Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt by Emily Teeter

Author:Emily Teeter [Teeter, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Religion, General, Social Science, Archaeology
ISBN: 9780521848558
Google: uK7bc6QPbwAC
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

Those acknowledged to be under a bau were considered to be impure. A text on a doorway at the Ptolemaic-Roman temple at Esna lists what should not be brought into the temple. In addition to certain plants and animals, it includes people who are under a bau. Those individuals are instructed to go to “the space of the surrounding area of the temple.”23

Gods could also make their presence known through dreams. Sleep was considered to be a liminal state in which the sleeper was between the realms of the living and the dead. Sleep, and especially dream sleep, gave humans access to realms and methods of communication inaccessible to the alert, facilitating communication with the gods. In a text in the tomb of Dheutyemheb at Thebes, the tomb owner related a dream in which Hathor appeared to him and instructed him where to build his tomb:

I have come to you O mistress of the Two Lands, oh beloved one. Behold, I am in praise before your beautiful visage and kiss the earth before your ka. I am truly a servant of yours, and am at [your command]. I do not reject the speech of your mouth. I do not disregard your teaching. I am on the way that you have ordained, on the path that you yourself have prepared. Blessed be he who knows you! He who beholds you is blessed. How happy is he who rests at your side, who enters into your shadow. It is you who prophesied my tomb at the beginning when it was first planned. What you said has been realized through you, a place for my mummy has been founded … It is you who spoke to me with your own mouth: … “I have come to instruct you. Behold your place, seize it for yourself” … while I slept and the earth lay in silence in the depths of the night. In the morning, my heart was jubilated, I rejoiced, and I went to the western side [of the river] to do what you said. You are a goddess whose word must be carried out, a lady who must be obeyed. I have not dismissed your words and I have not ignored your plan. As you have said, so I do. Give me your countenance, let me praise it, grant your beauty, that I may gaze upon your form in my tomb, so as to proclaim your power, so as to let posterity know of your might.24

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