Wab priest
| Honeycomb priest in hieroglyphics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| title |
Wab Wʿb Wab priest |
|||||
| 2nd title |
Wab-nesu Wʿb-nsw Wab-priest of the king |
|||||
| 3rd title |
Imi-ra-wabu Jmj-r3-wʿbw Head of the Wab priests |
|||||
Wab priest is a special rank and service area of a priest in ancient Egypt .
Functions and ranks
A Wab priest was subordinate to the “servant of God”, Hem-netjer , and assisted him. Wab priests had the task of bringing offerings, musical instruments and sacred cult objects to the shrine , alcove or altar and cleaning them. They carried cult barges to the mortuary temples and Ka houses and supervised the painters and draftsmen. A Wab priest had to be chaste , he shaved from head to toe every day and bathed twice a day as if nightly. Wab priests were circumcised . Their clothes also had to be perfectly clean, and they couldn't be made of animal hide or skins. Wab priests were also not allowed to eat pork, beans, or fish.
Within the office of a Wab priest there were different ranks : The highest rank enjoyed the Wab-nesu ("Wab priest of the king"), to him was the Imi-ra-wabu ("Overseer of the Wab priests"), the again the simple comb served. The service of a WAB priest was mainly performed by men, but women from the Old Kingdom and New Kingdom are also attested as Wab priestesses. Inscriptions from both periods show that women received the same wages as men. One of the earliest recorded Wab priests was Nefersetech under King Seth-Peribsen , who was in office during the 2nd Dynasty and carried the title of Wab-nesu . Another well-known Wab priest was the official Scheri , who worked in the early 4th dynasty and was "head of the Wab priests of Peribsen in the necropolis of Sened ".
literature
- Bob Brier , Hoyt Hobbs: Daily life of the ancient Egyptians. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport CT et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-313-35306-2 , pp. 75 & 76.
- Carolyn Graves-Brown: Dancing for Hathor. Women in ancient Egypt. Continuum International Publishing Group, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-8472-5054-4 , pp. 27-28.
- Wolfgang Helck : Investigations into the thinite age. (= Egyptological treatises. Vol. 45). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4 , pp. 105-107.
- Donald. B. Redford (Ed.): The Oxford encyclopedia of ancient Egypt. 3rd volume. Oxford University Press, New York NY 2001, ISBN 0-19-513823-6 , pp. 67-71.
- Toby AH Wilkinson : Early Dynastic Egypt. Strategies, Society and Security. Routledge, London et al. 2001, ISBN 0-415-26011-6 , pp. 88-91.