Celebrating a Flood

It may seem strange to celebrate a flood as very often floods leave devastation in their wake. But if you live in a country as dry as Egypt the flooding of the Nile can be seen as a good thing.

If it wasn’t for the Nile flooding there would be no Egypt. The floods provided the water and fertile silt essential for the growing of food. The Egyptians realised thousands of years ago that the Nile flooded at the same time each year and so they could prepare their crops and fields in advance. The arrival of this life-giving annual flood was celebrated more than the gathering of the harvest itself.

Egypt still celebrates this arrival of the annual flood with an annual festival and holiday which begins this week and is called Wafaa El-Nil.

Like every other aspect of Egyptian life the flooding of the Nile had its own god, an intersex dual god called Hapi. The two parts of the ancient Egyptian nation, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, had their own specific representation of Hapi. Upper Egypt had Hapi-Meht and Lower Egypt had Hapi-Reset. They were identical except for their headdresses. Hapi-Reset wore papyrus leaves and Hapi-Meht wore a lotus flower. They were often depicted together pouring water from a vase or tying together the two symbolic plants represented in their headdresses, as in the illustration below (though this particular illustration shows him wearing the same headdress).

The more ancient a deity is the more sexually fluid he or she seems to be. Time and time again I come across references to ancient gods having intersex or transgender qualities. This is possibly an indication of the attitudes which ancient cultures had to gender identity. When we move into less ancient times and the more familiar Greek and Roman gods gender identity becomes less varied and there is a move towards sexual preference.

Quite often, as in the case of Hapi, it is the actions of the gods which effect the way they are depicted in art. As an ancient god of the Nile floods Hapi was regarded as a god of fertility. His annual flood at this time of year brings life to the flood plains and fields. The universal symbol of life and fertility is the mother figure. Quite often creator deities are female and have total or predominantly female physical attributes. The Greek creator god Gaia, one of the most ancient Greek deities, and the modern concept of Mother Earth are female constructs of a universal life-giver. For this reason Hapi is always represented as a man with female breasts.

Hapi’s skin colour is also decided by the actions of his floods. He is either blue-skinned, representing the flood water, or green-skinned, representing the vegetation fed by the waters.

The cult of this ancient intersex god goes so far back in history that his name was probably the original name of the Nile itself (Nile is a Greek-derived name). Later he began to take on various functions of an even older go, Nun, the god of the primeval water from which the world was born. Hapi also took Nun’s wife as his own as a result of this.

The centre of Hapi’s cult was on the Elephantine Island at the First Cataract of the Nile, the white water rapids which reminded the ancient Egyptians of a mother’s milk, another factor contributing to the representation of Hapi with breasts.

With much of the world having sweltered in uncharacteristic heat waves this summer it is easy to see why an arid nation like Egypt would welcome the arrival of an intersex god and his floods at this time of year while other nations fear them.