Deities, votive offerings and stelae illustrating the religious convictions and social life of the ancient Egyptians in the early part of the 19th Dynasty are the Egyptian Museum's latest attractions. Nevine El-Aref reports that for the next six months visitors to the museum will have a first glimpse of these treasures, long-buried not beneath the sand but in the museum's basement. The exhibition on the museum's ground floor falls within a series organised by the Egyptian Museum to highlight some of the treasures of its collection which has been hidden for decades in its overflowing vaults. The display changes every six months. The current exhibition, "Anubis, Upwawet and other Deities", displays 1,000 year's worth of offerings to the ancient Egyptian jackal deity Anubis, god of mummification, and Upwawet, who opened the passage allowing the soul of the deceased to cross to the afterlife. These two were the principle protective deities of the Upper Egyptian city of Assiut from the 18th to the 21st dynasties. The 58 themed objects show new aspects of the social life, regular traditions and popular religion in Middle Egypt during the New Kingdom and later. It includes terracotta, sandstone and limestone statues featuring Anubis in various positions and processions. Stelae reveal the titles and professions of people who lived in Assiut, and show how they practised their religion with an enthusiasm and individuality far removed from the solemnity of official temples and chapels. It also illustrates the difference and elaborate relationship between both deities, which were held to be of great importance by the ancient Egyptians. "The stelae offer us unrivalled evidence about the social history of the region," the Egyptian Museum's Director Wafaa El-Seddik tells Al-Ahram Weekly. "Much may be gleaned from the names and occupations of the people who dedicated them to Upwawet." The stelae, she says, were made of terracotta, or burnt clay, a material not used for stelae at other Egyptian sites. Many are relatively crude and most are covered with pictures of jackals and other dog-like animals. The most beautiful stela on display is the one featuring Pharaoh Horemheb, the last ruler of the 18th Dynasty, wearing his double crown and offering flowers to Upwawet who is shown with a human body and the dog head of Anubis. Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says the artefacts on show were found in 1922 by the British Egyptologist G A Wainwright at the Al-Salakhana (abattoir) area in Assiut inside the Middle Kingdom tomb of Djefaihapy III, the hereditary prince of the Lycopolitan nome of which Assiut was the capital during the 12th Dynasty. However, as Djefaihapy was a person of great distinction, his tomb was reused centuries after his death, as a shrine for his personal devotees which transformed it into a repository for votive offerings. "You learn from these about common people, their situations, their families and sometimes how they lived and why they came to offer devotions to this stela," El-Seddik says.
