Posted on 03/16/2005 3:32:48 PM PST by blam
Supplicants send their mail to the unseen powers that be
By Fayza Hassan
Egypt Today Archives
Many believe Bab Zuweila to be a mystical site
CUSTOMS DIE HARD, nowhere more than in Egypt. Archaeological documents show that from as early as the Old Kingdom up to modern times, an endemic and persistent distrust in medicine and justice, as practiced in the land, often led the Egyptians to address their requests for health and legal redress directly to their dead relatives and the gods. Later, when monotheistic religions prevailed, they were addressed to saints whose extraordinary powers had become firmly rooted in popular belief.
In a paper presented to the Eighth Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000, (“Letters to the Dead in Ancient and Modern Egypt”), historian Hisham El-Leithy cites 15 letters from the Old Kingdom [c.2613-2181 BC] written in hieratic (a script based on hieroglyphics but simplified and using abbreviations), sent to dead relatives as well as other letters, written in demotic (the everyday script used from the middle of the 8th century BC until the 4th century BC) to certain gods. He noted that letters from the Middle Kingdom [c. 2050-1786 BC] were no longer addressed to the deceased but to deified humans such as the god Prince Hekayeb. It’s a practice that continued until the late New Kingdom [c. 1567-1320 BC] when letters were found addressed to Amenhotep son of Hapu (c.1546-1526 BC), an Old Kingdom physician and architect remembered for his miraculous cures. El-Leithy mentions a letter in hieroglyphics addressed to Amenhotep by a princess who called him a great physician and complained about trouble with her eyes.
Although scholars have been intrigued by the shift from writing to dead relatives during the Old Kingdom to later addressing gods and saints, it is entirely possible that both practices survived in parallel. A remnant of the practice of appealing to the dead can be observed even today in the obituaries of Christians appearing in the newspapers, which often include a request to the deceased for blessings and protection.
Ancient Egyptians who wrote letters to their deceased relatives did so for the specific purpose of asking them for assistance when they could find none from the living. They requested their help against an offender or sometimes against a dead person whom they felt was persecuting them.
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Letters concerning health were written by people with lingering complaints or whose ailments were deemed incurable. Demands for a son, vindication from, or the punishment of an unjust spouse were also common.
Letters to the dead, explains El-Leithy, were written on bowls, linen, papyrus and ostraca (pot sherds or flakes of limestone bearing text) and were placed in the tomb. Letters on linen and papyrus were mostly placed on top of the corpses before burial. He observes that the favorite method of communicating with the dead was by writing on a bowl in the belief that the spirit would read the writing when using the bowl to receive offerings.
But saints also got mail. The power of saints to intercede and/or perform miracles has been a topic of controversy in all revealedreligions. But saints also got mail. The power of saints to intercede and/or perform miracles has been a topic of controversy in all revealed religions. Accepted by the Catholics, it is frowned upon by the Protestants. Sunni Islam does not condone popular belief in the magical powers of saints and their capacity to intercede for men before God, while Sufi theory sanctions it. Nevertheless, popular faith continued to maintain through the ages that God’s miraculous powers could be transmitted into the world through the person of his saints and affect the physical things with which they came into contact.
Different saints are revered in different countries but their powers seem to be strikingly similar as are the demands for intercession made on them. In Cairo, El-Hussein, Sayyeda Zeinab, Sayyeda Nefissa and the Imam El-Shafie are the most popular saints invoked. In Tanta, El-Sayed El-Badawi’s shrine is visited at the time of his mulid (birthday) by people from all over the country.
A more specialized function seems to have been attributed to the qutb or head of the Sufi walis who is believed to be invisible and capable of transference from Mecca to Cairo in the blink of an eye. One of his favorite stations is said to be in a small recess behind one of the heavy wooden leafs of Bab Zuweila.
According to historian and writer EW Lane, persons afflicted with headaches used to drive nails into the door and those with toothaches similarly planted their extracted teeth. The cure must have been effective since architect restorer Nairi Hampikian confirms that at the time of the recent restoration of Bab Zuweila scores of teeth and nails were found embedded in the wood. They were left undisturbed during the restoration. The qutb however seems to have only been required to perform those two cures.
The rituals for approaching each saint differ slightly. For example, if someone wants to be vindicated from an enemy, he/she would go sweep the floor of the Sayyeda Zeinab mosque, repeating all the while the name of the alleged offender. The saint will then take up his/her cause and punish the culprit. This particular practice is so widespread that one often hears in a quarrel one of the antagonists scream: “I’ll go and sweep the floor of the Sayyeda [Zeinab] against you.” (The Sayyeda Zeinab is especially powerful since she is considered the head of the saints’ council.)
Although one may assume that the Muslim and Christian saints of Egypt do from time to time receive the same kind of letters as those written by the ancient Egyptians to their gods, the phenomenon has been fully documented by the prominent sociologist Sayyid Uways for one saint only, the Imam El-Shafie, “the intercessor” (from shaf’a: intercession). In his “Letters to Imam El-Shafie” Uways cites several letters that could have been written in ancient times.
One in particular is reminiscent of the one sent by the princess to Amenhotep. It was written to the Imam in 1957 from El-Sharqia district: “May you cure my eyes because I’m an old man and you should punish the one who injured me.”
Letters to the dead or the saints do not vary much in formula since ancient times and resemble ordinary mail. They include the address, a greeting formula, the complaint, the statement of injury and the demand for intercession.
Letters to the Imam are forwarded by ordinary mail and are received by the custodian of the mosque or thrown by the applicant through the window into the burial chamber. It can similarly be placed near the tomb during a visit. The custodian will keep the letters for a day and then burn them at his discretion.
One can marvel that for thousands of years the need to believe in miraculous intervention has not diminished. But this only begs the question: Has the human condition, especially that of the poor and the downtrodden changed? et
GGG Ping.
The demotic script continued to be used later than the 4th century B.C.--it's one of the three scripts found on the Rosetta Stone (196 B.C.).
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
I think the writer meant A.D., not B.C. -- "The most recent example of writing in the Demotic script dates from 425 AD."
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