Through the Eras

PhilosophyGreek and later Roman authors to apply a completelysymbolic approach to reading hieroglyphs. And thissymbolic approach supported the idea that hieroglyphscontained mystical knowledge and philosophical secretsrather than being an ordinary symbol system for representinglanguage. Horapollo eliminated the boundarybetween hieroglyph and symbol. This boundary was notrestored until the nineteenth century C.E. when J.-F.Champollion read the Rosetta Stone and decipheredhieroglyphs for the first time in modern history.Statue of Isis holding the child Horus. BROOKLYN MUSEUM OFART, 37.938E, CHARLES EDWIN WILBOUR FUND. REPRODUCED BYPERMISSION.to the Greek belief that hieroglyphs were only to be interpretedsymbolically rather than phonetically.HIEROGLYPHIC SYMBOLS. By the fifth centuryC.E. the Egyptians had stopped writing hieroglyphicinscriptions. But the Greek writer Horapollo, who livedin Egypt, wrote a book called The Hieroglyphs that attemptedto explain the symbolic meanings of Egyptianwriting. Even when Horapollo knew the correct phoneticreading of a hieroglyph, he gave a symbolic explanationfor it. For example, the picture of the Egyptianhare has the meaning “to open” because the Egyptianword for “hare” and the Egyptian word for “to open”share the same consonants. But Horapollo had a differentexplanation. He claimed that the Egyptians wrotethe verb “to open” with a hare because hares sleep withtheir eyes open. He also claimed that the vulture representsthe word “mother” in hieroglyphs because thereare no male vultures. Egyptologists understand that theword for vulture and the word for mother shared thesame consonants. Thus Horapollo set the stage forCULTS. In ancient Greek cults, initiation was thenorm. Initiation consisted of secret rites, ceremonies,ordeals, or instructions used to allow a member to entera sect or secret society, usually one that held a certainphilosophy about Egyptian life and the gods. The Greeksassumed that Egyptian cults also had initiation. Themysteries of Osiris of Abydos are the most frequentlycited example of initiation in the Greek sense. Yet thefestival route in Abydos, as with festival routes in otherEgyptian towns, points to a public ceremony with processionsto public shrines, singing, dancing, and generalrejoicing as integral to the festival. As late as 200 C.E.the Christian writer Minucius Felix knew that the Abydosfestival was public rather than private. Egyptologistsbelieve the festival is a re-enactment of the myths associatedwith Osiris, his wife Isis, and their son Horus.The vast numbers of people involved in the Festival ofOpet in Karnak also shows that it is unlikely that thesefestivals were secret initiations. Yet the Greeks developedtheir own cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis that incorporatedtypically Greek religious ritual, including initiation.There were three degrees of initiation. The personwho wished to join the cult had to experience a symbolicdeath, confront the gods, and pass through all theelements. The most important part of the ceremonyallowed the initiate to view the sun at midnight. Thisvision allowed the initiate to escape man’s fate and overcomedeath eternally.DISTINCTIONS. The Egyptologist Erik Hornungsuggested an Egyptian basis for the ideas behind initiationinto the Greek cult of Isis. The ceremony suggeststhe Egyptian myth of the sun’s journey at night.The sun, according to Egyptian belief, entered the landof the dead after it set on this earth. Thus a person whowas symbolically dead and in the land of the deadwould see the sun at midnight and would have overcomedeath. Yet there was an important difference betweenEgyptian and Greek belief. The Egyptians believedthat the dead eternally viewed the sun at night in anendless cycle. The Greeks believed that the initiate wasreleased from fate and was no longer imprisoned in this196 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)