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Ancient Egypt Magazine

Issue Four - November / December 2000

The Lesson of Bahareya?

If nothing else, the Bahareya mummies are testament to the enduring desire of human beings, in Egypt and elsewhere, to attain a life beyond the horizon of death. They represent an extremely late stage in the long history of mummification. After Graeco-Roman times, burial practices changed; what had been seen as reverential, religious and magical attempts to preserve the body came to be viewed as pagan and occult.

At the time of the discovery, Zahi Hawass commented: “Most people know about mummies through scary movies. But the significance of this find is that it is the first exciting thing that has brought Egyptomania to the modern world. To me this is personally very exciting, but I am not overawed by the scary reputation of mummies. To me it is a science and this remarkable find gives me the chance to find more out about people from another place and time.”

Experts will carry on discussing, and arguing about, the relevance of the Bahareya cemeteries for decades to come. It is interesting to consider what this find might tell us about the ideas of the incoming Greeks and Romans, who settled in Egypt and controlled and exploited the land’s resources.

It is argued by some scholars that the Greeks and Romans lived separate lives from the native population: they were elites sharing little in common with the people living on the land when they arrived. Nonetheless, the Greeks and Romans, like modern people, were inspired by Egyptian culture. Some of their artefacts and ideas are undoubtedly hybrids containing elements of their various origins.

The people who lived in Bahareya were following ancient practices in attempting to preserve their bodies for eternity; but was there a further, and perhaps more significant reason for the location of the large cemetery reflecting the wealth of the prosperous oasis?

 “I believe that, in Graeco-Roman times, people chose the area as their burial place because of its proximity to the Temple of Alexander the Great,” wrote Hawass in an article on his web site. The reputation of Alexander could have been a potent draw for centuries after his death, and the cemetery at Bahareya might have been in use until the 4th century AD.

Greek, Roman, Egyptian or hybrid? Valuable find, or simply a symptom of the decline of the ancient skill of the embalmer? As with so many discoveries in Egypt, time will tell. The slow passage of time, and the changes and transformations wrought by it, is Egypt’s specialist subject.

The official web site of Zahi Hawass can be found at http://guardians.net/hawass

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