“If you are sane, build yourself a home. Love your wife very much. Bring her food. Provide her with clothes. Present her perfumes to make her heart happy as long as she lives. Do not be rude or hard-hearted, for with gentleness you can control her heart.”
Such is the advice to men by Ptahhotep, an ancient Egyptian vizier during the Fifth Dynasty.
With Valentine’s Day approaching, many true love stories were told from ancient Egypt. Our ancestors recorded their love stories in their statues and paintings on the walls of their tombs, whether for couples or the whole family, as testimony to their love.
Mamdouh Farouk, who holds a doctorate in Egyptology and is director general of the Imhotep Museum, says: “Our ancient Egyptian ancestors were proud of love.”
“They immortalised it on the walls of temples and tombs so that they would meet again with their lovers in the next world,” Farouk said.
“The first mythical love story in ancient Egypt was between the god Osiris and the goddess Isis. Osiris was killed by his brother, Set. Isis grieved for him until she collected the pieces of his body and brought him back again.
“He became the god of the afterlife. This story was still told until the end of ancient Egyptian times, which gave a wonderful example of love.”
In what is the best-known tableau in the world shows Tutankhamun being offered a drink by his wife Ankhesenamun, which means ‘Life is of Amun’.
“King Akhenaten, his wife Nefertiti and their children were the most celebrated royal family throughout the ages, depicted in a state of love and contentment,” Farouk told a seminar ‘Love and Marriage in Ancient Egypt’ at Alexandria National Museum last week.
Farouk said that Egyptian kings adored their wives and even gave them special titles to express their love for them.
“Among recorded titles are ‘She shines like the sun’, ‘She who refreshes the heart’, ‘Lady of delight’, ‘Great loving pretty face’, ‘The most beauteous’, ‘The great credit’ and the ‘Lady of the House’.”
In addition, there are many statues featuring husband and wife in an embrace as if she were his mother. There are scenes of the couple in the fields in the Next Life.
At the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir a must-see is the statue of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofert, exemplifying the beauty of art in the Old Kingdom, the Fourth Dynasty.
Some traditions inherited in love, which were recorded in tales and love poems appeared in Chester Beatty Papyrus and Papyrus Harris 500, both date back to the New Kingdom of Egypt, covering the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties.
In these papyri, there are many facts that the ways in which modern Egyptians express their love were deep-rooted in ancient Egypt.
For example, blind Cupid, the god of desire, erotic love and attraction in Roman mythology, draws back his bow and fires his arrow into a mortal’s heart, rendering him or her love-stricken and generally soppy. Cupid, alias Eros to the Greeks, has his statue in London’s Piccadilly Circus.
“The Cupid’s arrow has been a symbol of love for centuries and the ancient Egyptians were the first to use the word ‘arrow’ to express love.
“It is mentioned in one of the lines of the Chester Beatty Papyrus, in which the man says about his lover: ‘Her love is like an arrow’.”
The golden cage is a common colloquial expression among Egyptians referring to marriage and nest. Interestingly, ancient Egyptians used this expression, too.
“In Papyrus Harris 500, a girl says: “I have come to hunt my bird in one hand, and in the other hand is the golden cage,” Farouk said.
The ancient Egyptians recorded every detail regarding their feelings of love. They even described how the girl got prepared before meeting her lover.
“In a phrase from the same papyrus, a girl is talking to her lover and says: I put kohl on my eyes to look sparkling when I go to meet you. We go to the sweet place where we walk together with your hand in mine. I will prepare my nest for you, my beauty, as your love has captivated me.”
Farouk said when the girl gives a lock of her hair to her lover, it is a sign that she agrees to marry him. This was mentioned in Chester Beatty Papyrus, which says: “She left me a lock of her hair”.
In the same papyrus, there is a dialogue between a man and a woman, each of whom expresses his love. Among the most important of lines was his depiction about his lover:
“She’s the only one, my love. Unmatched. More beautiful than all women. She is like a star in the sky that shimmers and shines at the beginning of the new year. Her fingers are like a lotus flower, and her hair is like a lapis lazuli.”
