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Dreams, Pharaonic Egypt

and ancient Near East

In the ancient Near East and Egypt, dreams were

considered to be produced by sleep. Therefore,
the words designating this phenomenon are
often related to sleep: Sumerian U`, Hittite
tesha, and Egyptian qd mean both sleep and
dream, while Akkadian suttum dream
comes from the same root as sittum sleep.
The ancient Near Eastern languages do not have
any verb meaning to dream. The usual expression is to see (in) a dream, which shows that
the dreamer is perceived as a spectator of his
own dream. It also shows that dreams are considered as predominantly visual in nature.
The texts attest to two main categories of
dreams: message-dreams and bad dreams.
Message-dreams are divine messages sent to
the dreamer. Their content may vary, but the
most remarkable ones are the dreamt theophanies: gods appear in dreams expressing themselves. These dreams are most of the time seen
by the king, and their report in historical
records is a convenient rhetorical device for
showing the affection of a god for the ruler.
Bad dreams can have various shapes. Some
of them can be dangerous for the dreamer, who
therefore needs to exorcize them through
a ritual. The use of apotropaic amulets that
are seen as warding off bad dreams is also
attested in both Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Dreams can be solicited through incubation
rituals. Performing an incubation means
sleeping in a consecrated place while having
been ritually prepared. There are two main
categories of incubation rituals: divinatory
ones (for receiving a message-dream) and
therapeutic ones (for being cured through
sleep or a healing dream). Pharaonic Egypt
does not have clear evidence of incubation

rituals, whereas this practice is attested both

in Mesopotamia and in Hittite Anatolia (Zgoll
2002; Mouton 2003).
Interpretation of dreams did not have its own
specialist. Priests in Pharaonic Egypt and diviners
specialized in several divinatory techniques in
ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia were responsible for interpreting dreams when required.
Although treatises on dream interpretation
are attested since the Old Babylonian period in
Mesopotamia and the Ramesside Period in Egypt
know to what extent they were used for actual
dream interpretation.
SEE ALSO: Dream interpretation; Dreams,
Greece and Rome; Incubation.


Butler, S. A. L. (1998) Mesopotamian conceptions
of dreams and dream rituals. Neukirchen-Vluyn.
Husser, J.-M. (1996) Songe. Supplement au
Dictionnaire de la Bible, vol. 12: 1439544. Paris.
Mouton, A. (2003) Usages prives et publics de
lincubation dapre`s les textes hittites. Journal
of Ancient Near Eastern Religion 3: 7391.
Mouton, A. (2007) Reves hittites. Contribution a`
une histoire et une anthropologie du reve en
Anatolie ancienne. Leiden.
Noegel, S. B. (2007) Nocturnal ciphers: the allusive
language of dreams in the ancient Near East.
New Haven.
Oppenheim, A. L. (1956) The interpretation of
dreams in the ancient Near East. Transactions of
the American Philosophical Society n.s. 46/3.
Szpakowska, K. (2003) Behind closed eyes: dreams
and nightmares in ancient Egypt. Swansea.
Zgoll, A. (2002) Die Welt im Schlaf sehen.
Inkubation von Traumen in antiken
Mesopotamien. Die Welt des Orients 32: 74101.
Zgoll, A. (2006) International relations in the ancient
Near East, 16001100 BC. Neukirchen-Vluyn.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print page 2226.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah01048