Fitting somewhere between the high and low clergy were
the specialists, those who performed specifi c functions with
the cult. Some temples ranked their specialists in the higher
class, while others ranked them in the lower class. Th ese spe-
cialists include the stolist, who dressed the divine statue; the
academics of the House of Life, who prepared the religious
works necessary to the functioning of the cult; the lectors,
who were not always priests but could function as funerary
ritualists, learned scribes, popular magicians, or scientists;
the hour priests who serve as astronomers; the horoscope
priests who were calendrical specialists; and musicians and
singers of both sexes.
Among the priests were permanent priests and priests
who alternated in groups. Th e groups were called phyles.
Th ere were four phyles, each of which consisted of the same
number of priests who performed the same functions in the
temple. Each phyle worked three months a year; each month
of work was separated by two months of freedom.
RELIGIOUS RITUALS
A variety of events took place in conjunction with the ancient
Egyptian temple: foundation rituals, daily rituals, festivals,
and oracles. Foundation rituals were performed by the king
as early as the third millennium b.c.e. Th e scenes from the
late temples at Isna and Kom Ombo show the king perform-
ing these same foundation rites. Th e scenes appear to depict
the following events. Th e king leaves his palace and arrives at
the temple site. Th e king and a goddess hammer in two posts
to determine the orientation of the temple. Next a hole is dug
to water level to make the structure sturdy. Th en bricks are
molded at the four corners of the temple, and the foundation
is fi lled with sand. Th ere is a presentation of plaques made of a
variety of materials such as gold, silver, copper, and stone. Fi-
nally the temple is ready to be built, and chalk is sprinkled on
a model temple for purifi cation purposes. At the end there is a
symbolic delivering of the temple to the god it will house.
Included in the daily rituals were the morning ritual,
which comprised the morning song, the opening of the
shrine, and the care of the god (divine repast and toilette). Th e
midday ritual was shorter: Th e priests sprinkled water and
burned incense for the other gods worshipped in the temple.
Th e evening service was a repetition of the morning service
except that the sanctuary remained closed. Th is service took
place simultaneously in all temples in Egypt.
Numerous festivals and processions were associated with
the temple. Ancient calendars indicate that the god would be
taken on procession from fi ve to 10 times each month. Some-
times the god would be in the sacred bark (a small boat), but
other times it would not. Examples of some of the festivals
are the Festival of the Valley, the Festival of the Nile, and the
Festival of Drunkenness. Some festivals involved the public,
and others were conducted in secrecy.
In the New Kingdom the consultation of oracles became
popular. Th e priests acted as intermediaries in these matters.
Oracles by statues, divine barques, prophetic voices, dreams,
a nd a ni ma ls were some of t he ma ny ways t hat people accessed
the divine. Divine oracles were also supposed to decide legal
matters. Th is was done at the temple gate. Th e ancient texts
state that the gate was the place to hear petitions and tell truth
from falsehood. Unfortunately, there is not enough docu-
mentation to allow the modern scholar to understand the fi ne
workings of this religious justice system.THE MIDDLE EAST
BY BRADLEY SKEEN
Th e religions of the ancient Near East bound together their
societies, creating a religious culture and patterns of thought
quite unlike those of modern Western civilization. Th e sa-
cred writings of the Near Eastern religions are among the
oldest and greatest classics of world literature. Th eir interac-
tions gave rise to Judaism and thereby also to the other two
modern monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Islam.PREHISTORY
By the end of the last ice age hunter-gatherer communities of
the so-called Natufi an culture (ca. 12,000–ca. 10,000 b.c.e.)
in what is today Palestine and Israel already buried their
dead with considerable care, accompanied by grave off erings
(weaponry and personal adornments), suggesting some level
of concern with an aft erlife. In the Neolithic (ca. 8000 b.c.e.)
the inhabitants of Near Eastern villages, such as Çatalhüyük
in eastern Turkey or Jericho in Palestine, further developed
a cult of the dead and the veneration of animals that were
believed to embody magical or supernatural powers, such as
wild aurochs, gazelles, and mountain goats. Horned head-
dresses, indicating the possibility of shamanistic behavior,
are illustrated in early symbolic images on painted pottery
and seals.MESOPOTAMIA
Th e fi rst cities were founded in Mesopotamia. A place like
Uruk was not just many times larger than a village but also
had a diff erent social organization. Th e agricultural surplus
created by farming the land watered by the great rivers of
Mesopotamia, the Tigris and Euphrates, allowed some people
to stop working merely for their own food and survival and
become specialists: kings and aristocrats in governance, sol-
diers in warfare, artisans in building, and priests in religion.
Large building complexes, oft en called temples in Western
literature, were, in fact, the households of individual deities,
managed by stewards whom we usually denote by the term
priest or priestess. Large landholdings; workshops for pot-
tery manufacture, metallurgy, weaving, and other craft s; and
enormous agricultural enterprises supported the household
of each deity. Th e king was both the human master of the
society and the intercessor with the divine on the part of its
human subjects. Although ancient Mesopotamian societies
were polytheistic, each city had a major god or goddess, who
was worshipped alongside a host of minor ones.840 religion and cosmology: The Middle East