Week 4: Reading Diary - Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt Unit
Part A: My favorites
The Secret Name of Ra
Ra, the god of the sun, is known by many names but one is kept secret and it is this name that gives him his power. The goddess Isis become jealous of the god's great power and longs to know the secret name that Ra keeps hidden in his heart. She devises a scheme in which a serpent of her creation (she is an enchantress) bites Ra and she tells him that the only way she can do the spell that will save Ra's life is for him to reveal to her his secret name. I found myself really invested in this story - I really wanted the secret name. In the end, Ra transfers the secret name from his heart into that of Isis, so the name is not revealed to us. I was disappointed, but when I thought about it, it made sense that this secret name had to remain secret even in the telling of the story. I think this shows how devoted the Egyptian people were to their gods, that even in their storytelling, they kept the law of the gods.

Ra and Hathor
This story seems to be a staple of Mythology and folklore - the humans that the gods have created have turned against the gods and thusly need to be destroyed. In this instance, Ra bids the goddess Hathor to slaughter all of mankind. Before she is finished with her work, Ra has a change of heart and sets out to save what is left of mankind. He sends out his subordinate gods to collect the blood of Man mixed with barley which is made into beer. The gods flood the earth with beer so that Hathor will drink it, become drunk, and leave over her work destroying Man. After all of this comes to pass, Ra grows weary of his time on earth and ascends back to the heavens at the great sorrow of his people.

The Sun's Journey
When Ra decides to enter the heavens, he must pass through the 12 divisions of night. After the twelfth (at dawn), he is taken up by Nut and born of Nut in the heavens. The description of each of the divisions reminded me a lot of the levels of hell depicted in Dante's Inferno - horrible creatures, domains of punishment, suffering, and just really "out there." The gods of this culture are not to be viewed as beautiful creatures like those in Classical Mythology. Instead, these mighty gods are revered for their power and their power alone.

Osiris
I liked this story because though I love Mythology, much of it can be pretty negative, so it was a nice change to read a story in which the events are purely positive. This story tells of the reign of Osiris the Good who sat in Ra's seat after he'd ascended to the heavens. Osiris gave the scattered, savage humans law and order, taught them agriculture, and taught them to worship the gods. Isis, his wife, brought wisdom. At the very end of the story, there is a notion that this time of goodness is going to end soon with a rebellion at the hands of the jealous god, Set.

The Death of Osiris
As I predicted, and as the title of the story implies, the peace, joy, and prosperity of the time of Osiris came to a crashing halt. Set, during a celebration of Osiris, tricks the god to lay down in a chest that is perfectly sized to fit him. Once Osiris is in the chest, Set's followers appear and seal the chest so that Osiris dies. They dispose of the body in secret (much to Isis' chagrin), Set ascends the now vacant throne, and the world plunges into a time of disorder and corruption. Meanwhile, a broken Isis searches for the lost body of her slain husband under the protection of seven scorpions that follow her. Ra, seeing her from heaven, feels pity for he suffering and sends Anubis, the opener of ways, to be her guide. This story, to me, illustrates Man's inherent discontentment with peace. Despite the fact that the time of Osiris was described as a time of peace and prosperity, Set was able to drum up some supporters who were not satisfied with the way things were.

The Journey of Isis
Wow, Okay so this story was pretty complex. Isis has a son, Horus, who she places in the care of Uazit to keep him safe from his uncle, Set, lest he kill the child to keep him from taking his rightful place on the throne as the heir of Osiris. Meanwhile, the body of Osiris has been floating down the Nile River and lands upon the shores of a land and immediately a tree grows around the chest in which Osiris' body lie. The king of this land has the tree cut down and declares it a sacred pillar. Isis manages to convince the king to allow her to take the pillar back to Egypt. However, Set discovers the body where Isis has hidden it and tears it into pieces, scattering it into the river. Isis does eventually find all of the pieces and creates a tomb over which temples have been dedicated to the worship of Osiris. Possibly the most striking feature of this story is the tenacity of Isis. So often is she hindered in her quest to put her husband's body to rest and yet she remains undeterred and determined that her husband find rest.

The King of the Dead
In this story, Horus, Osiris' son, avenges his father's death by reclaiming his rightful place on the throne. We are also given an etiology of the mummy god: upon hearing the broken laments of Osiris' consorts, Isis and Nepthys, Ra joins the pieces of Osiris' mutilated body together with cloth wrap. Isis is then able to give life to him, and he rises to become the King of the Dead. So far, in Egyptian storytelling as opposed to Greco-Roman, it seems that there is a sense of justice for those wronged and a restoration of the natural order of things. Osiris was wronged, to be sure, however, in the end the good guy came out on top and wickedness was punished.

The Wax Crocodile
This story is interesting to me, not because of its content (though it was a very entertaining story), but because it gives an instance of infidelity in which both the man and the woman are punished. It is common to see stories in which women are seen as the sole perpetrators in acts of adultery (i.e. The Scarlett Letter, the woman to be stoned in the Bible, every woman who had the misfortune to appeal to Zeus in Greco-Roman Mythology). The fact that both the man and the woman are punished alludes to the forward thinking of the Egyptian people who gave us things like written language and paper. In the story, the Scribes wife is having an affair with a handsome youth. The Scribe finds out and captures the youth with a wax crocodile that can be brought to life and readily commanded. The wife is burnt at the stake.


Part B: Favorites
The Two Brothers: Part 1
 This story reminded me of the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in the Bible. The younger of the two brothers, Bata, lives almost as a son to his elder brother, Anpu, and his wife. Bata is essentially the perfect house-guest, waiting on his brother and his wife, plowing their fields, and preparing meals. All is well until the day that Anpu's wife sets her sights on Bata and he rejects her angrily. She then makes it look as though she has been attacked and tells her husband that it was at the hands of Bata. Furious, Anpu seeks to destroy his younger brother. It is strange how often this theme occurs in much of Mythology: the blameless being persecuted despite their loyalty to their persecutor. I suppose martyrs are extremely important in all cultures.

The Two Brothers: Part 2
In this story, we observe the redemption of the younger brother in the eyes of the older, but by the time this redemption comes, too much has happened between the two for things to go back to the way they were. As Anpu pursues Bata, Ra has pity on Bata and creates a wide stream full of crocodiles to separate the brothers. From the bank opposite his brother, Bata relates the truth of what occurred with his brother's unfaithful wife and says also that because of all that has occurred, Bata must travel on his own and no longer live with his brother. Anpu, finally seeing clearly, mourns the loss of his brother by killing his wife. Meanwhile, the gods find Bata in his travels and decide to create for him a wife so that he is not lonely. He loves her dearly and warns her not to step outside or she will be swept away by the sea, for it has been prophesized that she will only live a short time. This is all too familiar, the giving of an explicit warning with clear consequences that is sure to be ignored which also seems to be a unifying feature of Mythology/Folklore.

The Two Brothers: Part 3
So surprise, despite her husband's warning, the created wife of Bata decides to go on a walk and captures the love of the sea god who pursues her. She escapes and the sea mourns. Now there is a sacred acacia tree that bears the soul of Bata in its topmost blossom and as it perceives the sea spirit's sorrow, it cuts a lock of sweet smelling hair from the girl and casts it into the water. The fragrance from the girl's hair is so strong and enticing  that the king of the land, after discovering the source of the lovely smell, orders that the girl be brought to him. Once she is with him, he praises her beauty and orders that the acacia tree bearing the soul of the girl's husband be cut down that he might die (he was advised on this by Bata's wife). Bata dies, and through a number of signs, Anpu is made aware of this and he sets out to find Bata's soul. After three years, Anpu finds the soul of his slain brother and places it into a vessel of water which returns the soul to the body of Bata. Thus, the brothers are happily reunited! I like the roundabout way these stories link. Bata told Anpu that the tree bearing his spirit would fall and he would die, but it did not occur in the way that I expected, so it made for an interesting plot twist that he was killed in the name of love/lust.

The Two Brothers: Part 4
Bata goes to great lengths to expose his wife for her betrayal of him. Ultimately he makes it so that he is born her son and given favor by the king and made king of Ethiopia. Once he is made king, Bata exposes his wife's disloyalty and she is sentenced for her crimes. From this story, I gain a sense of the importance of justice to the Egyptian people - Bata is tenacious in his plight for justice and he is rewarded for it. In this culture it appears that you always sew what you reap, which is dissimilar to the Classical Mythology I studied in the last unit in which the main question I asked was "why do such bad things happen  to good people." The Egyptian school of thought seems to be more along te lines of "bad things happen to good people, but those who do evil will be punished, and those who are good will gain redemption and justice."