The Hair was a Symbol of Chaos and

Water in Ancient Egypt.

www.hairanddeathinancientegypt.wordpress.com

Mara Rosa Valdesogo Martn

1) The hair smA: an image of chaos.

For understanding why the hair becomes such an important element, we have to get into
its symbolic meanings. According to what we have read in religious texts, mourning,
hair and resurrection are the three pillars of the believing.
The mourner gives the hair smA while she cries, weeps and regrets the death. The weeping and the
mourning happen when there is disorder. In the Osiris legend, when the god died, the world, with no
governor, was in a big chaos; the death of Osiris meant confusion, darkness
and disaster.
In this context we could think that the nwn gesture of shaking the hair
and covering the face with it would symbolize the chaos and darkness
produced by the death; mourners hide their faces and cannot see in the same
way that Osiris is blind because he is dead. The death reaches through the
head; the lack of head means the lack of life, because it is impossible to see
and breathe.
The hair over the face is a gesture with a deep symbolic meaning, it
dives the mourner in the same blindness of the dead one, so to put that hair
away from the face allows the mourner see and pass from the shadows of the
decease to the brightness of the resurrection.
In Ancient Egypt the death was not the end of a human being. To die
took part of the life. A dead person was not a disappeared person, but a Detail of the mourners
transformed one. Dying was another step in life cycle, as it was in the other covering their faces with
the hair. Tomb of
natural events: lunar and solar cycles, the annual flood, vegetation cycleSo, Rekhmire in Gourna.
the burial was just a transition, the dead person was changing his condition. In XVIII Dynasty. Photo:
M Rosa Valdesogo
funerals mourning women would cover their faces with their hair smA, Martn.
reproducing the shadow in which was the deceased, but in the moment of the
resurrection they would uncover them recreating the coming back to light.
Because the chaos is a personification of the primitive vacuum, before the creation[1] and it
becomes necessary to come back to it for finding the first manifestation of life, that in the funerary
context will crystallize in the resurrection of the dead. The death is a return to the first moment of the
creation, and in this new creation of revitalizing the deceased was crucial the life-giving gesture of
shaking the hair.

[1] Chevalier et Gheerbrandt, 1969, p. 325.

 2) The hair in the Sed Festival.
It is impossible to avoid thinking of a relationship between the nwn gesture and the Nwn, the
primeval chaos of the Egyptian cosmogony (It is also unavoidable to think on a play on words). The first
one could easily be a way of coming back to the primeval moment, to the chaotic waters (Nwn) where the
Primeval Hill came out from and where the Demiurge created the world.
At this point, we have to think of some other Egyptian rites with a renovating goal. It would also
be possible that in those rituals exist similar practices. And we have found very interesting results looking
at some documents related to two festivities: the Sed Festival and the Festival of the Valley.
In the tomb of Kheruef in Thebes (TT192), from the reign of Amenhotep III, there is a relief of
the Sed Festival of that pharaoh. A group of women are making a dance in front of Amenhotep III; in
some cases they are making the nwn gesture [1]. The inscription says that the women are stretching out
facing the king and making the ceremony [Sed Festival] before the throne.

Dancers shaking hair in the Sed Festival. Tomb of Kheruef. Assassif.

XVIII Dynasty. Photo: http://www.osirisnet.net

The inscription just over the dancers could be a song, whose meaning would be related to their
movements [2]. This same ceremony and dance is represented in some talatats found in Karnak, where it
was the scene of the Sed Festival of Akhenaton.
The Sed Festival was a ceremony for renewing the pharaohs power. The king had a ritual death
and afterwards he came back to life with all his faculties and in perfect physical conditions for going on
with his kingship. It had five main parts:

The pharaoh is on a procession dressed with the Sed shroud.

Rites of renewing and rebirth.

Homage is paid to the renewed king on his throne. He starts the new order of the world.

The pharaoh visits the gods in their chapels.

Ritual running of the pharaoh showing his physical vigour [3].

The Sed Festival has a Predynastic origin [4] and the god Sed could be an archaic version of
Upuaut The opener of the ways . In the Palermo Stone the register related to the king Den shows the
name of the god Sed written with the determinative of the Upuaut standard, the divinity that represents
the king as the first-born son [5]. In addition it is interesting to notice how in the festival of Osiris in
Abydos, the one avenging the death of his father was not Horus, but Upuaut [6].
We could maybe consider also that the Sed Festival in the Old Kingdom had some elements of
the cult of Osiris [7]. In the Dramatic Ramesseum Papyrus, that tells the ascension of Sesostris I to the
Throne of Egypt, we read that the erection of pillar djed (an Osirian rite) was a very important moment in
the Sed Festival [8], there is also much iconography of the New Kingdom the relationship between the
cult of Osiris and the Heb Sed [9].
This Festival is a death/resurrection ceremony, in which dancing women make an nwn gesture
with their hair. What those dancers make with their hair could have a very deep symbolic meaning. The
pharaoh is like a dead (although just hypothetically) and he has to revive. In this case the Sed Festival is a
ceremony of death and resurrection, so those dancers maybe would be very close to the mourners in the
funerary ceremony.

Mourning woman of Dancing woman in nwn gesture.

tomb of Minnakht. Tomb of Kheruef in Assassif.

Photo:http://www.1st- XVIII Dynasty.

art-gallery.com Photo: http://www.osirisnet.net

There was also a relationship between the Sed Festival and the beginning of the flood [10]. The
Sed Festival was celebrated before the appearance of Sothis (the Egyptian name for the star Sirius) in the
sky announcing the coming of the annual flooding of the Nile that was the beginning of the New Year in
Ancient Egypt. The flood is one of the best examples of annual renewing for the Egyptians. The water of
the flood, as the water of Nun in the Egyptian cosmogony, contents the active ingredient for the new life:
the mud that fertilises the ground and grants the maintenance of Egyptian people. Also in the tomb of
Kheruef we read: Appearance of (king Amenhotep)for resting on his throne that was in his Sed
palace, built by him on the west side of the city. Open the way through S.M. over the water of the flood,
for bringing the gods of the Sed Festival [11].
In a statue of the New Kingdom we read how the owner is beloved of Sothis, Lady of the Sed
Festival and in the ceiling of Ramesseum Ramses II sees Sothis at the beginning of the year, the Sed
Festival and the flood[12].
The Heb Sed was celebrated neither during the rise nor during the decrease of the flow, but in the
driest moment [13], before the rising of Sothis and the arrival of the flooding. The Sed Festival
announced the future waters, so it was the prelude of the new era, the new revival after the drought. And
we have seen that in the rite, a dance with the nwn gesture took place.
In the Sed Festival, the pharaoh was like a ritual dead who had to come back to life [14], so he
was assimilated to Osiris. That would explain the Osirian tinge of the ceremony. The king, symbolically
dead, received the rites that Isis, Nephtys, Anubis, Thot and Horus made over the corpse for reviving
[15]. In this regenerating ritual appears the nwn gesture as a part of the practices for the rebirth of
Osiris/pharaoh.

[1] Fakhry, 1943, Pl. XL, p. 497.

[2] Fakhry, 1943, p. 497. In the temple of Bubastis there are some fragments relating to the Sed
Festival; one of them shows a group of dancers with a small part of this song. (Naville, 1892, Pl. XIV)
[3] L V, col. 785.
[4] L V, col. 782. The Sed Festival is documented from the beginning of I Dynasty in the Narmer
macehead and also maybe in the Scorpion macehead (Cervell Autuori, 1996, p. 209, n. 154).
[5] Cervell Autuori, 1996, p. 208, n. 150.
[6] Cervell Autuori, 1996, p. 210.
[7] L V, col. 786.
[8] L V, col. 786; Barta, 1976, pp. 31-43.
[9] L V, col. 786.
[10] Hornung und Staehelin, 1974, p. 56.
[11] Translation of Helck, 1966, p. 78.
[12] AH 1, 1974, p. 58.
[13] AH 1, p. 58.
[14] Mayassis, 1957, p. 226.
[15] Mayassis, 1957, p. 68.
 3) The hair in the Festival of the Valley.
The nwn gesture is also represented in a relief from the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in Karnak. A
group of women are dancing in the Festival of the Valley [1].

Dancers in the Festival of the Valley.

Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in Karnak. XVIII Dynasty. Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn.

This festivity is documented for the first time in the temple of Mentuhotep II in Deir el-Bahari as
a funerary Theban festivity. It was a feast in honour of the deceased ones. People visited the necropolis,
decorated the tombs and carried offers to the dead relatives. In the gods sphere the image of the god
Amon went out from the temple of Karnak in his sacred barque [2] and crossed the Nile for visiting every
funerary temple of the West Bank. In the procession accompanying Amon there was a feminine clergy,
among which there were some dancers.

Barque of Amon. Relief from the mortuary temple of Seti I in Dra Abu el-Naga.
XIX Dynasty. Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn

The Festival of the Valley took place in the summer solstice, between the harvest and the flooding
season. That means that it coincided with the rising of Sothis in the sky announcing the arrival of the
flood [3]. People, who visited the tombs of their relatives during the night sung, drank and danced;
according to some scholars sometimes the scenes were even orgiastic [4]. The frontier between death
and life disappears with the feast and the inebriation, the border that separates the living world and the
Hereafter becomes blurred with the length of the night[5].
The last visit of Amon in his procession was the temple of Deir el-Bahari[6]. In the sanctuary of
Hatshepsut the image of the god passed many days and nights. In this temple there is a scene with a
barque over the golden lake surrounded by four ponds full of milk. During the night the barque was
circled by torches, which were put out into the milk n the morning. That night took place the encounter
between Amon and Hathor, the Cow Goddess. According to the scholar Naguib the milk into the ponds
symbolised the milk of the Sacred Cow, the nourishment of Hathor; and at the same time these four ponds
would symbolise the four cardinal points. So, the solar God gets into the belly of the cosmic mother for
renewing thanks to her milk, the same milk where the fire of the night is put out [7]. After that night the
procession came back to the temple of Karnak.
After this encounter Amon was energized and ready for facing a new year. In fact it was a
funerary festivity in which the god, as if it was a dead one, made a trip to the necropolis and was renewed
after some ceremonial practices.
In addition the Festival of the Valley took place before the flood, and during that night of ecstasy
Hathor showed her most erotic side. She was the lady of the inebriation, the happiness in ecstasy, she
promoted abundance and fertility[8] , in whose night the flood was conceived [9]. The feminine being
(Hathor) awarded the masculine principle (Amon) the fecundity power confirming this way the
enthronement of the solar god.
In this renewing festivity we find again the nwn gesture. In the 30s E. Brunner-Traut already
compared the women who appear in the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut with the mourners of the tombs of
Renni and Amenemhat, but she considered that they had nothing to do with each other [10]. According to
her, the dancers of the Red Chapel were making a gesture of excitement and ecstasy [11], the movements
of the mourners ware just a part of the moan [12]. However, H. Wild considered that what was said in
chapters 1005 and 1974 of the Pyramid Texts about mourners pulling hair ( The souls of Buto rock for
you; they beat their bodies and their arms for you, they pull their hair for you ) was a description of a
special dance in honour to the deceased king [13].
In the Theban tomb 53 of Amenemhat from the reign of Tutmosis III there is a very similar scene
to that one of the Red Chapel. Some women are dancing or tumbling and caver their faces with the hair.
In front of them three more women are shaking sistrums and a mena necklace; so this ceremony was
related to the cult to Hathor.

Dancers from the tomb of Amenemhat (TT53). Gourna. XVIII Dynasty.

 In the 70`s Vandier considered that these were acrobatic dances and that women were making
somersaults [14]. In the 80s W. Decker, based on a reconstruction made by O. Keel[15], accepted the
theory of Vandier and thought that the women with the hair over their faces were in fact getting ready for
starting the somersault forward [16]. Also W. Decker compared this gesture with the one of the mourners
in funerals (in particular with mourner in the Tomb of Minnakht). But it seems unlikely that they
describes similar moments; while in the first document we are in a group of dancing women, while in the
tomb of Minnakht she is not with other women making acrobatics.
Coming back to Deir el-Bahari, in the sanctuary there is a scene of the solar barque in procession.
In it two women on their knees are touching their napes and cover their faces with the hair. Vandier
thought that they were waiting their turn for making the same exercise as their fellows [17]. He
emphasizes the fact that those women are not in a vertical posture, so maybe getting ready for making the
somersault backwards [18].

Dancers in the Festival of the Valley. Deir el-Bahari. XVIII Dynasty.

Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn.

It seems obvious that those women were making some acrobatics, but we do not think that cover
their faces with hair were just a way of representing the first step of a somersault. If thinking of a
gymnast gaining momentum, the hair is never covering the face. The gesture nwn in the images of the
dancers in the Festival of the Valley is not realistic at all (although about the realism in Egyptian art is
another subject for debate). Taking into consideration that as much in tombs as in temples we are facing
renewing ceremonies with a regeneration intention. So it is easy to think that nwn gesture in that dance
had a reviving purpose. Dancers and mourners do the same movement of bending the body and throw the
hair forward; and apparently in both cases with a similar symbolism.
On the other hand, the dance is something very common in religious rituals[19], and they have a
connection with lunar rites[20]. The dance is maybe considered as a fact of pleasant magic for promoting
the lunar rebirth[21]. If we notice that the Festival of the Valley was a funerary ceremony celebrated
after the first new moon (a symbol of death) and before the flood (the annual renovation in Egypt), we
could think that it was, as in burials, a new creation rite, it was the announcement of a cyclic renovation
and the reenergizing of Amon [22].

[1] Michalowski, 1970, fot. 70.

[2] With the ones of Mut and Jonsu.
 [3] Naguib, 1990. Leuven, p. 129.
[4] Stadelmann, 1990, p. 148.
[5] Stadelmann, 1990, p. 149.
[6] Naguib, 1990, p. 126.
[7] Naguib, 1990, p. 128.
[8] Naguib, 1990, p. 129.
[9] Naguib, 1990, p. 130.
[10] Brunner-Traut, 1938, p. 51, n. 13.
[11] Brunner-Traut, 1938, p. 52.
[12] Brunner-Traut, 1938, p. 60.
[13] Wild, 1963, p. 86.
[14] Vandier, 1964, p. 451.
[15] Keel, 1974, fig. 11
[16] Decker, 1987, pp. 140-142.
[17] Vandier, 1964, p. 450.
[18] Vandier, 1964, p. 450.
[19] Funerary dances take part in rites of passage, as in breaking rites of African cultures (Naguib,
1993, p. 29).
[20] Briffault, 1974, p. 341.
[21] Briffault, 1974, p. 342.
[22] The physical activity (the movement) is a help for the resurrection. Amon, as king of gods, had to
renew his power, as in the living world did the pharaoh.
 4) The hair is the Primeval Water.
In 1964 D. Bonneau assimilated the hair of Isis with the rise of the Nile due to the bushes of
papyrus floating on it [1]. According to her, in the ancient Egyptian tradition the manes of the gods were
bushes of papyrus [2] and the locks of hair are the vegetable fibres that content the first rise and
announce the flooding of the river. For that reason D. Bonneau assured that usually the hair was united to
gods related to the flood of the Nile [3]. That also would explain why in decoration the water was always
coloured in green with black waves or why the hieroglyph of water were usually in black colour.

A boat is on green water with black waves.

Hieroglyph of water in black colour.
Relief from the mastaba of Ti in Saqqara.
VI Dynasty. Coffin of the Middle Kingdom.
Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn. Bahr el-Yussef Museum.
Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn.

From the Old Kingdom we can see this relationship between hair and water. In the Pyramid texts
of Pepi I we read that the hair of Pepi is the Nun[4] In fact, the hair is inseparable from the aquatic
element, since in those parts where there were no papyri, Egyptians called the hair of Isis to coralline
formations in the shores of Red Sea and the Indic Ocean [5].
We could then think of the hair as the water having the principles of the Creation and Renewing.
The water of the flood has a magic power itself, as we can read in the magical Papyrus from Paris I, line
29. It is said how, for ensuring the effectiveness of the sacrifice of a cock, it was necessary to go to a
place where the Nile has already retired its water before nobody has step on it, or to a place dipped
completely by the water of the Nile, or to a place flooded by the Nile in an accidental way [6]. According
to these words it had to be a place soaked by those regenerating principles, which improved the magic. If
the water had this magical power and was assimilated to the hair, it makes sense to think about a magical
attribute of the hair.
It seems obvious the relationship in Ancient Egypt between the renovating rituals and the
flooding, which was announced by Sothis, the brightest star that appeared in the morning sky with the
sun between the seventeenth and the nineteenth of July[7]. Sothis was for Egyptians the one who
renovates the vegetation [8] and she was assimilated to Isis: Your sister Isis comes to you, happy with
your love, you put her over your phallus, your semen goes up to her, sharp as Sothis, (like) Horus
equipped coming out from you, like Horus who is in Sothis [9]. The sexual aspect is very important and
we will consider it later.
 Isis, assimilated to Sothis, announces with her hair the rise of the Nile, like the second one does
appearing in the firmament. Isis is the one who makes the Nile to increase and flow, the one who makes
the Nile to get bigger in this season [10]. So, the mane of Isis would be a promise of resurrection,
because would be the image of the water that creates and renovates. In the funerary rite it would emanate
to the dead by means of the nwn gesture next to the corpse. That would suppose a return to the Nun, the
primeval waters where the first living went out from as the Nile permits the constant renovation of the
Egyptian life. To shake the hair onwards would be then the announcement of a new creation, like the
presence of Sothis means the beginning of the flood and the New Year.

Nile fertilising the land of Egypt near Al-Minya.

Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn

Many years ago S. Mayassis already studied the meaning of hair in Egyptian believing [11].
According to him, the hair was a synonym of power [12] and Isis covered her face with her mane to get
profit of its own force and allow also the others to do the same thing [13]. S. Mayassis considered also to
untie the hair was a way of putting the magical power of the knot aside [14], so the force of the hair was
set out and joined the person [15].
Certainly the hair constitutes an element of power and vigour, but Mayassis did not mention that
the power of the Isis mane is because its assimilation with the renovating water of the flood. That would
explain the nwn gesture done by mourners in funerals was a revitalising gesture, that brings backs the
dead to the Nun, for bringing him back to life, since he is the one who has been created in the Nun [16].
In the month of Khoiak, the fourth month of the season Akhet (Inondation), took place the
Mysteries of Osiris, a group of rites recalling the Osiris Myth [17]. In all these rites the mourning had a
relevant place; women representing Isis and Nephtys were mourning at the moment of making the
figurine of Osiris with earth and cereal [18], which grow up as a symbol of life and resurrection. In the
festivity of Osiris, the two representatives of Isis and Nephtys recited aloud a sacred song of mourning the
twenty-fifth day of the Khoiak month just before the Osiris resurrection [19]. Lamentation would be the
prelude of the new life for Osiris, also evident with the rise of the Nile [20]; in the funeral the meaning of
that mourning would be the same.
 On the other hand, Pausanias said how the tears of Isis were considered as the flood of the Nile:
Egyptians say that Isis weeps for Osiris when the river starts increasing; and when it floods the fields,
they say that it is Isis tears [21]. Once the Nile started its rise, Egyptians celebrated the Festival of Isis;
she, as mourner of Osiris, caused with her tears the increase of the water level of the Nile [22]. In fact, in
the Songs of Isis and Nephtys, when they mourn we read: I am Isis I flood the land in that day [23].
Tears in Ancient Egyptian (rmit) had in Egyptian mythology a strong creation power, because
mankind (rmT) issued from tears [24]. According to a legend dating from XII Dynasty, the god Re sent
one of their two eyes for fighting against his enemy Apophis. That eye was taking a long time to come
back, so it was replaced by another one. When the eye of Re came back from the battle and saw another
one in his place he became very upset. This eye started crying and people came from its tears. For
consoling the sorrow Re turned it into the ureus and put it on his forehead.

Amehotep I with the ureus in his

forehead. Painting from the tomb of
Inerkha in Deir el-Medina. Altes
Museum of Berlin. XX Dynasty.
Photo: M Rosa Valdesogo Martn

According to B. Mathieu to come out from the eye (pr m irt) is an Egyptian expression for
referring to the weeping and he emphasizes the fact that mankind appears from a sorrow [25]. The eye
and the humidity coming out from it (tears) have the power of giving life: He has opened his eyes in the
moment he was going out from the Nun. All these things have come to existence from his eyes [26]. That
would explain such an important role of the mourners during the funerary rite; they shed their tears with
regenerating power that will help in the resurrection of the dead. We need also to notice the importance of
the eye as a beneficial organ for the regeneration of the deceased (we will see it in another post).
In chapter 674 of the Coffin texts we could already read how the water is the hair smA of Mht
over you. Water and Inundation are vital elements par excellence in Egyptian mythology. Water has
always a negative and a positive aspect, because for renovating it is needed first a destruction. If the
hair smA is like the water, that one will also have a double value: it will be at the same time image of
chaos and of new life.
For that reason, we could think that the nwn gesture, depending on in which moment of the
funeral it would be made, it could refer on one hand to the sorrow for the dead and the chaos of the death,
and on the other hand to the rebirth and a the new creation. Mourners could shake their hair onwards as a
sign of despair but also as an image of the primeval and chaotic water, which have the power of giving
life and create.

[1] Bonneau, 1964, p. 259.

 [2] Bonneau, 1964, p. 260.
[3] Bonneau, 1964, p. 260, n. 9.
[4] Budge, 1969, p. 109. This same assimilation of hair and Nun appears in the papyri of Ani and Un.
[5] Juba relates that near of Trogloditas Islands a brush grew up in deep down in the sea called hair
of Isis, without leaves and similar to coral (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XIII, 51)
[6] Bonneau, 1964, p. 285.
[7] Bonneau, 1964, p. 263.
[8] Pyr. 477.
[9] Pyr. 632.
[10] Budge, 1973, p. 278.
[11] Mayassis, 1955.
[12] Mayassis, 1955, p. 354.
[13] Mayassis, 1955, pp. 354 y 362.
[14] Mayassis, 1955, p. 356.
[15] Mayassis, 1955, p. 362.
[16] CT, 544.
[17] That also shows the relationship between Osiris and the water.
[18] Guglielmi, 1980, p.80.
[19] Gaballa and Kitchen, 1969, p.45.
[20] Kees, 1956, p. 354.
[21] Pausanias, De Phocicis, X, 32,10.
[22] Frazer, 1914, Third Ed., p. 33.
[23] Canciones,3,16.
[24] Guglielmi, 1980, p. 82.
[25] Mathieu, 1986, p. 500.
[26] Fragment on the South facade of the temple of Hathor in Dendera (el-Kordy, 1982, p. 203).