These Hieroglyphs Describe How Ancient Egyptians Communicated With The Dead And The Rituals Involved

What would make an ancient Egyptian write a legal complaint to his dead father?

Inside the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, a shallow red pottery bowl carries one of the strangest surviving messages from ancient Egypt. Cataloged as UC16163, the Qau Bowl is covered in writing on both the inside and outside, preserving two letters sent by a man named Shepsi to deceased members of his family.


This was not a casual note of grief. The bowl was placed inside a tomb at Qau el-Kebir in Middle Egypt, where its writing was positioned for the dead to symbolically receive it. In the Egyptian worldview, the properly buried dead could become powerful akh spirits, capable of acting for the living when family obligations, inheritance, illness, or injustice crossed the boundary between this world and the next.

The inside of the bowl addresses Shepsi’s father in connection with a property dispute. The outside addresses his mother with a different appeal, including a reminder about offerings and the water the living were expected to pour for the dead. Together, the two texts show a world where the dead were not simply remembered. They were petitioned, reminded, pressured, and treated as active participants in family life.
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