The Sahara by Eamonn Gearon Read Free Book Online Page B

would prefer it if the oasis they are visiting were still lit only by candle-light and oil lamps, but it is telling that one hears such musings as they queue in the oasis’ internet cafe.

From Ancient Egypt to the Arab Invasion
     
“O Egypt, Egypt, there shall remain of thy religion but vague stories which posterity will refuse to believe, and words graven in stone recounting thy piety... The Divinity shall re-ascend into the heaven. And Egypt shall be a desert, widowed of men and gods.”
    Hermes Trismegistus, or the Thrice Great; syncretic deity of Hermes and Thoth
     
     

Land Of The Dead
     
    The period following the end of the Green Sahara brought suffering to all Egyptians, except those living along the Nile and its delta which avoided the enduring state of barrenness into which the vast majority of the Sahara had been plunged. To be sure, the farmers had to learn how to manage the annual inundation of the river, understanding that its clear flowing bounty was regular but not always predictable. But overall river-based farmers were clearly better off than those who found their soil becoming increasingly thin each year. Indeed, as the Sahara grew drier and non-Nilotic inhabitants learnt that things were literally greener along the river, swelling numbers moved to settle in the more fertile regions and this steep growth in population led directly to the emergence of the Egyptian Empire, an ancient superpower.
    As the waters of the Nile were revered for their life-giving powers, so too the ancient Egyptians regarded the sun as worthy of veneration. Rising each morning, the sun’s daily path was a metaphor for the journey of life, not only that on earth but the more important journey of the soul after death. Before the Old Kingdom, Egyptians buried their dead in the desert, where the remains would be naturally mummified in the moistureless earth. Also during this period, bodies were interred with their backs to the desert, facing east so that even after burial the dead could witness and recall the daily rebirth that comes with the rising of the sun. The setting of the sun in the west, in the heart of the waterless desert, pointed towards the realm in which one’s soul would find its final dwelling for the afterlife. It is by no means a coincidence that all the great Egyptian tombs, whether the Old Kingdom Pyramids at Giza or the Valleys of the Kings and Queens of the New Kingdom, are on the western side of the Nile.
     

    Egyptian funerary text, in the Land of the Dead
     
    Thus, in the religion of Ancient Egypt, the Sahara was identified as the Land of the Dead, the nightly setting of the sun a profound memento mori . The closeness of this relationship between death and the desert is alluded to in the Pyramid Texts , a series of spells from the fifth and sixth dynasties that were found carved into the walls and sarcophagi of the pyramids at Sakkara. Reserved for the sole use of the Pharaohs, the Texts were intended to ease the progress of the dead into the afterlife and to make that journey a comfortable one. This was also the main function of the incantations that made up the Egyptian Book of the Dead , composed after and heavily influenced by the Pyramid Texts . The earliest of these culturally and historically invaluable documents date back to 2400 BCE, making them the world’s oldest extant religious texts which offer unparalleled insights into the early years of the Egyptian Empire.
    The Book of the Dead and the Pyramid Texts illustrate the ancient kingdom’s religious observances and social mores which were refined and reinvented by later generations. For example, simple desert interment was the common pre-dynastic practice that lasted for centuries before formal mummification and elaborate tombs, as can be seen in Spell 662 of the Pyramid Texts where the dead king is told to “arise... Cast off your bonds, throw off the sand which is on your face.” In the Book of the Dead the deceased may converse with