The mystery behind Egyptian priestess' 'reincarnation' as British-born Dorothy Eady

Dorothy Eady at the Temple of Abydos. Photo: Vanilla Magazine, egyptianstreets.

Here is a story for you – A young child falls down some stairs, hits her head and wakes up completely transformed. A new accent, strange obsessions, unfamiliarity within her own home, and unexplained knowledge. 

A claim of reincarnation.

Such is the tale of Dorothy Eady, a famed 20th century egyptologist.

Born in London in 1904 to Irish parents, she began, by all records, as a perfectly normal child until she fell down some stairs at the age of 3 and fell unconscious. 

There is some disagreement over the results of that fall, from claims of brain injury to death followed by sudden revivification.

What is known was that the Dorothy that woke up after her accident was different. Her accent and speech had noticeably changed, and more strangely she began to ask her parents to return to her 'home'.

Though she could not explain where her 'home' was, she did persist in asking to return, which worried and confused her parents.

At around this time she was taken to visit the Egyptian exhibit of the British Museum, and while looking around the exhibit, she came across a photo of the temple of Set I, the father of Ramses the Great.

"There is my home!" she cried, insisting that she had lived in that temple, before pausing and questioning, "Where are the trees? Where are the gardens?"

As the story goes, she grew joyous at the exhibit, even kissing the feet of statues and claiming that she was "amongst her people", much to her parents' dismay. 

Despite the strange behavior she did eventually catch the eye of a then renowned Egyptologist, E.A. Wallace Budge, who encouraged her to learn about hieroglyphics.

Teenage Life

Dorothy's teenage and young adult life was framed with religious conflict. She often compared Christianity with Egyptian Paganism and was expelled from her all girls school and even was forbidden from Sunday mass after she mentioned how it reminded her of her "old religion".

Predictably, this was not taken well by the priest of that church, and she was eventually told she was no longer welcome in the congregation.

Despite this, her obsession deepened.

At age 14, she began to describe her previous life, even claiming to have been the lover of Seti I, even describing night time visitations with his mummy.

Eventually she was committed to multiple sanatoriums by her parents. They all, however, failed to change anything meaningful, and she held on to her beliefs regardless of their intervention.

After dropping out of school at 16 she came to work with her father in an early movie theater while studying part time at an art school in Plymouth.

It was around this time she began to claim visitations from an entity she called Hor-Ra which dictated to her over the course of a year, the story of her previous life.

The story which Eady wrote, took up seventy pages of cursive hieroglyphic text, and described the life of a young woman in egypt, the daughter of a soldier and vegetable seller by the name of Bentreshyt (meaning 'Harp of Joy').

She went on to describe that her mother died when she was 3 and her father gave her to the temple of Seti I at Abydos, the same building she had pointed out all those years ago as a four year old. Her story continued, saying that at age 12 she became a 'consecrated virgin of Isis'. Two years later at age 14 she met Seti I and they became lovers.

When she became pregnant, something that as a consecrated virgin almost guaranteed death as the penalty after trial, she chose to commit suicide than face the public scandal and dishonor it would bring her lover.

"Returning home"

At age 27 she met her future husband, Emam Abdel Meguid, while working for an Egyptian magazine in London.

Afterwards they moved to Cairo where she gave birth to a son that she named Sety, after her ancient pharaoh lover. She also assumed the moniker Omm Sety, which is Arabic for "mother of Sety".

Despite this things did not improve in her life, as her new in-laws, an upwardly mobile family did not appreciate descriptions of pharaonic apparitions and out-of-body experiences. This all led to her marriage failing after two years, when Emam left her and moved to Iraq.

Omm Sety chose to stay in Cairo to raise her son while working as a draftswoman at the national Department of Antiquities, where she published multiple books and articles.

It is also known at the time that she often spent nights along inside the Great Pyramid of Giza or placed offerings at the Sphinx, which caused the locals to both admire and be frightened by her.

Abydos, where it all began

Omm Sety eventually received the opportunity of her lifetime in her 50's, when she was given the chance to work at the excavation in Abydos, the very same site where her previous incarnation grew up, became lovers with Seti I and eventually died.

She proved an important aid to researchers, helping them locate among many other things, the ruins of the gardens she had long ago described.

One of the strangest stories that came out during this time period was when she was challenged by the chief inspector from Egypt's Antiquities Department.

They went to Seti's temple and in total darkness described a series of wall paintings to her. After each description she was directed to walk in the direction of that particular mural, which she did without error.

As the locations of these pieces of ancient art had never been published before, the inspector was, naturally, astonished.

She would go on to spend the rest of her days at Abydos, helping researchers and excavators, but claimed she stayed because the location brought her peace. She also believed she was atoning for her sins  from her previous life as Bentreysht 

Despite all this her contributions to the study of ancient Egypt are undeniable, with her preternatural understanding of both hieroglyphics and local ruins.

The end of the story

Despite all her contributions to Egyptology, many locals still feared her, and she knew that no Chirstian or Muslim cemetery would accept her.

She attempted to construct a tomb in her back garden, but was denied at the last minute when health officials  insisted she be given a proper burial. 

Eventually a local coptic cemetery gave in, granting her an unwanted plot of land in the desert but with no gravemarker, only a pile of stones.

That anonymous burial after her death at age 77 in 1981 marked an unceremonious end to a long and unusual life filled with both grand achievements and social and religious isolation.

Was she truly a resurrection of an ancient Egyptian priestess?

It is impossible to tell, but her achievements and sometimes unnatural knowledge of ancient Egypt and their folklore makes it hard to deny that something unusual was at play.

In the end we can only accept that for all our knowledge, there are some mysteries that will forever remain unexplained.