"You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming" – Pablo Neruda
In Arabic and many other Semitic and Hamitic Afro-Asiatic languages, there is a peculiar feature of consonantal transformation, a sort of metamorphosing of consonants that is an intriguing diachronic morphological trait.
As a result of this trait, the ancient Egyptian word Imhotep or Amenhotep can easily be transformed into Baramhat, even though it is impossible to know in this day and age exactly how words were vocalised in ancient Egypt, especially given the fact that ancient Egyptian civilisation spanned a period of at least three millenniums.
The ancient Egyptian month of Baramhat, roughly equivalent to March, is the month of Imhotep, "the one who comes in peace and is with peace.” Creativity is the hallmark of the month of Imhotep, and its modern version is the seventh month of the Coptic Christian calendar, between 10 March and 8 April in the Georgian, or western, calendar.
Spring is a watershed, but one instinctively knows what transpires. The word Baramhat, or Paremhat, means something like "growth and emergence." In Arabic Baramhat, italaa al-gheit wa hat means "go to the field and harvest."
In this month the ancient Egyptian god Ptah, the chief creator, transformed himself into Banebdjedet, a symbol of spring and rejuvenation.
Perhaps, the association with renewal, rebirth and transformation is a natural phenomenon that cannot be disguised. Baramhat also coincides with the beginning of thekhamasin winds, a dusty and windy season when winds blow in from the Sahara, dampening the floral beauty of springtime.
These sand-filled windstorms, called khamasin because they often blow sporadically over 50 days, are mentioned in the novels of the Alexandria Quartet by British writer Lawrence Durrell. The music played in this month has an unmistakable melodramatic strain, Durrell says. "The music itself has a sort of lonely quality which is intended to portray the hopelessness of a situation that can only be met by perseverance. This is not just a warm wind, but a dust-laden, suffocatingly hot wind," he adds.
Djoser, whose famous step pyramid stands to this day in Sakkara southwest of Cairo, appreciated Imhotep's powers, proficiency and acumen, particularly after the latter supposedly saved Egypt from the Biblical seven years of drought, pestilence and calamity to create a climate of bountifulness. Djoser was apparently in love with Imhotep's sister Renpetneferet, and Imhotep disguised himself in order to rescue her from the king. This is sometimes given as an explanation for the bouts of sandstorms in Baramhat.
Imhotep was a commoner, but he was also a cousin of king Khufu, whose pyramid in Giza was the first structure of its kind. He was chancellor of the king of Egypt, official medical doctor and first in line after the king of Upper Egypt. Yet, curiously Baramhat is also in certain ancient texts associated with the pharaoh Amenhotep I. Nevertheless, Baramhat is strictly speaking the month of Imhotep.
The raising of Lazarus from the dead by Jesus, recorded in the Bible, is celebrated in Coptic Christian tradition as a festival for the renewal of life on 20 Baramhat. And, 17 Baramhat is considered to be a day of mourning when Lazarus died, to be raised from the dead by Jesus Christ three days later.
Meanwhile, Imhotep was the author of a medical treatise remarkable for being devoid of the magical spells that were common in ancient Egypt. He was an exceptional man. His mother was Hatamehit, an ancient goddess of the Nile Delta and the equivalent of Khnum in Upper Egypt.
Hatamehit means "foremost of the fishes," again a reference to the plentiful month of Baramhat. Hatamehit is also called Hawit-Mahuyat, another spring symbol of fertility, and to this day Egyptians commemorate the spring festival of Sham Al-Nessim, or "the sniffing of the breeze," the day immediately after the Coptic Christian Orthodox Easter, by eating smoked or salted fish, a bit like kippers. The preserved fish is associated with the perpetuation of life, rejuvenation and the renewal of springtime.
The words for "ram" and "soul" sounded the same in the ancient language of the Egyptians. The breeding season for sheep also took place in spring in the month of Baramhat. Later, the early Christians demonised Banebdjedet because of his pagan association with fertility.
The pigment of the blossom of the month of Baramhat is red, scarlet, blood red, and does consummate a brief spell of spring, and the parched land in Pharmuthi, or Baramuda, a weird month that coincides with the spring equinox and lasts roughly from 21 March to 14 April, and all hell breaks loose.
The haze and hot winds of Baramuda, hide the innate and natural beauty of spring and hidden snakes emerge from the subterranean recesses to the surface of the earth. Easter, in Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches is always at the first full moon following the northern vernal equinox.
Hades makes eyes at juvenescence, youthfulness and at greenness. As it happens in 2015, the Coptic Christian Easter Sundayhappens to fall on 12 April, followed immediately by the Ancient Egyptian festival commemorated to this day as the only festival in the country celebrated by both Muslims and Christians alike.
There are in contemporary Egypt vestiges synchronous with the ancient Sothic calendar, and the contemporary Coptic Christian equinoctial procession is one such legacies of the past.Even as the heliacal rising of Sirius occurs on 3 August. But that is the subject of an entirely different subject, the midsummer madness.
The weather is especially jarring in Baramouda, even though the harvest of wheat, the staple starch of Egypt, starts in this particular month and bread, eish, or life in colloquial Egyptian Arabic, is fresh, fragrant and plentiful. With Baramouda scorching sun and balmy breeze are neither here nor there. Easter and several other Christian feasts are celebrated in Baramouda, and particularly that of the "Prince of Martyrs" Saint George.
We can only piece together what the ancient Egyptians alluded to in the significance of the names of their months from fragmentary archaeological evidence. Moreover, the Egyptian Coptic Christian months, incidentally, coincide with the Ethiopian months even though in Ethiopia the months have different names and climatic connotations.
Ironically, the goddess of nourishment and the harvest of the month of Baramuda is the ancient Egyptian viper goddess, the most reviled of reptiles. Obviously the ancient Egyptians highly esteemed her.
As it happens in 2015, the Coptic Christian Easter Sunday falls on 12 April, followed immediately by the ancient Egyptian festival commemorated to this day as the only festival in the country celebrated by both Muslims and Christians alike.
Curiously, there are in contemporary Egypt vestiges synchronous with the ancient Sothic calendar, and the equinoctial procession is one such legacies of the past. Even as the heliacal rising of Sirius occurs on 3 August. But that is the subject of an entirely different subject, the midsummer madness.
As we move from the month of Baramhat to Pharmuthi, or Baramuda 21 March, spring equinox, or 14 April the snakes abound. As an adolescent, my siblings and I played with the green snakes in our garden in the Cairo suburb of Maadi. The snakes were harmless, but they did come out in Baramhat. My mother insisted that we do not wear summer clothing until Sham Al-Nassim, the festival of Spring.
Easter and several other Christian feasts are celebrated in Baramouda. Easter is always at the first full moon following the northern vernal equinox.
The Egyptian Coptic Christian months coincide with the Ethiopian months even though in Ethiopia the months have different names and climatic connotations.
Paramuthi was associated with Renenet, or Renenutet, and ancient Egyptian goddess of nourishment plenty and the harvest. Lent was at an end and people ate whatever they craved. Renenutet, depicted as a cobra, or a goddess with the head of the cobra, and her husband was the crocodile god Sobek, they devoured everything accessible, or available.
Renenutet was identified as an alternate form of the viper goddess of Lower Egypt, the Nile Delta Wadjet, rendered as the cobra an insignia and part of the paraphernalia, of the crown of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt.
Curiously enough, and confusingly, she was also the mother of Nehebkau, and as such Renenutet was rendered as having the all-powerful husband the Earth god Geb, sometimes also depicted as a snake.
The hymns gave sacred sanction to spring. There were in ancient times hymns devoted to her signifying her association with spring, and incongruously, even paradoxically, the viper goddess, and Hades.
The land of Egypt is beginning to stir again
so the plants will flourish, bending under their fruit.
So sang the ancients.
