The uses of honey and wax in Ancient Egypt

Honey was the only sweetener the ancient Egyptians had. It was added to wine, various kinds of bread and cakes. Medicines and salves often contained honey. The practice was to apply honey to open wounds—a reasonable treatment considering its antibacterial and fungicidal qualities. Mead is also made of honey. Being universally appreciated jars of the stuff made excellent presents when visiting people abroad. Temples kept hives because Gods had a desire for sweet things too. Honey was found on the table and in the kitchen of the Pharaos and from them it went down the social strata. Even lowly servants dipped the finger in the honey jar. Demands ran so high honey sometimes needed to be imported. Wax was used for sealing things from the seal on documents to the inside of amphora. Wax was also used for plugging up orifices of mummies, as glue and in hair styling, in model making and painting. It was a universally used material, but not as candles. The picture is of the hair and hair extensions on the head of the mummy of Nefertari

Honey and wax harvesting in Ancient Egypt

In contrast to many other customs in Ancient Egypt the harvesting of honey and wax are a bit of a mystery. There is a picture on the wall of a temple about how the hive was evacuated. Smoke was blown into the back of the hive and the bees escaped through the entrance in the front. The rest is conjecture, but in Egypt traditions rarely change and it is pretty safe to suppose that neither has beekeeping. To harvest the honey the combs are gathered in a cow skin. Next the combs are crushed by treading on the skin. Through a hole the honey now flows into a container. What is left in the skin is washed out with a bit of water. Finally the honey passes through a sieve made of blades of grass. What’s left in the skin is the wax. The wax is heated to melting point in a water bath to prevent it from catching fire. Impurities floating on the surface of the liquid wax can be scooped up. Afterwards it is strained and put into a bag press. It has been estimated that for every kilo of honey somewhat more than sixty grams of wax can be won.

Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt

Apiculture was popular in the whole of Egypt but particular in the Delta region. Hives were made of mud or reeds covered with mud. Empty hives were also used as wall insulation of houses. The cylindrical hives were stacked horizontally, sometimes up to 500 together. The harvesting was done twice a year: in spring and autumn. Because of the climate there seem to have been no winter hibernation. The hives were transported to where the flowers were. They had to be moved again when the farmers were clearing the ground by fire after harvest or when the Nile water rose and it was necessary to bring the hives to higher ground. The moving could cause some logistic problems especially when there were many hives involved. It is all written down in queries, prayers and petitions and mercifully kept for prosperity. The drawing is of fields on the banks of the Nile and two huge statues near Luxor

Bees in Ancient Egypt: Bee between the knees

The drawing I made in 1982 in the temple of Karnak. Surprise, surprise: a bee is visible between the knees of the Pharao. Ancient Egyptians celebrated the divinity of nature not only in temples but also on the walls of other structures. They did it in sculpture, in relief and in painting. The method was everywhere the same. In detail, with great skill and knowledge of the subject they depicted nature in all its forms: but always from the same point of view. They did not care about perspective or direction. They wanted the world to recognize immediately what it saw. That’s why Egyptologists came to know so much about what grew, flew and flowered. Apart from making art, the ancient Egyptians also did a lot of writing. Again it was done on walls but also on potshards and paper they made from papyrus reeds. They used a kind of pictogram based alphabet: hieroglyphs. Everyday business was recorded on shards, letters were written on paper and religious and official messages were chiselled into walls and pillars. That’s how knowledge about apiculture was as vivid then as it is now. Polranny Pirate in house Egyptologist Bert wrote: ‘The oldest pictures of nature in all its glory and in detail, as far as we know, was on the walls of the sun temple of Pharao Niuserre. He ruled in the days of the builders of the Pyramids almost 5000 years ago. It was maybe also the first time aspects of apiculture were shown.‘

Bees in Ancient Egypt: Divine nature

The people living on the shores of the Nile enjoyed the fertile shore and all that nature brought. But they were also sensitive to and reliant on the seasons: especially the rainfall in far-away central Africa where they had no power over nor knowledge of. And then there was the desert directly adjacent to the crops, where nothing could grow but harboured all kinds of scary things, both animal and human. No wonder that the religion of the Egyptians was nature fixated; not like our own religions that are human centred. Everything they had no power over the Egyptians considered sacred: possessed of divine powers, even the house cat. And the bees, which brought honey: the only sweetener the ancient Egyptians had. The picture was taken inside one of the many decorated tombs of ancient Egypt. A farmer is kneeling in front of his beehives. Again: thanks to Polranny Pirate Bert the Egyptologist

Bees in Ancient Egypt: All about location

Egypt in ancient times was a prosperous place, with its own religion and a highly developed apiculture. It had all to do with the Nile. The river Nile falls from high up in the middle of Africa down at a fast pace. It only slows down when it reaches Egypt. There it flows slowly and majestically through the desert. All the sediment the river took with it on its travel north settles in the calmer waters to the bottom. This was clearly visible after the seasonal inundations when fertilizing mud covered the fields. The Nile Delta where the river meets the Mediterranean See consists completely of sediment. The sediment made the land on both sides of the Nile very fertile and made the inundations both frightful and welcome. These shores rich in nature and protected from the surrounding world by desert were ideal for a sedentary existence of agriculture. With the agriculture came the beekeeping. (Thanks to Bert Hogervorst Egyptologist and Polranny Pirate)

Bees in Ancient Egypt: He that Belongs to the Bee

Beekeeping is as old as written history and probably much older. Egyptologist and Polranny Pirate Bert wrote to the Blog about bees in ancient Egypt. Bees were considered holy and royal, which has the same status in Pharaonic Egypt. Bees were traditionally kept in the Delta of the Nile. The Delta was part of the kingdom of Lower Egypt. Together with the kingdom of Upper Egypt it formed the double crown the Pharao wore. The official title that went with the kingdom of Lower Egypt was: ‘he that belongs to the bee’. The word bee bi.t.y in the old Egyptian lingo stood for Lower Egypt. The t was probably dropped when it was pronounced and sounded like the English word bee. Because of its holy/royal status pictures of bees appear on every surface in every temple. When visiting Egypt you can’t escape them. Photo Internet (I should go and see for myself)