Out of the Ordinary: The Dwarf God Bes
Growing up as a child I always found it hard to fit in.
I was a shy and introverted kid, hence, I always felt like the odd one out.
I suppose I was different as I struggled to make friends and as I couldn’t relate to them (I’m not trying to sound cringy, I was just intensely neurodivergent).
So I forced myself to fit in. I pushed down the parts of myself that my peers found “weird” and hoped that it would be enough.
It never worked and I just hurt myself and brought myself down for no reason. At one point, I gave up this ridiculous notion and stopped caring. I grew into my own person and am happier than ever.
But even though I was able to push through all by myself, I wished that I had someone to look up to, someone who could have taught me that it was okay to stand out.
Weirdly enough, I found this character in the dunes of Ancient Egypt.
This character is part of the Egyptian pantheon of deities. But he wasn’t one of the numerous great gods you have seen me write about in my previous articles (if you haven’t had the chance to read them, do take a minute to do so as the stories are very interesting!).
No, this individual started as a domestic/ house god. It means that they were not worshipped in temples and did not have priests, but were honoured and praised in the confines of a house. Every single house in Ancient Egypt.
Bes was a demonic dwarf god that went from being worshipped in homes to becoming associated with almost every major deity in Ancient Egypt and eventually travelled across the Mediterranean and became the most popular god from Ancient Egypt.
Bes was the god of childbirth, fertility, and entertainment and functioned as the protector god of women, pregnancy and children.
Unlike the rest of the Egyptian gods, Bes was not tall or handsome. Instead, he was a dwarf with comical features. He had long ears, a beard, a big belly and bowed legs.
He had features that would have been frowned upon in today’s world (let’s get a bit imaginative and think of the above individual in a modern light with these features). He would have faced ridicule and embarrassment at every turn.
However, the ancient Egyptians would not have agreed with this.
They saw dwarfs as rare individuals with magical powers who survived the harsh struggles of childhood. They believed that Bes would protect them from harm by scaring the evil creatures away with his scary face. Hence, the majority of Egyptians favoured Bes and incorporated him into every aspect of their daily lives.
What do I mean by that? Images of Bes were engraved into furniture, beds, mirrors, walls, cosmetic cases, and jewellery (like amulets). People even had Bes tattoos placed on their thighs as a mark of protection!
His dwarfism and animalistic features enhanced his status as a divine and powerful being and made him extremely popular. With his newfound fame, he was subtly adopted by higher-class individuals like priests and the royal family. Every individual in ancient Egypt, poor and rich, was placing images of Bes everywhere.
Various gods such as Horus the Child (child version of Horus the King), Ra (sun god) and Hathor (goddess of beauty and sexuality) were soon linked with him. We even have gods such as Dionysius (the Greek god of wine and entertainment) associated with him (this happens way later and outside of Egypt).
The cult of Bes reached a fever pitch as it soon spread outside the borders of Egypt and across the Mediterranean. We have a plethora of archaeological pieces of evidence that show his popularity in the Achaemenid Empire (Persia), Phoenicians and more. The Roman army even placed images of Bes in a Roman military outfit on their shields as a good luck charm!
The idea of Bes lasted for a very long time and underwent many changes but the core theme of Bes- his dwarfism, ugly but comical features and animalistic/demonic appearance stayed the same.
This Bes captured the hearts of the Egyptians and those outside for being himself. He stood out from the other gods and goddesses because of his oddities (better to call it uniqueness at this point) and achieved ten times more fame than them.
So I am going to take solace in the fact that being myself is my charm. I am going to stick to my guns and more importantly, never put them down. To the younger me I say,
“It's alright if we are different or out of the ordinary, it’s actually a good thing as it makes us unique and in my opinion, extraordinary!”
