THE CITY OF CAIRO AND ITS TREASURES THROUGH THE PRISM OF COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

THE CITY OF CAIRO AND ITS TREASURES THROUGH THE PRISM OF COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

Anna Masliakova

Ph.D. in Art Criticism (St. Petersburg), Kyrgyz National University named after Jusup Balasagyn, Doctoral Researcher,

Russia, St. Petersburg

ABSTRACT

More often than not we tend to misjudge or even reject other cultures since they seem utterly unfamiliar to us. Yet by doing so we might overlook something really priceless and valuable. According to Carl Jung, we are not so different as it may seem. And in this article we are going to analyze the Egyptian culture in its connection with collective unconscious.

Keywords: analysis, Egypt, Cairo, collective unconscious, art history, memory, pyramids.

Cairo seems to be a rather noisy city by European standards. Drivers honk constantly on the roads, as if talking to each other; many cars do not have doors, and there are no traffic rules at all. One may often hear the opinion that the streets in Cairo are dirty, while its inhabitants are rude and ill-mannered. Yet one cannot help but admit that every city has its shortcomings. And if you ask me, I must say that Cairo is one of the most magnificent and magical cities I have ever seen.

This city is especially beautiful at dawn when there are almost no cars on the streets, and the first rays of the sun appear, making the morning mist to fade away (see Fig. 1.). Drifting along the legendary River Nile, one may notice that from the water Cairo is somewhat similar to Dubai (see Fig. 2.). And yet there is something that makes you immediately understand that you are not in the UAE but in Egypt.

The first thing that immediately catches your eye when you come to Cairo is that people living there do not believe in pretending to be something they are not. That is to say, they do not put up façades, on the contrary, they openly express their emotions and accept themselves as they really are. And according to psychology, one should not suppress but rather express one’s emotions for when one unconsciously blocks unpleasant memories or thoughts, they tend to stay in the body coursing anxiety, depression and other stress-related illnesses [1].

Picture 1. Cairo. Early morning

Picture 2. Cairo. View from the River Nile

Picture 3. The Reserve Head (Old Kingdom)

Picture 4. The statuette of King Cheops

Here we are dealing with the culture that existed long before Greece and Rome. The Pharaonic period dates back from the 32^nd century BC, in other words, the European civilization is still much younger than the Ancient Egyptian one. And the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, designed by the French architect Marcel Dourgnon in the Neo-Classical style, is a unique place where one can touch the past, metaphorically speaking, and see the faces of the people who lived thousands of years ago. Let us mention in this regard the Reserve Head from the Old Kingdom that was made as a separate element, not as part of a statue (see Fig. 3.). The majority of the reserve’s heads were uncovered in Giza necropolis, and it is believed that those heads were made by one or two generations of sculptors who lived during the reign of Khufu, Djedefre, and Khafre (see Fig. 4.). Many of such heads were carved from fine white limestone and placed in different positions in the shaft or even in the burial chamber of the tomb, which led scholars to conclude that they were functioning as “substitutes” for the deceased and played a certain role during the funerary rites at the time of the burial. The painted limestone head from an Osiride statue of Queen Hatshepsut, which used to be in her temple at El-Deir el-Bahari (Thebes), mysteriously smiling and gazing into Eternity, is no less impressive (see Fig. 5.). Gilded cartonnage masks of Thuya and Yuya (the mother and the father of Queen Tiye, Pharaoh Amenhotep III’s wife, respectively), aiming to protect the heads of the deceased, look so realistic that it seems that those are not masks, but real human faces (see Fig. 6.). As for the unfinished head of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaten who introduced monotheism in Egyptian religion stressing the uniqueness of the sun god Aten and his own relationship with that god, it was found by a lucky accident in Memphis in 1933. Unlike the Reserve Head, the life-size quartzite head of Nefertiti was made to be part of a composite statue, and each element was sculptured separately to be later assembled into one piece. By the way, this masterpiece belongs to the so-called Amarna style characterized by arched brows, slanting eyes, high cheek-bones, a full mouth, and a slender neck (see Fig. 7.). And if, for example, the famous Bust of Nefertiti, exhibited in the Neues Museum in Berlin, was illegally taken out of Egypt causing ongoing debates concerning its return to its homeland, the Egyptian collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg consists of Art objects that were either donated to the Museum or officially bought. And not long ago there was an exhibition called “Egyptomania. For the 200th Anniversary of the Decipherment of Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion” presenting some of the most valuable pieces from the Hermitage collection, including, among other things, the Artworks that were inspired by the Ancient Egyptian culture [2].

Picture 5. The Head from an Osiride statue of Queen Hatshepsut

Moreover, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo there are very fine examples of the Ancient Egyptian furniture (see Fig. 8.), jewel caskets (for instance, the Jewel Casket of Thuya, see Fig. 9.) and footwear (such as, for example, the pair of marquetry veneer sandals found in the tomb of Tutankhamun). The walls of the staircase leading to the second floor are adorned with the fragments from the Book of the Dead that was part of a tradition of funerary texts including the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not written on papyrus. And among the most picturesque examples of the Book of the Dead one may mention the Papyrus of Yuya found in the corridor of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings despite Yuya not being a pharaoh (see Fig. 10.). Not to mention numerous false doors symbolizing the threshold between the Worlds of the living and the dead through which a deity or the spirit of the deceased could enter and exit, for example, the False Door of Hesesi, with his sons Shehi and Ty (see Fig. 11).

Picture 6. Cartonnage masks of Thuya and Yuya

Ancient masters paid great attention to detail, which, combined with expensive materials and bright colors, makes their creations truly exceptional. So much so that even hieroglyphic signs depicted on the sarcophagi are perceived not only as messages carrying a certain meaning, but also as decorative elements. In other words, even if you do not know what this or that particular hieroglyph means, you cannot but admire the refinement of the aesthetic taste of the Ancient artists. Suffice it to mention the Throne of Tutankhamun, depicting the king with his queen Ankhesenpaamen, made of wood covered with gold leaf and inlaid with semi-precious stones like lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, as well as colored glass paste (see Fig. 8.) [3, 35]. Interestingly enough, that Artwork was created during the early years of Tutankhamun’s reign since the title on the right of the Throne shows the king’s original name of Tutankhaten, meaning “the living image of Aten” that, as we all know, was replaced by “the living image of Amen” after the death of his father Akhenaten when the cult of Amun was abandoned and the pantheon of other gods was finally restored.

Picture 7. The Unfinished Head of Nefertiti

Picture 8. The Throne of Tutankhamun

Walking through the halls housing the famous treasures of Tutankhamen, you cannot help but feel that you are looking at something sacred. And it seems to me that the very fact that you cannot take photos of those masterpieces makes you really appreciate the significance of the moment, encourages you look closely and try to remember every tiny detail of the masterpieces in front of you. Bearing that in mind, I was utterly astonished to hear people standing right behind me saying that the stones adorning the jewelry from Tutankhamen’s tomb were not shiny enough, and therefore fake.

It is a well-known fact that preparation for the Netherworld played a crucial part in the lives of the Ancient Egyptians. Even in the Garden of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo there is the sarcophagus of Auguste Mariette, the founder of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities, surrounded by the busts of other famous Egyptologists arranged in a semi-circle (see Fig. 12.). And thus, the logic of our narration leads us from the treasures of the Cairo Museum to the Pyramids of Giza, the burial places for Egyptian royalty during the Old Kingdom.

Picture 9. Jewel Casket of Thuya

Picture 10. Papyrus of Yuya

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only surviving Wonder of the World. The size of the stone blocks from which it was made of is so immense that is it almost impossible to believe that it was constructed without the help of some extraterrestrial forces (see Fig. 13 and Fig. 14). And when I was standing in front of it and looking at its smooth pinnacle, it dawned on me that that was a place where Heaven and Earth meet forming some kind of a “spiritual channel” emerging as a result of the junction of the two pyramids – the Pyramid of Cheops and the imaginary “Celestial Pyramid”, the summits of which are in contact, so that the overall design resembles an hourglass in shape. Or the illumination of the obelisk from the reign of Ramses II located in Tahrir Square in Cairo, not far from the Egyptian Museum. It felt as if the flow of time stopped and I was looking in the face of Eternity, just like the painted limestone head from an Osiride statue of Queen Hatshepsut mentioned above. And yet, there were people there who kept saying that they expected more.

Picture 11. The False Door of Hesesi, with his sons Shehi and Ty

Picture 12. The monument to Auguste Mariette

Talking of the pyramids, one cannot but mention Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs represented in the form of a pyramid, starting from the need for food and rest and ending with the need for self-actualization, spiritual development. Thus, if people are standing on different levels of that pyramid, it may be rather difficult for them to understand each other. Without any doubt, one should not underestimate the importance of the intuitive knowledge enabling people to instantly capture the essence of this or that particular phenomenon. Yet unfortunately, not everyone possesses that kind of gift. Nevertheless, many scientists agree that it is quite possible to reach the pinnacle of the pyramid by investing in self-development and improving the quality of the environment one lives in. And thus, it becomes necessary to talk about another pyramid, Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels of Learning, at the bottom of which there is the environment that affects our well-being, followed by behavior, capability or competence and beliefs. As we approach the top, we come to the understanding of our identity and acquire the vision of our mission on this planet. And when one manages to reach that level of knowledge, the glaring “discord” between the Ancient pyramids and the Arab vendors, selling their goods at their bases and offering tourists to buy everything from marble scarabs to the Magic Lamp of Aladdin, turns into a harmony, the unity of the opposites that constitutes the essence of life (see Fig. 15) [4].

Picture 13. The Great Pyramid of Giza

As a matter of fact, people living in Cairo are very sensitive and kind. Initially overpricing their goods, they find immense pleasure in bargaining and eventually cut their prices by almost in half. They even want to give you something as a gift if they feel that you do not treat them with prejudice. And there is a tradition to help those in need, yet they do not donate money to the poor people openly, on the contrary, they do it incognito so as not to offend them. Before criticizing others, we should remember that there is a so-called collective unconscious, introduced by Carl Jung, some inherent “denominator” common to all people, regardless of their gender, nationality, etc. According to Jung, human psyche is a pyramid – collective unconscious is its base, consciousness is on the top, and personal unconscious is between them. Collective unconscious was neither repressed nor forgotten; this natural-spiritual reality was formed in Antiquity, and the complete history of memory is stored not in books, but in our mental organization. And, as I have said before, the unconscious refusal to admit or to recognize something that has occurred or is currently occurring is fraught with negative consequences.

Picture 14. The view of Cairo from the Pyramids of Giza

Picture 15. The Pyramids of Giza

Standing at the Pyramid of Giza, one can see the future of Cairo – the Great Egyptian Museum that is to be open soon and where there will be presented artifacts that have never been exhibited before. And yet, I do believe that the only creature that truly knows everything is the Great Sphinx of Giza looking at a height on the city, knowing all the secrets of the Past and the Present and smiling (see Fig. 16).

To sum it up, we should note that the importance of Ancient Egyptian culture is difficult to overestimate. Over the centuries Egypt has attracted travelers and inspired artists from all over the World. Despite the fact that many tombs were looted, valuable artifacts were stolen, damaged or transported overseas, Egyptian culture is still alive. And it always will be for it constitutes part of our collective unconscious, however much we may deny it.

Picture 16. The Great Sphynx

References:

1. Callen, M, “How to Regulate Your Emotions Without Suppressing Them”, accessed March 20, 2023, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_regulate_your_emotions_without_suppressing_them.
2. “Opening of the exhibition ‘Egyptomania. For the 200th Anniversary of the Decipherment of Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion’”, accessed March 20, 2023, https://support.hermitagemuseum.org/en/news/view/253.
3. El-Shahawy, A, Atiya, F. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Cairo: Farid Atiya Press, 2010, 368 p.
4. Masliakova, A, “Cairo Tales”, accessed March 20, 2023, https://youtu.be/Gtm9Ci5eYkc.