Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina What the workers of ancient Egypt created over thousands of years of labour can be seen all over Egypt: huge pyramids, huge blocks moved and worked to create monuments and ensembles of immense historical and artistic value, impetuous obelisks pointing towards the sky, towards the gods, tombs that penetrate deep underground, laborious works that have withstood the flow of the years. All of these immediately make us wonder: who created them? What was the life of these workers who were subject to the almighty pharaohs? What did their daily life look like? What tools did they use? How did they manage to organize themselves to create these monuments? Fortunately we have the village of Deir el Medina which opens a window into the life of Pharaonic Egypt. It is a blessing that the New Kingdom village of Deir el Medina is the best documented community in the entire history of Pharaonic Egypt. All the greater is our joy that the village was not an agricultural settlement, which could have grown naturally, but an artificial one. Its inhabitants were stonemasons, painters and their families, people who were probably more literate than elsewhere. Also, as labourers in the service of the state, they had relatively wellpaid jobs, and when their wages, which they received in the form of rations, were in arrears, they could complain directly to high officials such as the Visigoths and, later, even to the high priest of Amun at Karnak. In extreme cases they might even go on strike, as surviving administrative records show. Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica Deir el Medina is among the best documented and best known communities in the ancient world. In this village, located west of modern Luxor on the left (west) bank of the Nile, about half a mile beyond the cultivated land that bordered the river between the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, lived a powerful community of civil servants, stonecutters and draughtsmen, artists who prepared the tombs of their kings and queens. The village occupied the southern part of the Theban necropolis in a valley behind the Gurnet Murai hill. Its southern entrance overlooked the Medinet Habu area, where a small temple was built during the 18th dynasty and then a much larger structure during the time of Rameses III. In this material-examination I will refer to some aspects and some examples of the magical practices, concerns and religious obligations of the community of the people of Deir el Medina. It is well documented that workers frequently took days off to perform a variety of cultic duties in the village: brewing beer (the beer needed for local festivals), making offerings to the dead, or preparing and attending funerals. From the documents discovered we can attest to their presence at festival celebrations in honour of various pharaohs (e.g. Amenhotep I, the traditional founder of the village and oracle par excellence, devotions to Thutmos III -Eighteenth Dynasty and the jubilee celebrations of Ramses II and III). The inhabitants of Deir el Medina seem to have enjoyed a religious life common to that of Thebes and, by extension, to Pharaonic Egypt as a whole. Religious specificities appear in the various practices of their village life which were often centered on concerns specific to their work, religious life being devoted to favorite deities, favorite deified kings and ancestors. "[...]Brief description of contents: The present document is a hymn to Pharaoh Ramses IV, composed by the famous scribe Amennakht of Deir el-Medina. Rightly so, there is no concrete indication that some scholars tend to regard the text as an attempt to commemorate the years4 of Rameses IV's reign, or that it is related to the problematic 'Harem conspiracy'4 of Rameses III. Here we have in mind the attempt by some scholars to link this event to those passages in the text that would refer to a general amnesty. So, as P. Grandet has established, the text is not a historical document as such. Rather, the ancient author tried to link these praises of the sovereign with the overflowing of the waters of the Nile, which positively affected the daily life of the ancient Egyptians. Translation: "Be happy, heaven and earth rejoice, Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica For you are the great lord of Egypt! Those who fled have returned to their cities. Those who have been hiding have come out again. Those who have been hungry are full and delighted. Those who were thirsty are now drunk. Those who were stripped naked are now found in fine cloth. Those who have been bitter are now splendid. Those who were imprisoned are now released. And the once chained man rejoices again. Those who have had conflicts on this land have become peaceful. The floods of the great Nile are now coming out of their caves, refreshing the hearts of the common people. The widows, whose homes are now open, can once again greet travellers. The servants jubilantly hum their songs of joy. They watch over the young, Boys born on good days. You raised a good generation, O Ruler, life, prosperity and health, may you reign an eternity! Ships jubilant over the deep, without (towing) rope, (When) they moor with sails and oars, ending the storms. Since the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Heqa-maat-Re, setep-en-Re, life, prosperity and health, He appropriated the white crown (and) King's son, Ramses, the true,, life, prosperity and health, Took over his father's kingship, All the lands tell him: Beautiful is Horus on the seat of his father Amun, Protector of the ruler, life, prosperity and health, whom he sent to gather every earth. Composed by the necropolis scribe Amennakht in the 4th year (of his reign), the first month of the Akhet season, the 14th day". Ostraca: sources for studying the pharaonic universe - Miron Ciho The workmen were very conscious of their own importance, for it was their duty to build and decorate tombs for pharaohs, nobles or priests, and stopping their work Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica would be a cause of real concern to the Kingdom leadership. They were privileged compared to the rest of the Egyptian workers, even though the decision to hire them was made by the powerful bureaucrats of the Pharaoh. "The village" - ended its existence in a troubling way, caused by almost continuous Bedouin raids from the neighbouring Libyan deserts. As the area became unsafe, the community was moved entirely to the temple precincts of Ramses III near Medinet Habu. Later the village shrank, its importance declined and it disappeared. In its four hundred years of professional existence, the village of Deir el Medina has developed certain religious customs of its own, such as the cult of the village founder Amenhotep I. So far, no detailed study of the religious life of this community has been carried out, although there are extensive studies on festivals, individual gods and some of them identified cultic aspects. In broaching the subject of magic, however, we obviously find ourselves in the midst of Ancient Egyptian theology, to which we must refer. "We will see that what we call ancient Egyptian magic does not exist outside the context of religion, as such the above proposal is an important one, but from here to the formation of specialists "Who are really at home in more than one religious region and civilization" 11, the road seems long and even unproductive. The explanation is simple: we must have Egyptologists who interpret what is called Pharaonic religion and not scientists who know the essence of Egyptian, "Mesopotamian", Anatolian, etc. religions. Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica first of all a philologist who can translate the texts or as P. J. Frandsen says, understand the words chosen in a text by the ancient Egyptians."- STUDIES ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MAGIC , MIRON CIHO In ancient Egypt, magic was firmly rooted in theology. According to a statement made some seven hundred years before the founding of this village, in the famous "Teaching to King Merikare" (c. BC2000), magic was sent to mankind as a gift from the creator god himself and served "to remove the blow of an unexpected event". A recent discovery has identified part of this teaching among the many literary pieces from the remains of Deir el Medina, and it can therefore be claimed that some of the more enlightened inhabitants may have known it. The term used in this source is 'heka' and is also the most common in the documents discovered in Sat. Everyday Egyptian magic served defensive purposes, setting modest goals. Magical texts lack the theological depth and implication of magical texts dealing with the underworld, such as those in the Book of the Dead. Magic seems to be subsidiary to official worship although it too relies on and uses magical rituals. In support of this observation we can bring a hymn from an ostracon from Deir el Medina : "An adoration of the King 'when he sits alive, by the decorator Hori. By which he lets the shell of Re' enter peace, while the crew is in joy. ' Reciting this hymn, the Venerable Hori helps the solar boat to carry out its daily course, which is not without danger, as the mythical texts tell us. In contrast, in a magic spell, this event is mentioned in an entirely different spirit. Here's a quote from a spell against poison: "If poison grows upward, then Re''s bark will be founded on that column of Apap. ' Apophis is the chaos monster that poses a daily threat to the sun god as he travels to visit the World. The difference in approach is obvious. In both cases the words spoken by the speaker are trying to accomplish something (i.e. protecting the sun's crust and stopping the course of poison in a patient's body), so both texts have the value of "doing something". But we see a descriptive attitude in the cultic, an attitude of awe; in the second we see a manipulative-magical intent. Defensive magic is best represented in the Deir el Medina texts. Defence is required against dangerous animals, demons and dead people. In the case of disease there was a tendency to personify those ailments whose causes were difficult to identify (giving such an elusive disease a name is the first effort to deal with it). This Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica subsequently led, through repetition, to their demonisation. Headache spells, for example, have developed a mythology of their own. Dangerous animals are certainly a clearer target and references to Snakes and scorpions are particularly common. A bite or sting from them could be a legitimate reason for absence from work, as described in a diary of "present at work", standing on a large ostracon. "Priest to the sick O.UCL 31933 Limestone. The front side has 5 lines and the back side has 3 lines of text. XlXth Dynasty. Publication. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical, vol. VII, Oxford, 1989, p. 214. Short description of the content: Note that the one who requested certain ingredients from a priest at Ramesseum, Amenmes, was not a doctor but a magician. It is not excluded that the requested ingredients were necessary for the so-called magical healing of the priest, about whose identity we know nothing. Translation: "(rt.l) He who tames the scorpion, Amenmes [to...] Piay, scribe of the temple and divine father of the city of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, User- maat-Re, setep -en -Re - life, prosperity and health - in the domain of Amun west of Theba. To wit: the god's father is sick. When my letter reaches [you], you will urge him to bring him 1 measure of wheat (vs.l), 1 jug of syrup and 1 measure of grain syrup [used at] feasts. It is good to stay healthy!" Explanation: kherep serqet - "he who conjures the scorpion I think Jac J. Janssen was absolutely right when he said of this character "more than likely, his main activity consisted in catching snakes and scorpions", which existed in large numbers in Deir el-Medina and elsewhere, and their bites and stings often caused, if not the death of the workers, at least their absence from work. Remember, the black scorpion, rare in those areas, had a deadly sting in the immediate absence of an antidote! The other species, especially those with a yellowish colour had a venom with a neuroleptic effect, but did not cause death. Much more problematic was the bite of snakes, of which there were 38 species in ancient Egypt, but not all had a fatal bite. Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica "father of the god, divine father" - in ancient Egyptian it-nțr (read: it-necer) was followed by the name of a deity, designating the notion of "part of the <god/goddess>...", basically a lower category of priests. - "The fortress of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, User- maat -Re, setep -en -Re in the domain of Amun west of Theba" was the name of the tomb temple built by Rameses II, Ramesseum, on the west bank of the Nile. The name in the front text is not unique, but a very familiar variant!" - Ostraca: sources for studying the pharaonic universe- Miron Ciho Although such incidents or immediate dangers could be quite common and dangerous, spells were probably also motivated by religious considerations. In many texts, the victims are the gods Horus and Re and 'emphasize various allusions to deities such as Seth and Apophis as the real perpetrators of the attack. As a magical papyrus from Deir el Medina puts it, the serpent is "a sister of Apap". Symbolically, then, when you are bitten by one of these animals it also implies an attack on you by the powers of chaos. Another example is a myth described by a papyrus found in Deir el Medina which is the core of a spell against the snake bite. The manuscript has been in the Museo Egizio in Turin for many years and a facsimile was published in the second half of the last century. The myth tells how the goddess Isis, daughter of the sun god Re' (then an old man), began to desire the kingdom of the world for her son, Horus. She created a snake - the first snake ever created which bit the sun god when he reached earth. Unable to help himself, Re' turned to Isis to save him. Isis prepared to remove the poison by charm, but for a charm to be effective it is absolutely necessary that the victim's real name be known in full. In this way Isis sought to obtain a great secret of Re: the full name of the sun god, the creative power, thus obtaining not only the key to the divine kingdom, but also a method of controlling the world. The sun god, Ra, spoke some of his "majestic" names - such as those we can find in hymns - but none of them seemed to satisfy Isis. Finally, Re' could wait no longer and said what Isis wanted to hear. He was indeed healed, but this particular name (as yet unknown) passed to Horus - appearing and a change of reign. This is not the only mythological text in which the gods deceive each other and try to gain power by vile means. "Myths and legends are manifestations of the concrete and tangible, they imply a conception of the universe, such as the fundamental questions of existence, i.e. the permanent cycle of birth, life, death and resurrection, including the extension of existence into the Afterlife." STUDIES ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MAGIC , MIRON CIHO Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica The story of Deir el Medina's discoveries and surprises is not over. As proof we have new discoveries related to the magical tattoos recently discovered. These tattoos revealed a potentially untold story at Deir el Medina and more broadly in the New Kingdom of Egypt. A recent pathological analysis of a mummy shows a large tattooed area. The placement and symbolism of these tattoos tell us that this woman may have fulfilled a religious role at Deir el Medina. Several of these tattoos link this woman to the goddess Hathor. For example, the tattoo of the double cows wearing Hathor necklaces on their arms. Other tattoos, such as a bent lotus plant, appear as graffiti on the stones of the Ramesside temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor at Deir el Medina. This hieroglyph served as a link between Hathor and the papyrus swamps. In addition, open lotus flowers abound on graffiti on the temple floor and were tattooed on each hip. Although many of her tattoos are still difficult to decipher, they nevertheless show a clear connection to religion and the goddess Hathor. Tattooed in public areas/areas of the body, tattoos were intended to permanently mark women as associated with religious worship. The eye of Horus was placed on the neck, both shoulders and back. When someone looked at this woman, a pair of divine eyes looked back. These divine eyes were written together with the hieroglyph nefer. This combination forms the expression "to do well". This phrase was made even more effective by using a divine eye instead of a normal one. Placing the divine formulae "to do well" on his neck and shoulders could magically enhance his singing, speaking and every arm movement with this ability. Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica The striking findings are contrary to previous research in Egyptology, which gave little credit to women in religious practice. Women were often treated merely as objects of desire or passive participants in a male-dominated religious hierarchy. One reason for this conclusion is that religious roles in ancient Egypt were identified by titles. These titles help determine a person's religious importance in ancient Egypt, and priestly titles were always seen as the most important. However, priestly titles for women visibly declined over time in Pharaonic Egypt, leading to the virtual disappearance of the priestess of Hathor in the New Kingdom. Some scholars suggest that this decline in titles means that women were less prominent in the religion. However, in the case of the Deir el Medina mummy, a tattooed woman clearly had an important religious connection. Although we cannot give her a priestly title, the permanent, public and religious nature of her tattoos indicates that women's religious roles in ancient Egypt were more complex than the titles suggest. With divine eyes set all over her body, this woman may even have embodied the goddess. In this regard we also bring this text/ostraca "Consultation of women wise O.Letellier Limestone. 8 lines of text on the front. XlXth Dynasty. Publication: Letellier, La destinee de deux enfants, un ostracon ramesside inedit, in: Jean Vercoutter (ed.), Livre du Centenaire 1880-1980, Cairo, pp1980,. 127-133, pl. IX. Brief description of the contents: A person wants to find out from the "wise woman" the cause of death of two children, as well as information about her health and the health of the mother of the two deceased boys. Translation: "Qenherkhepeshef addresses (the woman) Iner|waw]. Now, what does it mean not to go to the wise woman because of the children2 who died while they were your responsibility? Consult the wise woman about the death suffered by the 2 boys, was it their fate or destiny? Ask about them for me and get a point of view about my life and their mother's life. As for any god who will be (mentioned) to you afterwards, you will tell me about his name [and perform the service] as one who knows [his duties]." Explanation: Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica the wise woman - the character was an intermediary between divinity (in general) and an individual. The private individual approaches this woman to find out to what extent an incident in his life was influenced by divine forces. She was supposedly a clairvoyant, but also a person who had the ability to heal. Being a connoisseur of the ways in which divine forces worked, she was involved in the process of diagnosing and prescribing a treatment as a result of which order (maat) was restored, as such the process of supposed healing took place." Ostraca: sources for studying the pharaonic universe - Miron Ciho Returning to magical practices we must turn our attention to another class of feared beings: the dead, who should stay in their graves, but who were often believed to walk the earth, tormenting the living. To the people of Deir el Medina, the dead were Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica always in sight. Not only did the workers ply their trades in the royal tombs, but their own tombs were built on the slopes on either side of the village. However, there was an ambiguous attitude towards dead ancestors. They were entitled to worship, mainly in their own grave chambers, but also in the homes of their relatives, where they were present in small altars or portrait busts. But these spirits, ancestors or not, honoured or not, were at the same time the thorny issue. A story, preserved on the shards of this village, relates the dealings of a high priest, Khonsuemhab, with the spirit of a former Theban citizen who had lost his peace, and, at the time of their meeting, was very unhappy because his burial place had been disturbed long before the meeting with the priest. Apart from this story, Deir el Medina also has the so-called "Letters to the Dead", which mixes hope and fear about what the living say or expect from their dead relatives. The most revealing testimony about attitudes towards the dead comes from a famous instructional text, Ani's Maxims. This text by the scribe Ani we believe was well known to educated villagers, as several copies or portions of his works have survived on ostraca and even on a papyrus from the remains of Deir el Medina. Such instructive texts, however, show concerns about social behavior, norms, and not just accounts with restless spirits. Others, however, seem to blame the dead for all the misfortunes of daily life: "Every loss is due to him: the game, caught in the field: he is the one who does a thing like that" or "You enter heaven and then eat the stars that are in it. You sit on the ground and then you pull out the seed that people have sown in it. You reach out to the desert and kill everything in it. You stand at the edge of the sea and kill all the fish that are in it." Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica The texts from the village of Deir el Medina offer us a unique opportunity to study the practice of magic (hekau) in everyday life. Unexpected dangers such as scorpion and snake attacks are documented in many spells. To counteract diseases caused by such animals and demonic illnesses, the magician often creates a mythical narrative in which the origin of the illness is investigated and the sufferer emerges victorious in the end. Knowledge of the origin of snake poisoning, the subject of a long mythical spell and myth with the gods Re' and Isis as the main characters, can prevent the danger of dying from snakebite or scorpion sting. Surprisingly, few testimonies have come to light about villagers practicing magic against each other. Apparently, for social conflicts, the local oracle or court of justice offered enough understanding to set things right. On the other hand, spells and rituals mention an inimical person called the 'hot one' (shemu), perhaps the equivalent of the village witch. Magical influences caused by gods were another threat to the villagers. To restore peace between the victim and an offended god, a priestess had to be consulted, a woman, the future witch. "Anthem of protection O. CGT 2163 Limestone. Text on verso consisting of 10 lines. 20th Dynasty. Publication: J. Lopez, Ostraca Ieratici. N. 57001-57092. Catalogue of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, 2nd series. 3, fasc. 1. Milan, 1978, p. 18, pis. 5-5A. Short description of the content: By means of a hymn written by the scribe Pa-nefer (a common name during the New Kingdom, as such it is not possible to identify the exact character, especially as he wrote nothing else!), a person is offered (magical) protection during sleep. Translation: "Wake up! May your heart be glad with joy, (For) all evil is far from you! You can be quick as a living one, Who renews daily, Healthy by the million! Sleep well, while the gods protect you, Existing around you protection every day. No harm comes near you And the worm is punished by the great Ipet, Who protects you with life, stability and dominion, The bright one by day (and) by night. Magical practices of the villagers of Deir el Medina - Madalin Matica The earth is lit up for you... Your foot can step on any good road; Ordinary people say hello! Created by scribe Pa-nefer(?)...'\ Explanation: worm - some Egyptologists identify the animal as a personification of the serpent Apophis, the eternal rival of the sun god Re (A. G. McDowell), others opt for the notion of 'larva' or 'worm' (A. Egberts and C. Theis). in the text, the word in question is den, being determined by the sign of a wavy snake, bearing knife marks, thus indicating that we are dealing with an evil being! However, the presence of this semigraph urges me to discard the variants presented by Egberts and Theis! Moreover, although spelled differently, there is in the New Kingdom period the term deni, with the meaning 'to reject1, much more appropriate in trying to associate it with the serpent Apophis. The ophidian is an enemy of the Sun in the celestial vault as it crosses it at night and can be associated with a demon, which endangers a person's sleep! Ipet - a deity linked to the region of Thebes, where she was considered the mother of the god Osiris, as such in funerary texts she was associated with the afterlife." Ostraca: sources for studying the pharaonic universe - Miron Ciho So far, very few archaeological sites have found such economic documents or documents reflecting daily life that give us a clear picture of the life of workers in ancient Egyptian life. But fortunately, Deir el Medine gives us the gift of a substantial, well-preserved archive that is sure to hold pleasant surprises as archaeological work continues. Bibliography : STUDIES ON ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MAGIC , MIRON CIHO Tattooing in Ancient Egypt ,Anne AustinUniversity of Missouri, St. Louis PHARAOH'S WORKERS The Villagers of Deir el Medina- Edited by Leonard H. Lesko Observations based on a recent collection of Egyptian texts, in: AIIAI, XVI (1979) , MIRON CIHO Ostraca: sources for studying the pharaonic universe - Miron Ciho