore manifesting the plan conceived in her heart-conscience." (my emphasis).
This heart-conscience is abundantly mentioned in connection with divine communication. If you pay attention to the texts, you'll notice that it always goes something like "the god spoke to her in her heart". Christian Jacq writes: "The divine word was addressed directly to the vital center of the being, the heart-conscience, represented in hieroglyphics by a vase." This method of guidance is not unknown, but throughout history it has been misunderstood (think of Joan of Arc). Interestingly, the Egyptians were familiar with it.

Mother Queen
Let us return to the queen, or rather to the Pharaoh's mother now. She always played an important part: her duty was to transmit the energy that is continuously produced by the divine universe. For this reason she was often at the king's side during major rites. She also incarnates the continuity of dynasties. The queen mother "perpetually unites with the creative principle to give birth to the king". In other words, after giving birth to him biologically, she gives birth to him again every moment of the day by the mere fact of her presence, as if a spiritual umbilical chord still existed between them. Her role is to make him "grow magically" (sic), "broaden his heart", and make him fully conscious of his duties. Mothers were greatly respected by their progeny, and many famous men had portraits made of themselves next to their mother, proudly proclaiming they were the son of so-and-so.
The royal couple and the queen Mother worked hand in hand on all levels of State affairs. Queen Touy, mother of Ramses II, exchanged a long correspondence with the Hittite queen of the time as they both worked on obtaining peace between their two countries. Their role in politics was important enough that the peace was obtained. Nefertari (Ramses' spouse) carried on the strong political influence of her mother-in-law, and corresponded with the Hittite queen as well.

Here's a list of titles of Queen Nitocris: "great of love, of the beautiful face, ravishing, sovereign of charm, who satisfies the god with her beauty, whose voice is enchanting when she sings, who fills the palace with the scent of her perfume, sovereign of all women, mistress of the Two Lands and the earth unto its confines". The beauty of the female body was fully appreciated by the Egyptians just as they appreciated the strength of the male body.

Marriage
Wealth or "nobility" weren't criteria for choosing a queen. They could be chosen from the poorest classes. The Egyptians were as romantic, or more, as we are. Love songs and stories have been recorded, as well as pet names used to address the beloved woman: gazelle, kitten, sparrow, dove, my hippopotamus, my hyena, my frog. The Egyptians were free with love, devoid of any prejudices regarding physical relationships, but they disapproved of excess in all things. It was encouraged to enjoy several temporary experiences before getting married - for within marriage, faithfulness was the rule. Adultery was punishable by death. However, someone unjustly accused could take an oath and give his or her word that he/she was innocent. No more than this oath was required for him/her to be established innocent: to give one's word was an extremely serious act, and to lie meant that one would be condemned by the court in the Underworld.

Women could marry young - at 15 a woman was at a good age to have children - but were never forced to marry at all. The Greeks were shocked out of their skin by the independence of Egyptian women, scandalous to their eyes. Whether single or married, a woman was legally autonomous and had her own possessions that she alone managed. No one could contest what was rightfully hers. One man who had no children feared that after his death, his family would contest the inheritance he left to his wife. To protect her and make her his unique heir, he adopted her legally, turning her into his single daughter!

If a woman did choose to marry, she alone chose her husband. If her parents did not agree with her choice, that was their own problem. A striking example is that of a prisoner of war that a barber had brought back to employ as a servant. His daughter fell in love with him and decided to marry the servant. The barber could only do one thing: give the ex-prisoner a sizeable portion of his possessions so that they could become equal and the two could marry without bringing shame to him.

Temporary marriage contracts have been found, showing a very advanced liberalism: this allowed a couple to make sure of their feelings before entering a union that should be lifelong. Marriage was not a legal or religious act, but a social one, wherein a man and a woman decided to live under the same roof. As soon as they moved in together they were considered married and had to assume their duties as husband and wife. Divorce occurred, and the reasons aren't different from today's: disharmony, adultery, desire to live with someone else, conflicts of interest, sterility. This was not to be taken lightly however, as there were measures of protection against abusive or unfair separations. The divorcer paid a slight compensation and kept his or her own individual possessions – including the house if it was his/hers.

The marriage contract could be written by the wife. Needless to say there was no loss of name at marriage.

Myths, Harem and inbreeding
One of the worst misconception about Egypt is that of polygamy. Statues depicting a man with two wives never indicated a double marriage – they refer to two successive marriages, the man having taken another wife after the death of the first. The same occurred with women who had taken another husband after mourning their first. When the time came to return to eternity, these people wanted to be represented with the two persons they had loved.

As for the Pharaohs' harems of concubines and secondary spouses, they are an Orientalising fantasy borrowed from the living habits of Turkish rulers. The Egyptians were quite tenaciously monogamous. "Weddings" between pharaoh and foreign princesses were a way of insuring good will between the two countries. They were totally symbolic however: the pharaohs were faithful to their wives, who were their equals on the throne and in the household anyway. The new "spouses" were comfortably installed outside the palace, and reverently waited upon, but they were as good as single. If their neighbors held their women in such a low regard that they wouldn't hesitate to send them abroad to marry an unknown king, that was up to them, and it worked for the Egyptians. But they would never reciprocate. To the king of Babylon who was asking for an Egyptian princess to wed, Amenhotep III replied: "Never, from the time of the Ancients, has a daughter of Egypt been given to anyone".

Whenever the term "harem" is encountered, it is another awkward borrowing from Ottoman ways. It does NOT, in any way, refer to a group of wives of one man locked away in a golden cage. The Egyptian word, kheneret, means "closed space" but refers to sheltered groups of priestesses headed by the Queen, who underwent a special religious education. These were mini-communities, self-sufficient, including many full families (man, wife and children), with free circulation to and from the outside, and where queens liked to have their children educated. Moses, son of a lady of the court, was probably raised in such a "harem". They were also the places where privileged guests such as "diplomatic spouses" of the pharaoh dwelled. Concubines did not exist Ð that idea is another projection of the minds of 19th century European travelers.

"But the Pharaohs married their sisters and daughters!" Another myth due to a very superficial reading of the culture.
During the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt was governed by Greek pharaohs, marriage between siblings did occur because that was practiced in Greece. Egyptian Pharaohs sometimes married a half-sister, but when a marriage is mentioned with a sister or a daughter these unions were of purely symbolic and ritual value, with no physical dimension. The 52 "sons" of Ramses II were in truth the children of people of the court: in order to have a wide selection to pick from when the time to choose an heir to the throne came, he ordered that a royal education should be given to them, and called them his sons (since effectively, they all stood an equal chance to be the next king, on an equal foot with Ramses' own boys). Similarly, and there is the source of confusion, a woman calls her husband "my brother" and a man calls his wife "my sister". This never referred to blood bonds, only a metaphorical expression of unbreakable bonds.

Myth: Slavery
The concept of "slave" never existed in Egypt, where no human being was ever considered to be a soul-less piece of property. The word that was mistranslated as slave is hem, which means "servant" and is mostly applied to the Pharaoh himself. To the Egyptians, to serve is a noble act, and every professional servant was an owner and could bequeath his possessions to his children. They could marry whom they pleased and leave their employer whenever they wanted – and they actually had servants of their own. Renting one's services was common, but it had nothing to do with buying a slave. Professional servants were free to set their fees, and the latter were often prohibitive! They were certainly not treated with conceit, as is obvious from the saying: "A perfect word is more hidden than the green stone; yet it can be found with the servants who work the grinder".

The closest one can ever get to the notion of slavery, and that's really not very close, was the status of prisoners of war. The latter were brought back to Egypt and made to work for a while. After that, they were given their freedom and Egyptian citizenship, and they could establish themselves with the money they earned.

On this subject, another anecdote is revealing of the consideration afforded to women at the time. After finally routing the Hyksos invaders, the victorious soldiers were allowed to bring back prisoners. One soldier was leading back three women and a man. One of the women fainted; instead of just leaving her to die, the soldier put down his belongings and carried her home.

Death
With the rise of Rome, a nation of commerce and war, the world fell into a political and economical system that no longer took into consideration Maat and the old values. Egypt then died a slow death... We should be very conscious of what was lost.