Text of the Inaugural Lecture given by Prof John Tait on 11 January 1996
Ancient Egypt in Context: Comparison and Contrariness
I should like to begin at the end of my title, with the idea of contrariness, and work
backwards towards the beginning of it.
Herodotus of Halikarnassos was a Greek from the south-west coast of
Anatolia /or, if you prefer, Asia Minor /or, if you prefer, Turkey, who wrote towards
the end of the fifth century Before the Common Era his History, exploring the causes
and charting the course of the struggle between Greece and Persia early in the
same century. As Cambyses' invasion of Egypt towards the end of the sixth century
had formed a rather crucial stage in the spread of Persian power, Herodotus' second
book is largely devoted to the geography and to the curiosities of Egypt.
The classical world in general esteemed Egypt above all for the antiquity of its
well-documented civilisation, for the unchanging character of its culture, and for the
orderly fashion in which its wisdom -- especially its medicine and its magic -- were
recorded. Sadly, we today can hardly concur in this view. Dynastic Egyptian
chronology has long ceased to be a beacon and has become something of an
embarrassment in the study of the ancient world, and more recent expectations that
all of bronze-age chronology would be very satisfactorily sorted out by the end of the
present millennium are beginning to look a little
optimistic. Change in Egyptian
culture now seems more striking than any immutability. Modern study of Egyptian
scientific literature, such as medical texts, has thrown up numerous problems in
trying to understand how the Egyptians organized and categorized their material,
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and for what purposes they committed it to writing. Of course, the classical world
also admired the standing monuments of Egypt, and acquired a taste for picturesque
nilotica.
Herodotus in his History affects to find the Nile valley perverse. He begins by
puzzling over the Nile's practice of flooding in Summer rather than in Winter. A little
later, he continues: `The Egyptians, besides having a climate peculiar to themselves,
and a river differing in its character from all other rivers, have adopted manners and
customs in almost every respect the reverse of those of the rest of mankind.
Amongst them the women attend the markets and deal with trade, but the men stay
at home and weave. Other nations, in weaving, firm the wool upwards; the
Egyptians, downwards....' Herodotus provides a considerable list of Egyptian
perversities, and it is an odd mixture of the true and the false, the trivial and the
shrewd; some of it is frankly humorous, and it is difficult to think that Herodotus
believed he was offering in this passage any very profound analysis. Some things
the classical world found unforgivably bizarre, such as animal-headed and animal
gods, and the cults of sacred animals. Mummification did not always go down well,
either.
In modern times, it has not been uncommon to see ancient Egypt as a
different and even grotesque culture. Egypt does have its oddities, which still
surprise, however familiar they have become. The sharp divide between desert and
cultivation has not changed since antiquity. The mechanics of traditional basin
irrigation in the Nile valley, and its lack of marginal land, were (and are) only partly
paralleled elsewhere. As far as I am aware, early Roman-period Egypt (the first two
centuries of the Common Era) remains the only certainly documented case of a
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society in which full brother-sister marriage was common and openly accepted
among people who were very far from the ruling elite. I have pursued for several
years the topic of gambling in ancient Egypt, an activity that has every appearance
of not having happened, although it is hardly credible that this could actually have
been the case.
Was ancient Egypt a society set apart from the rest of the ancient world? If
this question is understood in a trivial sense as asking if Egypt was a country
physically cut off from the outside world, then I hardly need to say that this was not
significantly the case. Egypt does not lie wide open to armed attack; however, if it
has been the scene of a fair number of ancient and modern military and naval
disasters, these have not always been to the disadvantage of the invader. Land
trade routes, particularly those down into Africa, are probably one of the longestlived and most permanent features of Egypt. Egypt in the dynastic period
accommodated, or to varying degrees absorbed, more foreign groups, large and
small, than I can conveniently list here.
We can try to judge if Egyptian society and culture were radically different
from others only by a process of comparison, and comparisons can be made only if
we see things in their right context. Comparative work is always difficult, as even its
most fervent proponents would admit, while some, of course, believe it to be
downright pernicious. Comparisons come in a variety of types. Mechanically to list
the various forms that, let us say, funerary practices take in an assortment of
cultures without further analysis is hardly comparison. A mild (and I think normally
harmless) form of comparative work is to search through other cultures to see if
some parallel there may not suggest the solution to a particular problem. I myself
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have been troubled by the scarcity of clear evidence for the oral performance of
texts or documents of any kind in ancient Egypt. It has proved useful to me to
explore the oral traditions of Africa and of India and of further afield to try to obtain
some idea of the range of possible activities that could be looked for. We should
draw a distinction between an approach that finds inspiration in examining the selfpresentation of a variety of modern despots and dictators in trying to understand the
activities of some eighteenth dynasty Egyptian kings, and an approach that explores
parallels between aspects of kingship in African kingdoms and in Egypt and Nubia.
Incest, already mentioned, in Roman Egypt is only quite so interesting if it is
really unparalleled elsewhere. Granted that this is the case, then we need some very
special explanations, and it will not suffice merely to say, for example, that it had
economic advantages for the kinship group.
The royal family of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, after a couple of
generations, contracted incestuous marriages with enthusiasm. To mention only full
brother-sister marriages, in under three centuries there were eight such marriages,
involving seven male Ptolemies, and four of these marriages unquestionably
produced children.
Turning to humbler households, for the Roman period, there survives a
wealth of documentation on papyrus, chiefly in Greek. Among these are house-tohouse censuses, carried out every 14 years, which require the parents (and later the
grandparents) of each individual to be stated. From the information in these
documents, and from that in a number of other kinds of document, it is clear that
marriages of full brothers and sisters were fairly common among people of no very
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high status. For the preceding ptolemaic period, we cannot detect such marriages,
and it is perhaps likely that they were at least not so common, but the documentary
evidence is not of a kind to reveal them. The situation is at present similarly opaque
for the pharaonic period, despite confident statements sometimes made on either
side of the question. It must surely be possible to make some progress on this point.
In the case of gambling in ancient Egypt, comparison suggests that it is most
unlikely that playing for stakes could have been entirely unknown -- or, at any rate,
some very strong reason would have to be found for its complete absence from
Egyptian society. Gambling has been a very popular topic in anthropological work,
and there is a very large literature covering all the world's continents. There are
sufficient examples of societies in which gambling, although common, is so strictly
circumscribed that it presents no social problems, and is unremarkable, even if not
invisible. I have cautiously suggested that this might be the case in ancient Egypt,
although there is still work to do to show quite how this might fit in with our view of
Egyptian society, and of the way in which Egyptians present themselves, and of
Egyptian concepts of fate and chance.
Ancient Egypt is undoubtedly popular. However, often even today, as in the
ancient world, Egypt can be admired for misconceived reasons: for its technological
pre-eminence and general spirit of innovation; for the power of its religion to touch all
levels of the population; for the humanity and civilised quality of its society. In fact,
Egyptian technology may be justly admired in several ways, but not often for its
original ideas. Egyptian society will bear endless re-investigation, but the Egyptians
were certainly not always such thoroughly decent, well-behaved people as their love
of cats and other pets might suggest. Are there any peculiarities of ancient Egypt
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that help to justify its academic study? Its language, ancient Egyptian, is attested in
written form for about four thousand years, from the beginnings of the Egyptian state
to the demise of Coptic, only some five hundred years ago; written literature in the
various stages of the Egyptian language must have a longer history -- three and a
half thousand years -- than any other. The archaeological record of human activity in
the Nile Valley and surrounding areas is an exceptional one, if we consider the
combination of its chronological length, its variety, and its sheer copiousness. The
Egyptian climate in the historical period still places Egypt -- at any rate, the dry areas
-- in an enviable position for the survival of organic material. Although no one
nowadays would excavate Egyptian desert-edge tombs with no defined object in
view -- just because they were there and well preserved -- there are signs that
anthropologists are turning their attention again to Egyptian funerary evidence,
because the evidence is so rich, after years of ignoring it as being too peculiar.
One of my own chief interests lies in trying to understand the structure and
working of Egyptian society. The present is a time when the need is apparent to
rethink our work in this area. At the beginnings of modern Egyptology, by which I
mean from the earlier nineteenth century onwards, it was supposed that tomb and
temple scenes and texts between them would tell us facts about ancient Egypt.
Books were written on the manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians.
Documents and records were collected and translated. Distrust of such sources (a
distrust which I heartily share) has steadily increased in recent decades. It is now
usual to reckon that supposed scenes of daily life in Egyptian tombs do not even
merely depict an outmoded or idealized world: rather, they hardly depict anything at
all, but are a construct of symbols of rebirth, to be read in a variety of ways. Royal
pronouncements on temple or stela are not even merely lying: they are not making
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statements at all, but rather giving expression to a myth of the role of the king. I
myself would happily pursue the idea that many Egyptian documentary texts can be
seen to have more to do with status and ritual than any practical purpose.
(It would of course be quite a trivial matter to point out that we must make
sure we do not throw away facts in the enthusiasm of this approach. It is possible
that Thutmosis III did bring back 2,503 prisoners from his siege of Megiddo, as he
states on the walls of the Karnak Temple. At any rate, the figure will bear discussion,
as will a great deal else that is stated in public documents. Also, of course,
statements are none the less interesting or significant or revealing for being merely
untrue.)
There has grown up an orthodox view that all our more traditional sources are
myth and self-presentation. There is also an orthodoxy that Egyptian society from
top to bottom shared a common view of its culture. The two orthodoxies, although in
theory compatible, in practice do not fit very well together. If our sources are
conspiring to convey only one view of Egyptian society, and a partial view, what of
the other views -- and the vistas -- that are concealed from us?
Approaches to Egyptian religion some ten years ago seemed to have swung
very far from any naive attempt to lay bare the beliefs of the Egyptians. Egyptian
religious texts might still be seen as a self-contained thought-world, of interest to a
narrow priestly circle, but Egyptian religion was seen as a structure designed to
uphold the kingship, and the kingship as a mechanism of mediation between gods
and men, whereby chaos was averted, and the proper ordering of the created world
was maintained. The question remains as pertinent as it ever did: what did the lower
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levels of Egyptian society think of this system, and how aware of it were they? It is
still very tempting to speculate that there were some deep-seated aspects of
Egyptian religion that were more permanent than the pharaonic state myth. The old
and rather dubious topic of personal piety has been able to return in a new guise.
The archaeology of settlement sites has a great deal to offer in this area. It is also
valuable to consider what happened to institutions and practices as the pharaonic
system of religion collapsed during the Roman period, and as Christianity eventually
became established in Egypt. The tracing of continuities of this kind is a delicate job;
but there is no shortage of comparative material.
On Egyptian art I cannot say much today, beyond remarking that what
evidence we have, or have noticed, from the dynastic period does show a
remarkable uniformity, most obviously in methods of representation. Ostraca are
sometimes cited as showing a less "official" form of art, but these are, of course,
artists' sketches or doodles, and their deviation is slight. It is an exciting but rather
daunting task to try to trace non-standard art in Egypt.
The Egyptian language itself presents many problems and opportunities. The
resort to language and language change as evidence for cultural change has not
enjoyed a very happy history, and Egyptian has been as unfortunate as any
language. This kind of work can be valuable, but the evidence needs very careful
handling. It is not so long ago that it was common to argue -- as Hermann Kees did - that the Egyptian language as we know it from the earliest dynasties was a recent
mixture of African and Semitic elements -- which could support speculation on the
composition of the Egyptian population in the later neolithic. One of the few things
on this topic that I myself would not hesitate to say is that the idea of a mixed
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language in the manner envisaged is quite misconceived, and that the Egyptian
language cannot tell us anything of this kind about the Egyptian population over the
relatively short time-span that these arguments require.
In any case, recent scepticism has extended to the Egyptian language. What
we have in written form is in many ways an "official" language, which may be
artificial in various respects, and manipulated by central authority. This applies to the
earliest continuous written Egyptian in the archaic period, to the "classical" stage of
the language, Middle Egyptian, which remained in use as a classical language for
about two thousand years. The demotic stage of the language, which emerges in
written form in the demotic script in the Saite period, was only a minor modification
of the official report language of the later New Kingdom, and must have been
radically different from any spoken language. Even in Coptic, the two dialects that in
turn served as the official language of the Coptic Church have been suggested to be
precisely official languages, with no real regional basis. Thus the written languages
of Egypt may be archaic; they may be removed from actual speech; they also largely
conceal regional variations; they may even conceal what language people actually
spoke. The problems of the various languages in use in Greco-roman Egypt and of
literacy in them is a flourishing topic. However, we are not so well informed about
languages other than Egyptian in pharaonic Egypt. I am not sure that we know what
language or languages were spoken at Elephantine down at the First Cataract, the
southern boundary of Egypt proper, in the Archaic and early dynastic period. The
true linguistic map of the Delta in the Late Period would probably startle us if we had
the necessary information.
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Egyptian literature of the pharaonic period is a rich field of study, which has
undergone something of a transformation in recent years, the key feature of which is
a welcome turn to the investigation of the texts as literature in their social context,
rather than as sources or curiosities. There are many problems concerning the
nature of literary traditions, interconnections with the literatures of other countries,
the extent to which literature is tied to the interests of the elite, and the relationship
of written literature to oral. The scope for comparative work is enormous. As Demotic
literature is the area upon which I myself have done most work, I will now try to
sketch this area at a little greater length.
The demotic script (a highly cursive adaptation of Hieratic) was first
developed in the seventh century Before the Common Era for the writing of legal
contracts and other documentary material. At some point before the late fourth
century Before the Common Era (exactly when remains to be determined), it came
to be employed for the recording of literature.
By the early Roman period, from which the greatest quantity of demotic
literary papyri survives, the literature comprised a wide variety of texts. The two most
strongly represented genres are stories (that is, fictional narratives) and wisdom
literature. However, the range of texts also includes prophecy and satire, and
religious, astrological, medical, and magical texts. New kinds of material
undoubtedly still await discovery, as museum collections of papyri around the world
have only partly been explored. Even the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology,
here in UCL, contains narrative pieces that have not yet been fully edited.
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Narratives are attested in our earliest substantial group of demotic literary
material, which was found in excavations at North Saqqâra. These excavations were
begun by the fourth Edwards Professor here at UCL, Professor Emery, and
continued by his successors, Professor Harry Smith and Professor Geoffrey Martin. I
myself have played a modest role in several seasons' work at the site. Many of the
demotic literary papyri probably date from the fourth century Before the Common
Era. From the middle of the Ptolemaic period, about a hundred years later, there
survives just the beginning of a narrative in which king Amasis seeks distraction from
a hangover by demanding to be told a story. The surviving copies of most texts,
however, belong to the first century Before the Common Era and the first two
centuries of the Common Era. Demotic stories are always expressed in prose. They
sometimes form cycles of stories which deal with the exploits of the same character
or group of characters. One such cycle concerns Setna Kha`emwese, a son of the
New Kingdom king Ramesses II. These Setna Stories all seem closely similar in
their contents. Setna is fascinated by magical texts and by the funerary monuments
of the past, and so encounters the "ghost" of a long dead magician -- within his
tomb, in at least one case. In a "story-within-a-story", he learns of an episode in the
magician's life and of his powers; it seems that usually the "ghost" and Setna also
both play a role in an episode set in Setna's own time. The texts occupy a world halfway between the traditional Egyptian view of the magician as learned priest and that
of the magician as sorcerer which we meet in the Greek and demotic Magical Papyri
of the third century of the Common Era.
The Inaros (or Petubastis) Texts describe the adventures of warriors,
principally numerous members of the "family" of Inaros. The stories seem to be set
in the seventh century Before the Common Era, but include confused reminiscences
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of other late-dynastic periods; Inaros himself has no obvious historical counterpart.
Egypt is depicted as divided into numerous princedoms, over which a Pharaoh
Petubastis is, in a few texts, shown to hold a precarious control. The plots are very
varied. Some deal with contests within Egypt, and seem deliberately to emphasize
the fragmentation of the country -- in one, for example, warriors rally to either side of
a dispute over the possession of a priesthood. Others recount exotic adventures
abroad -- for example, an expedition to the "Land of the Women"; another text
includes a description of a battle against a gigantic griffin.
Demotic wisdom literature also survives mainly from the first century Before
the Common Era and the first two centuries of the Common Era, and includes two
substantial, well-preserved examples. The text of Papyrus Insinger, the longer of
these, is also attested in several other fragmentary copies. Until very recently, only
one copy was known of The Wisdom of `Onchsheshonqy, although another version
of its introductory narrative has recently been identified at Copenhagen, and it has
become possible to begin to discuss the history of the work. There are a few other
short texts or fragments. All the texts share a common structure, in that they are built
up of independent single-sentence maxims or commands, each of which is normally
laid out on a single line in the manuscript. Two or more of these may be closely
connected in their subject matter, and sometimes an extended sequence of
sentences may be parallel in structure and related in sense. Papyrus Insinger is the
most highly organized, being divided into twenty-five chapters, each dealing with a
different topic, and each introduced by a heading, which either describes its subject
matter or provides a typical maxim. For example, Chapter 8 is headed "The eighth
teaching: do not be greedy, in case you meet with poverty", and deals with gluttony
and with greed in general. Chapter 18 is entitled "The eighteenth teaching: the
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wisdom of being patient until you have (properly) reflected, in case you cause
offense". Much of the text concerns the distinction between the wise and the foolish
man, and it pays particular attention (more than do the other texts) to the role of fate
and the fickleness of fortune -- but also to the inescapable vengeance of god upon
the wicked. The Wisdom of `Onchsheshonqy begins with a lengthy narrative
introduction which tells how `Onchsheshonqy came to compose his text while
languishing in prison. The maxims themselves, many of which have the character of
proverbs, concentrate upon practical wisdom and self-interest, rather than morality
or a sense of divine justice.
The relationship between demotic literature and that of pharaonic Egypt is
problematic. Hardly any Hieratic wisdom material survives from after the New
Kingdom, and the only Hieratic narrative later than 1000 Before the Common Era is
Papyrus Vandier, which perhaps dates to the middle of the first millennium Before
the Common Era; it tells the story of a visit to the underworld by a magician, and has
close links both in language and in subject matter with demotic tales. It is perhaps
conceivable that Egyptian fictional traditions may have continued solely in oral form
after the New Kingdom. There is only a little evidence for the actual survival of any
literary (as opposed to religious) texts of the Middle or New Kingdoms into the period
of demotic, but in recent years more and more small pieces of evidence have come
to light to modify our view.
Significant differences may be seen between the demotic and the earlier
literatures. Demotic shows little sign of the elaborate metrical structures that are an
essential part of pharaonic material. Narratives do not seem to have continued to be
used in school education. Although the royal court is mentioned at some point in
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most demotic narratives, "court literature" -- such as hymns to the king -- does not
appear to occur. This is hardly surprising if, as seems plausible, demotic literature
was chiefly current in temple communities. The authors of demotic texts were
evidently aware of a wide range of foreign literatures -- at the least, of Babylonian,
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, although not necessarily at first hand -- and adopted
and adapted themes, stories, and structures from them. Very rarely were texts
simply translated. The vitality of demotic literature needs no defence.
Demotic literature must be studied in several contexts: in the context of
Egyptian literary tradition, in the context of the changing Egyptian society of the Late
Period -- above all, there is an international context to wisdom, narrative, and
scientific literature.
I have tried this evening to hint at some of the challenges, thrown up by
ancient Egypt, which fascinate me, and which I think can be met only by seeing
Egypt in context. In concluding, I should like to thank colleagues in the Institute of
Archaeology, in UCL's Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, and in the
Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the British Museum, who have kindly lent me
slides for this evening: I should like to see this as a token of the rewards of working
in the stimulating context of the Institute, of UCL, and of London.
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