The Egyptian Conception of Immortality by George Andrew Reisner
G >>
George Andrew Reisner >> The Egyptian Conception of Immortality
Formatting notes: Footnotes are in [square brackets] and embedded in the
e-text at the location of the superscript number in
the original text. Words and phrases in italics are
surrounded with _underlines_. Everything that appears
in all-caps in this e-text was in all-caps in the
original text.
THE EGYPTIAN CONCEPTION OF IMMORTALITY
The Ingersoll Lecture, 1911
by
GEORGE ANDREW REISNER
THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP
Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, who
died in Keene, County of Cheshire, New Hampshire, Jan. 26, 1893.
First. In carrying out the wishes of my late beloved father,
George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as declared by him in his last will
and testament, I give and bequeath to Harvard University in
Cambridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, and which
he always held in love and honor, the sum of Five thousand
dollars ($5,000) as a fund for the establishment of a Lectureship
on a plan somewhat similar to that of the Dudleian lecture, that
is--one lecture to be delivered each year, on any convenient
day between the last of May and the first day of December, on
this subject, "the Immortality of Man," said lecture not to form
a part of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by any
Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine of instruction,
though any such Professor or Tutor may be appointed to such
service. The choice of said lecturer is not to be limited to any
one religious denomination, nor to any one profession, but may be
that of either clergyman or layman, the appointment to take place
at least six months before the delivery of said lecture. The
above sum to be safely invested and three fourths of the annual
interest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for his services and
the remaining fourth to be expended in the publishment and
gratuitous distribution of the lecture, a copy of which is always
to be furnished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same
lecture to be named and known as the "the Ingersoll lecture on
the Immortality of Man."
CONTENTS
I. Introduction
II. Sources of the Material
III. The Ideas of the Primitive Race
IV. The Early Dynastic Period
V. The Old Empire
VI. The Middle Empire
VII. The New Empire
VIII. The Ptolemaic-Roman Period
IX. Summary
I. INTRODUCTION
Of the nations which have contributed to the direct stream of
civilization, Egypt and Mesopotamia are at present believed to be
the oldest. The chronological dispute as to the relative
antiquity of the two countries is of minor importance; for while
in Babylonia the historical material is almost entirely
inscriptional, in Egypt we know the handicrafts, the weapons, the
arts, and, to a certain extent, the religious beliefs of the race
up to a period when it was just emerging from the Stone Age. In a
word, Egypt presents the most ancient race whose manner of life
is known to man. From the beginning of its history--that is,
from about 4500 B.C.--we can trace the development of a
religion one of whose most prominent elements was a promise of a
life after death. It was still a great religion when the
Christian doctrine of immortality was enunciated. In the early
centuries of the Christian era, it seemed almost possible that
the worship of Osiris and Isis might become the religion of the
classical world; and the last stand made by civilized paganism
against Christianity was in the temple of Isis at Philae in the
sixth century after Christ.
It is clear that a religion of such duration must have offered
some of those consolations to man that have marked all great
religions, chief of which is the faith in a spirit, in something
that preserves the personality of the man and does not perish
with the body. This faith was, in fact, one of the chief elements
in the Egyptian religion--the element best known to us through
the endless cemeteries which fill the desert from one end of
Egypt to the other, and through the funerary inscriptions.
It is necessary, however, to correct the prevailing impression
that religion played the greatest part in Egyptian life or even a
greater part than it does in Moslem Egypt. The mistaken belief
that death and the well-being of the dead overshadowed the
existence of the living, is due to the fact that the physical
character of the country has preserved for us the cemeteries and
the funerary temples better than all the other monuments. The
narrow strip of fat black land along the Nile produces generally
its three crops a year. It is much too valuable to use as a
cemetery. But more than that, it is subject to periodic
saturation with water during the inundation, and is, therefore,
unsuitable for the burials of a nation which wished to preserve
the contents of the graves. On the other hand, the desert, which
bounds this fertile strip so closely that a dozen steps will
usually carry one from the black land to the gray,--the desert
offers a dry preserving soil with absolutely no value to the
living. Thus all the funerary monuments were erected on the
desert, and except where intentionally destroyed they are
preserved to the present day. The palaces, the towns, the farms,
and many of the great temples which were erected on the black
soil, have been pulled down for building material or buried deep
under the steadily rising deposits of the Nile. The tombs of six
thousand years of dead have accumulated on the desert edge.
Moreover, our impression of these tombs has been formed from the
monuments erected by kings, princes, priests, and the great and
wealthy men of the kingdom. The multitude of plain unadorned
burial-places which the scientific excavator records by the
thousands have escaped the attention of scholars interested in
Egypt from the point of view of a comparison of religions. It has
also been overlooked that the strikingly colored mummies and the
glaring burial apparatus of the late period cost very little to
prepare. The manufacture of mummies was a regular trade in the
Ptolemaic period at least. Mummy cases were prepared in advance
with blank spaces for the names. I do not think that any more
expense was incurred in Egyptian funerals in the dynastic period
than is the case among the modern Egyptians. The importance of
the funerary rites to the living must, therefore, not be
exaggerated.
II. SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL
With the exception of certain mythological explanations supplied
by the inscriptions and reliefs in the temples, our knowledge of
Egyptian ideas in regard to the future life is based on funerary
customs as revealed by excavations and on the funerary texts
found in the tombs. These tombs always show the same essential
functions through all changes of form,--the protection of the
burial against decay and spoliation, and the provision of a
meeting-place where the living may bring offerings to the dead.
Correspondingly, there are two sets of customs,--burial customs
and offering customs. The texts follow the same division. For the
offering place, the texts are magical formulas which, properly
recited by the living, provide material benefit for the dead. For
the burial place, the texts are magical formulas to be used by
the spirit for its own benefit in the difficulties of the spirit
life. These texts from the burial chambers are found in only a
few graves,--those of the very great,--and their contents
show us that they were intended only for people whose earthly
position was exceptional.
From the funerary customs and the offering texts, a clear view is
obtained of the general conception, the ordinary practice. We see
what was regarded as absolutely essential to the belief of the
common man. From the texts found in the burial chambers we get
the point of view of the educated or powerful man, the things
that might be done to gain for him an exceptional place in the
other world. Both of these classes of material must be
considered, in order to gain a true idea of the practical
beliefs. For it must be emphasized from the beginning that we
have in Egypt several apparently conflicting conceptions of
immortality. Nor are we anywhere near obtaining in the case of
the texts the clearness necessary to understand fully all the
differing views held by the priestly classes during a period of
over two thousand years.
III. THE IDEAS OF THE PRIMITIVE RACE
The earliest belief in immortality is that which is shown to us
by the burial customs of the primitive race,--the prehistoric
Egyptian race.
About 4500 B.C. we find the Egyptian race was just emerging from
the Stone Age. All the implements and weapons found are of flint
or other stone. The men of that time were ignorant of writing,
but show a certain facility in line drawings of men, plants, and
animals. We have found thousands of their graves which all show
the same idea of death. Each person was buried with implements,
weapons, ornaments,--no doubt those actually used in life,--
with a full outfit of household pots and pans, and with a supply
of food. The man was dead, but he still needed the same things he
used in ordinary life. By a fortunate chance we have even
recovered bodies accidentally desiccated and preserved intact in
the dry soil. These bodies do not show any trace of mutilation,
mummification, or any other preparation for the grave except
probably washing. The dead body was simply laid on a mat in the
grave, covered with a cloth and a mat or a skin, and then with
clean gravel. But with it was placed all those things which the
man might need if his life were to go on in some mysterious,
unseen way, as life went on among those on earth. Possibly his
relations as in later times brought offerings of food to the
grave, but here even the dry soil of Egypt fails to furnish
positive evidence. All this shows a plain simple belief in the
persistence of the life of a man as distinguished from the body
--a belief widely prevalent among primitive people. It contains
nothing unusual, and is probably perfectly explicable psychologically
by means of dreams.
There is little or no change in this underlying belief to be
observed in the burial customs of the Egyptians during the late
predynastic period. Copper weapons and implements succeed stone
in the graves. All those objects in whose manufacture the new
tools are used show changes of technique and form. It is even
curious to note that some of the older stone and flint objects,
some of the older pots and pans, are still made as a matter of
tradition. The importance of this is not to be overlooked. For
centuries men had used flint knives and they had baked their
bread in flat mud saucers set in the ashes. For the centuries
these flint knives and these cakes with their saucers had been
placed in the graves. Gradually metal knives and better bread
pans displaced these more primitive objects in daily life; but
the older primitive objects were still placed in the graves as a
matter of tradition.
It must be remembered, of course, that these traditional objects
were also in use in ancient traditional ceremonies on earth. The
sacrificial animals were still slaughtered with flint knives. The
old-style cakes were still offered in the holy places. In other
words, life on earth now consisted of ordinary material life and
a traditional life--a life that clung to the forms of a more
primitive civilization as somehow more effective with the divine
powers. This view is closely reflected in the grave furniture;
here, too, were the practical objects and the traditional
ceremonial objects. Life after death is still always the same as
life on earth--with the same physical needs, with the same need
of help from supernatural powers or against supernatural powers.
The spirit of the man needed the spirit of the copper axe to
swing in battle; but just as much he needed the spirit of the
flint knife to make the first cut across the throat of the spirit
bull of sacrifice. Remember this--the other world, in which
lived the spirit of the dead, was filled with the spirits or
ghosts of all things and animals. The other, the unseen, was a
duplicate of this world; all things which have shape were there
--even to the black fields and the broad river of Egypt. This is
the foundation of the Egyptian conception of immortality. Through
all the modifications and accretions of the following three
thousand years, this foundation idea is always clearly visible.
All the statues, the carved and painted tombs, all the curious
little model boats and workshops, all the painted mummies, all
the amulets, the scarabs, the little funerary statuettes,--all
this mummery which seems to be so characteristic and so
essential, is only the means to an end, and an ever changing
means to secure a successful comfortable existence of the spirit
in the life after death,--in the ghostly duplicate of life on
earth.
IV. THE EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD
It is clear that the effort to attain an immortality which is
merely a ghostly continuation of life on earth must reflect the
general development of Egyptian culture,--especially the
advance in arts and crafts. One of the most striking examples of
this fact is the introduction of metal working mentioned above
and the consequent placing of both flint and copper in the grave,
--the division of grave furniture into practical objects and
ceremonial objects, which is the foundation for the use of
symbolic objects in later times.
The advance in arts and crafts not only suggests new ideas of the
necessities of the spirit, but it provides the necessary
technical skill for the more effective satisfaction of all the
needs of the dead. This takes, first of all, the form of
supplying a place for the burial, which furnishes greater
security to the body and a better communication between the
living and the dead.
From the First Dynasty, say from 3300 B.C. down, as soon as the
Egyptian had mastered the use of mud-brick and wood, we gain the
certainty of an idea which could only be guessed at in the
primitive period. A place is provided above the grave at which
the living could meet the spirit of the dead with _periodical_
offerings of food and other necessities. In the life after death,
spirit food and drink, once used, ceased to be, just as in life
on earth, and had to be renewed from day to day, lest the spirit
of the dead suffer from hunger and thirst. One of the great
developments of the first six dynasties looked to the provision
of these daily necessities.
The invention of writing was immediately utilized. About the
beginning of the First Dynasty writing was invented for
administrative and other practical purposes. Gravestones, bearing
in relief the name of the dead, were set up in the offering
places of the kings and court people. These were probably
reminders for use in some simple formula recited in presenting
the periodical offerings. As the Egyptians became more familiar
with the use of writing, the offering formula was written out in
full, enlarged and modified.
Sculptures, both relief and statuary, in every stage of their
development, were used as magical accessories to the offering
rites.
So, also, the whole history of Egyptian architecture was
reflected in the tomb; for every advance brought about some
change in the form or structure. In fact, the whole development
of the form of the Egyptian tomb depended on the development of
technical skill. The same funerary functions are served
throughout. As all the great artisans were at the command of the
king, all the great technical discoveries and inventions were
first made in his service. But every permanent gain in knowledge
was a benefit to the race and utilized by the common people. So,
for example, the skill acquired in stone-cutting, during the
construction of the great pyramids, was utilized a little later
in producing rock-cut tombs from one end of Egypt to the other.
The functions of the grave remained the same. Yet with the
changes in form resulting from the growth of skill, modifications
in the funerary customs crept in.
The mud-brick tombs of the early part of the First Dynasty, like
the pre-dynastic graves, had only one chamber, limited in size by
the length of logs obtainable to form the roof. The growing
desire for ostentation found a way to enlarge the tombs by
building them with a number of chambers. The burial was placed in
the central chamber and the burial furniture in the additional
chambers. In this way the separation of the furniture and the
actual burial was brought about.
V. THE OLD EMPIRE
Another change comes in the Fourth Dynasty, and is to be noted
first in the royal tombs, as is always the case. The Egyptians
had now learned to cut stone and build with it. The burial
chambers hollowed in the solid rock were necessarily smaller than
the old chambers dug in the gravel and no longer sufficient to
contain the great mass of furniture gathered by a king for his
grave. On the other hand, the chapels with the increase in
architectural skill could be build of great size. Corresponding
to these technical conditions we find a great increase in the
importance of the chapel. It becomes a great temple, whose
magazines were filled with all those objects which had formerly
been placed in the burial chamber and were so necessary to the
life of the spirit. The temples of the third pyramid, for
example, contained nearly two thousand stone vessels. Great
estates were set aside by will, and the income appointed to the
support of certain persons who on their side were obliged to keep
up the temple, to make the offerings and to recite the magical
formulas which would provide the spirit with all its necessities.
Following closely the growth in importance of the royal chapels,
the private offering places assumed a greater importance. The
custom of periodic offerings and the use of magical texts grew
until it reached its highest point in the Fifth Dynasty. At this
time there is a burial chamber deep underground where the dead
was laid securely in ancient traditional attitude, with his
clothing and a few personal ornaments. As a rule, it is only the
women, always conservative, that have anything more. Above this
grave, there is a solid rectangular structure, with a chapel or
offering place on the side towards the valley. The offering place
is always there, no matter how poor or small the tomb. But to
understand just what the Egyptian thought, we must turn to the
better tombs. The walls are of limestone carved with reliefs
representing the important processes of daily life,--sowing,
reaping, cattle-herding, hunting, pot-making, weaving,--all
those actions which furnish the daily supplies. The dead man is
represented overseeing all this. Finally, near the offering
niche, he is represented seated, usually with his wife at a table
bearing loaves of the traditional _ta_ bread. Beside him are
represented heaps of provisions--meat, cakes, vegetables, wine
and beer. A list of objects is never missing, marked with
numbers,--a thousand loaves of bread, a thousand head of
cattle, a thousand jars of wine, a thousand garments, and so on.
We know from latter inscriptions that these words, properly
recited, created for the spirit a store of spirit objects in
equal numbers. Below the niche is an altar for receiving actual
offerings of food and drink. It is clear that the living, coming
to this offering place with or without material offerings, could,
by proper recitation, secure to the spirit of the dead all its
daily needs. This offering niche is the door of the other world
--symbolically and actually. In many graves the niche is carved
to represent a door--sometimes opening in, and sometimes
opening out. Moreover, in several cases the figure of the dead is
carved half emerging from the opening door--a figure in all
ways like the figure of the dead as he is represented in the
scenes from life. Beyond this door lives the spirit of the dead.
In many offering chambers there is a small hole in the wall,
either in the offering niche or in another place. If this hole be
properly lighted and the space beyond has not been changed by
decay or violation, the light falls on the face of a statue of
the dead looking forth to the world of the living. For behind the
wall is another chamber, closed except for this small hole. This
hidden chamber contains statues of the dead often accompanied by
statues of his family and his servants. These statues of the dead
are labeled with his name, and are said to be the abode of his
spirit, his _ka_, as the Egyptians called it. Moreover, all the
offering formulas named the _ka_ as the recipient of the food and
drink. The duplicate spirit of the man is his _ka_. In these
statues we have, then, a simulacrum of the man provided for use
of his _ka_--perhaps to assist the _ka_ to the persistence of
his earthly form, and to the remembrance of his name. But what
were the uses of the subsidiary statues? What spirit resided in
them? The man's son in his turn died, and a similar room was made
for him with his statue and his subsidiary statues. Did his _ka_
live both in the statue placed with his father's statue and also
in the statue in his own grave? We have no answer. Probably the
Egyptian mind never formulated the difficulty.
But the new idea is clearly expressed. It is no longer necessary
to fill the burial chamber with a mass of household furniture for
the use of the dead. All these things can be carved on the wall
of the burial chamber and so made effective for his use. It was
in any case necessary to supply his food by means of the
offerings, and it was quite as easy to supply all his other
necessities in the same way. In other words, there is a distinct
growth in the use of magic to benefit the dead. At the same time,
we find the growth of the custom of supplying a special abode for
the _ka_--a simulacrum of the man, which assisted the _ka_ to
retain the form of the living man and to remember his identity.
The tendency of this period is then to place a greater dependence
on magic than on food, drink, and grave furniture. It is,
therefore, not surprising to find introduced, for the first time,
the use of magical texts in the burial chamber,--the so-called
Pyramid Texts. In the burial chamber in the pyramid of Unas, last
king of the Fifth Dynasty, and in the pyramids of the kings of
the Sixth Dynasty, the walls are covered with long magical texts
or chapters--the oldest form of the so-called book of the dead
or "book of the going forth by day." The texts were probably
somewhat older, but are now used for the first time in this
manner, no doubt owing to the increased facility in carving
stone. In these the various powers of the other world are invoked
by the incidents of the Osiris-Isis legend, to preserve the dead
body, to feed the _ka_, and to assist the other spirit, the _ba_,
in its struggles with supernatural powers.
The pyramid texts introduce us to three important ideas,--(1) a
curious plurality of the spirit existence, (2) a condition of
immortality better than that of the old underworld or Earu, and
(3) most important of all, the identification of the king with
Osiris according to the terms of the Osiris-Isis legend.
In all the older offering formulas it is only the _ka_ spirit
which is mentioned. Here is the body perishable and destructible;
here is the life, the _ka_ which fills every limb and vessel of
the body and must, therefore, have the same form. When death
comes, the _ka_ spirit, the image of the man, remains near the
body, and this spirit it was which was the object of the rites
and offerings in the funerary chapel. But besides this _ka_, it
appears for the first time that the king at any rate possesses
also a soul called a _ba_. In later times we see that every man
possessed a _ba_, and we learn that each god possessed several
_ba's_. But it is in the pyramid texts that we learn for the
first time of the _ba_ of a man, and that man is a king. When
death comes, the _ba_ takes flight in the form of a bird or
whatever form it wills. All seems confused. The _ka_ was near the
body, the _ka_ was in the field of Earu, under the earth
ploughing and sowing; the _ba_ is fluttering on the branches of
the tree on earth, the _ba_ has fled like a falcon to the
heavens, and has been set as a star among the stars. The dead
king lives with the gods and is fed by them. The goddesses give
him the breast. He lives in the Island of Food. He lives in Earu,
the Underworld, a land like Egypt, with fields and canals and
flood and harvest. He shares with the gods in the offerings made
in the great temples on earth.
It is quite clear that all this is an expression of
dissatisfaction with the old belief in the simple duplicate
world, the world of Earu under the earth. It is noteworthy that
this first appears in royal tombs. These texts are written for
kings alone. It is only many centuries later that the texts of
the book of the dead showed similar possibilities open to the
common man. This is the usual course of all advances in Egypt,--
architecture, sculpture, writing, whatever gain in skill or
knowledge there is, appears first in the service of the royal
family. Thus, even in the conception of immortality, the new
ideas, the better immortality was first thought out for the
benefit of the king. The basis for this lay simply in the life on
earth. The king had come early to have a sort of divinity
ascribed to him. His chief name was the Horus name. Menes was the
Horus Aha; Cheops was the Horus Mejeru; Pepy II was the Horus
Netery-khau. But he was also the son of Ra, the sun-god, endued
with life forever. The king was a god, and it could only be that
in his future life he shared the life of the gods. Thus, all is
no more confused or mysterious than is the conception of the life
of the gods themselves.