In Ancient Egypt, prominent families engaged in ancestor worship to maintain their high standing. Renata Schiavo researched this link between religion and power for her PhD. 'People were afraid that their ancestors would bring misfortune if the family's prestige declined.'
'The stereotypical image of Egypt is the mummy, the pyramid and pharaohs like Tutankhamun,' says Schiavo. 'It's often thought that the pharaoh was an autocrat, but that's not true. Below the pharaoh were several families, with high social status, who were able to exert some degree of influence.' These families are the focus of Schiavo's research.
Rituals
She looked specifically at ancestor worship, which the families often used. 'These rituals were intended to guarantee that the family member in question would retain the same social status in the afterlife as in real life,' explains Schiavo. 'If that didn't happen, or if the spirit was offended in some other way, there was a chance that the spirit would persecute the family and bring misfortune with it.' The families therefore mainly used the rituals to ensure that they retained their position of power in the present.
The worship of ancestors focused mainly on the men, but women also played a part. 'In the first place, women supported the man's spirit when he died. It would have been the wife who answered on her late husband's behalf. In practice, she thus acted as his successor. The situation was different when women died prematurely, for example in childbirth. In that case, the succession had to be secured, and they were the ones who were suddenly worshipped.'
Succession
'For example, the spirits of deceased wives had to give permission to the new wife before she could take care of the surviving children or could have children of her own,' says Schiavo. 'The continuation of the family was very important, and women played an important role in this. An offended spirit of a deceased wife could seriously harm the family.'
'It was dangerous not only for the family of the wife-to-be, but also for the children of the first marriage. Rituals were seen as necessary to both appease the possible anger of the deceased wife and to ensure that the children of the first marriage did not lose their status in the line of succession.'
