Agriculture and the Osiris Myth in Ancient Egypt

Agriculture and the Osiris Myth
In Upper Egypt, therefore, there is evidence of a belief in the afterlife and an indication that many of the Egyptian animals that were to become dynastic gods were, if not yet revered, at least highly regarded. The Delta, on the other hand, yields the earliest evidence of agriculture and indication of ancestor worship, and here the most important legendary figure of ancient Egyptian history that of Osiris developed.

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture

The famous Osiris God myth is believed in its original form to have been devised to spread an understanding of agriculture throughout the land, explained in terms of the death and rebirth of the corn god. Osiris was probably an early leader in one of the settlements of the Delta who had quite a large following. When he died he became identified with the totem of the area which developed, like many other totems, into a harvest god. Osiris God adopted some of the regalia of the older deity including a crown with double plumes and a shepherd’s crook, and the agricultural cycle became his domain. He was revered as a god associated with water and the annual death and rebirth of the land.

The Osiris God myth underwent many changes with the passage of time. In one form it relates how Osiris ruled the land justly with his wife Isis at his side. He taught his people, as yet partly civilised, the art of making agricultural implements and controlling the waters of the Nile. He also taught them how to take to a corn diet, produce bread, wine and beer. His wife Isis was equally loved and taught the people how to grind corn, weave linen and, with her devotion to her husband, intimated the benefits of domestic life.

Osiris had a brother, Set, who was jealous of his popularity and secretly aspired to his position of favour. Inviting Osiris God to a banquet, Set tricked him into entering a coffin specially designed to fit him alone. No sooner had Osiris obliged than Set hastily sealed it with molten lead and cast it on the waters of the Nile where it was borne northwards by the currents to the marshes of the Delta. Isis, grieved by the news of her husband, set off in search of his body. She cut off a lock of her hair and rent her robes in torment as she went on her way following the course of the river. She eventually found the body entangled in the branches of a tamarisk bush. She extracted it and hid it. Unfortunately, Set was boar-hunting and discovered the body, which he brutally hacked into fourteen pieces and scattered throughout the land. The bereft Isis, this time accompanied by her sister Nephthys, once again set out on her search. They found the pieces of Osiris’ body, carefully collected them and laid them in a coffin, crooning sorrowful incantations over them to make the body whole.

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture

It is probable that the concept of Osiris God  falling victim to Set was a comprehensible explanation of the fertile land (with which Osiris was associated) falling victim to the relentless desert (of which Set was the chief deity). The mutilation of the body of Osiris, the corn god, and the scattering of parts up and down the Nile valley, is believed to illustrate the concept of grain sowing, following which, with the necessary incantations, or rural festivals, the stalks of corn would grow again. Be that as it may, the cultivation and storage of grain was a vital factor in the movement away from primitive society towards civilisation. It was a gradual phase of human development. For the assurance of larger quantities of food and food surpluses led to a decline in hunting as an economic activity. Larger groups of people, not all of whom could be crop-growers, were assured of a regular Egyptian food supply and could settle down. Craft specialisation was a direct outcome, since it absorbed the surplus labour. From the simple technology of the hunters and fishermen we see improved production of weapons, tools and implements and the emergence of new industries including flint mining and flaking.

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Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

Agriculture
The bulk of the population, however, was employed on the land or in Egyptian agriculture-related industries like viticulture, papyrus-manufacture, spinning and weaving. The agricultural cycle comprised three seasons. The Akhet, the season of the inundation, which began on 19 July, the Perit (‘going out’), the season for ploughing and sowing which began on 15 November, and Shemu, the harvest, which began on 16 March.

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

With the rise of the Nile the peasants made sure that their cattle were safely housed on dry land and, with agricultural activities suspended, cared for them and provided them with food already laid in storage. They carefully directed the water from the main canals to smaller branches transversing the fields in straight or curved lines, and controlled it by means of embankments. When the water level began to fall these natural reservoirs retained a residue of mineral-rich sediment which was ready to receive seed without further preparation. Thrown on the surface the seed was usually trodden by goats. Where, however, the earth dried hard, a plough was used. The hoe, one of the most ancient of agricultural tools consisted of a broad, pointed blade of wood attached to a handle at an acute angle and held in position in the centre by a slack rope. The plough was a hoe enlarged by adding two long wooden arms on which the ploughman could lean to keep the furrow straight and also to pressure the blade into the soil. A pole was provided with a yoke for attaching to draught Egyptian animals.

Although the Nile valley and the Delta were fertile, full exploitation of the land only came with unremitting toil. Naturally the peasants, from centuries of experience, had gradually become aware of the potential. They had determined the most suitable times for sowing and reaping, and the most rewarding systems of irrigation for the different areas. In the Egyptian temple of the 5th-dynasty pharaoh Nyuserre the life of the peasant is depicted during the seasonal operations throughout the course of a single year. From these and from scenes in the tombs of noblemen it is clear that the harvest was the season of most strenuous activity. The ripened corn was reaped with the aid of a sickle, placed in sacks and loaded on to donkeys to be carried to the threshing floor. The ears of corn were then taken from the sacks and piled in heaps to be trodden by oxen, goats or donkeys. The threshed grain was piled in a heap by means of three-pronged forks and sifted and winnowed by two small boards or scoops. The latter were used in pairs for tossing the unhusked grain into the wind. Finally the grain was placed in sacks by women and transported to the granary.

Flour was ground by placing grain at the upper end of a slightly hollowed, slanting slab of limestone and sliding a crossbar of sandstone across it. The ground flour gradually worked downwards and was caught in a tray at the lower end.

Flax was also cultivated in large quantities. It was harvested at different times for different purposes: when ripe, the fibres tough, it was suitable for mats and ropes. If cut when the stems were green, it could be woven into fine soft cloth: some of the surviving remnants show that the fabric was sometimes of such gossamer fineness as to be almost indistinguishable from silk. This was particularly the case with royal linen, though coarser textiles were woven on a more widespread scale. Weaving was carried out by women, who also made tapestries. The latter were either for hanging on the walls of Egyptian noblemen’s villas, or to form the shade of a roof garden.

Viticulture was one of the most highly developed, as well as one of the earliest, industries. The first wine-press hieroglyphic dates from the Egyptian 1st dynasty, and there is evidence that even from this early date wine was transported across the country in sealed jars. Grapes were plucked by hand, placed in vats and trodden until the liquid ran through holes into a waiting container. Fermentation probably occurred naturally, due both to the method of pressing and the high summer temperature. Date-palm wine was also produced.

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture

 The manufacture of papyrus paper was another flourishing industry. The papyrus, sliced into thin sections, was laid side by side and crosswise, soaked and compressed. Beating and drying turned it into sheets of durable paper. Two rolls of papyrus in a box dating to the reign of the Egyptian 1st dynasty pharaoh Udimu are evidence of how early it was produced. Ships trading with the Phoenician coast carried bales of this essentially Egyptian product as cargo. The papyrus plant served many purposes: the stalks were woven and used as mats, the vegetable fibres were transformed into a pliable, tough material suitable for sandals, and lightweight skiffs for hunting in the marshes were made by binding long bundles together.

Veterinary medicine was practised by the peasants and the obvious health of the herds indicates proficient rearing. It was a talent handed from father to son. In the Egyptian tomb of Ptahhotep a scene shows a cow giving birth with the aid of a veterinary surgeon who gently guides the calf into the world. The ancient Egyptians knew their animals intimately, took great Egyptians care of them and often fed them by hand. In the tomb of Ti a cow is being milked by a cowherd while the overseer leans on his staff watching. Though there are scenes of herdsmen driving rams across a canal with raised whip, none shows an animal being beaten.

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Commerce and Food in Ancient Egypt

The Commerce of the Ancient Egypt, c. 1000
al-Muqaddasi

Egypt is a country of commerce; it is an important source of very fine leather, resistant to water, sturdy, and pliant; leather of sheep and asses’ skins, leggings and cloth of three-ply yams of camels’ hair and goats’ wool all these are from the metropolis. From Upper Egypt come rice, wool, dates, vinegar, raisins. From Tinnis . . . cloth variegated in colour; from Dimyat, sugar cane. From al-Fayyum, rice, and a linen of inferior quality; from Busir, shrimp, and cotton of superior quality. From al-Farma, fish, and from the towns around it, large baskets, and ropes made of fibre of the finest quality. Here are produced white cloth of the greatest fineness, wraps, canvas, the mats of ‘Abbadani style of very fine quality, grains, grass peas, oils of rape, and of jasmine, and of other plants beside these.

Ancient Egypt Commerce

Their specialities include reedpens incomparable! and their vitriol, marble, vinegar, wool, canvas, cloth, linen, leathers, shoes, leggings, geese, plantains, wax, sugar candy, fine linen, dyes, apparel, spun yam, waterskins, harisa, the sweet pastry called nayda, chick peas, lupin, cloves, amm, mats, asses, cattle, girdles . . . . Ancient Egypt Commerce.

The Food of the Ancient Egypt, c. 1200
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

Ancient Egypt Food

... In Egypt they extract oil from the seeds of the radish, tthe urnip, and the lettuce and use it for cooking. They also make soap from these oils; the soap made in Egypt is soft, red, yellow and green. It is this soap that the sweetmeat sapouniyyeh appears to have some resemblance, and from that it takes its name.

As for the stews of the Egyptians, those which are sour or ordinary have nothing in particular, or very little, different from those used elsewhere; but, on the contrary their sweet stews are of a singular kind, for they cook a chicken with all sorts of sweet substances. Here is how they prepare this ancient Egypt Food: they boil a fowl, then put it in a julep, place under it crushed hazelnuts or pistachio nuts, poppy seeds or purslane seeds, or rose hips, and cook the whole until coagulated. Then they add spices and remove it from the fire. . . .

As for the sweetmeats, these are indeed various and would need a special book to describe them. There are some kinds which are employed as curatives for certain ailments, and which are given to persons on a diet, the sick, and to convalescent persons, when they want something sweet to eat. Of this number are the khabis of pumpkin, khabis of carrot, the sweet called wardiyyeh in which the rose enters, that called zindjebiliyyeh which is made with ginger, the pastilles of aloes wood and of lemon, of musk, and many others .... ancient Egypt food .

Travelers in Egypt often wrote of the costume of the people for the Europeans, so very different to their own. The Arabic scholar, Edward Lane, sought to understand the purpose of the dress of the better-off males, Dr. Meryon described the simple clothes of the poorer women, while Elizabeth Cooper was fascinated by the lives of women of means.

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Ancient Egypt Agriculture Facts

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt 
Ploughing and planting of all crops began in October. The plough was normally pulled by cows, not oxen, or even occasionally by men it was guided from behind by the ploughman, who wielded a whip to encourage his team whilst pushing down on the plough with all his might with the other hand. The team was often guided at the front by an assistant, usually a boy or young man, using a stick or shouting encouragement. If the soil was exceptionally heavy or hard it was broken up manually using hoes.

Ancient Egypt Agriculture - Ploughing

While the corps was ripening, work did not cease. Land away from the river might need further irrigation later the season as the soil dried out. This was done using done water from the network of canals that crossed the cultivated land. The water was led to the fields via small ditches separated from the canals by sluices. To get the water onto the soil, however, required heavy manual labour. No mechanical lifting system was known before the New Kingdom, when the shaduf was invented. This consisted of a tall upright post on which pivoted a long cross-pole, which could swing freely in all directions. At one end of the pole was a water container and at the other a heavy counterweight. The container was filled from the ditch and the weight raised the water ti the required level. Unfortunately this useful aid seems only to have been used to irrigate gardens, the labourer in the filed having to continue this backbreaking task by land .The saqqieh , or water wheel, commonly seen in Egypt today did not appear until Ptolemaic times .

Natural enemies and Agriculture in Ancient Egypt
Other problem which the farmer and to contend with were pests, such as birds or insects and flash storms which could flatten the grain as it ripened, The effects of these natural enemies are graphically described in the Biblical look of Exodus, in which the plagues visited on Egypt by the Hebrew god are catalogued. Against insects and the weather there was little recourse except prayer, but against the birds some action could be taken. Small boys were set in the fields, or in gardens, to make loud noises in order to scare the birds away. Spring traps were set to catch individual birds, but in the case of a whole flock descending. g, groups of men or boys would ensnare them in a large net and then kill them for food.

Harvest Time - Ancient Egypt Agriculture
Towards harvest time other pests invaded the farmers' fields. These were the tax assessors who came to gauge the yield of the crop and set the amount to be taken in dues. The bustling activity if the harvest is shown in a scene from the tomb of Menna at Thebes. The sequence begins on the left-hand side of the bottom register. Menna sits beneath a shady baldachin watching the progress of his workmen, while a servant offers him a cool drink from a flask. In the field the harvesters are watched over by a scribe dressed in white linen. The men work short curved sickles.

Agriculture in Ancient Egypt

One of the labourers is seen talking a drink from a jar proffered by a young girl picks up gleanings dropped by the harvesters. Above the girls is a nursing mother, seated beneath a tree, with a bowl of food for the workers' break. Further along we see the harvested grain being taken from he field in large baskets carried on poles by pairs of men, At their feet children are gleaning and two girls fight over their finds. Gleaning by the families of field-workers was a traditional way of supplementing the low pay given by landowners if they were able, the harvesters might intentionally drop ears for the benefit of the gleaners.

Beneath a tree sump a pair of idlers, one of whom is playing a flute. They may be harvesters tacking break or servants of  Menna waiting for him to complete his inspection, At the end of the bottom register two men are shown forking over the ears of corn on the threshing floor prior to turning loose oxen to trample the grain from the chaff. This process is depicted at the beginning of the register. A man drives a team of four beasts, while two others turn over the grain with forks. The next scene shows winnowing. A group of workers pick up the trampled ears in flat, wooden scoops, one in each hand. They toss the grain high in the air, causing the chaff to blow away in the wind, while the wheat falls back to the ground.

The final scene shows the scribes again at work recording the harvest, measure by measure. It is now that he tax and rent, assessed earlier, are taken away. If the peasant could nor or would nor pay his dues, he was usually beaten mercilessly by order of these petty bureaucrats. Once the harvest was complete the grain was taken for storage in granaries .... Ancient Egypt Agriculture .

The harvest was presided over by the goddess Renenutet, who is depicted as a cobra of a cobra-headed woman, as this snake was often found in ripe corn. In harvest scenes a swollen crescent shape is often shown above the winnowing floor. This may represent a type of corn-doll, perhaps another symbol of the harvest deity. The owner of the estate had to give her offerings of corn, birds, bread, cucumbers, melons and other fruit in thanks for a successful harvest, and no doubt other, local deities also received a share the bounty.

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