Reading Notes - Egyptian Myths (Reading A)

I read the Ancient Egyptian Myths, some of which I was already familiar with due to my obsession with Egyptology. But I think that I never realized how detailed the myths are. For example, the myths and the science of the times are very closely intertwined. I know that in modern times we take for granted that there are 12 hours in a day and 12 hours in a night, but in ancient times the calculation of time was a big deal. Such a big deal that they included it in the mythology, most notably "The Sun's Journey". Ra, the sun god, enters Duat (the Underworld) at the end of each day as Tum, the setting sun. He is old and frail, and he boards a barque (a specific sailing ship) with his companions. He must fight the demons of the darkness, an increasingly difficult hoard of monsters as the night goes on, until he is reborn through the eastern gate as young Khepera, the rising sun. 

Not only is it interesting that the Egyptians felt it was crucial to know what Ra was doing, they thought it was important to mark at which hour he was doing it. In the seventh hour, for example, Osiris sits as king of the dead and Apep, the Night Serpent, attacks Ra's sun barque. All the allies attack it with swords and magic, and it is defeated until the next night. So not only is the demarkation of time important, but also the cyclical nature of life and death, day and night. 

There are other values that are alluded to as well. In "Ra and Hathor," Ra has aged and needs help controlling a human rebellion. Not only is it interesting that the gods can age, and there is a need for "cleansing the wicked" like we see in later Greek/Roman and Judeo-Christian mythology, but Ra calls a council of the gods. He asks for advice and help taking care of a problem that he can no longer handle himself. Asking for help is not a shameful thing in this culture. My favorite quote from this story is "Power is thine according to thy desire."

My favorite part of Egyptian mythology is how important magic is, and how the respect for one's actions lie not in the actions themselves but in the motivations. For example, Isis uses magic and trickery to gain power equal to that of Ra in "The Secret Name of Ra", but she didn't want to surpass him, only to put herself amongst the gods. This is not seen as negative (which probably explains how it wasn't blasphemous to consider the pharaoh's as "gods"), because her motivations were not negative. But in "The Death of Osiris", Set uses trickery and implicit magic to trap his brother Osiris in his sarcophagus. Neither trickery nor magic is negative in and of itself, but the motivations can change a character from a protagonist to an antagonist.

"The Gods of the Egyptians"
Studies in Egyptian Mythology (1904) via Flickr