São Paulo – Religious beliefs of ancient Egypt and the artistic expressions of the period will be the topics of two lectures at Ema Klabin Foundation, in the city of São Paulo, in August and September. The events will be presented by the Brazilian archeologist Cintia Gama, scientific advisor of the Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, and a doctorate student of ancient Egyptian religion at Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études – Sorbonne.
On August 15th takes place the lecture The keys to understand the ancient Egyptian religion. Gama points out that the history of Ancient Egypt covers a time period of three thousand years, in which religious expressions varied throughout time and regions of the country.
“I will talk about cosmogony, how they perceived the origin of the cosmos, of the universe. Gods such as Osiris and Isis, each one of them had an associated cosmogony”, she says. Opposite to what is generally believed about the topic, Gama says that the Egyptians didn’t believe in several gods, but only in one, who had several manifestation forms.
“One of the main goals [of the lecture] is to show that they weren’t polytheistic. They had a god that would express himself in several different ways. Each one with their own feature. This one and only god was called Atom, that comes from the word Everything”, she explains.
According to the archeologist, each moment of the history will have a main god, that is, a manifestation of the god Atom that will superimpose himself over the others. Besides the historical moment, the social class also influenced the population’s belief in certain gods. “What the pharaohs believed wasn’t necessarily, the same belief of the peasants”, she says.
She also says that there was a historical period, around 1500 BC, in which Egyptians were celebrating directly the figure of Atom. This happened for a determination of pharaoh Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten and started to celebrate Atom, represented by the Sun. “He created the sun-centered process in the Egyptian religion”, says Gama.
On September 12th, she will present the lecture The artistic representation of Ancient Egypt: between the sacred and the profane. “When people look at the [Egyptian] figures all sideways, they say they didn’t have perspective. I want to show that they had perspective, only not the same one as ours. I want to show in which sense the text should be read, what type of paintbrush they used, what type of ink”, says Gama about the paintings.
The Louvre advisor says that not only religious aspects were portrayed by the Egyptians, but also images from their daily lives, such as the agricultural work system, food, animals, houses, etc.
“There are scenes of musicians and we see that their eyes were white. We found out that, in general, musicians were blind. When they were born, they already realized that they couldn’t’ work in agriculture, so they were submitted to the temples where there were music schools. They trained their listening and would become great musicians”, reveals Gama.
She also tells another curious story about the society in ancient Egypt found out based on the paintings. “I don’t know why, but they walked without shoes outside and with shoes inside the house”, she says. The remnants of Egyptian art found in excavations also revealed clothing, jewelry and even some types of wigs used at the time.
Service
The keys to understand ancient Egyptian religion
August 15th
From 10Am to noon
30 openings
Price R$ 35(US$ 10.23)
The artistic representation of Ancient Egypt: between the sacred and the profane
September 12th
From 10 AM to noon
30 openings
Price R$ 35 (US$ 10.23)
Registrations are open for both lectures. The lectures will be held at Ema Klabin Foundation, at Portugal 43 street – Jardim Europa.
Registration and information via email cursos@emaklabin.org.br and phone (11) 3062-5245 and (11) 38973232.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
