Gods of the Nile | Denial Isn’t Just a River
/We’ve reached the end of the river. What an amazing journey. We discuss our final 3 gods of the Nile River: Khnum, Hapy, and Sobek. Fish? They’re agents of chaos.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of warfare, animal death, transphobia, infidelity, animal sacrifice, and animal attacks.
Housekeeping
- See us LIVE! Buy a ticket to our March 23 live show in Portland at spiritspodcast.com/live.
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Check out Pale Blue Pod!
- Submit Your Urban Legends Audio: Call us! 617-420-2344
Sponsors
- Shaker & Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make hand-crafted cocktails right at home. Get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool
Find Us Online
- Website & Transcripts: spiritspodcast.com
- Patreon: patreon.com/spiritspodcast
- Merch: spiritspodcast.com/merch
- Instagram: instagram.com/spiritspodcast
- Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/spiritspodcast.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/spiritspodcast
- Tumblr: spiritspodcast.tumblr.com
- Goodreads: goodreads.com/group/show/205387
Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia, and Amanda, welcome to the final episode of Denial Isn't Just A River in Egypt. It's what we've been doing by keeping an Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast-
Amanda and Julia: By Spirits Podcast.
Julia: You know, it's been a long run out here on the Nile River, and it seemed appropriate to me to finish out this series on that Nile.
Amanda: I love that. It is the defining feature. It is in our title, which thanks to friend of the pod, Yvonne, rudely laid off by the government coup here in the US and newly employed by Spirits Podcast to help us make all of our titles gorgeous and readable and sexy, you can now search your podcast feed for Nile and listen to them all at once.
Julia: Hell yeah, hell yeah. And Amanda, I'm so excited, because this week, we are going to discuss several of the gods who are associated with the Nile, which is obviously one of the most important aspects of Ancient Egyptian life. Because think about it, the Nile was, and in a lot of ways still is this life giving, but also life taking body of water. And because the Egyptians relied heavily on the annual flooding of the Nile for the crops and their fertility of the land, the Ancient Egyptians saw the Nile as this complex, sometimes frightening, sometimes awe inspiring body of water.
Amanda: Of course, you're gonna have gods for that.
Julia: So when we are talking about the gods that we are discussing in this episode, the gods of the Nile, you will notice that there are different but sometimes overlapping aspects of the river that they represent. And I am really excited to kind of dig in on this. We'll talk to start with why the Nile River is and was so important.
Amanda: Okay, let's do it. You know, I love some agricultural history. Let's go.
Julia: Yes, and then we will talk about the god, Khnum.
Amanda: Ooh!
Julia: Before we get to Khnum-
Amanda: Can you just say it again. For me, just say it again.
Julia: Khnum.
Amanda: Yay. I love it.
Julia: It's interesting because it's spelled K, h, n, u m, but the K h is sort of pronounced in a -th like a T H.
Amanda: Love it.
Julia: So we know that the Nile is the longest river in Africa. Technically, the Amazon is slightly longer, but for a long time, we did consider the Nile to be the longest river in the world.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: It stands out interestingly, and we've talked about this a little bit in the past, because it is a North flowing river, and a lot of rivers tend to go east or west or north to south, but this one flows south to north.
Amanda: It said I'm the cradle of civilization, baby. I'll flow whichever way I want.
Julia: Whatever way I want. Nile river is queer. Head cannon confirmed.
Amanda: I love that.
Julia: It flows into the Mediterranean, and it technically has two tributaries, like where it sort of originates from. There is the White Nile and the Blue Nile.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: The White Nile starts at Lake Victoria, while the Blue Nile starts at Lake Tana. And where they merge is in a city in the Sudan, which is the ancient capital of Sudan, which is called Khartoum. Now, it's also important for us to know about the cataracts of the Nile.
Amanda: Now, not just the thing you get in your eyes, apparently.
Julia: Yes, not a thing that you get in your eyes in this context, but rather a series of both shallow lengths, but also whitewater rapids that break up the Nile between Khartoum and the city of Aswan.
Amanda: \Wow.
Julia: Now there are six cataracts in total. Actually, five of them are outside of traditional Egypt. And the first cataract, the quote, unquote, first cataract, which is the most northerly cataract, is the only one that is actually in Egypt proper.
Amanda: Gotcha. Oh, I see. So, yeah, the because the river flows south, it all originates to the geographical south of the country of Egypt today, which is the country of Sudan.
Julia: Correct.
Amanda: Got it.
Julia: So there are six in total, and they have played a very important role in protecting Egypt, because they kind of serve as this natural border that one prevents military crossings, and it also makes it extremely difficult for invading armies to travel up those portions of the river, and particularly like the first cataract, is this very rocky rapids that exist just on the southern border of Egypt.
Amanda: Right on.
Julia: And that first cataract is going to be extremely important as we talk about one of the most important gods of the Nile, which is Khnum, the chief god of the first cataract.
Amanda: What a title I'm just I'm imagining this on a business card with, like, a really lovely embossed golden-like whirlpool. I want to give you my soul, like, just, just take it.
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: Why is that my first reaction? I don't know, but I think expensive embossing will go a long way with me, apparently.
Julia: Amanda's pledging her soul out here for good business cards. So basically, keep that in mind as you work with her. Next time you want to connect with Amanda on LinkedIn, just keep in mind, if your business card is very good, when you meet in person, she will sell you her soul.
Amanda: I'll take it.
Julia: So Khnum is very interesting because he is said to control the inundation, the flooding of the Nile, and he is, in particular, in charge of these caverns of the first cataract, which is where the flood waters are said to originate in ancient Egyptian mythology. We'll talk a little bit more about it in a minute. But as a result of these powers, this association with the flooding of the Nile and the sort of fertility that comes with that, he is also seen as a personification of creative force-
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: -among ancient Egyptian artisans and artists.
Amanda: Very cool. Oh, there's so much there about being like overwhelmed with inspiration. That's amazing.
Julia: Also, so between this and his association with the Niles, fertile soils, he is often portrayed as a potter who, according to some creation stories, shaped all living things upon his pottery wheel.
Amanda: Oh, goosebumps all the way down. Oh, that's so good. That's so good.
Julia: We'll get a little bit more into that, but first you have to know what Khnum looks like, right?
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So he is typically depicted as a ram-headed god wearing a long wake. Now, his type of ram, interestingly, has transformed over time, depending on the type of sheep that were being raised and herded by the ancient Egyptians. Now originally in early art, he had these sort of horizontal, undulating, curved horns that were common in ovis longipus, or the ancient Egyptian corkscrew, horned sheep.
Amanda: Not gonna lie to you, Julia, that description. It's a little bit sexy. If something's undulating, I want to know more.
Julia: That's just love a little undulation.
Amanda: That's just something else about me.
Julia: So these were one of two domesticated sheep that were raised in ancient Egypt. They have since gone extinct. And what is particularly interesting is that even after records indicate that the species went extinct, because it went extinct like somewhere in the middle kingdom, some gods, including Khnum, were still depicted with those corkscrew horns for years and years later.
Amanda: I mean, it just makes it feel even more rooted in the past, right?
Julia: Yes, exactly like he is a ancient deity that we have to we come to respect right now. It wasn't until much later that Khnum was depicted with these kind of short, downward curving horns that resembled the horns of the ovis platuria or the Amun ram.
Amanda: Gotcha.
Julia: Now, Amanda, you'll see, I dropped some images in our Slack earlier, so you can kind of compare the two different types of horns that made up nooms appearance.
Amanda: Yeah, the second one is very much what I would think of when I think of like an adult male ram with the almost like a the horns behind the ears, like you're putting two pigtails behind your ears.
Julia: Yes, like you're tucking your hair behind your ears.
Amanda: Exactly. But the first one? I'd ask this fellow out on a date, I am those those horns are intriguing. They're phallic, and you know what? They're they're unlike anything I've seen. And he's got a little butt. He's got a little butt, Julia.
Julia: He does have a tiny, little butt. Those are the horns of the ancient Egyptian corkscrew horned sheep.
Amanda: You know, as scientists are working on lots of important things, including Jurassic Parking perhaps, like some ancient wooly mammoths. I'm just gonna say, my vote is to put this species on the list. Put them on the list. I think we need more more sheep with extremely dangerous, protruding horns.
Julia: I don't know if extremely dangerous, but I agree. Hey, if we could bring them back, it would be cool. And the thing is, Amanda, there are a lot of the gods we've talked about in ancient Egyptian mythology and stuff like that. One of the ways that they would worship those gods is they would mummify the animal best associated with them.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: So there probably are some of these corkscrew horned rams out there that have been mummified, and therefore we might be able to pull DNA sampling off of them.
Amanda: Listen, we scientists, what, two years ago, brewed beer based on yeast residue from ancient uh, ancient uh vessels. Like we're getting there. The technology is advancing.
Julia: We have the technology, it's whether or not we use it. Is the question that Michael Crichton asked us in 1992. So apart from his very cool horns and his Ram's Head, he is often depicted wearing two tall feathers as part of his headdress, and then later the white crown of Upper Egypt, which kind of depicts him as being related to royalty in some regard or perhaps signifying his role as the chief of the Nile gods.
Amanda: Cool
Julia: Also, typically in art, he's depicted with his potter's wheel. And I think that's just honestly very cute and very adorable, because he's out there shaping all of creation on his little potter's wheel.
Amanda: You know, I love an artisan god, my my disabled King from ancient Egypt.
Julia: Hephaestus.
Amanda: Hephaestus. We love him. And I really love, I really love this god. I think this is such a cool way to think about shaping people from Earth, which we have seen repeated in tons of mythology from all around the world, in origin stories.
Julia: Hell yeah. So because of this cool, creative aspect of him, his potter's aspect, he was associated with the part of the ancient Egyptian soul, the Ba, which is said to be the like personality of a person.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: Now he's also associated with the Ba because it is the onomatopoeic word for a ram in ancient Egyptian.
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: Ba-aa-ah!
Amanda: I- I that one I got, that one I got.
Julia: Just in case people like, What are you talking about? Ba-aa-ah! In fact, Khnum was said to be the Ba of Ra himself, which is saying something, you know, if you are making up the personality of a god extremely important.
Amanda: And that personality is gonna be a god on its own.
Julia: Exactly, exactly. So there were times where the Creator God, in this case, Ra, is represented as being like in the underworld or in the afterlife, as part of his voyage across the skies and everything like that. And when he is depicted in that form, in the underworld or the afterlife, he is usually depicted as being ram-headed, thus tying him to Khnum.
Amanda: Nice.
Julia: As such, Khnum was venerated by the ancient Egyptians since Early Dynastic periods, with the primary worship focusing on the island of elephantine in the city of Aswan, which you might remember, is where the first cataract of the Nile starts.
Amanda: Indeed. And is it called elephantine because it's big, or because there were elephants there, because we are, of course, on the continent of Africa.
Julia: That's a great question. I'm not sure where the origin of the name does come from, but it was a very large island in the middle of the Nile, so it makes a lot of sense that it could have been named elephantine, in reference to how big it was,
Amanda: Incredible.
Julia: So there are, as I mentioned before, records of mummified rams being sacrificed to the god being found in stone sarcophagi on that island.
Amanda: So cool
Julia: And because Khnum was seen as the potter of mankind, he was also tied to childbirth, often being depicted on the walls of birth houses in temples, basically forming the bodies of infant kings before they are born.
Amanda: Wow, that's incredible, and I feel pretty rare to have a male god associated with the birthing ritual.
Julia: Yes, absolutely true. But again, it's kind of tied to this idea of he has physically created the forms of anything that is like born onto this earth
Amanda: Beautiful.
Julia: I think is beautiful. I like that a lot. He was also celebrated as the maker of bodies, which I love that as a title in a festival known as the Festival of the Potter's wheel, where he was referred to in texts as Lord of the wheel, and he who fashioned gods and men.
Amanda: Incredible. And I would invite any conspirators who do pottery as a hobby to name yourself Lord of the wheel. And if anyone says you're not the Lord of the wheel, you say, oh, really, name the last one. And if they don't know about this god send them this episode. But also, then you still win, and you are Lord of the wheel.
Julia: Also, if you're the kind of person that likes naming your equipment or your machinery or what have you, Khnum is a very cool name for a potter's wheel.
Amanda: Extreme. I love it.
Julia: So he even was said to spin each day, to like on his wheel, to remake the cosmos every morning.
Amanda: Oh, my god, as it follows the arc of the Sun cyclically across the sky.
Julia: You know it!
Amanda: Stop!
Julia: You know it!
Amanda: Too good.
Julia: But this veneration as a childbirth god was held in equal weight to his role in the flooding of the Nile, and he was the one that the ancient Egyptians would appeal to when low flooding would lead to times of famine.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: And we'll get to that with a foundational story right now, because that leads beautifully into one of the foundational stories of Khnum, which is there is an inscribed story on the cataracts that told the story of how, for several terrible years, Egypt suffered a famine because the Nile did not flood high enough to fertilize the agricultural lands.
Amanda: And so the idea here, Julia, just to make sure my fourth grade Egyptology class is still in my brain, is that by flooding its banks, the Nile would bring that super fertile silt and soil and like, fishy guts and goo all over the floodplain that they were later planned on and harvest from. So it's like the river is is flooding and fertilizing the fields for you, and that makes it much, much easier to grow good food.
Julia: Yes. And basically, that's what is so interesting about the Nile, and why it has this kind of, like venerated but also feared aspect to it, because if the Nile does not flood high enough, then you can't grow as many plants, but if it floods too high, often destroys the houses and the towns that are relying on those fields nearby.
Amanda: Totally
Julia: So terrible famine. For several years, the pharaoh decides to summon the wisest of his priests who could read the sacred books and ordered that priest to discover why the Nile had not flooded.
Amanda: Makes sense.
Julia: The priest consults the ancient texts, finds that the flood typically came from twin caverns under the island of Elephantine, but that doors sealed the flood waters behind them, and only the god Khnum could unbolt those doors and release the floods.
Amanda: Gotcha.
Julia: So the Pharaoh is like, Alright, cool. Here's all the offerings we could possibly give Khnum. He brings them to the temple on elephantine, and just like he's like, just whatever we have give them to Khnum. It goes on for several days, and finally, one night, the god comes to the pharaoh in a dream and promises that the floods would come again and that the years of hunger would end.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: And that's exactly what happens.
Amanda: Powerful. I'm also realizing now how much birth and flooding have in common again, for anyone who has been through the birthing process. I imagine that is a metaphor kind of close to home.
Julia: The breaking of the water.
Amanda: Indeed.
Julia: Equating it to the floodgates opening and the Nile.
Amanda: Indeed.
Julia: Interesting. And of course, there is a story of how he became known as the potter god in the pyramid and the coffin texts, he is often like shown or made reference to making objects like boats for the gods and things like that. But as a creator god, he was said to have shaped all of the people and the animals in the world upon his potter wheel, and was said to put life and health into their bodies, so not only making the forms but also being the one to imbue them with life and health and also their personalities, the Ba.
Amanda: That's amazing. And as gardeners, Julia, we know that the better the fertilizer, the nastier and gunkier and more like wet clay that shit feels.
Julia: Yeah, that's true. That's true. There is a great story from the Old Kingdom that says that Khnum was one of several gods that visited Egypt in disguise in order to assist with the birth of three children who were said to be destined to become kings.
Amanda: Oh, dang.
Julia: Now Khnum was given the task of making sure that their bodies were healthy, and as such, Khnum was the one who made the royal bodies of Kings on his potter wheel in the celestial realm before the king was born onto the world. And that is true for the belief of all of the pharaohs going forward.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: I love Khnum, I think he's fascinating. I think he looks really cool, and the Nile, Amanda is so important to the ancient Egyptians. So it will not surprise you to know that there are other very important gods besides the new that are associated with the river. And I will tell you about a few more of those as soon as we get back from our refill.
Amanda: I'm a little parched, let's go.
[theme]
Julia: Hey. This is Julia, and welcome to the refill. First things first, we have our live show in Portland on March 23 that is coming up so so soon. So if you are in the Portland area, you want to drive out, you want to see me host a game for Spirits about whether things are birds or cryptids, you should go right now to spiritspodcast.com/live and get your tickets to our Portland show on March 23 it's going to be really fun. I'm just saying it's going to be really fun. spiritspodcast.com/live. Thank you so much to our newest patrons, Mayo, Michael and Key-G you join the ranks of our supporting producer-level patrons like Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Jane, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Scott, Wil and AE (Ah), as well as our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And hey, we have some really exciting stuff coming to our Patreon at patreon.com/spiritspodcast. We'll be telling you more about that in next week's episode, but we are very, very excited. It's gonna be really fun. I think you all are gonna like it. But for now, hey, head over to the Patreon. Check things out. We have cool rewards right now, like ad-free episodes, recipe cards for every single gosh darn episode, and so much more. Again, one more time, patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
Julia: If you like our show, then you'll probably like other shows here at Multitude like Pale Blue Pod! Pale Blue Pod is an astronomy podcast for people who are overwhelmed by the universe but still want to be its friend, astrophysicist Dr Moiya McTier and a new guest each week, demystify space one topic at a time, with open eyes, open arms and open mouths from so much laughing and jaw-dropping. By the end of each episode, the cosmos will feel a little less, ah, too scary, and a lot more, Ooh! so cool. There's new episodes every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Check out Pale Blue Pod!
Julia: This episode is sponsored by our dear friends at Shaker And Spoon! One of our OGs, we love them to death. Shaker and Spoon is a subscription cocktail service that helps you learn how to make hand-crafted cocktails right at home. Every box comes with enough ingredients to make three different cocktail recipes developed by world-class mixologists. These recipes, they're no joke. All you need to do is buy one bottle of that month's spirit, whether it's rum or whiskey or sake or gin, and you have all you need to make 12 drinks at home at just $40 to $50 per month, plus the cost of the bottle. It is a super cost-effective way to enjoy craft cocktails. I know when I go out for craft cocktails nowadays, it's like 20 bucks a cocktail. It's wild! At Shaker And Spoon, way more affordable. The nice part too is you can skip or cancel boxes at any time. So invite some friends over, or class up your nightcaps, or be the best house guest of all time with your Shaker And Spoon box. So get $20 off your first box at shakerandspoon.com/cool, that is shakerandspoon.com/cool
Amanda: If you love all the myths and legends we bring you here on Spirits, you are going to love Scary Stories Told in the Dark, which is a terrifyingly twisted podcast made for horror aficionados. From frightening folklore to mind-bending tales of the unexplainable, scary stories told in the dark will be sure to make your skin crawl and your heart race, coupled with haunting, immersive sound design and eerie narration, the master storytellers, Otis Jiry and Malcolm Blackwood share the work of dozens of independent and previously published contributing authors to send chills down your spine if you enjoy our most scary urban legends if you enjoy creepypastas if you enjoy the macabre or you just kind of want to be terrified, be sure to subscribe to Scary Stories Told in the Dark on YouTube or in your podcast app now.
Julia: And now, let's get back to our show.
[theme]
Julia: Amanda. We are back, and unsurprisingly, because the Nile is so important, there are plenty of cocktails that are named after the Nile or inspired by it. There is, for example, the Jewel of the Nile, which is a cocktail made out of gin, green and yellow chartreuse.
Amanda: Double Julia surprise.
Julia: But not the one I'm gonna feature. I feel like I've been doing too many chartreuse drinks for y'all lately, there's also a cocktail that's inspired by the White Nile. There's a Blue Nile cocktail. But today I am suggesting to you a cocktail called The Nile Water, which is champagne, gin, creme de violette and lemon, which is kind of it makes it sort of a floral, gorgeous French 75 style.
Amanda: I'm imagining Gal Godot saying in a absolutely cringy accent, "Enough champagne to fill the Nile." Do you know about this?
Julia: I didn't watch Death on the Nile. Was it good?
Amanda: No, it was very bad, but that line was in the trailer, and Eric and I say to each other all the time.
Julia: Excellent. That's what I like to hear.
Amanda: Honey. Can you pick up wine tonight? Enough champagne to fill the Nile.
Julia: Why does she sound Italian?
Amanda: I'm going for like, some some fusion of like Borat and and like Quaro, that's where I'm landing.
Julia: Alright. Fair enough. Fair enough. Alright, Amanda, next up, we are going to talk about the god, Hapi, who embodies the life-giving power of the flooding of the Nile. So he is an interesting figure because despite how important the flooding of the Nile is, he was not ranked as highly among the deities associated with the river. So whereas a lot of them had like other importance, Hapi was, like, fully just focused on that time of the year where the Nile floods.
Amanda: I mean, you call in your ringer to get it done when you really need it right, and that's what it sounds like he is.
Julia: Exactly. He is also interesting Amanda because in recent scholarship, Hapi has been identified as being a sort of androgynous, intersex god.
Amanda: No way!
Julia: He has blue skin, he has a prominent belly, large drooping breasts, and he wears a ceremonial false beard.
Amanda: Oh my gosh.
Julia: I'm gonna share a quick photo for you.
Amanda: How interesting. That's awesome. I love finding historical depictions of intersex gods, because folks have been here all along.
Julia: Folks have been here all along and despite people trying to take language out of websites and national monuments, we're still here.
Amanda: You're still here
Julia: And we've been here forever.
Amanda: We believe you. We love you. And if you are identifying in this moment with a blue-haired intersex, god, do I have an example for you? Because this example is gorgeous, and I love that, like reed and flower headpiece. Oh, my God!
Julia: Oh, we'll talk about it. So this is actually really interesting because his appearance is tied specifically to the fertility that the Nile waters bring to Europe. So the the prominent belly can be read as a pregnant belly, the the breasts as like full, you know, life-giving breasts, the even the like color of his skin being that, like deep rich blue is a reference to the Nile waters.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: Now in Lower Egypt, he is typically adorned with papyrus plants and is attended to by frogs, which I think is really cool, but particularly frogs, because they were extremely prevalent in this region. But in Upper Egypt, he is more associated with lotuses and crocodiles, because those are more common in those regions.
Amanda: Very cool.
Julia: Now, he is often shown carrying offerings of food or pouring water from a jar, again, tied to the life-giving qualities of the Nile, and sometimes occasionally, but not as often as he is in his other form, he is shown as being a hippopotamus.
Amanda: Oh, right on.
Julia: Which I think is very cool. We haven't really talked about any hippo-headed or bodied gods, and I think that it's cool that that Hapi is sometimes one of those.
Amanda: We love a god with options. And I think the varying forms and associations are extremely cool, especially because they are so customized to the region.
Julia: Yes, I 100% agree. There is also this very interesting thing that happens during the 19th dynasty, where he is depicted, not just as an individual, but as two figures representing the Nile of the Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt separately, but always portrayed together to kind of represent the unification of the lands.
Amanda: Cool. Are they both depicted in gender-fluid or intersex ways?
Julia: Yes, it's honestly kind of funny, because they're usually depicted as sort of like symmetrical, like mirror images of one another, and then one just has the lotuses and the crocodiles, and one has the reeds and the frogs.
Amanda: Nice.
Julia: But I think that's really interesting. It really only lasts for the 19th dynasty, and then the imagery returns back to the intersex body that we more commonly see in art.
Amanda: I bet political unification was a project of that dynasty, and hence, myth is always political.
Julia: Oh, interesting, interesting. Interesting, how that is. So according to mythology, the Nile River was thought of by the ancient Egyptians to flow out of the primeval water that encircles the world, an image that we've talked about in previous episodes. Now the Nile is said to have flowed from Hapi's home near that first cataract, kind of where Khnum was also hanging out through the heavens and the Land of the Dead, before emerging from the caves that we talked about that come out of the island of Elephantine. Now it was said that the Creator makes the Nile. In this case, Ra makes the Nile rise each year to replenish the fertility of the lands, and that the two caverns that I mentioned that Khnum controls were actually imprints of Ra's sandals.
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: Which I think is a really cool image.
Amanda: That is really cool.
Julia: Now, while Khnum is in charge of releasing the waters, and Sekhmet is said to be the destructive powers of those floods that we talked about, Hapi was the god of the fertilizing, irrigating floods.
Amanda: Cool.
Julia: So he is objectively only positive things about the Nile and the Nile flooding, specifically.
Amanda: Very cool, but also, I think, a very important role to like harness and make sure that those you know could be destructive forces are done. In a way that is like proportional and proper?
Julia: Yes, exactly. So it's also really interesting, because the ancient Egyptians, they loved Hapi. The Flood was known as the arrival of Hapi. And during the flood, the Egyptians would place statues of the gods in the towns and the cities that were important to him, so that they could implore his assistance at that time.
Amanda: Cool.
Julia: Now, they would also throw offerings into the river at places that were considered sacred to the god, to make sure that the flood was not too low, nor too high, as we talked about before. And him sta Hapi point out that every aspect of Egyptian life was dependent on the food that he brought with him, and the flood that he brought with him, all creatures were said to rejoice at his arrival, the croaks of frogs, the bellows of bulls, the roars of crocodiles, all would herald his arrival.
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: He was also sometimes referred to as the Lord of the fishes, the one who greens the two banks-
Amanda: Oh!
Julia: -and the maker of barley and wheat.
Amanda: Incredible, and therefore the maker of beer. So thank you so much.
Julia: Hell yeah, we love to see it. It was also said that hoppy life giving waters were used in the revival of the god Osiris. So while his role was very important, it's a little bit of a shame in my mind, at least, that he doesn't feature in as many stories as some of the other gods that we've discussed in the past, for sure. And Amanda, I have a short little poetry corner for Hapi.
Amanda: Yay.
Julia: This is called the Hymn to the Nile inundation, or the Hymn to Hapi. And this is just the beginning, because it is a bit long. I will include the the full translation in the show notes for our patrons, but I think it really gives you the vibe of how everyone kind of felt about Hapi.
Amanda: Let's go.
Julia: Adoration of Hapi. Hail to you, happy sprung from earth come to nourish Egypt of secret ways, a darkness by day to whom his followers sing, who floods the fields that Ra has made to nourish all who thirst. Let's drink the waterless desert his dew descending from the sky.
Amanda: Doesn't that just wouldn't you venerate that that god? Wouldn't you be like, yes, thank you for making all of my life possible.
Julia: I'm just feeling so replenished, just just thinking about them.
Amanda: So good, so good. It's almost like Julia metaphor for the existence of transgender, non-conforming, intersex people in the world without whom we'd all be parched and less creative and liberated.
Julia: Yeah, yeah. Just, just in a quick aside me, you conspirator, trans people, energy, sex. People have always existed as long as humans. Have been humans and had, you know, understandings of what gender and sex are, no matter what anyone says, they're still going to be here to this day.
Amanda: Yeah, and often, in fact, particularly worshiped, respected and valued before the imposition of colonial values on the world.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: So just to say, if we're the only people to tell you that today, there you go. We shouldn't be the only ones to tell you that today. But no, in case we are, there you go. We always will. We always will.
Julia: Alright, you want to talk about crocodiles?
Amanda: Yay.
Julia: So next and last, we have the god Sobek. Now, Sobek has been venerated for a long time, since at least the Old Kingdom, and while the name of the god simply means crocodile, he was regarded as a powerful deity with several important associations, but most importantly to our episode, the Nile.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: He is, as you can imagine, often appearing as a crocodile, either fully or as a crocodile headed man. He is often seated upon a shrine or an altar and wearing a headdress that consists of a sun disc with ram horns and two tall feathered plumes. Now, interestingly, about his ram horns, Amanda, it's those corkscrew ones from earlier.
Amanda: The old ram horns. The Good, good, vintage ram horns.
Julia: Those good, good. You know, I'm gonna drop an image for you of Sobek, so you can enjoy his appearance as we talk a little bit more about him.
Amanda: Oh, we gotta we got a big old headdress on this one. Oh, yeah, with like, two little snakes carrying the sun.
Julia: Big old headdress, very tall feathered plumes, you know?
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: A classic, a classic look. So he is unsurprisingly associated with the color green, both for his association with crocodiles and also the Nile River, because sometimes water blue, sometimes water green. In the Pyramid Texts, he is said to be the son of the Creator goddess Neith, who you might remember as the goddess of the primordial waters in which all of creation emerged from. And he is referred to as the raging one.
Amanda: Why is he raging?
Julia: That's a good question. Well, he's a crocodile. That doesn't help.
Amanda: True.
Julia: But we'll get into a little bit. More, but he is said to be the one who makes green the fields and the riverbeds along the Nile, which is kind of something that he shares with Hapi a little bit. But he is also said to quote, take women from their husbands whenever he wishes according to his desires.
Amanda: Okay, not ideal, I'd say, unless the women are like, hell yeah, dude, Sign me up
Julia: Hell yeah. I'm leaving my husband for this crocodile man.
Amanda: I mean, not for me, but I-
Julia: If that works for you though.
Amanda: People have broken up with people and moved on to new relationships for much less attractive and sort of singular figures than this crocodile had gone.
Julia: Yeah. Just look at all of celebrities.
Amanda: Yeah, wow. I'm really learning about myself that a an animal head on a human body is not a deal breaker for me during this Egyptian series.
Julia: I feel like we have transformed Amanda. Amanda hated animal human hybrids before, and now she's like, I'd fuck that crocodile, man.
Amanda: I think it's, I think the fact that it's the neck above and that they're all quite proportional to the human body.
Julia: Okay.
Amanda: When we get all kinds of like, you know, transformer-style mashups, that's where I get a little freaked out. But maybe I'm also just, like, getting more accepting as I as I age. Julia, I don't know what to tell you.
Julia: It's very possible. All right, so as you can imagine from what I've told you so far about Sobek, he represents both the positive and negative aspects of the Nile, both its destructive force as well as its procreative and fertile aspects. He is the God of the Waters, where it is said that the Nile literally issues from his sweat. So the Nile is made up of Sobek sweat.
Amanda: Wow, that's, I guess, a little salty, but damn.
Julia: Kind of hot, you know, if you're into that,
Amanda: Cool, if you're into that, if you're into that, yeah, if you like it. I love it.
Julia: So God of the waters of the Nile, as well as the marshes and the river banks. So basically, if you had to sum up, like, what so Beck's whole thing is, if you can find a crocodile there, he is in charge of it.
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: He, along with many of the gods, is also sort of tied to royalty. He is considered the lord of Bakhu, which is the mythological Egyptian mountain on the horizon, like, kind of where the celestial world meets the mortal world, but also, like, literally, on, like the horizon line. If you were managed to get there, you would find his temple there, and his temple is made out of carnelian, which is a very beautiful gemstone that folks who are really into that sort of thing, like the spirituality of gems, we love a carnelian. It's all about like, re energizing yourself and fire, and also like finding motivation to, like, get shit done. And I have a little Carnelian in my my money bowl at home, so that it brings that good energy alongside it. So, big fan of Carnelian as a as a gemstone.
Amanda: Cool.
Julia: He is, like I mentioned, associated with the Pharaoh, as well as, in particular, Amanda, the fertility and the potency of the Pharaoh.
Amanda: Sure, when you've got a God King. You need that God King to have God sons, literally and figuratively.
Julia: Yeah, the ability to pass down his line. That is what Sobek is connected to in terms of the royal line. He was worshiped well throughout all of Egypt, with his main religious centers being in the city of Shedet, which was renamed by the Greeks to Amanda. Do you want to guess what the Greeks renamed it to?
Amanda: Was this one Alexandria?
Julia: No, this one is Crocodilopolis.
Amanda: Ah! Oh, oh, boy.
Julia: There's a bit on the nose.
Amanda: I think I was, I was willing to allow us Elephantine island, but that's, that's very on the nose.
Julia: Not easy to say either.
Amanda: No, it's not. I get the ancient Greek suffix, and maybe it would roll off the tongue a bit better if I were a fluent speaker of ancient Greek. But damn.
Julia: He was also worshiped in Upper Egypt, in the city of Kawm Umbu, where he was worshiped alongside his consort, the goddess Hathor, and their son Khonsu.
Amanda: There we go.
Julia: Some more faves, much like many of the other gods associated with their animals, his temple usually provided a pool of sacred crocodiles, who would then be mummified when they passed away.
Amanda: I mean, great, and I'm glad that they're dying of natural causes and getting a dignified burial.
Julia: Yes, you know what this is like. The thing that I'm taking away from ancient Egyptian religious practices is, it would be cooler if more temples had animals in them, or more places of worship in general had animals in them? Like, you know, it'd be cool if there was, like, a bunch of sheep in the middle of my Catholic church every once in a while.
Amanda: Yeah, we can go to shul and, like, not just have the shofar that we blow to welcome in the new year and repentance on Yom Kippur, but also, I don't know, like some cute little Sheepies and go pet pet pet on the little ram heads.
Julia: Now, man, imagine they bring back those corkscrew rams, and then you have those in your temple.
Amanda: We are overall. Moving away from animalistic sacrifice. And a lot of the project of modern Judaism is letting us put, you know, a bone on the Seder plate instead of a full lamb shank. But I think that would be really fun and certainly a good activity for the kids.
Julia: Yeah, no, I'm just saying have them there. We don't have to do the animal sacrifice and sacrifice. We could just have them there. They could just visit. They could just be there. You could just be there. But what I think is interesting about Sobek is his worship focused mainly in areas where crocodiles were common and also commonly a dangerous issue for the local residents. So he was being worshiped in these areas where it's like, uh, my neighbor's wife got eaten by a crocodile, but thank god, Sobek's around.
Amanda: I mean, that's one kind of silver lining.
Julia: He was praised in those areas and called the one quote who rose out of the primeval waters. He's also known as the Great male being.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: And the Lord of the floating islands.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: A couple of other titles, Lord of the winding waterway, Lord of the Nile. Pretty good.
Amanda: Okay.
Julia: And he also shares the title with Hapi of the one who greens the two banks.
Amanda: Very nice, kind of beautiful.
Julia: They're not like, those aren't all terrible names. You know what I mean, like this is not a Anubis situation where they're like this man ate millions.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Which I respect. I respect it while he was worshiped and greatly respected. However, Sobek was sometimes considered an enemy of divine order, Maat, if you will. The coffin texts refer to him as, quote, unquote, the rebel, because he was said to have been the one that mutilated the body of Osiris when Set threw his brother's corpse into the Nile.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: Sometimes he's even considered to be the crocodile form of Set, though this is not commonly practiced outside of like the much later, quote, unquote, Osiris canon. However, he does have stories where he has assisted the other gods and he has helped to maintain order. So, for example, while he might be feared and respected as the crocodile god, there is a story that comes out of the coffin text where he became the patron god of fishermen.
Amanda: Oh, okay.
Julia: So in the coffin text, there is a story that takes place during those trials between Horus and Set, Amanda, as you might remember. And in this version of the story, ISIS is forced to cut off the hands of Horus because of that whole the cum lettuce story.
Amanda: I'll never forget it, not as long as long as I live.
Julia: So she cuts off Horace's hands, tosses them in the river. And Ra's like, well, he needs his hands back. So back you're you're our Nile River god, go and get those hands. But Sobek has trouble grasping them properly in his jaws.
Amanda: Oh.
Julia: He's having a little struggle. He's having a hard time.
Amanda: Oh, no.
Julia: And so in order to get the hands, he invents a fish trap that he's able to catch the hands with.
Amanda: I see.
Julia: Gifts them back to Horus, and then realizes this is a very useful invention that I came up with. I'm going to give it to the fishermen of Egypt so that they can catch fish easier.
Amanda: I love it. And what a wonderful example of how patents shouldn't exist.
Julia: There you go. I think gods are just people we venerated because they gave up their patents.
Amanda: A 100% and hey, companies, you're allowed to do that too.
Julia: Inventors, you can give up your patents and maybe we'll worship you as gods. Who can say?
Amanda: I mean, there's way worse people were worshiping as gods. Wink, we won't do that, but wink, give them up anyway. Wink, wink, moderna. Wink, looking at you. Wink.
Julia: Also, I love this little bit in terms of his patronage to the fishermen the ancient Egyptians considered fish to be quote, unquote creatures of chaos.
Amanda: I mean, not wrong.
Julia: I think I love that. Yeah. So with his traps and as a fish eater, as a crocodile, Sobek helped to establish and bring order to the world, thus preserving the art.
Amanda: Hey, let's go.
Julia: Oh God no, I just can't get the imagery of like, like the ancient Egyptians looking at fish being like agents of chaos. Agents of chaos. Every single one of y'all, come on, does make sense we look at those doesn't make sense to us. Nope. Just doesn't. Doesn't.
Amanda: Agent of chaos. Agent of chaos. Where's your arms? Agent of chaos.
Julia: So Amanda that that is what I have for the gods of the Nile River, and as we can tell by the gods featured in this episode, the Nile is a chaotic but also incredibly important feature in ancient Egyptian life, and it seems only fitting for us to end our Denial Isn't Just A River in Egypt, it's also what we've been doing by keeping the Egyptian mythology series from you on Spirits Podcast-
Amanda and Julia:-By Spirits Podcast-
Julia: -series with these three gods and hey conspirators. I hope you enjoyed this series. I haven't quite decided what our next deep dive is going to be. So if you have any thoughts or you have any suggestions, you can always drop us a line at spiritspodcast.com/contact, or on one of our social media pages. Did you know we're on BlueSky? We're on BlueSky.
Amanda: We sure are multitude shows us on TikTok, posting cute clips of us in the recording studio. And I also want to say because of the great work of friend of the pod and data master Yvonne, you can now look through your podcast app and really easily find our previous three deep dive series into foundational world mythology. It's All Greek To Me. It's Norse, Of Course. And Denial Isn't Just A River, which is what we called it in the title, because-
Julia: Yes.
Amanda: -the rest of it is too long
Julia: It was too long. It's too long. Your podcaster wouldn't even be able to find it. You know, it's too many characters.
Amanda: Amazing. Well, Julia, thank you so much. Researcher Sally, thank you so much. Bren, thank you so much for your editing of the series. It has been so much fun to sit back and learn and feel like next time I go to any museum with ancient Egyptian artifacts, I will say, hey, repatriate those. But also I know that guy.
Julia: You will you'll be able to recognize so many of the guys now and the ladies.
Amanda: So good.
Julia: Well, Amanda, the next time you are thinking about how cool you would look with some corkscrew horns, remember, stay creepy,
Amanda: Stay cool.
Julia: Later satyrs
[theme]
Transcript by: KM Transcripts