Votive offerings
From the detailed analysis of Egyptian sources, combined with general observation of contemporary and ancient religious practice, a leading scholar has concluded that individuals visiting a shrine or temple engage in three types of activity: ‘prayer, sacrifice, and the dedication of votive offerings’ (Pinch 1993:333). For the Early Dynastic period, there is a complete absence of textual information or elaborate depictions of religious activity; we therefore remain ignorant about the first two categories of private activity, prayer and sacrifice (but, as we have seen, there is limited evidence for human sacrifice at ritual occasions attended by the king). We are slightly better off when it comes to the dedication of votive offerings since, at several sites, the objects themselves have survived. It is likely that visitors to shrines would have routinely brought with them simple offerings of perishable commodities, especially foodstuffs. On certain (perhaps rare?) occasions, however, a visitor would demonstrate particular piety—and/or concern—by donating an object made specifically for this purpose. In the Early Dynastic period, as in later times, these votive offerings were most often made of glazed composition, although stone and pottery examples are known.
Four sites have yielded large numbers of votive objects which, by their style or archaeological context, can be dated to the Early Dynastic period: Abydos, Hierakonpolis, Elephantine and Tell Ibrahim Awad (see below, under individual site headings, for further information about the archaeology of these early shrines). In addition, a fifth, unprovenanced deposit of early votive material was unearthed by illicit digging in the 1940s or 1950s; it is quite possible that this deposit, too, came from Abydos, although other sites, such as Naqada, have also been proposed (Kemp 1989:79). The date of the material from the first two sites, Abydos and Hierakonpolis, is still the subject of some controversy (Kemp 1968:153). In particular, the excavation of the Hierakonpolis ‘Main Deposit’ was carried out without detailed recording, so that the precise archaeological context of the finds cannot now be established (B.Adams 1977). By, contrast, the Satet temple at Elephantine and the shrine at Tell Ibrahim Awad have both been excavated in modern times, providing reliable stratigraphic evidence for the date of the votive material (Dreyer 1986; van Haarlem 1995, 1996). This in turn provides an important reference point against which to date comparable objects from Abydos and Hierakonpolis. Hence, although some questions remain, an Early Dynastic date for most of the material can be accepted with some confidence.
In its general character, the votive material from the four sites is substantially similar. Most of the objects are made of glazed composition and depict animal or human figures. Natural pebbles and flint nodules, many in suggestive shapes, also occur (Petrie 1902: pl. IX.195–6), whilst stone and ivory figurines are also represented at all four sites. However, within this broad homogeneity, a few notable distinctions emerge which may be attributable to local customs or preferences. Hence, a distinctive feature of the votive material from Hierakonpolis is the frequency of scorpions and scorpion tails, modelled in faience or stone (Kemp 1989:75). Two stone vases, also from the ‘Main Deposit’, were decorated with scorpions in raised relief (Quibell 1900: pls XVII, XXXIII top left, pls XIX.l, XX.l). By contrast, scorpion figurines were not found at Abydos or Elephantine and have not been reported from Tell Ibrahim Awad. It is tempting to make a connection with the late Predynastic king whose ceremonial macehead was found in the same deposit at Hierakonpolis and whose name is read as ‘Scorpion’. However, it is perhaps safer to
attribute the preponderance of scorpion images at Hierakonpolis to an aspect of the local cult. This particular local allegiance may have been acknowledged in the name chosen by a local ruler. At Elephantine, a common type of votive offering is a small, oval, faience plaque, with the head of an animal (apparently a hedgehog) modelled at one end (Kemp 1989:73, fig. 24.1). Forty-one examples of this strange object were recovered from the Satet shrine, but the type is not attested at Abydos or Hierakonpolis (although an object from Abydos described as a ‘rough mud doll’ may be a crude hedgehog plaque [Petrie 1902:28, pl. XII.264]). Recent excavations at Tell Ibrahim Awad have yielded a few examples of ‘hedgehog plaques’, but not in the numbers in which they occur at Elephantine. They may therefore represent a local tradition of worship (although the original purpose of these enigmatic objects is lost in the mists of time). The votive material from the early shrines at Hierakonpolis and Elephantine thus hints at local or regional traditions of belief. This is an aspect of Egyptian culture which is difficult to establish in the face of the overwhelming evidence from a court-inspired ‘great tradition’. None the less, it appears to be an important feature of early civilisation in the Nile valley, manifest in other classes of small object such as stamp-seals and also in the architecture of local shrines (Kemp 1989:65–83, 89–91).
Of course, ‘a votive offering is not simply an artefact, it is the surviving part of an act of worship’ (Pinch 1993:339). Rituals were probably performed ‘to link a votive object with its donor’; and the actual presentation of an offering was, no doubt, accompanied by prayers and perhaps other acts of which no traces have survived. Little is known for certain about who made votive offerings and how they were acquired by donors (Pinch 1993:326–8). It is dangerous to try and deduce the social status of donors from the quality (or lack of it) of their votive offerings (Pinch 1993:344). None the less, a key question about shrines and temples at all periods of Egyptian history is the degree of access enjoyed by members of the general population. From the earliest times, state temples are likely to have been off limits to all but temple personnel, the king and his closest officials. Already in the temple enclosure at Hierakonpolis, constructed in the Second or Third Dynasty, we see the architecture of restricted access (see below). To what extent smaller shrines were accessible to members of a local community remains a moot point. Votive offerings are a potentially useful source of information, if it could be established where they were made and what type of person dedicated them. Unfortunately, these questions are difficult to resolve. There is no doubt that royal workshops producing high- quality craft items existed in Egypt from Predynastic times. However, the marked separation between state and private religion, discussed below, makes it unlikely that the small votive offerings found at sites like Elephantine and Tell Ibrahim Awad (both remote from the centres of Early Dynastic political power) were manufactured in royal workshops. Rather, they were probably produced by skilled craftsmen, either working for their own benefit or attached to the local shrine. How they would have been purchased by donors, operating within a barter economy, is difficult to envisage (Pinch 1993:328). The votive objects from Abydos, Hierakonpolis and Tell Ibrahim Awad were all found in deposits, representing accumulations of material gathered up and buried at periodic intervals long after it was initially dedicated. Only at Elephantine were votive offerings found in situ, on the floor of the Satet shrine. Whether the donors themselves were able to penetrate the inner rooms of the shrine, or whether the offerings were carried there by priests, cannot be established. Evidence from the New Kingdom would favour the latter
interpretation, but the situation may well have been different in the Early Dynastic period. To summarise, for the early dynasties many questions about the donation of votive offerings—and about private religious observance in general—must remain unanswered. We cannot be certain, but it is tempting to suggest that Early Dynastic local shrines were used by all members of a community, from the head-man down to the lowliest peasant.
State versus local religion
As for Egyptian religion of later periods, so cult of the Early Dynastic period must be divided into two categories: state and local. Not until the end of the Old Kingdom were local temples systematically ‘appropriated’ by the state, to be rebuilt and decorated in the formal style of the court as a way, no doubt, of binding the provinces more securely to the king and his government (cf. Kemp 1989:65–83). Throughout the Early Dynastic period it seems that the religious
concerns of the court on the one hand and local communities on the other were entirely separate, and occasionally opposed. Local shrines served local communities, acting as foci for personal piety and probably for acts of collective worship at times of joy or trial. The character of community worship makes it likely that local shrines would have been accessible to the general public, at least as far as the forecourt. By contrast, temples built by and for the state were characterised by their exclusivity. This was emphasised in the architecture, a high enclosure wall restricting access to the temple in its entirety. A clear example of this is the rectangular enclosure- wall built around the temple of Horus at Hierakonpolis. In form it is similar to royal funerary enclosures of the Early Dynastic period, and its construction—effectively rendering the temple ‘off limits’ to the local population—may be connected with the programme of royal building work undertaken at Hierakonpolis by Khasekhem(wy). Whilst local cult activity was by its nature inclusive, state religion (in which royal cult played a large part) relied upon being exclusive (cf. Baines 1991:104).
Personnel
Little is known for certain about the personnel involved in Early Dynastic religion, national or local. Specific, if obscure, titles such as s(t)m and sm3 are attested from the First Dynasty (Petrie 1901: pl. X.2; Emery 1958:31).
The leopard-skin garment worn by the s(t)m-priest has led one scholar to speculate that this figure was originally a shaman, practising more intuitive, magical rites, before the institutionalisation of a more ‘ordered’ religion at the beginning of the First Dynasty (Helck 1984d). There may also have been a connection between the s(t)m-priest and the goddess Seshat, who is often depicted wearing the same leopard-skin garment (Wainwright 1941:37). In later periods, the s(t)m-priest officiated at funerals, particularly in the ‘opening of the mouth’ ceremony (for example, Reeves 1990:72–3). This connection, together with the high status of the title s(t)m in the Early Dynastic period, has led to the suggestion that the holder of the office was the king’s eldest son and heir, second only in rank and authority to the monarch himself (Schmitz 1984:834). Indeed, as the person responsible for intimate royal rituals, the s(t)m would very likely have been a close member of the royal family.
A specialist class of funerary priest, zh nw-3h , is also attested from the early First Dynasty (Petrie 1900: pl. XVI.119, 1901: pl. XV.111; Emery 1954:170, fig. 229), responsible for maintaining the mortuary cult of the king (and perhaps also of those of senior members of the royal family). The more general designation for priest, hm-n r, first occurs in the reign of Qaa at the end of the First Dynasty (Emery 1958:31, pl. 37.9). During the Second Dynasty we meet for the first time the title h rỉ-hbt, ‘lector-priest’ (Amélineau 1902:144, pl. XXII.8; Lacau and Lauer 1959: pl. 14 no. 70). This in turn implies the formulation of theological texts and a role for the written and spoken word in cult practice. In general, however, the role of myth and dogma in early Egyptian religion was probably restricted, ritual being of primary importance in cult celebration. It has been argued that, prior to the Second Dynasty, the s(t)m-priest acted as keeper of ritual texts, but that this role was taken over by the newly created position of ‘lector-priest’ (Helck 1984d: 106).
Specialised priesthoods serving the major state cults seem to have emerged at the end of the Second and during the Third Dynasties. The title wr-m3(w), literally ‘greatest of seers’, held in later periods by the High Priest of Ra at Heliopolis but perhaps originally a title relating to astronomical observation, is first attested in the reign of Khasekhemwy (Amélineau 1902:144, pl. XXII.8); it was subsequently held by Imhotep, chancellor at the court of Netjerikhet. The title held by the High Priest of Horus of Letopolis, wnr, first appears at the end of the Third Dynasty (Goedicke 1966), as does the office of h rp pr- wr, ‘controller of the Perwer (the national shrine of Upper Egypt)’ (Weill 1908:262–73).
A professional priesthood serving local cults is not attested until the Fifth Dynasty (Hornung 1983:226). However, there is evidence from the Early Dynastic period for the (part-time) priests of local cults holding important positions within their communities (Seidlmayer 1996b: 118). Thus, an individual named Nmtỉ-htp, owner of a large, richly furnished stairway tomb of the late Third Dynasty at Qau (Brunton 1927: pl. 18), is identified as a priest, presumably of the local cult (Seidlmayer 1996b: 118). Temples played an important role in local and national economies from an early period, and it is likely that temple personnel benefited materially, as well as in prestige, from an involvement with the local cult.
Royal cult
The ivory comb of Djet ‘presents concisely and clearly the central tenet binding together ancient Egyptian civilisation, the notion that the king fulfils a role on earth under the protective wings of the celestial falcon in heaven’ (Quirke 1992:21–2). The primary role of the king was as arbiter between the gods and the people of Egypt. In return for daily offerings and the celebration of their cult on earth, the gods looked favourably on Egypt and bestowed on the country their divine blessings. The channel of communication in this two-way process was the king. In theory, therefore, the king was the ultimate high priest in every temple in the land: ‘all cult in Egypt was royal cult’ (Quirke 1992:81). Implicitly, all temples were monuments to the king as well as cult centres for the deities to whom they were explicitly dedicated (Quirke 1992:81; cf. Fairman 1958:76). In discussing royal cult, therefore, a distinction must be made between the cults of deities which were in theory maintained by the king, and worship of the king himself as intermediary between the divine and human realms. The worship of the various gods and
goddesses is discussed below. The following discussion focuses on the cult of the king himself.
Royal cult statues
Several depictions of royal statues are known from Early Dynastic sources, indicating that the royal cult was celebrated, at least in part, by means of statuary (Figure 8.4). The earliest certain example dates to the reign of Den (Eaton-Krauss 1984:89). A seal- impression from Abydos shows three royal figures, each of which stands on a base-line (Kaplony 1963, III: pl. 93, fig. 364; F.D.Friedman 1995:33, fig. 19b). The accompanying hieroglyphs describe the statues as being made of gold. The manufacture of royal statues from metal is also attested in the late Second Dynasty (see below). On the Den sealing, the first figure wears the white crown and beard, holds a staff and mace, and is in a striding posture. The second figure wears the red crown and beard, and stands in a papyrus skiff in the act of harpooning a hippopotamus. It may be compared with two gilded statuettes from the tomb of Tutankhamun; these show the king in a similar posture of harpooning, although the object of the hunt (the hippopotamus) is not shown (Eaton- Krauss 1984:90). The third figure on the Den sealing shows the king wearing the red crown and šndỉt-kilt, in the unparalleled posture of wrestling with a hippopotamus. A link has been made between these last two representations and the entry for the reign of Den on the Palermo Stone which records a hippopotamus hunt. A further seal-impression of Den, from the tomb of Hemaka at Saqqara, may also show statues of the king (Emery 1938:64, fig. 26). Two royal figures are shown in striding or running posture, one wearing the red crown and one the white crown. A ground-line beneath the figures— which does not continue under the animals shown between them—suggests that they are to be interpreted as statues, since human figures on Early Dynastic sealings do not usually stand on a ground-line (Eaton-Krauss 1984:91). Comparable statues of the king in a striding or running posture are shown in the workshop scenes in the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb of Rekhmira (Davies 1943: pls 36, 37; F.D.Friedman 1995:33, fig. 19e). A seal- impression from the tomb of Djer may show a similar striding statue (Petrie 1901: pl. V.17), but the rudimentary publication of the sealing makes a certain identification impossible (Eaton-Krauss 1984:92, n. 484). If proven, the sealing would be the earliest representation of a royal statue, antedating the seal-impressions of Den by two generations.
Six incised stone vessels of Anedjib depict royal statues. Three of these, from Saqqara, bear identical insc
riptions, showing a striding figure wearing the red crown, beard and kilt, holding a mace and the mks-staff. An inscription from Abydos differs only in that the king wears the white crown. A locality is named in association with the figures, and this probably indicates the cult place where the royal statues were kept. The stone vessels are likely to have belonged to the ritual equipment attached to the royal statue cult (Eaton- Krauss 1984:93). A rough and partially preserved inscription of Anedjib’s reign occurs on a stone vessel fragment from the Step Pyramid complex. It shows a striding figure in the act of harpooning. The head is lost, but, given the parallels from the preceding reign, it almost certainly showed the king (Eaton-Krauss 1984:94).
The fashioning or dedication of another royal statue is recorded in a well-known entry on the Palermo Stone. The statue depicted the last king of the Second Dynasty and was
called q3-H -sh mwỉ, ‘high is Khasekhemwy’. The inscription states that it was made of copper; it may be compared with the life-size copper statue of Pepi I, found in the temple at Hierakonpolis (Quibell and Green 1902: pls L-LII; Sethe 1914). Some doubt surrounds the identification of the reign in which the statue of Khasekhemwy was commissioned. Some scholars favour Khasekhemwy’s successor (for example, Kaiser 1961), but it seems more likely that Khasekhemwy himself had the statue made (W.S.Smith 1971:147). The royal statues attested from the reigns of Den and Anedjib are examples of kings commissioning statues for their own cults. The creation of large-scale metal sculptures illustrates the technological sophistication of Early Dynastic craftsmen.
Early Dynastic Egypt Page 38