Hedvig Győry: Mélanges offerts a Edith Varga „Le lotus qui sort de terre” (Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts Supplément 1. Budapest, 2001)

MARGARET M. BAKOS: The divine power of Wine

wine was indispensable and would be bought at any value. In pharaonic medicine, wine was consumed as an aid for the ingestion of other substances: with frankincense and honey it had anti-verminous properties; with dill it soothed pain; with salt it cured coughs. Other properties were also attributed to wine: appetite stimulant, asthma medication, diuretic, fever reducer, and nose antiseptic. The Egyptians also used wine in magical ceremonies. For example, in a spell against the bite of a scorpion: over the images of Atum, Horus and Isis, those who had been stung should drink beer or wine. A very good wine, as pointed out by Finet, was produced during the Reign of Mari and was traded everywhere in the East mainly through its rivers.

13 All the societies in this period needed wine because, like the Egyptians, they attributed a special healing power to wine. The Hittites, for instance, used wine in ritual ceremonies against impotence. In the words of Pissuwattis of Arzawa , a woman who lived in Parassa: "... if a man possesses no reproductive power or has no desire for women, he needs a libation..." where, among other common ingredientes, "... the fleece of an unblemished sheep and a pitcher of wine..." 14 were added. Hathor is perhaps one of the most ancient goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, the supreme goddess of sexual love in Ancient Egypt. She was identified by the Greeks as their goddess Aphrodite. This indicates one of the most important aspects of Hathor's personality: she is the deity of love in all of its features. At this goddess' Temple at Dendera, an "amphora" of wine was among the ten more significant objects related to her. However, Hathor also has a destructive aspect. In the myth of the Destruction of Mankind, she is the violent goddess sent by the sun-god to combat humanity's insubordination. But, she is mollified by an intoxicating drink which calms her ire and turns her from a raging lioness into a friendly cat. The Egyptians believed that the ritual to worship Hathor increased the god's presence, and they used wine in the ceremony to prevent her negative attack.

15 Through literature, it is also possible to ascertain the relationship between wine and moments of passion, as in the words of Nekhet-Sobek: 13 A. Finet, Le vin à Mari, Archiv fúr Orientforschung, XXV (1974), pp. 122-131. 14 J. Pritchard, Ancien! Near Eastern Texts Relating to Old Testament, Princeton 1969, p. 349. 13 E. Homung. Conceptions of god in ancient Egypt. The one and the many, New York 1

990, p. 205.