The Transformation of Pharaonic deities to household gods in Roman Egypt

The iconography and style of depictions of Horus and other traditional Egyptian deities were influenced by Hellenistic and, later, Roman traditions of representation, often combining trappings of power in ways that are striking to modern observers.

"Roman period depictions of  the falcon-headed Horus have been  found  in  a  variety  of   materials  throughout  the  empire,  from  Egypt  to  Oxfordshire.  Usually  dressed  in  Roman  military costume, falcon-headed Horus is sometimes depicted on horseback, but more often standing, while seated figures are rare. Although smaller figures may have been dedicatory, larger stone and metal sculptures were probably objects of  public or private devotion." - Polychromy in Roman Egypt: A study of a limestone sculpture of the Egyptian god Horus by Joanne Dyer, Elisabeth R. O"Connell, and Antony Simpson.

Sir Harold Bell observes, "...a new religion, whether introduced by a conquering people or established as the result of a religious reform, never quite obliterates the beliefs and customs existing before its appearance.  Some of these beliefs and customs linger on underground, and so far from disappearing entirely with the passage of time they may even acquire new vitality as the first impulse of the new creed dies away." 

Opposing the traditional “decline of paganism/triumph of Christianity” model most often used to describe the Roman period in Egypt, David Frankfurter, in his text, "Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance",  argues that the religion of Pharaonic Egypt did not die out as early as has been supposed but was instead relegated from political centers to village and home, where it continued a vigorous existence for centuries.

Even though the Roman emperor Augustus introduced restrictions on Egyptian temples that lead to their economic decline, the worship of traditional Egyptian deities continued in the domestic sphere including the consultation of oracles during the first three centuries of Roman occupation.

Frankfurter points to the continuing role of priests in Egyptian society despite the decline of religious institutions and the use of hieroglyphs for religious and administrative record keeping. Their charismatic leadership, their ritual expertise, and their knowledge of healing and guidance was still valued by the people since the day to day needs of the people - fertility, safety, and health of both individuals and their livestock - did not change.  Only their collective identity as it related to their religious systems evolved. This was accomplished with new divine names and the introduction of Roman iconography. Although divination under Roman administration could be accomplished by any literate individual who could read the sacred texts, no longer encoded in hieroglyphs but written in Coptic Egyptian or Greek, the fact remained that the most literate individuals were still the priests. Religious authority simply shifted from places and buildings to texts and persons in the form of independent "holy men." This resulted in the domestic worship of traditional deities up to the 5th century CE. 

Early Egyptian Christianity was eventually able to capitalize on this existing religious infrastructure. Frankfurter observed that Biblical texts and Christian lore were used not for their ideological content but for oracles and grimoires (magical texts) so what is described in the Coptic texts as the demonization and defeat of local spirits are not victories of one ideology over another but, rather, merely ritual innovations. 

Archaeologist point to the dozens of figurines found in Roman Period burials as evidence of this evolution in Egyptian worship. I find the figurines of Horus depicted in Roman armor to be among the most interesting. I think the ancient Egyptians would have identified the parallel between Horus, the son of Osiris, with Augustus and his descendants as sons of the deified Julius and hence the blending of iconography, especially with the introduction of the Roman emperor cult empire-wide during the reign of Augustus.  I also think it interesting that spectroscopy studies of the terracotta sculpture of Horus in Roman attire at the British Museum revealed the figure's chiton was painted green, the color of rebirth in the ancient Egyptian tradition.  However, the pigment was composed of celadonite, a common green pigment found in Roman art, but virtually unknown in dynastic Egypt. 

For those of you interested in examining this topic further, I would suggest exploring the posts and databases of "The Coptic Magical Papyri: Vernacular Religion in Late Roman and Early Islamic Egypt" project.  This ongoing scholarly effort is a five-year research project (2018-2023) under the direction of the Chair of Egyptology at  Julius Maximilian University Würzburg.  A team  consisting of Korshi Dosoo (research group leader), Edward O. D. Love, and Markéta Preininger are studying the corpus of Coptic  “magical texts” – manuscripts written on papyrus, as well as parchment, paper, ostraca and other materials, and attesting to private religious practices designed to cope with the crises of daily life in Egypt. There are about five hundred of these texts which survive, dating to between the third and twelfth centuries of the common era. Their website points out these documents address " the realities rather than the ideal of religious practices and beliefs as they were experienced and carried out in daily life. They provide rich information about the experiences of people from the periods they document – the transitions from traditional Egyptian religion to Christianity and Islam, the diffusion and interaction of different forms of Christianity (“gnostic” and orthodox, Miaphysiste and Dyophysite, cults of saints and angels), and conceptions of the human and divine worlds – how human experiences such as happiness and success, suffering and sickness, love and conflict were understood and negotiated."

Their English-version website is available here: https://www.coptic-magic.phil.uni-wuerzburg.de/

If you wish to read the full research paper Polychromy in Roman Egypt: A study of a limestone sculpture of the Egyptian god Horus, it is  available from: 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303482369_Polychromy_in_Roman_Egypt_A_study_of_a_limestone_sculpture_of_the_Egyptian_god_Horus 

Limestone seated figure of the Egyptian falcon god Horus wearing Roman military dress, from Egypt, Roman period, Roman Empire: Power & People, Leeds City Museum, UK courtesy of Carole Raddato

Limestone seated figure of the Egyptian falcon god Horus wearing Roman military dress, from Egypt, Roman period, courtesy of the British Museum.

Reconstruction of the pigments detected on the Limestone seated figure of the Egyptian falcon god Horus wearing Roman military dress, from Egypt, Roman period, now in the collections of the British Museum.

Roman period copper-alloy figure of the Egyptian god Horus, standing and wearing a nemes headdress and military costume now in the collections of the British Museum, courtesy of the museum.

Bronze figurine of Horus attired as Roman emperor with radiate crown suggestive of Sol Invictus, 2nd century CE, now in the collections of The Louvre in Paris. Image courtesy of the museum and Wikimedia Commons.

Shallow dish with high relief figures of Isis and falcon-headed Horus in Roman attire, possibly 2nd century CE, Egypt now in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The curator there points out the feathered neck of the Horus figure suggests disintegration of pharaonic conventions for combining animal and human figures.

Egyptian relief of the God Horus in Roman style armor fighting the evil God Seth in crocodile form, 4th century CE, now in the collections of The Louvre in Paris, image courtesy of the museum.

Bronze figurine of Horus in Roman armor wearing the crowns of upper and lower Egypt at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston courtesy of the museum.

 

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The transformative shrew in Greco-Roman-Egyptian mythology

When I saw this carefully detailed bronze sculpture of a common shrew from Egypt's Greco-Roman Period, I wondered why the ancients thought this creature worthy of such expense. Although this sculpture is part of the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also has a similar, though less detailed example from the same period as does the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.  

According to The Met, the ancient Egyptians named the shrew, "the voracious", because of its feeding habits. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the shrew represented the blind aspect of the solar deity, “the one with no eyes in his face” (Mechenti-n-irti in old Egyptian) that was complemented by the ichneumon, “the one whose eyes (the Sun and the Moon) are in his face” (Mechenti-irti in old Egyptian), a creature with very keen eyesight. This god with the dual nature was revered in Letopolis as one of the aspects of Horus, who, as myth has it, was blind at birth. 

According to Egyptians, this Horus of Letopolis assists the Sun god during his nocturnal journey on the solar bark which lasted until the sixth hour of the night.

"The shrew assumed the form of the god Horus to enter the afterlife and descended into the darkness of the afterlife to revive the deceased/Osiris. In this phase of the journey, he helped to navigate the solar bark through the dark, while his reforming power accelerated the regeneration of the deceased. The more combative functions in the ascending phase of the Sun god’s journey, after the sixth hour of the night, were given to the companion animal: the ichneumon (mongoose)." - The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary.

The process of transformation from the blind shrew into a seeing being  and from a being of the afterlife/inactive being into a perfectly reborn being able to act dynamically in the light of daytime was therefore viewed as having the ability to grant life in the afterlife. In fact, the hieroglyphic inscription on the front and right side of the plinth on which the shrew sculpture in Budapest stands, asks this temporarily blind aspect of Horus of Letopolis to grant such life to an individual named Imhotep.

As for the shrew's complementary creature, although I am familiar with a mongoose I had never heard it called an ichneumon so did a little research and discovered it was a name used not only for a mongoose but a creature called the pharaoh's rat. Sometimes the name was also used for an otter. It's name in Greek means "tracker" and it was said to be the enemy of the dragon.

According to Pliny the Elder (Natural History, Book 8, 88), "The ichneumon is known for its willingness to fight to the death with the snake. To do this, it first covers itself with several coats of mud, drying each coat in the sun to form a kind of armor. When ready it attacks, turning away from the blows it receives until it sees an opportunity, then with its head held sideways it goes for its enemy's throat. The ichneumon also attacks the crocodile in a similar manner."  

I was aware of the snake-killing reputation of the mongoose but wondered how such a relatively small creature could kill a Nile crocodile.  However, the 1st century CE geographer, Strabo backs up the claim by Pliny saying "The ichneumon [is] most destructive both to crocodiles and asps. The ichneumons destroy not only the eggs of the latter, but the animals themselves. The ichneumons are protected by a covering of mud, in which they roll, and then dry themselves in the sun. They then seize the asps by the head or tail, and dragging them into the river, so kill them. They lie in wait for the crocodiles, when the latter are basking in the sun with their mouths open. They then drop into their jaws, and eating through their intestines and belly, issue out of the dead body."

As late as the 3rd century CE, Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus, a poet at the court of the Roman emperor Carus, refers to hunting the Ichneumon on river banks among the rushes in his poem Cynegetica. Sadly, the poem is fragmentary and any longer passage describing such a hunt has been lost. If the creature could take on a crocodile, it would seem to me that hunting the beast would be a very dangerous endeavor!

Read more about the cult of the shrew: https://www.mfab.hu/shrew-a-sacred-glutton/

Image: Solid cast bronze sculpture of a shrew, Egypt, Greco-Roman Period, 305-30 BCE, now in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, image courtesy of the museum. 

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Mystery religions as a response to concepts of a bleak afterlife

Yesterday I posted about incense and the types of incense required for each Olympian god or hero as specified in the Orphic hymns.  

"Faced with the thought of a bleak existence in the Underworld, some individuals in the ancient Mediterranean sought to improve their lot while they were alive. Virtuous behavior might not be sufficient, and one way to obtain a happier afterlife was thought to be through initiation into mystery cults associated with Orpheus and Dionysos. Self-styled preachers offered followers transformative experiences that mainstream practice could not provide. Their rites were shrouded in secrecy and remain little understood today" - J. Paul Getty Museum

Initiates were sometimes buried with thin sheets of gold, termed Orphic tablets by modern scholars, inscribed with guidance for their journey into the Underworld much like the Book of the Dead for ancient Egyptians, although much shorter. The text might reference landmarks along the journey, such as a spring, a cypress tree, or the Lake of Memory.

Average Greeks did not view the afterlife as an eternal paradise, except for a select few, heroes related to the Olympian gods, but rather a bleak existence characterized primarily by the absence of life's pleasures.  The idea of moral judgment and an expectation of the good rewarded and evil punished did not arise until the early 5th century BCE.  

"Drawing on abstract speculation as much as popular belief, Plato (about 428–347 BCE) described separate destinations for the good and the bad, as well as cycles of penance and reincarnation. But for determining what the majority of ancient Greeks thought about the afterlife, his most revealing assertion may be that individuals dismiss the stories told about what goes on in Hades—until they face death themselves." - J. Paul Getty Museum

The comic playwright Aristophanes provided more color, describing wrongdoers lying in mud and dung, while initiates dance in myrtle groves (Frogs, 405 BCE).

The mystery cults, however, offered practices designed to achieve a more favorable sojourn after death. 

"In contrast to public festivals and sacrifices, which were typically organized at a communal or civic level, the rituals of mystery cults were performed privately for individuals or small groups. Self-styled priests offered followers transformative experiences that mainstream practice could not provide and that marked the initiate as special." 

"Armed with this privileged information as to where to go in the Underworld and what to say, the deceased could feel secure in the face of death. Although the tablets like this have been found across a wide area—in Sicily and southern Italy, northern Greece, the Peloponnese, and Crete—they are exceedingly rare. Their owners were a select few, who subscribed to beliefs that would have appeared esoteric and eclectic to their contemporaries." - J. Paul Getty Museum

I find it interesting that, although the Romans adopted much of Greek mythology and philosophy, their view of the afterlife was significantly different. They believed in the immortality of the soul but believed that when one died, one was met by Mercury, the messenger god and son of Jupiter and taken to the river Styx, that flowed nine times around the underworld. There they paid the ferryman, Charon, a fee to cross the river where they were met and judged by Minos, Aenaeus, and Rhadymanthas.

"However, the ancient Romans did not believe in eternal damnation. Therefore, after one was judged he was sent either to the Fields of Elysium, if one was a warrior or other type of hero, or to the Plain of Asphodel, if one was an ordinary citizen. However, if one was judged to have committed a crime against society, one would have been sent to Tartarus to be tortured by the Furies until such time as one's debt to society was deemed to have been paid in full. At that time, one was released. " - All About History: https://www.allabouthistory.org/ancient-romans-faq.htm

This example of an Orphic tablet, now in the collections of the Getty Villa, takes the form of a dialogue between the dead initiate and a spring in the Underworld:
(Initiate): I am parched with thirst and perishing!
(Spring): Then come drink of me, the Ever-Flowing Spring. On the right there is a bright cypress. Who are you? Where are you from?
(Initiate): I am the son of Earth and Starry Heaven. But my race is heavenly.
(Translation by Roy Kotansky (2017)). Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Summoning the Shades from the Underworld (detail), South Italian, made in Lucania, 390–380 BC; found in Pisticci, Italy, terracotta. Red-figure calyx krater attributed to the Dolon Painter. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, 422. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Closeup of Mixing Vessel with Odysseus Summoning the Shades from the Underworld (detail), South Italian, made in Lucania, 390–380 BC; found in Pisticci, Italy, terracotta. Red-figure calyx krater attributed to the Dolon Painter. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, 422. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Storage Jar with Athena, Herakles, and Kerberos (detail), Greek, made in Athens, 530–510 BC; found in Vulci, Italy, terracotta. Bilingual amphora attributed to the Andokides Painter. Musée du Louvre, Départment des Antiquités grecques, étrusques et romaines, Paris, F204. Image © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Fragment of a Funerary Relief with Underworld Figures, Greek, made in South Italy (Taras), 325–300 BC, limestone. State Collections of Antiquities and Glyptothek Munich, GL 494. Photograph by Renate Kühling. Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Seated Musician thought to represent Orpheus, Greek, made in South Italy (Taras), 330–300 BCE, terracotta with traces of pigment, that I photographed at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California.

 

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Death of Antinous

In my travels I have photographed a number of sculptures of Hadrian's companion, Antinous.  Over 100 sculptures of the tragic young man have survived to modern times and classicist Caroline Vout has noted more images have been identified of Antinous than of any other figure in classical antiquity with the exceptions of Augustus and Hadrian himself.  This is probably attributable to Hadrian's deification of the young man after his death and the subsequent cult of Antinous that became widespread throughout much of the Roman Empire. 

Although officially, Hadrian announced that Antinous fell into the Nile and drowned, there have been a number of hypotheses about the young man's death.  Hadrian's entourage at the time is thought to have included  Lucius Ceionius Commodus, a young aristocrat whom Antinous might have deemed a rival to Hadrian's affections. In fact, soon after Antinous died, gossip quickly spread that Antinous had been intentionally killed.  Despite the official circumstances of the young man's death (at the time of his death, Antinous is thought to have been only 18-20 years old), Hadrian does not describe the death as being an accident, however, and some scholars point to this as suspicious.

If Antinous' death was not accidental, some scholars propose that he may have been murdered by a member of a court conspiracy.  The entourage assembled at Heliopolis included powerful military figures including the Prefect in Egypt as well as army and naval commanders.   But Royston Lambert, author of "Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous," points out that, besides lacking any supporting historical evidence, Antinous appeared to exert little influence over Hadrian's political activities, thus an assassination would seem to serve little purpose.

Other scholars have suggested Antinous died during a voluntary castration as part of an attempt to retain his youth and thus his sexual appeal to Hadrian. However, Lambert observes this is improbable because Hadrian deemed both castration and circumcision to be abominations and as Antinous was aged between 18 and 20 at the time of death, any such operation would have been ineffective anyway.

Another possibility is that Antinous represented a voluntary human sacrifice. The earliest surviving evidence for this comes from the writings of Dio Cassius, 80 years after the event, although it was subsequently repeated in many later sources. In the 2nd century Roman Empire, a belief that the death of one could rejuvenate the health of another was widespread, and Hadrian had been ill for many years. In this scenario, Antinous could have sacrificed himself in the belief that Hadrian would have recovered. If this last situation were true, Hadrian might not have revealed the cause of Antinous's death because he did not wish to appear either physically or politically weak. Conversely, opposing this possibility is the fact that Hadrian disliked human sacrifice and had strengthened laws against it in the Empire. Hadrian also appeared to be genuinely devastated by the youth's death and was probably directly responsible for his immediate deification by the local Egyptian priests. Although deification was not uncommon, in the Roman world formal divinization was, until that time,  reserved for the Emperor and members of the imperial family. Hadrian also did so without permission of the Senate, making the establishment of Antinous' cult highly unusual.

Archaeological evidence makes it clear that the cult ended up being genuinely popular among the different societal classes in the Empire. Part of the appeal was that Antinous had once been human himself, and thus was more relatable than many other deities. It is also possible, however, that his cult borrowed power from parallels between Antinous and beautiful young male immortals in the Greco-Roman pantheon like Apollo, Dionysus, and Silvanus as well as mortal youths beloved by gods in classical mythology like Ganymede, Hylas, Hyacinth, and Narcissus. These characteristics were common also to the cults of Attis, Endymion, and Adonis. Like the latter and the god of the newly established Christian religion, Antinous was also treated as a dying-and-rising god, not only in Egypt, but in Rome and Greece.

By the way, Lucius Ceionius Commodus was eventually named Hadrian's heir and became Lucius Aelius Caesar, who would father the Emperor Lucius Verus. Although Lucius had no military experience, he had served as a senator, and had powerful political connections. Perhaps Hadrian's affection for Antinous just proved to be too much of an obstacle to the political proponents of Lucius Ceionius Commodus even though Antinous himself expressed no political ambitions.  After all, Hadrian was seriously ill during this period and succession may have appeared imminent.

Image: A portrait bust of Antinous thought to have been sculpted around the time of his death that I photographed at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence in 2005. 

 

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Rome's integration of Isis

In the first millennium BCE, Osiris and Isis became the most widely worshipped Egyptian deities, and Isis absorbed traits from many other goddesses. Rulers in Egypt and its neighbor to the south, Nubia, built temples dedicated primarily to Isis, and her temple at Philae was a religious center for Egyptians and Nubians alike. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself.

In the Hellenistic period (323–30 BCE), when Egypt was ruled and settled by Greeks, Isis was worshipped by Greeks and Egyptians, along with a new god, Serapis. Their worship diffused into the wider Mediterranean world. Isis's Greek devotees ascribed to her traits taken from Greek deities, such as the invention of marriage and the protection of ships at sea, and she retained strong links with Egypt and other Egyptian deities who were popular in the Hellenistic world, such as Osiris and Harpocrates. As Hellenistic culture was absorbed by Rome in the first century BCE, the cult of Isis became a part of Roman religion. Her devotees were a small proportion of the Roman Empire's population but were found all across its territories. Her following developed distinctive festivals such as the Navigium Isidis, as well as initiation ceremonies resembling those of other Greco-Roman mystery cults. Some of her devotees said she encompassed all feminine divine powers in the world.

Authorities in the Republic tried to define which cults were acceptable and which were not, as a way of defining Roman cultural identity amid the cultural changes brought on by Rome's expansion. In Isis's case, shrines and altars to her were set up on the Capitoline Hill, at the heart of the city, by private persons in the early first century BCE. The independence of her cult from the control of Roman authorities made it potentially unsettling to them. In the 50s and 40s BCE, when the crisis of the Roman Republic made many Romans fear that peace among the gods was being disrupted, the Roman Senate destroyed these shrines, although it did not ban Isis from the city outright.

Egyptian cults faced further hostility during the Final War of the Roman Republic (32–30 BCE), when Rome, led by Octavian, the future emperor Augustus, fought Egypt under Cleopatra VII. After Octavian's victory, he banned shrines to Isis and Serapis within the pomerium, the city's innermost, sacred boundary, but allowed them in parts of the city outside the pomerium, thus marking Egyptian deities as non-Roman but acceptable to Rome. Despite being temporarily expelled from Rome during the reign of Tiberius (14–37 CE), the Egyptian cults gradually became an accepted part of the Roman religious landscape. The Flavian emperors in the late first century CE treated Serapis and Isis as patrons of their rule in much the same manner as traditional Roman deities such as Jupiter and Minerva. The cults also expanded into Rome's western provinces, beginning along the Mediterranean coast in early imperial times. At their peak in the late second and early third centuries CE, Isis and Serapis were worshipped in most towns across the western empire, though without much presence in the countryside.[145] Their temples were found from Petra and Palmyra, in the Arabian and Syrian provinces, to Italica in Spain and Londinium in Britain.

My closeup of the Marble statue of Isis found at Hadrian's Villa that I photographed at the Capitoline Museum in 2005.

Marble statue of Isis, the goddess holds a situla and sistrum, ritual implements used in her worship, from 117 until 138 CE, found at Hadrian's Villa (Pantanello), Palazzo Nuovo, Capitoline Museums, courtesy of  Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddato.

Statue of Isis-Persephone holding a sistrum. Temple of the Egyptian gods, Gortyn. Roman period ( 180-190 CE) at the Archaeological Museum in Herakleion, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Wolfgang Sauber.

Bust of Isis-Sothis-Demeter. White marble, Roman artwork, second part of Hadrian's reign, ca. 131–138 CE. From the gymnasium in the Villa Adriana, near Tivoli, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Roman statue of Isis at Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Manfred Werner. 

Head of divinity, possibly Isis, 2nd century CE, at the Musée Saint-Raymond courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daniel Martin.

Roman statue of Isis from the 1st - 2nd century CE at the Museo Nazionale Romano, Terme di Diocleziano, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Szilas.

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