THE FASCINATION OF EGYPT
by Joan K. Yanni
The excitement around MAG’s newly acquired coffin (2000.11.1 & 2000.11.2), one of the most significant acquisitions in the Gallery’s history, grows with each tour and each visitor. School children love to look at it and adults are fascinated by it (though only the inner coffin is in display currently, the outer coffin will emerge in October 2003). Where does it fit into the history of Egypt?
The origin of Egyptian civilization cannot be established with certainty, but Egypt’s recorded history spans than 3000 years. People began settling on the banks of the Nile, the longest river in the world, prior to 3100 BC. They developed agriculture, a written language and a calendar containing 365 days that would forecast the flooding of the Nile.
Egyptologists divide this long history into several periods, the most important of which are the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. The great age of pyramid building took place in Egypt’s Old Kingdom, (2686-2181 BC). The step pyramid in Sakkara, and the pyramids of Giza were created at this time, as was the Great Sphinx. MAG's granite figure of Ny-user-ra (ca. 2450-2350 BC) dates from this period, as does the Egyptian relief from the tomb of Metetu (2450-2350 BC).
The Middle Kingdom, 1991 to 1786 BC, was notable mainly for unification of the country and regrowth of Egypt’s influence, which had waned because of political disunity in the years after the Old Kingdom. The New Kingdom (1552 to 1070 BC) brought the high point of Egyptian power and prosperity. An extensive building of temples at Karnak, Luxor and Abu Simbel took place, and the building of royal burial tombs near Thebes in the Valley of the Kings began. Egypt captured lands from the Sudan to Syria to the Euphrates River and became the world’s first empire. MAG’s relief of Maya was created around 1300 BC. Maya was overseer of the Royal Treasury under three pharaohs including the boy king Tutankhamen.
The downfall of Egypt came between 1080 BC and 30 BC. Weak kings ruled the country and the priests gained power. The nation was captured by the Persians in 525 BC, then by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great in 332 BC. After Alexander’s death, Ptolemy became Egypt’s ruler. His dynasty lasted for 300 years, until the death of his descendant Cleopatra in 30 BC. (Cleopatra had married the Roman Marc Anthony and they ruled Egypt jointly. She committed suicide after Anthony, defeated by Octavius, killed himself—see our painting of Cleopatra by Duvivier—and Rome took over Egypt.) Many of the artifacts in MAG’s Ancient Gallery, such as the canopic jars (664-525 BC) and the limestone Lid of the Sarcophagus of Ta-khonsu-iy (332-32 BC), both on loan from the Metropolitan Museum, came from this later period.
The Egyptian gods and goddesses are complicated. Most have than one name and their importance varies according to the region in which they are worshipped. As one tale goes, at first only the ocean existed. Then Ra, the sun, came out of an egg (or a flower) that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra had four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood upon Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set (or Seth) and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nepthys. Osiris, assisted by his sister/wife Isis, succeeded Ra as king of the earth, though Ra still ruled over all. Set, however, hated his brother and killed him, cutting his body into 14 pieces and scattering them over the earth. Isis searched for and found all the body parts (some accounts say all but the genitals) and reburied them. (In another myth the god Anubis helped Isis embalm Osiris’s restored body and so became the god of embalming.) The power of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the nether world, the land of the dead. Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.
Often the gods were represented with human torsos and human or animal heads. Ra, for example, had the head of a hawk, and the hawk was sacred to him because of its swift flight across the sky. Horus was a falcon or a male figure with a falcon’s head. Hathor, goddess of love and laughter, had the head of a cow, which was sacred to her. Anubis had the head of a jackal because of the jackals which ravaged desert graves; Bastet, goddess of music and dance, was a woman with a cat’s head. Nut, goddess of the sky, is a female figure arched over Shu; and Thoth, moon god and god of wisdom, was ibis-headed. Ptah, patron of artists and metal workers, was given a human head, but was occasionally represented as a bull. Gods were also represented by symbols, such as the sun disk and hawk wings, which were worn on the pharaoh’s headdress. Early Egyptian kings claimed divine ancestry, and pharaohs were worshipped as sons of Ra.
MAG’s coffin of Pa-debehu-Aset (PA-deb-uh-HOO-AH-set) is made of wood, polychromed and gilded. It is from the Ptolemaic period, 332-30 BC, and the deceased, though not a pharaoh, had to have been wealthy to commission two coffins. His name, meaning “the one who was a request from Isis,” appears than a dozen times on both coffins. The face of the coffin is gilded, with eyes inlaid with stones and shell, and lines around the eyes and chin inlaid with blue glass.
The front of the coffin has a broad collar, consisting of seven bands of decoration, ending on each shoulder in two falcon heads, each surmounted by a sun disk with a uraeus, or serpent. Facing the falcon head is a large winged uraeus, bearing a royal crown, with its wings extended in a gesture of protection. On the chest below the broad collar is a figure of the goddess Nut, a sun disk on her head. She kneels with her wings outstretched, protecting the corpse. The text around her is a promise to protect the owner of the coffin against all evil. All figures emphasize protection and rebirth.
In the register below, the god Anubis attends to the body, which is resting on a lion-headed couch. Three goddesses stand behind him, identified as Isis, Selket, and one whose name is not legible. On the feet of the coffin, Anubis is shown in mirror image resting on shrines. Above Anubis are two wedjat-eyes, powerful symbols of rebirth. They refer to the sacred eye of Horus, whose eye was torn out in battle and then restored by Thoth, god of wisdom and magic.
Other facts of interest: Egyptian hieroglyphics were deciphered only after the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 by one of Napoleon’s soldiers. On the stone the same words were written in three scripts, hieroglyphics, demotic (the simpler alphabet used by the Egyptian people, based on hieroglyphics) and Greek. Knowledge of Greek led to translation of the others.
Because the Egyptians believed in life after death, the body was preserved by drying it out through mummification. The organs were removed to prevent rotting of the corpse. The brain was pulled out through the nose with a hook (as any third grader can testify), and the lungs, liver, stomach and intestines were put in canopic jars. Only the heart was left in the body. The Egyptians believed that after death, the god Osiris and forty-two judges weighed the dead person’s heart on a scale and balanced it against a feather to see if it was heavy with sin. If the heart was found to be pure, its owner gained admittance to a rewarding afterlife.
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