Medew Netcher - the divine speech

(I have to apologize in advance - the formatting was confused on this post. I fixed most of it, but it's still a little skewed.)

"Life is too short to devote years of study to learning that what went on with the ancients was just more of the same. It is too short to let us live both our lives and theirs from day to day unless they have something to add to the story, something we do not have, something quite wonderful and unexpected. Of all people the Egyptians are most likely to supply us with such matter." -Hugh Nibley, from Abraham in Egypt

The Old Kingdom is the term for the Egyptian dynasties between about 2686 BC and 2181 BC. It is known as the Age of Pyramids, when the great Architect, Imhotep,

was a servant to the Pharaoh Djoser (For a very interesting theory about Imhotep's

relation to a well-known biblical prophet, see this link).

It was also an age of religious change for the Egyptians.

The Egyptian religion was hugely complex, and had already gone through several

changes in what or who was worshiped, the qualities of the gods, and even in who was said to have created the universe. It is believed that the original pantheon of

gods was compiled from various tribal myths and local religious traditions, which were

then reconciled by the 'official'

priests in order to make them all conform. During the Old Kingdom, the change was different than any before.

This new shift in their religion involved mainly one figure: the sun-god, Ra.

That's him.

Ra was said to be the king of the gods, the ruler of earth. This was a departure from

the previous incarnations of religion in Egypt,since before there had been no

discernible ruler of the gods.

In some ways, he was made to be analogous to Zeus or Jupiter, though with a major difference - he was the Sun-god rather than the god of the sky, since the Egyptians believed that the sun was the source of knowledge and power for the earth. (source)

Along with this shift, and possibly serving as the reason for it, was a change in attitude towards the Pharaohs. The royal line was declared to be descended directly from Ra, and so presumably worthy to inherit power over his creations on the earth.

From this came the interesting fixation with the afterlife - since they were descended from gods, the Pharaohs wanted to make sure that they were in good standing with their 'relatives,' especially upon their death.

From this came what is known as 'pyramid texts.' On the walls of the burial chambers and hallways of the Pharaoh's pyramid or grave site, they would write down words and phrases to be sung or spoken to the gods during the final portion of the king's burial ceremony. The language addresses each deity individually with nearly the same requests or speeches,both of which attest that the Pharaoh is worthy of joining the gods in their abode. In fact, they seem to be attempting to convince the gods to accept him(see here for an example translation of one pyramid's wall inscriptions for the Pharaoh Unas).

These inscriptions provide an excellent example of Egyptian persuasive speech and writing. We can see the use of the rhetorical idea of pathos, or a petition to the emotions of the audience.

Here's an excerpt that shows an appeal to Ra:

"He [comes] to you, O his father, he comes to you, oh Re [(Ra)], he comes to you, O his father, he

comes to you, O Overthrown One, he comes to you, O his father,...he comes to you, O Wanderer."

-From the east wall of the sarcophagus chamber in the pyramid of Unas

Their two main techniques are pretty clear here, in my opinion. Not only do they appeal to Ra emotionally, reminding him that Unas is his 'son' and therefore should be accepted by him, but they also make use of repetition, an even bigger tool they enjoyed using. It's far too long to put it all here, but you can check out the lengthy, repetitive appeals to each god in the link I gave above.

The repetition in the priests' recorded speeches reminds me of ancient Hebrew writings, like the Bible: the most important points would be emphasized by repetition to impress them on the audience.

Here, the only difference is that the ones they were trying to convince were not mortal, and were believed to be in charge of deciding the fate of their king's eternal soul. A lot was at stake for these priests to invoke the gods well on the pharaoh's behalf.

Who knows, maybe if they did it wrong, this would happen:

Just kidding. But seriously, they were under a lot of pressure to do their best to implore their pantheon on behalf of the Pharaoh, and they probably used the best techniques of speech that they knew. In my opinion, that's why these pyramid texts are so revealing about how the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom used their rhetorical skills.

Just on the fun side, I really enjoyed researching this topic, and I learned a lot of new and interesting things.

For example, the above is my name, transliterated as near as I could get it into ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

And as a bonus, here's a short video about how the uni-lateral symbols of the Egyptian "alphabet"

work. Enjoy!