Welcome to March's Zameena!

Isis’ resurrection of her slain husband Osiris led to her being believed to help usher others into the afterlife. At various points of history, she has been celebrated as a magical healer of ordinary people, inventor of marriage, protector of ships at sea, protector of the kingdom and actually hold power over fate itself.

This only scrapes the surface of the wealth of powers attributed to Isis and she still reigns strongly in popular culture retaining her reputation as representative of the feminine divine. What a girl!


Sekhmet:

Legend dictates that she could only be swayed from her bloodlust after her father, Ra, turned the Nile red through his own special recipe of beer and pomegranate. Settling down to what she thought was her favourite aperitif of blood, the now alcohol drenched river knocked her out for 3 days with the resulting hangover turning her back in to Hathor!

As well as representing the heat of the sun (her daddy Ra, being the god of the noon sun), Sekhmet also had the ability to breathe fire. Fondly remembered as ‘She who Mauls’ or ‘Mistress of Dread’, Sekhmet was depicted as a woman with the head of the lion. Somewhat confusingly she also the goddess of healers and physicians and was renowned as a great healer. But then nobody ever said life in Ancient Egypt was dull!


Naima Akef:

A contemporary of Samia Gamal and Tayeha Karioka, Naima’s movement particularly appealed to me more than any that I had seen before. Her fluidity and percussive hip movements set a trajectory for the rest of my dancing career.

From a circus background, Naima was wholly unique, encapsulating the abilities to sing, act, dance and perform vaudeville. At 20 she married director Hussein Fawzi who was over twice her age and with only a few exceptions worked exclusively for him, cementing her incredible appeal. Naima’s career took a dive in 1958 alongside her marriage to Fawzi and she became lost in a few mediocre films, finally enjoying a brief resurgence in the 1964 film Prince of Cunning. Sadly, Akef died in 1966 from stomach cancer at the age of 36 robbing the world of a unique talent. Her place in history is cemented;  though these are films rarely seen or acknowledged in the West but to me they were the start of a journey that has yet to end.

 

                                         Um Ali:

Like EastEnders but with nicer weather. In short (and please excuse the quote but this is a very complex story, al-Durr “firmly established the Mamluk dynasty that would ultimately repulse the Mongols, expel the European Crusaders from the Holy Land, and remain the most powerful political force in the Middle East until the rule of the Ottomans”.

After she was made a Sultana by marrying Ayyub, she was highly influential on her husband who ruled Egypt until his death in 1249. Al-Durr subsequently decided that since Egypt was under siege from the Crusaders, she kept his death hidden and buried his body in secret. Working with the chief of the army they continued to issue orders and decrees from the Sultan under the guise of him being unavailable due to having man-flu!

Unfortunately, the enemy got wind of the death and marched on Cairo, but they were battered, and the victory led to al-Durr being temporarily put into power.

To sustain this power though, our heroine needed the recognition of the Abbasid Caliph and he was somewhat well… well basically he wasn’t all that keen. Shajar, as we have seen though, is not one for setbacks like regal acknowledgement, so she married the Sultan Izz al-Din Aybak and then worked behind his back to rule the land, isolating from his other wife and finally well… murdering him. This backfired, the truth was uncovered, and she was beaten to death under the orders of Um Ali, the mother of the new Sultan.

And that labyrinthian tale ends up with a bread pudding celebrating the vicious demise of a power-crazed but nonetheless ingenious former slave.


Seshat:

Dorothy was of Irish descent born in Blackheath, London. So far, so very un-Egyptian. At the age of 3 she fell down the stairs of her family home and at that point Dorothy’s life took a very abrupt turn to the strange, suddenly taking on a strange accent and demanding to be ‘taken home’. Beginning an obsessional study of Egyptology, she was confined to sanatoriums on more than one occasion until finally moving to Egypt in 1931 with her new husband Eman Abdel Meguid.

Her arrival in what can only be seen as her pre-ordained homeland led to Eady bringing revelation after revelation as to her status as the reincarnation of Omm Seti, the wife of a pharaoh who had committed suicide due to their relationship being forbidden. The wrinkle in Eady / Seti’s tale is that she became a renowned expert and source of information on Egyptology, guiding and revealing knowledge hitherto unknow to the most high-level of native experts.
Subject to dream visits and visions, Eady / Seti was held in huge esteem as a scholar and having great insight into ancient Egyptian life. Against all the major theories of the time Seti claimed that the location of Nefirtiti was in actuality much closer to Tutankhamen’s where nobody was searching. Recent investigations through sonar anomalies and explorations are leading to the conclusion that she could well have been correct. Respected by her fellow country-people she collaborated on countless books, texts and explorations.

Unafraid of death, believing she would be reunited with her husband, Seti passed in 1981, and was buried in the Coptic cemetery hopefully returning her to her extraordinary and mysterious past.

To watch a video documentary about Omm Seti, click here.

Some more Egyptian/bellydance fabric, upcycled as recreations of vulva: