Week 4 Reading A: Ancient Egypt

This week I chose to read about the stories from Ancient Egypt (mainly because Ancient Egyptian mythology has always fascinated me!)

Creation:

As with most all creation stories, first there was nothing. Well, not really nothing. There was a vast expanse of water, called Nu. From this water came the chief Egyptian deity Ra, and all he saw and desired to come into being, came into being. He created Shu, the Wind God, and his consort Tefnut, the Goddess of rain. Then he created Seb, the Earth God, and Nut, the Goddess who is the dome of the Earth.

When he was done with all this, he became the first King upon Earth and then took a mortal form and walked among men. See, it’s from myths like this that come the stories where Gods walk among humans and still influence their lives today. Who among us might be an undercover deity?

The God Ra by erebus-art

The Secret Name of Ra:

I admire Isis’ cunning. Desiring the secret name of Ra, she deliberately poisons him and, being the chief healer, tells him that the only way for her to cure him of the poison is for him to tell her his true name. Ra doesn’t realize that Isis is the one who actually poisoned him, so he goes ahead and tells her his true name. Such diabolical cunning. I admire this.

Ra and Hathor:

Ra is getting old and the humans are talking about overthrowing him. Upset and angry, Ra bids all the primordial Gods who were with him before humans came into being to visit him in a secret meeting.

He asks them what he should do about his creation of mankind (it kinda reminds me of a young parent asking how to properly discipline a child). The older Gods tell him to throw down his eyes on men and it will become Hathor. Sure enough, his eye is thrown and Hathor goes through and razes the land, putting fear into the hearts of men.

Ra decides he’s not mad at men anymore, so he floods the land with beer. Hathor sees her beautiful reflection and then gets drunk off the beer-flood. The men who worship Ra repent and follow him into battle again.

The Sun’s Journey:

Ra decides to no longer dwell on Earth and instead moves up to the heavens. There, he tells Thoth to go live in the Underworld and write down the sins from the souls of men.

The rest of the story goes on to describe the journey of dead souls to the Underworld. They’re carried on a barque by Ra and he travels along a river to the door of the Underworld, guarded by Isis. Then he drops off the dead, goes about his merry way out of the dark place, and the dead souls are sad because he’s leaving them. So Egyptian souls are carried along a river to the Underworld, too? This sounds a lot like traveling the river Styx to get into Hades…

Osiris:

Osiris is the God-King who succeeds Ra. He is born and Ra retires. Apparently before Osiris came to rule, men were barbarians, and he established law, justice, wisdom, and peace. Way to go, Ra. Leave a mess for Osiris to clean up.

Then he and his wife, Isis, teach men the art of agriculture, and everyone has food and all the people of the land are happy. Meanwhile, Set (Osiris’ brother) is jealous of his fame, and seeks to turn the people against him. Sibling rivalry is always fun!

The Death of Osiris:

Most obvious diabolical plot of all time: Set brings a ‘decorated chest’ (coffin) to a feast of Osiris’ and, because it’s so richly decorated, every man wants the chest for himself. Set proclaims that any man who fills the chest with his body can have it. Of course, he’s tailored the chest to Osiris’ body measurements, so when he lays in it to try the game, BAM, he’s shut in and dies. War and bloodflow ensue. His coffin is tossed into the Nile and goes into the Ocean. Isis, being the badass that she is, sets off with a band of guardian scorpions from Ra to find her dead husband.

Seriously, how is that not obvious? A decorated chest of human proportions is brought to a feast and nobody thinks that Set, Osiris’ obviously jealous brother, is trying to harm him? The Gods must be crazy.

The Journey of Isis:

Oh my goodness, this is almost EXACTLY like the myth of Demeter looking for Persephone after she’s been abducted! She goes off to a distant land, disguises herself as poor, is taken pity on by a wealthy native, and is taken into the home to care for the child! At night, she tries to give the child immortality by putting it into the flames (never really understood how that worked, otherwise I’d be jumping into every fire pit I found). The mother finds the babe, rescues it, denies it immortality, etc. This myth is is pretty much the same with both cultures, which I suppose makes sense because Egypt and Greece engaged in so much trade (culturally and industrially)!

Bibliography: 'Egyptian Myth and Legend' by Donald Mackenzie (1907)
Read the stories here!