El-Balyana
( Baliana ), 321½ miles from Cairo by rail, 354 by river, it is located about 6.8
miles ( 11 kilometers ) west of the Nile , it is a small town in the Sohag Governorate,
is the starting-point for the visit to Abydos, which is one of the most
interesting of Ancient Egyptian sites,
both because of its great traditions,
religious and historical, and because of the admirable artistic work of the
early 19th Dynasty, which is still to be seen in the two great
temples of Seti I and Ramses II, especially in the former of these, and that
the other and much more important claim which Abydos makes upon the student of
Egyptian history – its possession of the royal tombs of the earliest dynasties
– as it makes no appeal to the eye, gets no attention in the tourist programme
. It will be well, all the same, for the visitor to realize that the artistic
importance of Abydos, great though it may be, is entirely secondary to the
importance of the place as the resting-place of the great Pharaohs of the
earliest dynastic period, and the chief " holy city " of Egypt during
a considerable period of her history . The royal tombs of Abydos are so
entirely inconspicuous as to be dismissed by Karl Baedeker in six lines ; it
should be remembered that the discoveries made in them have done more for the
reconstruction of early dynastic history than any other work in Egypt .
Historical notes on Abydos
The kings of the first two Egyptian dynasties,
according to Manetho, belonged to the city of This or Thinis, a city which has
been identified with the village of El-Birba near Girga in the Sohag Governorate,
but which in all probability lay quite close to the site of Abydos, with which
it was in close connexion – Thinis, remaining the more important town from the
secular point of view, while Abydos gradually assumed supreme importance from
religious considerations . The earliest kings of Egypt of whom we have anything
like a real history to relate had their capital not at Abydos, but
Hieraconpolis, and later, at Memphis, they were buried at the old family
burying-place at Abydos or Thinis, and this practice of royal interment at
Abydos continued throughout the 1st and 2nd Dynasties,
only dying out when the practice of pyramid-building came into fashion with the
Pharaohs of the 3rd Dynasty and grew to its height with the 4th
Dynasty .
Thus there grew up, in a country so reverential of the
past and the great men of the past, a general feeling of reverence towards the
sacred spot where were the tombs of the earliest historic Pharaohs of the land
; and this feeling was gradually increased manifold by the development of a
great religious tradition, to which we shall have to refer shortly .
The site of the double city of Thinis and Abydos lies
close to the village of El-Araba el-Madfuna . Farthest away from the village to
the north-west lie the ruins of Thinis, and of the temenos of Osiris, surrounded by high walls of crude brick, and with the Sacred
Lake lying to the east . Behind these remains, towards the desert, lies the
Middle Kingdom portion of the great necropolis of Abydos, with the still
imposing remains of a great fortress of the earliest dynastic period, now known
as " Shunet el-Zebib ", a modern name which means " The Raisin
Magazine " . The walls of this most ancient fortress still stand to a
height of over 40 feet, while it measures about 400 feet by 200 feet . Not far
from it lies another early fortress, which is now used as a Coptic monastery .
Next in order, as we approach El-Araba el-Madfuna,
comes an Old Kingdom portion of the necropolis, with the temple of Ramses II
beyond it . South of this again lies the ruin which gives the place its reputation
with the tourist, the great temple of Seti I, with a New Empire cemetery in its
vicinity .
But the really important part of the ancient
necropolis lies to the south-west of Seti's temple, and between it and the
desert cliffs . Here are two low mounds of a reddish colour, mainly composed of
the broken fragments of votive pots placed upon the tombs of the early kings of
Egypt by pious devotees of later generations, for the purpose of associating themselves,
by a personal offering, with the worship of Osiris, the god of the dead and of
the resurrection, whom they believed to have been buried here . This is the
famous necropolis of the earliest dynastic Pharaohs of Egypt, historically
perhaps the most important site in Egypt .
" The situation ", says Flinders Petrie,
" is wild and silent ; close round it the hills rise high on two sides, a
ravine running up into the plateau from the corner where the lines meet . Far
away, and below us, stretches the long green valley of the Nile, beyond which
for dozens of miles the eastern cliffs recede into the dim distance " .
Here, in 1897, the Mission Émile Amélineau began the
excavations which resulted in the discovery of the royal tombs of the 1st
and 2nd Dynasties . M. Amélineau's belief that in the tomb of King Djer
( or Zer ), one of the earliest of the Pharaohs, specifically the 1st
Dynasty, he had found the actual tomb of Osiris, met with general disbelief,
though an attempt has been made recently to revive the idea . Finally he gave
up the excavations, which had been conducted in a somewhat slap-dash and
confused fashion ; though it should not be forgotten that he had really
accomplished an important piece of work in introducing the royal tombs to
general notice . His work was carried on by Sir Flinders Petrie, with results
of the highest importance as regards our knowledge of the earliest dynastic
culture of Egypt . The necropolis of Abydos has since been the subject of
excavations conducted by Dr. Édouard Naville and Professor Thomas Eric Peet .
While the results of excavation on this site have thus
been so considerable in themselves, and so significant in their bearing upon
the ancient civilization of Egypt, it must be admitted that the site offers no
attractions, save to those whose imagination can re-people its barren
desolation with the figures of an almost incredibly ancient past . Um el-Qa'âb
( Um el-Ga'ab ), its modern name means " Mother of Pots ", as it is
called from its extraordinary accumulation of broken pottery, is, from the
ordinary tourist's point of view, " not worth visiting " . The most
interesting royal tombs were those of Narmer, of Aha, of Zer, of Khasti, with
its floor of granite, and Khasekhemui ( the 5th and the last king of
the 2nd Dynasty ), whose central stone chamber is one of the very
oldest stone structures in the world ; but of all these nothing is now visible,
as they are all once more covered with debris .
From the early royal associations of Abydos we now
turn to its associations with early divinity, though it may possibly be that
the two were one in the beginning . So far as is known, the primitive deity of
Thinis and Abydos was the ancient jackal-god Wepwawet, or Upuat, who derived
his title of " The Opener of the Ways ", and his function as the
guide of the dead, from the jackal's nightly habit of prowling around the
cemeteries on the edge of the desert . Wepwawet had a primitive temple of
mud-brick on the site later known as the temenos of Osiris ; but he
was destined to comparatively early supersession by more important divinities .
With the rise of the 3rd Dynasty, and its
gradual development of different ideas, the vogue of Abydos as the royal
burying-place passed away ; but the existence of a royal tradition of burial,
so great and so ancient, secured the place, all the same, in public favour as
the chief seat of the cult of the gods of the dead . The place of Wepwawet was
now gradually taken by another god of the god, Khenti-Amentiu, " The First
of the Westerners ", who had a temple built for him at Abydos, with which Khufu
( usually known as Cheops, originally Khnum-Khufu ), the builder of the Great
Pyramid of Giza, must have been associated, as an ivory statuette of him was
found here . Khenti-Amentiu's supremacy, however, was not destined to last
long, for he was quickly superseded by a cult which was destined to prove itself
one of the two most important in Egyptian history, and which continued to
maintain itself throughout the whole Pharaonic period as the most
characteristic Egyptian worship .
This was the cult of Osiris, which originally was
associated with the Delta, and especially with the city of Tet, or Dadu, the
Busiris of the Greek nomenclature ( an ancient city in Lower Egypt located at
the present-day Abu Sir Bana ) . Originally a dreaded god, ruling over a
dreaded realm, he gradually sloughed off this sinister reputation, and became
the subject of the famous tradition which represented him as the first king of
Egypt, the instructor of his people in all the useful arts . It should seem
natural that the first king of Egypt should be associated with the place where
the kings of the two earliest dynasties were buried ; and thus the cult of
Osiris came to have a place at Abydos ; and as it grew in popularity he was
soon identified with Khenti-Amentiu, and, in the end, completely absorbed the
older god of the dead . Even as early as the time of the Pyramid Texts he has
taken over the title of " First of the Westerners " .
The Isis and Osiris Myth
Now, the Osiris myth declared that the beneficent king
had been murdered and dismembered, and various cities in Egypt laid claim to
the honour of having been the places where parts of the dead god's body had
been buried . Abydos was not behind-hand, and finally claimed to be the
burial-place of the head of Osiris . By what process the tomb of king Djer, one
of the 1st Dynasty Pharaohs, was selected as the burial-place of
this sacred relic is not known ; but at least as early as the 5th
Dynasty the claim was generally acknowledged, and Thinis became universally Abodu,
" The Mound of the Osiris-Head Emblem ", thus affording to the Greeks
a natural equivalent for their own familiar name of Abydos . By the time of the
6th Dynasty it was becoming the wish of every devout Egyptian to be
buried at Abydos as close as possible to the tomb of the great god of the
resurrection . If this was impossible, or if a tomb had already been prepared for
him, he endeavoured to secure that at least his body should make the pilgrimage
to Abydos after his death, so as to claim the sanctity which such a visit to
the abode of Osiris conferred . If even this was denied to him by
circumstances, the next best thing was to cause a memorial stele to be set up
in the necropolis of Abydos, so that the name of the dead should be kept always
near to the god . Finally, if none of these devices was available, it was
always possible to add another votive pot to the enormous mass which was
steadily accumulating on and about the royal tombs in the necropolis .
The Pharaohs themselves, though they no longer regarded
Abydos as the royal burying-place, gave their countenance to the popular vogue
which was rapidly making Abydos the most sacred spot in Egypt . Excavation has
shown that many of the Old Kingdom monarchs had a share in the development of
the great temple complex within the temenos of Osiris . Neferirkare,
of the 5th Dynasty, decreed that the priests of the place should be
exempt from the corvée ; and several kings
of the 6th Dynasty added buildings or adornments to the fabric
already existing ( Pepi I, Merenre, and Pepi II ) .
The height of sanctity to which Abydos had attained is
witnessed to by one of the most curious documents which have survived to us
concerning the troubled period between the Old and the Middle Kingdom, known as
the First Intermediate Period . The testament of King Khety III, of the 9th
Dynasty, or Heracleopolitan ( or Heracleopolis ) Dynasty, known as The Instruction ( Or Teaching ) for King Merikare, though only extant
in a papyrus of the 18th Dynasty ( Papyrus Hermitage in St. Petersburg,
1116A ), is plainly authentic . Among other matters it mentions a strife which
had arisen between the Heracleopolitan Pharaoh and the Prince of Thebes, Wah-ankh
Intef-o, about the possession of Thinis . In the course of the squabble the
royal tombs in the necropolis had been violated by the soldiers of Heracleopolis,
and though Khety III was guiltless, as he only heard of the impious deed after
it had happened, the pious Pharaoh takes all the guilt to himself, and his
concern and contrition are unbounded . He evidently regards all the misfortunes
which had befallen him as a judgment of God upon him for his unwitting transgression
. " Behold ", he says, " a calamity happened in my time : the
regions of Thinis were violated . It happened in sooth through that which I
did, and I [ only ] knew it after it was done . Take heed concerning it . A
blow is rewarded with the like thereof " . Later, referring to the same
sacrilege, he says : " A generation hath passed among men, and God, who
discerneth characters, hath hidden himself " . Stronger testimony to the
impression of sacredness which Abydos had made upon the Egyptian mind could
scarcely be given .
Intef of Thebes, who remained in possession of the
city as a result of the Heracleopolitan line, carried out large extensions of
the temple, and also dedicated another shrine to Anhuret, the local god, and
his example was imitated by the Mentuhotpes of the 11th Dynasty, who
followed him . A period of great prosperity dawned upon Abydos with the rise of
the 12th Dynasty . It's known ( e.g., in the tomb of Ameni at Beni
Hasan ) that in this period a voyage to Abydos was looked upon as a necessary
finish to the life of a great local magnate . Ameni made sure work by seeing to
it that his mummy made the pilgrimage both to Abydos, and to Dadu ( Busiris ),
the earlier Delta seat of the worship of Osiris . Senusret I built extensively
within the Osiris temenos, with corresponding
destruction of the work of his predecessors ; and we have an inscription of his
vizier and master of works, Mentuhotpe, who says : " I conducted the work in
the temple, built his house, and dug the [ sacred ] lake ; I masoned the well,
by command of the Majesty of Horus " . He also mentions that he built in
the temple with fine stone of Ayan, and that he built a sacred barque for
Osiris, and made offering-tables of lapis lazuli, bronze, electrum (
gold-silver alloy ), and silver, and, in short, furnished Osiris and his temple
with " the choicest of everything, which is given to a god at his
processions, by virtue of my office of master of secret things " .
In the reign of Amenemhet II, we meet with the
inscription of an official named Khentemsemeti, who was sent to inspect the
temples of the country, and managed to combine duty with attention to his
eternal interests by making a special visit to Abydos . " I drove in the
mooring-stake at Abydos ", he says . " I fixed my name at the place
where is the god Osiris, First of the Westerners, lord of Eternity, ruler of
the West, to which all that is flees, for the sake of the benefit therein, in
the midst of the followers of the Lord of Life, that I might eat his loaf, and
come forth by day " .
Senusret III, the most famous soldier of the Middle
Kingdom, had his pyramid at Dahshur ; but he resolved also to make a cenotaph
for himself at Abydos, where he hewed a great rock-tomb in which it is probable
that his body lay for a time before being interred in its pyramid . The two
officials whom he sent to Abydos to superintend the work, and also to adorn the
temple of Osiris with the gold which Senusret had captured in his Nubian campaign,
and with a new statue of the god, were Ikhernofret and Sisatet, who have
fortunately left us records of their proceedings . They travelled in company, but
each has described his own work independently . Sisatet confines himself to the
simple statement : " I came to Abydos, together with the chief treasurer
Ikhernofret, to carve a statue of Osiris, Lord of Abydos " . Ikhernofret,
however, is much more expansive . He was commissioned, he tells us, to go
up-river to Abydos, " to make monuments for my ( Senusret's ) father,
Osiris, First of the Westerners, to adorn his secret place with the gold which
he caused My Majesty to bring from Upper Nubia in victory and triumph ",
and he recounts with great gusto how he carried out his duties, and "
acted as [ Son-whom-he-loves ] for Osiris, First of the Westerners ", and
generally taught their business to the priests of Abydos, who must have thought
him an unmitigated nuisance . The great event of his visit, however, was the
performance of the local passion-play, which depicted the conflict of the god
with his enemies, and his final triumph . In this play, which included a mock
battle between the champions of the god and those of his foes, Ikhernofret took
part with unbounded enthusiasm, being mightily uplifted, doubtless, by the
thought that he was actually representing " The Good God " [ Pharaoh
], at one of the supreme religious functions of one of the greatest of " The
Great Gods " . His description of the various incidents of the
passion-play is one of the most valuable documents for the study of Osirianism
. The remaining kings of the 12th Dynasty continued to favour Abydos
.
During the confusion and strife of the Second
Intermediate Period, however, the holy city must have fallen upon evil times,
for we find that the usurping Pharaoh Neferhotpe was obliged to make a complete
restoration of statues, ceremonies, and all the details of the worship of
Osiris, which he did with all the zeal of one who was himself the son of a
priest . He was extremely conservative in his restorations, and did nothing without
having warrant for it in " the rolls of the House of Osiris, First of the
Westerners, Lord of Abydos " . The Pharaoh honoured Abydos by coming
himself to the city and taking part personally in the Osiris passion-play . How
ineffectual his measures had been to hinder the decay which was affecting
everything in Egypt we learn from a document of the reign of another usurping
Pharaoh, Khenzer ( sometimes called Nezerra ), in which the priest Ameni-sonp
tells us how he was entrusted with the duty of cleaning up and restoring things
at Abydos, and was rewarded for his work with the hindquarters of an ox and the
permanent post of inspector of the temple .
Abydos naturally shared in the prosperity which came
to the land with the expulsion of the Hyksos and the subsequent expansion of
Egypt . Almost every Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty has left evidence
at the place of his interest in the shrine of the god whose cult was now one of
the two great faith of the country . Amen-Re, of course, was getting the lion's
share of the good things, as being the city god of Thebes ; but Osiris
continued to attract a considerable amount of attention and devotion to his
shrine . Tuthmosis III, in particular, did a great amount, both of new work and
of restoration at the place, and Tuthmosis IV endowed the temple with large
estates, and arranged for a regular supply of sacrificial animals and birds for
its altars .
But it was with the rise of the 19th
Dynasty that Abydos reached its apogee in respect of power and wealth . Ramses
I, Seti I and Ramses II all devoted themselves diligently to the honour of
Osiris in his great sanctuary, and we shall see directly how splendid were the
contributions which Seti and his son Ramses II, in particular, made to the
glories of the holy city . In fact, from this time onwards one aspect of
Egyptian religion is completely dominated by the Osiris tradition, and that
aspect is the one which has appealed to the world in general as being the most
characteristically Egyptian thing in the whole body of Egyptian doctrine .
Wepwawet and Khenti-Amentiu, Unnofre, and all other gods of the dead and of the
underworld have now become either identified with Osiris or are his humble
dependants . And from this time to the end of Egyptian religion as a living
faith the god's supremacy is so unquestioned that it has become the custom to
identify every dead person with him, and to talk of " The Osiris Blank
", just as we would talk of " The late So-and-So " .
The decline of Egypt naturally brought decline to the
scale of the royal gifts to the temple of Osiris, as to all other temples in
the land, though Ramses III did a good deal for the place . In the reign of
Ahmose II of the 26th Dynasty the local court had evidently been
embezzling the property of the temple, and the Pharaoh sent up his own chief
physician ( who would also be a priest ) to put things straight . The worthy
doctor, whose name is Pefnefdineit, has told us in the inscription on his
statue, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, how he carried out his commission,
and confiscated the property of the offending local baron, " for Osiris
desired that his city should be equipped " . Pefnefdineit wound up his
proceedings by taking part in the passion-play as Ikhernofret had done thirteen
centuries before him .
With the record of Pefnefdineit the glory of Abydos
may almost be said to fade completely, though the Pharaohs Nectanebis I and II
did some building there . The worship of Osiris sought other seats, and was
established under the Ptolemys and the Romans at Philae . Decay and ruin fell
upon the once splendid sanctuaries of the most sacred city of the land, and the
sacrilegious hand of the tomb-robber was no longer held back even from the
unspeakably sacred royal tombs in their lonely nook of the hills . Finally in Roman
days the once supreme god fell to the humiliating position of being merely the husband
of Isis, whose popularity had completely submerged his ; and his last
transformation was but a repetition of his first appearance in Egyptian
religion . Having begun there as a dangerous and dreaded god, he ended as a
hostile demon .
It is this confusion of names and forms that makes the
study of Osiris so difficult, and I have endeavoured to point out only a few of
his many manifestations .
-
Osiris as a Sun-god .
-
Osiris as a Moon-god .
-
Osiris as a god of vegetation .
-
Osiris as god of the Nile .
-
Osiris as god and judge of the Dead .
-
Osiris as god of the Sacrifices .
-
Osiris in the Sed-festival ( also known
as Heb Sed or Feast of the Tail ) .
Part ( 2 ) .. Coming SoOoOon .....
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