Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, part 3

[dragoness_e]

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, part 1
Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, part 2

This installment continues with items of religious significance or from other elite professions, like scribes. Quotes are from museum display placards.


Corn Mummy

"Corn mummies, as they are called by modern archaeologists, demonstrated a form of religious magic used by the ancient Egyptians to ensure crop growth.

This wooden coffin is shaped like the falcon-god Horus. Resting inside is the form of the corn mummy itself. To shape the mummy, Nile silt was impregnated with grain and formed into a small image of the god Osiris. Then it was wrapped with the finest linens and coated with green wax.

In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was raised from the dead by his wife Isis. This story of new life was associated with the growth of plants--after all, what could be more magical than an entire plant coming out of a tiny seed? Osiris, as a powerful symbol of fertility, was believed to make all plants grow.

This corn mummy was meant to be a magical tool. It was formed and buried at the time that seeds were being sown in fields all across Egypt. The ancient Egyptians believed that planting a corn mummy along with the year's crops would make for a bountiful harvest later on.

Today there are fewer than fifty known examples of corn mummies in the world's museums."

Altar to the Aten

"This solid limestone altar from Tell al-Amarna (the ancient city of Akhetaten) was dedicated to the Aten, a solar diety worshipped by the pharoah Akhenaten of the 18th dynasty. "

Food and drink offerings were placed in the depressions.

Oil Palette

"Sacred oils were used to anoint the cult statues of gods in the temples, a ritual often performed by the king. The oils were held in small palettes like this. Each cup held a separate kind of aromatic oil."

Aegis of Isis

"An aegis is a large amulet worn around the neck of a priest when he opened the temple in the morning or closed it at night. It served as a kind of magical shield and was thought to remind the god or goddess that the wearer was a holy man."

Scribe's Wooden Pencases and Inkpot

"Scribes used wooden pen cases like these. The scribe's reed pen fit into the pen case's long depression, while another dimple near the top held a cake of black or red ink. Beside the wooden pen cases is a blue-gray limestone inkpot."

Scribe's Mortar and Pestle

"Egyptian scribes prepared their own ink pigments by grinding them on palettes like this one, made of Gabbro stone. Sometimes called 'black granite', Gabbro was quarried at sites in Nubia and in various wadis (dry river beds)."

Ostracons



Papyrus paper was expensive stuff (took a lot of work to make), so it was used for formal documents. When you just wanted to make notes, doodle, or practice your hieroglyphs, you wrote on scraps of pottery. An ostracon is a scrap of pottery that's used for writing on. It's a Greek word, and was used by them, among other things, for the pottery shards that were used as ballots in Athenian elections.

Much of what is known about the tomb builder's town of Deir al-Medina comes from translations of the piles of ostrakons found on the site.

Set of Surgical Tools

"Sekhmet was the goddess of plague and pestilence. The Egyptians reasoned that if she caused a problem, then she could certainly heal it. Therefore, Sekhmet became a goddess of medicine. One of her epithets was 'The Lady of Healing'"

Next: Items of Daily Life

Comments

[ruthannereid.livejournal.com]

Once again, LOVE the photos! Thank you so much for putting them up. ^__^