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This paper explores the historical realities and the international cultural context which lays hidden behind the veil of Sappho’s poetry. Its aim is to show that it is not by accident a possible connection between Sappho’s legendary fame as the “tenth muse” (as Plato named her in the Antologia Palatina) and the influence of the Egyptian cultural context, particularly the literary genres and love theme upon her poetry. The historical dimension evidences that the ancient civilizations that flourished on Greek and Egyptian soil, although separated by the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, had long been aware of each other, and at times had entertained significant levels of contact In this respect the approach and correspondence in the title between Sappho and Ma’at - outside a rather speculative connotation on the esoteric level- do not represent a resemblance between the famous historical attested woman lyrist from Ionian Lesbos, Sappho, and the Egyptian goddess Ma’at, as one might understand on a superficial level. Rather Ma’at is here an umbrella term covering a broad interval of Egyptian pharaonic cultural and mental items, which, due to their influence exerted upon the Greek culture, have contributed to the development of the original character of the Helladic civilization, particularly on the literary level during Sappho’s time. Egyptian Pharaohs of the Saite dynasty, newly established since 664 B.C.E., increasingly engaged with neighbouring cultures motivated by shared interests in prestige, trade and military security. This exchange left a visible mark particularly on Greek culture. Greek art, technology, religious ritual all incorporated in the period mentioned, to varying degrees, Egyptian elements. The appeal exerted by Egyptian ideas may be demonstrated by the Egyptian ideas which entered Greek cosmology or philosophy. Furthermore, contact and exchange between Egypt, Greece and other civilisations involved a range of different people. Translocal elites, traders, aristocratic travellers, mercenaries, sailors, craftsmen, courtesans, translators, administrators, etc. - all played their part in Eastern Mediterranean networks of contact and exchange. In addition to passing traders and visitors, large numbers of foreigners also lived in Egypt for extended periods of time. This is the case of Sappho too, who although is said to have lived in approximately 600 B.C.E., on the Aegean island of Lesbos, actually was very connected to Egypt’s traditions and philosophical ideas. Not only because her brother was a merchant captain trading in Egypt, but also due to her name which, in the original Greek, was Psappho, though we know her today by the Latinized version of it. There are voices that suggest that her name might have been synonymous with, lapis lazuli, a stone of magical and religious significance. As one of the first commercially traded gemstones in ancient Egypt lapis was valued equally with gold. It was commonly associated with water, the primordial element of creation, and in Egypt was known as the Stone of Truth and sacred to the goddess of Truth and Justice, Ma’at. Then, Sappho may have been praised as connected to the goddess’s true nature, who therefore allows poetry to be written, and the songs of the cosmos to be sung. This is why a poem attributed to Dioscorides hails Sappho with an invocation that says "greetings to you lady, as to the gods; for we still have your immortal daughters, your songs" As for her poetry it is not by chance as well that since the 1890s, our access to Sappho’s poetry has been greatly increased; in the first decades of the twentieth century around 100 poetic fragments attributed to her and written on papyrus (one on a potsherd) have been unearthed by archaeologists mostly in Egypt and then gradually deciphered, edited, and published. All these lead us to presume the great role Egypt have played on Sappho’s life and poetry.
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