Shezmu

The god Shezmu was a deity of wine and oil presses with a strongly bipolar personality who could equally bless or destroy. He attested from Old Kingdom times on and in the famous 'Cannibal Hymn' of the Pyramid Texts (PT 403), Shezmu is the fearsome being who butchers and cooks the Egyptian Gods themselves that the king might absorb their strength. In the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom the god lassoes the damned and corrals them for slaughter, squeezing their heads like grapes in a bloody image of destruction (CT VI, 6). In the later texts of the Book of the Dead Shezmu also appears in connection with the nets which captured beings in the afterlife (BOD 153). Yet despite the apparent cruelty ofhis nature Shezmu could also be beneficent, and as god of the presses he provided wine, oil and perfumes. By the New Kingdom there is more stress on these positive aspects, and Shezmu became known as the provider of perfumes for the Egyptian gods. The Book of the Dead also contains the statement, 'Shezmu is with you, he gives you the best of the fowl' (BOD 170). This role of beneficent provision finally became primary in the Graeco-Roman Period.

Iconography of Shezmu

Shezmu is not frequently depicted in ancient Egyptian art but was usually shown in anthropomorphic form as the master of a press. One mythological papyrus of the 21st Dynasty depicts hawk deities working the presses of retribution which must surely represent Shezmu, and the god may also be depicted in leonine form or with the head of a lion - an iconography in keeping with the more ferocious aspect of his personality. Some late representations also show Shezmu in ram-headed form.

Worship of Shezmu

There is some evidence that Shezmu already had a priesthood during the Old Kingdom, and by the Middle Kingdom his cult was certainly well established in the Fayum and probably elsewhere. As the benign aspect of the god's nature was increasingly stressed, he probably became more widely accepted as an ancillary in the cults of the other Egyptian gods until, in Ptolemaic times, in temples such as Edfu and Dendera, special rooms for the production and storage of oils and unguents and other products used in temple service were persided over by Shezmu 'master of the perfumery'