I was wondering if anything survives of Ancient Egyptian folklore outside of their religious mythology? Did they have any concept of ghosts or revenants or things that otherwise go bump in the night? Or would those have been incompatible with their ideas of the afterlife?
Hope you have a smashing day,
It depends what you're defining as 'folklore' because that's a very broad topic encompassing oral tradition, material culture, and customs. I'd almost be tempted to add my 'this is a PhD topic' reaction image because it kind of is. It's certainly not answerable in a single tumblr ask. But also we don't know enough about day to day life and the swapping of stories/myths/poems etc to actually say anything. Sure they had poetry, stories, jokes, and festivals, but we only have the poetry or the written record of a festival being on a certain date. We don't have any record of how the Egyptians interacted with these things because, well, those who cannot read or write don't tend to record how they did things, and those who could either never wrote it down, or did and it hasn't survived the millennia.
Things that go bump in the night? Again, we don't have the written culture to tell us. Records of daily life are almost entirely absent from the archaeological record. They didn't write this down, and when Egyptian culture ceased, the knowledge slowly died out. But I wouldn't say 'incompatible with their thoughts on the afterlife', I would say 'incompatible with their entire culture'. A lot of Revenant lore is heavily based in Christianity, though that is not the origin of them, and so 'the dead coming back to life and feasting on blood' is rooted in that belief too. A lot of it stems from 'a burial not on consecrated ground' or that the person had 'sinned.' These are not concepts or fears found within the Egyptian cultural mindset and so I wouldn't expect to find them in their folklore.
Ghosts are similarly a problem. I have an ask from 2017 where I answered a question from someone asking about ghost stories. It's a question I get at least three times a year! I'd paste the link, but I actually feel it'd be better republished here as a whole because then I can update some of the links so they still work (rip Reshafim.org.il, you were a good resource, thank you André Dollinger):
What we term as ‘ghost’ is actually just the Ba of the deceased returning to the realm of the living and has the ability to go back again. This is something all Ba’s can do, and they’re not trapped in this realm by some unfinished purpose like modern ‘ghosts’ are. They use what’s known as a false door:
(False door from the tomb of Neferseshemkhufu 4th Dynasty - British Museum)
This is the portal by which the Ba leaves and enters the realms of the living and the dead, and did so of it’s own free will. Remember the Ba is not just a part of a person, but the entire being of the person. The Egyptians, however, did not see them floating about in places where they used to live. They just believed they were with them but on a different plane of existence.
For a Ba to exist, like I said in my previous post on the concept of the soul, it has to have a body (khat) and relatives must leave offerings at the burial or the Ka of the deceased will die, and thus the Ba no longer exists either.
Most of the time the Egyptians believed that the Ba would happily manifest itself in their lives without them seeing it i.e. associating it with good fortune, or a dream telling them to take a beneficial course of action. It’s like believing a deceased relative is watching over you and guiding your path. Of course, as with everything, the Ba can get a little pissed off with it’s living counterparts. For instance, the Egyptian’s believed that if the Ba returned through the false door to find it’s body disturbed or improperly buried, then it would start causing problems for its relatives. Here I must note that it is not in the way you might expect a ‘ghost’ to behave in horror movies like writing blood on the mirror or smashing stuff, but more a sense of “Oh damn my crops have failed” or “my son has become sick”. The Egyptians would associate misfortune as the possibility of a deceased relative being upset with them.
One way to deal with a particularly vengeful spirit is to write a so called Letter to the Dead. These letters took the form of asking the Ba of the deceased relative to stop whatever punishment they have been inflicting on them, because they have now addressed the complaint. These ‘letters’ could be written on any medium, and often addressed things from mistreatment of a servant favoured by the deceased (i.e. not looking after her while she was ill), to visiting a brothel after the death of a spouse.
(Shepsi’s letter to his father - Source: UCL)
A speech of Mer-irtief (mri-jr.tj.fj) to Nebet-itief (nb.t-jtj=f):How are you? Does the Great One (the goddess of the West) look after you according with your wish? Behold, I am the one you loved on earth. Exert yourself on my behalf and speak up for my name. I did not distort any utterance before you, (but) I preserved your name on earth. Keep disease away from my limbs. O, may you be glorious (Ax) for me (and) before me so that I may see in my dream how you are exerting yourself on my behalf. I will make offerings [until the sun (?)] rises by establishing for you an offering table (Htp.t).A speech of Khu-au (xw-Aw) to his sister …:I have not distorted any utterance in front of you and I shall not keep any sacrifice from you, as I have (just) brought it… Exert yourself on my behalf (and) exert yourself on behalf of my wife and my children.
More translations can be found here. (this is a WaybackMachine link because the site no longer exists)
There is one ‘ghost’ tale known as Khonsuemhab and the Ghost, surviving from the Ramesside period during the New Kingdom, though I must point out that like most New Kingdom texts it is thought to be a copy of an older Middle Kingdom text. This is a piece of fiction designed to highlight the importance of the proper maintenance of the tombs of the deceased.
The story goes that Khonsuemhab encounters the Ba of a man named Nebusemekh, whose tomb has fallen into massive disrepair. Nebusemekh needs his tomb to be repaired so that he may continue to prosper, as no one knows where he is buried and therefore no one brings offerings, but is wary of Khonsuemhab’s offer of help as he has been let down before. One should note that the Ba spirit of Nebusemekh is not described to the audience, but his humanity and personality shine through in the writing, and were it not for the context you would believe both men to be alive. In the end Khonsuemhab succeeds in helping the distressed Ba.
There is another text known as the Levitating Ghost, which post dates the story of Khonsuemhab. However, the entirety of the text is contained on four small, badly damaged, fragments and not a single line is intact, so there is not much we can glean from it. A third, and badly damaged text survives, and is known as P.Vandier which details the fictional murder of the Pharaoh’s son and the manner in which they seek to avenge him by communicating with the dead. Sadly the text is full of lacune (holes), so it makes reading it difficult.
There are more, but I would suggest trying to get a hold of Christina Adams’ article: Shades of Meaning: The Significance of Manifestations of the Dead as Evidenced in Texts from the Old Kingdom to the Coptic Period. in Current Research in Egyptology - Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Symposium, 2006 (pg.1-20). (the link is to the Google Book, and seems to start half way through the article, but you can scroll back up and the whole article is there).
