Tenth International Congress of Egyptologists Abstracts of Papers

XICE – Abstract of Papers
may turn into a huge prison which separates its consciousness from the present
surrounding circumstances. Memories can be so transferred into a disaster or a coffin
to burry the future”. 135 This obvious phenomenon of the Egyptian culture seems to
have its roots as early as the beginning of the Egyptian realizing of the world. This
Egyptian nostalgia could be noticed in: Ancestors' cult, Mummification of the dead
persons and many many other habits and traditions which succeeded to live for
centuries. This classicalism could be clearly detected in the repeatedly mentioning of
"Golden Age" or the “first time” sp tpy in the Egyptian texts. They meant the starting
point of the world shortly after creation. According to the texts, that was the “Ideal
era” in which the whole world was created by gods which established the cosmic
order: “MAAT had descended from heaven during their time (Gods) and united with
those on the Earth”; “There were no years of hunger in both Lands”, at that far time
and “there was no crocodile bites or a snake stings…”.
The question is: Was this nostalgia only some kind of “keeping the past alive” to
neutralize the bad present situation? If we accept this assumption, we have to reject
any classicalism or Fundamentalism rather than some specific periods of the Egyptian
history as: Middle Kingdom, Third Intermediate Period or the Saite period. 136 This
was of course not true. As one of the characteristics of the Egyptian culture, nostalgia
could be detected all over the Egyptian history and it is related to the dialectic relation
between the past, the present and the future. But its intensity increases or decreases
according to the general social and economic circumstances. BRUNNER assumes that:
“The archaistic tendencies never affected the everyday life: Only the religious realm,
which pertains to the salvation of man”. 137 This study will try to figure out some of
the main motives of this Egyptian nostalgia or fundamentalism and to find out if there
is an effect of this phenomenon on the everyday life of the Egyptians or it was
restricted only to the religious realm as BRUNNER assumed.
Les qualités royales des Ptolémées d'après leurs noms officiels Grecs
José das Candeias Sales
Que représentent et que signifient, en termes de propagande royale, les prédicats et
noms des Lagides? Quels “sentiments dynastiques” et quelles qualités de pouvoir
sont-ils diffusés et invoqués par l’onomastique de culte hellénique de ces seigneurs de
l’Egypte? À quel ensemble de notions et de conceptions renvoient-ils et quelles vertus
communiquent-ils? Il s’agit de quelques-unes des questions auxquelles nous avons
cherché à répondre dans cette communication. D’une manière générale, si l’on se
place sous le prisme de leur grandiloquence, les éléments distinctifs des qualificatifs
officiels des Lagides assument une nature valorisante et édificatrice de la dynastie,
nonobstant les innombrables fluctuations que l’on détecte dans leurs significations les
plus profondes. Pariant sur des modes d’expression plus ou moins stéréotypés, le roi
135
F. GOWEDA, Al-Ahram newspaper, Cairo, 30 Nov., 2007.
136
J. CERVELLÓ AUTUORI, "Arquetipo y clasicismo en la historia del antiguo Egipto. Una reflexión",
Studia Africana, Barcelona 7 (1996), 43-57.
137
H. BRUNNER, ‘Zum Verständnis der archaisierenden Tendenzen in der ägyptischen Spätzeit’,
Saeculum, München 21 (1970), 151-61.
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