Françoise Dunand

Christiane Zivie-Coche

Al-Aliha wa al-nas fi Miṣr

"Sphinxes are legion in Egypt—what is so special about this one? . . . We shall take a stroll around the monument itself, scrutinizing its special features and analyzing the changes it experienced throughout its history. The evidence linked to the statue will enable us to trace its evolution . . . down to the worship it received in the first centuries of our own era, when Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans mingled together in devotion to this colossus, illustrious witness to a past that was already more than two millennia old."—from the IntroductionThe Great Sphinx of Giza is one of the few monuments from ancient Egypt familiar to nearly everyone. In a land where the colossal is part of the landscape, it still stands out, the largest known statue in Egypt. Originally constructed as the image of King Chephren, builder of the second of the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx later acquired new fame in the guise of the sun god Harmakhis. Major construction efforts in the New Kingdom and Roman Period transformed the monument and its environs into an impressive place of pilgrimage, visited until the end of pagan antiquity.Christiane Zivie-Coche, a distinguished Egyptologist, surveys the long history of the Great Sphinx and discusses its original appearance, its functions and religious significance, its relation to the many other Egyptian sphinxes, and the various discoveries connected with it. From votive objects deposited by the faithful and inscriptions that testify to details of worship, she reconstructs the cult of Harmakhis (in Egyptian, Har-em-akhet, or "Horus-in-the-horizon"), which arose around the monument in the second millennium. "We are faced," she writes, "with a religious phenomenon that is entirely original, though not unique: a theological reinterpretation turned an existing statue into the image of the god who had been invented on its basis."The coming of Christianity ended the Great Sphinx's religious role. The ever-present sand buried it, thus sparing it the fate that overtook the nearby pyramids, which were stripped of their stone by medieval builders. The monument remained untouched, covered by its desert blanket, until the first excavations. Zivie-Coche details the archaeological activity aimed at clearing the Sphinx and, later, at preserving it from the corrosive effects of a rising water table.

History of a Monument

Sphinx

Jan Assmann

La mise en oeuvre de moyens de survivre par delà la mort, question centrale de la culture égyptienne, a été le biais pour rendre traitable cette réalité incontournable du destin humain. Laissant de côté l'apparat qui entoure le mort en Egypte, ses " monuments d'éternité ", Jan Assmann a analysé à travers les textes funéraires, particulièrement les Textes des sarcophages, premier témoignage de la "démotisation" de pratiques d'abord réservées au seul pharaon, le rôle des "liturgies funéraires". Ces récitations rituelles, paroles que l'écriture rend permanentes et performatives, octroient au défunt un statut dans la société des hommes comme des dieux, en tant qu'esprit glorifié. Ayant franchi dans le triomphe de la justification, l'épreuve du jugement, qui prend place dans le cadre du Rituel de l'embaumement, lors des Veillées horaires, le mort, tel Horus vainqueur de Seth, pourra, tel Rê, participer éternellement au cycle de renaissance quotidienne ; et tel Osiris, auquel son fils Horus succède sur terre, il trouvera sa place dans la douat, le domaine des morts et se perpétuera à jamais par la relation père/fils.

l'apport des liturgies funéraires

Images et rites de la mort dans l'Égypte ancienne

In their wide-ranging interpretation of the religion of ancient Egypt, Françoise Dunand and Christiane Zivie-Coche explore how, over a period of roughly 3500 years, the Egyptians conceptualized their relations with the gods. Drawing on the insights of anthropology, the authors discuss such topics as the identities, images, and functions of the gods; rituals and liturgies; personal forms of piety expressing humanity's need to establish a direct relation with the divine; and the afterlife, a central feature of Egyptian religion. That religion, the authors assert, was characterized by the remarkable continuity of its ritual practices and the ideas of which they were an expression. Throughout, Dunand and Zivie-Coche take advantage of the most recent archaeological discoveries and scholarship. Gods and Men in Egypt is unique in its coverage of Egyptian religious expression in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Written with nonspecialist readers in mind, it is largely concerned with the continuation of Egypt's traditional religion in these periods, but it also includes fascinating accounts of Judaism in Egypt and the appearance and spread of Christianity there. --George Hart, Egyptian Archaeology 25, Autumn 2004

Christiane Zivie-Coche

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