Ancient Egyptian bee-keeping: Honey and wax
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Sedge and bee (Symbolizing Upper and Lower Egypt) (© Kenneth J. Stein) 
The standing bee-keeper produces smoke, while the one kneeling removes the combs from the back of the hive. (Line drawing after a picture in the tomb of Rekhmire, 18th dynasty) |
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Bee-keepingWhen the Sun weeps a second time, and lets fall water from his eyes, it is changed into working bees; they work in the flowers of each kind, and honey and wax are produced instead of water.The first official mention recognizing the importance of honey dates from the first dynasty, when the title of "Sealer of the Honey" is given [11]; the oldest pictures of bee-keepers in action are from the Old Kingdom: in Niuserre's sun temple bee-keepers are shown blowing smoke into hives as they are removing the honey-combs. After extracting the honey from the combs it was strained and poured into earthen jars which were then sealed. Honey treated in this manner could be kept years. From the New Kingdom on mentions of honey become more frequent [8], but only four depictions of honey production and no actual hives have been found. [15] In a 4th century BCE papyrus containing the Myth of the Eye of Re the hives are described as follows: One does not build a royal palace for the honey bee. A hive of dung is better than a hive of stone [like a barn]...The house of the bee is effectively an arrangement of combs, a place suitable for storing honey...It is more pleasant for the bees beneath the honey combs. 
Cylindrical hives like the ones in the picture on the left from the tomb of Pabasa, dated to the 7th century BCE, were made of clay and stacked on top of each other [12]. Tomb of Pabasa (25th dynasty) Bee-keeping methods are conservative in this region, well adapted to local conditions, for instance the kind of hives shown in these ancient reliefs, apparently woven baskets covered with clay, are still seen in the Sudan today. The main centre of bee-keeping was Lower Egypt with its extensive cultivated lands, where the bee was chosen as a symbol for the country. One of Pharaoh's titles was Bee King, and the gods also were associated with the bee. The sanctuary in which Osiris was worshiped was the Hwt bjt [7], the Mansion of the Bee. There may have been itinerant apiarists in the Faiyum in Ptolemaic times using donkeys to transport their hives [10] and possibly also beekeepers living by the Nile who loaded their hives onto boats, shipped them upriver in early spring, and then followed the flowering of the plants northwards as they were reported to do in the 19th century CE, but there is no evidence for it. The Egyptians had a steady honey supply from their domesticated bees, but they seem to have valued wild honey even more. Honey hunters, often protected by royal archers, would scour the wild wadis for bee colonies. I appointed for thee archers and collectors of honey, bearing incense to deliver their yearly impost into thy august treasury. HoneyTemples kept bees in order to satisfy the desire of the gods for honey and for the production of medicines and ointments. But demand far outran local production. Honey, like many other luxury goods was imported from Djahi, Retenu [3] and possibly even further afield. Canaan, for instance, was called Land of Milk and Honey in the Hebrew tradition, and the probably fictitious Sinuhe waxed lyrical about the riches of Yaa, an unidentified Asiatic region:It was a good land called Yaa. Figs were in it and grapes. It had more wine than water. Abundant was its honey, plentiful its oil. All kinds of fruit were on its trees. Barley was there and emmer, and no end of cattle of all kinds. |
Honey was used for sweetening, as sugar was unknown in antiquity [9]. It was part of the diet of the well-to-do, one of one's - using the words of the courtier Ineni - necessities:
I was supplied from the table of the king with bread of oblations for the king, beer likewise, meat, fat-meat, vegetables, various fruit, honey, cakes, wine, oil. My necessities were apportioned in life and health, as his majesty himself said, for love of me.Honey was too expensive for peasants and servants, yet underlings found opportunities to enjoy it as well, even if the consequence was that the back would have to pay for the pleasures of the belly. A scribe wrote to his master at Lahun a letter containing the following passage: As concerns this hin (about half a litre) of honey which had been given for this here servant (i.e. the writer) - this servant discovered that this Asiatic had drunk it, giving this here servant (i.e. the writer) the answer which follows: "Behold, it was the sweetness which has seduced me to do it."The gods - and their priesthood - had a sweet tooth too [13]. Thutmose III's divine offerings to Amen included 4 (pg-)vessels of honey. [4]. According to Herodotus sacrificial animals were prepared as follows: When they have flayed the bullock and made imprecation, they take out the whole of its lower entrails but leave in the body the upper entrails and the fat; and they sever from it the legs and the end of the loin and the shoulders and the neck: and this done, they fill the rest of the body of the animal with consecrated loaves and honey and raisins and figs and frankincense and myrrh and every other kind of spices, and having filled it with these they offer it, pouring over it great abundance of oil.The various animal cults became ever more important during the first millennium BCE, and the sacred animals received better food, among it titbits made of honey, than most Egyptians themselves: About the Apis in Memphis, the Mnevis in Heliopolis, the Ram in Mendes, the Crocodile in the Lake of Moeris, the Lion kept in Leontopolis and many other such animals much may be said, but the reporter will gain little credence with people who have not been eye-witnesses. These animals are kept in sacred enclosures, and many noble men feed them, offering them the most delicious food. They provide them constantly with a mash made of finest flour or wheat groats and milk, prepared with all kinds of honey pastries, with goose meat, at times boiled, at times roasted. They catch birds for the carnivorous animals which they offer to them in great amounts.Strabo reported that honey was made into mead and fed to the sacred crocodile at Crocodilopolis in the Fayum: Our host, one of the most honoured men in Arsinoe, showed us holy things and accompanied us to the lake taking with him a cake, roasted meat and a little bottle of honey mead left over from the meal. We found the animal lying on the shore. The priests approached it, two of them opened its mouth, the third one pushed the pastry and then the meat into it and then poured the honey mead into it. The animal jumped into the lake and swam to the opposite shore.Claims have been made that honey was used in the mummification process. The evidence for such usage is scant and anecdotal, e.g. Abd el-Latif's unsupported tale published in Budge's book The Mummy about treasure hunters who found a sealed jar containing honey, and after eating part of it they discovered it also contained the body of a small child. Honey was added to wine, various kinds of bread and cakes. Medicines and salves often contained honey as is attested in the Smith Papyrus and the Ebers Papyrus (§§ 3, 5, 13, 17, 20). The practice was to apply honey to open wounds—a reasonable treatment considering its antibacterial and fungicidal qualities. Being universally appreciated jars of honey made excellent presents. In the reign of Pepi II the priest Mekhu died in Nubia and his son Sebni set out to retrieve his father's body: [Then I took] a troop of my estate, and 100 asses with me, bearing ointment, honey, clothing, oil, and [///] of every sack, in order to [make presents in] these countries [and I went out to] these countries of the Negroes. [6] Wax
Beeswax found use in mummification, boat and ship building, as a binding agent for paints and in metal casting [1]. Sometimes it served as a base for medicines. Mixed with pulverized stone it made an adhesive for connecting razor blades to their handles. Wigs were waxed to give permanence to plaits. During the Ptolemaic Period wax writing tablets came into use. [5] While there are scenes of honey production, it is unknown how the Egyptians rendered the wax. It has been suggested, that they used the "hot water technique", placing the combs into a metal vessel filled with water and bringing the water to the boil, pouring the vessels contents into a sack and pressing it. [15]
Beeswax statuette of Ramses XI and Maat This spell is to be recited over (an image of) Apophis drawn on a new sheet of papyrus in green ink, and (over a figure of) Apophis in red wax. See, his name is inscribed on it in green ink ... I have overthrown all the enemies of Pharaoh from all their seats in every place where they are. See, their names written on their breasts, having been made of wax, and also bound with bonds of black rope. Spit upon them! To be trampled with the left foot, to be fallen with the spear (and) knife; to be placed on the fire in the melting-furnace of the copper-smiths ... It is a burning in a fire of bryony. Its ashes are placed in a pot of urine, which is pressed firmly into a unique fire.The conspirators against Ramses III used wax as well in order to form images and employ these to cause damage He began to make magic rolls for [hindering] and terrifying, and to make some gods of wax, and some people, for enfeebling the limbs of people; and gave them into the hand of Pebekkamen, whom Re made not to be chief of the chamber, and the other great criminals, saying: "Take them in;" and they took them in. Ramses III founded a festival in honour of Amen-Re called Usermare-Meriamon-L.P.H.-Making-Festive-Thebes-For-Amon with oblations of millions of loaves of bread, hundreds of thousands of jars of beer, tens of thousands of vessels of wine. One of the lesser items was wax: deben 3,100, about 300 kg. [ ] Photos courtesy of Dr. Kenneth J. Stein and Jon Bodsworth Footnotes: [3] On his fifth campaign Thutmose III exacted from Djahi (a region in Canaan) i.a. 470 (mn-)jars of honey, and the tribute from Syria in the year 39 of his reign included among other things: honey 264 [+x jars] J. H. Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, § 462 and § 518 [4] J. H. Breasted Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Two, § 571 [5] Just as an aside: beeswax was not used for making candles in ancient times. [6] Honey was apparently rare in Nubia. The lists of tribute of Thutmose III which frequently mention honey from Asiatic countries, do not show that honey was contributed by Nubia or Kush. [8] Patricia Brothwell, Food in Antiquity: A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, Johns Hopkins University Press 1998, pp.7f ff. [9] Sigrid Hodel-Hoenes, Life and Death in Ancient Egypt: Scenes from Private Tombs in New Kingdom Thebes, Cornell University Press 2000, p.153 [10] The so-called bee-keepers' petition dates from the middle of the third century BCE shows that the Egyptians did move their hives occasionally, in this case in order to save them from being inundated: To Zeno greeting from the beekeepers of the Arsinoite nome.But there is no evidence that they moved the hives for commercial reasons, such as following the flowering of the crops. [11] Hilda M. Ransome, 1937, The Sacred Bee in Ancient Times and Folklore, Courier Dover 2004, p.26 [12] Alan Houghton Brodrick, Animals in Archaeology, Praeger 1972, p.83 [13] And they were not overjoyed when they thought they had been cheated. A priest wrote to the mayor of Elephantine: /////// ////khai of the temple of Harakhte sends greetings to [Montu-hor-////, mayor of] Elephantine: in life, prosperity, health, in the favour of Amen-Re, king of gods. Furthermore the following: I pray to Amen-Re and Harakhte as he rises and as he sets, to Harakhte and his ennead: may they grant you to be healthy and in the favour of Harakhte, your lord, who sees you.[14] Eva Crane, The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting, Taylor & Francis 1999, p.167 [15] Paul T. Nicholson, Ian Shaw, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge University Press 2000, pp.409f: The depictions are found in the tombs of Niuserre at Abu Gurob, of Rekhmire (TT100), of anonymous (TT73), and of Pabasa (TT279). |
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| Offsite links | (Opening a new window) | |
| These are just suggestions for further study. I do not assume any responsibility for the content or availability of these websites | ||
 | [1] The Legacy of Investment Casting | |
| [2] Nine Measures of Magic, Ancient Egypt Magazine, Issue Nine - November/December 2001 | |
| The Egyptian art of beekeeping | |
| Tumba de Pabasa (Pictures from the tomb of Pabasa, TT 279 | |
| La tombe de Pabasa | |
| La tombe d'Anch'Hor | |
| Botinnen der Götter | |
| Journal of Woundcare: Honey Dressings | |
| Feedback: Please report broken links, mistakes - factual or otherwise, etc. to me. Thanks. | ||
