Десятки, сотни, тысячи: к вопросу о рациональности древнеегипетского погребального обряда ипоминального культа

Abstract

The article is devoted to the significant phenomena in the evolution of material part of the ancient Egyptian burial rites and funerary cult of the Old Kingdom (3rd millennium BC) — using of model substitutes of objects in various rituals in the necropolises of the Memphis region. Analysis of historical sources shows that the Egyptians, at the dawn of their dynastic history, came to the need to reduce the material costs for the afterlife sphere with the increasing complexity of the burial rites and funerary cult. Their complication progressed in parallel with their transition from the category of real actions to the category of symbolical ones. The more things the deceased needed for a prosperous existence in the afterlife, the more often these things were replaced by their symbols, which were supposed to turn into real ones in the other world with the help of various magical rituals. In course of time, the complex burial rites and funerary cult of the Egyptian nobility simplified, but the rational idea that quantity can replace quality and contribute to well-being in the afterlife remained and was embodied, in particular, in the multiplication of various symbols of apotropaic amulets.