The Ancient Egyptian Creation Of The World

This video has a long introduction before I play the harp. If you want to skip all that, you can jump directly to 7:30.

I would like to thank archaeologist Dr. Anke Weber for encouraging me to pursue this project, and for generously providing me with background information on the harps painted onto the walls of the tomb of the pharaoh Ramesses III in Luxor, Egypt. I have personally visited the tomb of Ramesses III twice in my life, and the first time was sixty years ago!! It is a truly spectacular archaeological site and I was very happy to learn that it is currently undergoing important maintenance and conservation work being carried out by Dr. Weber and a team from Humboldt University of Berlin, under the auspices of The Supreme Council Of Antiquities in collaboration with two Egyptian universities: the University of Luxor, and South Valley University in Qena.

The high definition photo of the tomb painting of the harp of Onuris-Shu was taken by J. Kramer and is used in this video with the kind permission of the copyright holders: The Supreme Council Of Antiquities, and the Ramesses III (KV 11) Publication And Conservation Project. When looking at the photos of the wall as we see it today, the underpainting is clearly visible. The ancient artisans began by drawing a preliminary sketch onto the plastered and smoothed wall. This was intended only as a rough guideline and would have been covered up by the addition of color and added white pigment.

The passage of centuries and multiple floods have washed away much of the surface color, revealing the faint ghost lines of the underpainting that were never meant to be seen and were not part of the finished image. This gives the false impression that there were more than 20 mixed red strings and black strings on the original harp. There are eleven tuning pegs that are clearly visible, and each one corresponds to one of the red ochre strings of the completed image.

The following is a link to THE RAMESSES III (KV 11) PUBLICATION AND CONSERVATION PROJECT website, and I would urge anyone with a genuine interest in ancient Egypt and the preservation of its treasures, to contribute whatever they can to this important work.

https://www.ramesses-iii-project.com/...

Now a word about the music. What I am singing is an excerpt from the Rhind papyrus, which was discovered around 1861 in the Valley Of The Kings in Egypt, and is today in the British Museum. In this scroll, written in ancient hieratic script, the sun god Ra describes the unique and imaginative way he created the world, his two children Shu and Tefnut, and eventually humanity. What we have to remember when listening to this account, as told by the god himself, is that the ancient Egyptians were not burdened with all the taboos and hangups introduced by later religions, and things that might shock the sensibilities of modern listeners, were entirely natural to them.

One thing I really loved about this account from the mythological point of view, is that after Ra had finished his initial act of creation, he wept over what he had made and men and women were born from his tears.