Episode 370: Egyptian Mythology 101
/It’s 2024. We’re digging into Ancient Egyptian mythology, FINALLY! But before we really get into it, Julia’s laying out a 101 class to get us all prepped, including history, cosmology, and of course, the Book of the Dead (it’s not what you think!)
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of colonialism and imperialism, death, childbirth, apocalypse, elitism, and murder/execution.
Housekeeping
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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
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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
[theme]
JULIA: Did you forget how we start this podcast?
AMANDA: Yeah, I did.
JULIA: Uh-huh.
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and do the intro the same way, which I did just forget a moment ago. And learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And today, Amanda, is the start of a new 2024 series. We've done Greece, we've done the Norse, and now it's time for Worshipped in Egypt.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: Okay. Listen, if you— if you can think of a better pun for the series, let me know, message me. I was struggling. I looked at a lot of Ancient Egyptian puns for kids and they were all terrible.
AMANDA: Yeah. You don't want to verge on the disrespectful here at all. So, you know, top of the pyramid was the— was the closest thing I've been thinking of, but I'm— I'm really—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —open to possibility here. And Julia, don't let my processing of the title stand in— representing like a lack of enthusiasm for the series, because I'm so excited.
JULIA: I'm also very excited. There's also not a lot of words that rhyme with Egypt
AMANDA: True.
JULIA: So I was just—I've been trying my best, you know? I'm just trying my best, girl.
AMANDA: Meet me in Egypt. I could be like, Gal Gadot and be like, "That's enough champagne to fill the Nile." We'll see.
JULIA: I haven't watched that one. I've only seen the— the first one.
AMANDA: If you're ever, like, sick or sad, it's a real— it's a real good just like background watch. Very nappable.
JULIA: Yeah. She's a mess, but hey, we love a mystery, so that's something. So to get us started with our new series, this episode, in particular, we're going to cover kind of the religious worship of Ancient Egypt. And specifically, the evolution of worship over the course of time from the Early Dynastic periods, all the way to the Ptolemaic period. And the focus for this episode is to give us as much background about Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian Pantheon, and how they were worshipped and viewed before we kind of start digging into our specific deity episodes.
AMANDA: Because we're talking about a huge swath of time here, right? Like I— I took a couple Ancient Egypt gifted kid classes when I was a child, and it's like, "Okay. Well, which of their many millennia of history are we going to focus on here?"
JULIA: Like literally thousands of years.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: We're talking about thousands of years of Egyptian history and where we get a different change in religion from, so it's really interesting. And I think that to begin with, I want to first let you know that, like, Ancient Egypt is probably one of the most populous and complex pantheons that we've ever discussed on the show. So depending on the source, we can safely say that there are over 2,000 gods in the Egyptian Pantheon with about 1,500 of them having names.
AMANDA: Wow, that is so many.
JULIA: Yes, that is a lot.
AMANDA: Oh, my gosh.
JULIA: It's a lot. We're probably— obviously, we're not going to do over 2,000 episodes or even 15,000 episodes on this topic. But I think it's like really important to know that both, we have a lot of gods in this pantheon and also a lot of these gods change and morph over time. And a lot of the reason we have so many of these is because the gods have evolved throughout Egyptian history. And the fact that many of these individual gods have either like a main association or a form, but have changed and been synchronized over time. So a lot of this is also going to be talking about how we know what we know about the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon, and a big part of what we know now is because the Ancient Egyptians believed that the gods were very present in the world, influencing events, like actually having a hand in historical events. And as such, like religious rites were very important and fairly well-preserved. We'll talk a little bit about how well-preserved and in what style they were preserved. But this gives us a shape and idea of who the gods were and how they were interacted with.
AMANDA: Amazing. I love a little sprinkling of, like, historiography on top of our Spirits episodes, and I am stoked for this whole series.
JULIA: There's going to be a lot of historiography in this episode, I'll tell you right now. We're going to talk a lot about the history of Ancient Egypt, but we're not going to talk a lot about, in this episode at least, actual stories that make up the mythology of Ancient Egypt in the way that we've talked about the mythology of Ancient Greece and of the Norse, because this is more about how we know what we know, and not about the actual stories themselves, which is what the rest of the series will be about. It's just this one in particular, we are going to be doing why we know it.
AMANDA: Let's lay the foundation. Schemata textual, baby. Always read the preface. Julia, when— when I was a— a little kid, young scholar, I skipped that preface. Now, I'm like, "No, no. Give me that amuse-bouche. Tell me what I meant to know. Tell me what I'm going to learn, please."
JULIA: Before we get to talk about the history of Ancient Egypt, let's talk about the gods and how the Ancient Egyptians viewed the world. So as we start to discuss gods in later episodes, I want to establish something about the appearance of gods. Because depictions through hieroglyphics and art is one of the big ways that we kind of know a lot about the Pantheon.
AMANDA: I mean, that's the first thing I associate with Ancient Egypt, is like going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walking through a beautiful corridor with, like, sandstone and mummies and, you know, guys with bird heads, like that's, I think, the popular understanding, at least in my popularity.
JULIA: Well, I'm glad you talked about guys with bird heads, because that is very important. The gods of Ancient Egypt usually appeared in one of three forms, either they were humanoid, so like, just look like a dude or a lady.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Animal, or a hybrid of the two, typically, a head of an animal and then the body of a human or vice versa. So while a god might appear in many different kinds within their category, so like Thoth, for example, was both a baboon and an ibis.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It was really rare for a god to be depicted as all three forms. So, generally, if they had animal qualities, they would be seen as either animal or hybrid, but never fully human.
AMANDA: Gotcha.
JULIA: As always, there are exceptions to this, and this was kind of the general rule of how they were depicted in art and hieroglyphics. And this is just for depictions, of course, because the Ancient Egyptians understood that like the actual corporeal forms of the gods were considered hidden and unknowable.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So while we have these depictions of art, they're not supposed to be the literal depiction of these deities.
AMANDA: Okay. That's good to know. Especially, because I think modernity, looking backward, we assume things are very literal. And we think like, "Oh, well, you know, based on this thing, like, did— you know what— what literally happened, or this"— you know, we— we don't remember that people, like, reused urns, and, you know, had metaphor and poetry and art. And all of that, I think, is a really good thing to keep in mind and helps us, you know, restore like humanity and complexity to people in the past.
JULIA: Yeah. I think that oftentimes, we assume that early people in general, doesn't matter where in the world, but early people in general, were very literal with their depictions. But no, they were just as capable of nuance and artistry, and poetry as we are today. So with that in mind, let's talk about depictions and understanding of the world for the Ancient Egyptians. So unlike the realms that we've discussed in our It's Norse, of course series, the Egyptians believed in basically three realms, so there is the sky, the earth, and the underworld. And these three realms are surrounded by the realm of chaos, which is— exists outside of the realms in which we exist in. And all life emerged from the realm of chaos. And it was the belief of the Ancient Egyptians that all would eventually return to the realm of chaos, which we'll talk about in a little bit.
AMANDA: Interesting. And a pretty common theme, you know? We kind of— we—we come from this primordial soup, and to the soup will return.
JULIA: Yes. And this is really interesting too, because there are so many depictions of the world before, quote-unquote "life or like existence" where it's water. We come from the primal waters, we come from the primordial soup. We come from an ocean and then pull land out of it. And the Ancient Egyptians are no different in that regard.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So mortals in Ancient Egyptian belief existed on the Earth until they died and came to the underworld, which we'll talk about later. But the gods early on in kind of the mythical time as opposed to the historic time for the Ancient Egyptians.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: This is a time that existed before the organized religion in Egypt. The gods existed on Earth, however, in the time after myth, which would be like the Ancient Egyptian's current day, the Egyptians believed that the gods were thought to have moved to the realm of the sky, or existed invisibly on Earth. But as in all things, there were exceptions to these gods who had a role that tied them to a specific place, for example, existed and lived there. Yeah. It's also worth noting that when I talk about the realm of the sky, this isn't like the Halls of the Gods in Norse mythology or like Mount Olympus for the Greeks. There's no like singular place where the gods live in the sky. It's just like they simply exist in the realm of the sky.
AMANDA: So it's not like, you know, a— a physical place we can point, like, they're all there, but they're sort of like up there, doing whatever in ways that we can't see.
JULIA: Yeah. I think it's very similar to the idea of like the heavens—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —if we're, like, kind of thinking of the early Christian or, like, even the Greek versions of, like, you have like this realm, and this realm, and this realm, and they're all, like, above each other in different layers.
AMANDA: Like a soil diagram.
JULIA: Yes. The sky is just the— the layer there in which the gods exist.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: So we've talked about the Earth, we've talked about the sky. Let's talk about the underworld. We've— obviously, we've done an episode a while back about the Egyptian underworld, but because it's been a while, I think it's worth a refresher. So I might even actually include a, like, Egyptian underworld revisited episode as part of this series, so—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —stay tuned.
AMANDA: That sounds super fun. Yeah.
JULIA: But for now, we should know that the underworld is known as the Duat, and the Egyptians believed there were 12 regions that made up the Duat. And we know this because we found many maps of the Duat drawn to help guide the dead left in tombs. Something that we'll talk a lot about later on in the second half of this episode.
AMANDA: Hell yeah, dude.
JULIA: And it is in many ways based on these maps that we have for the dead, very similar to Earth. There are rivers, and islands, and fields, and lakes, and caverns, but there are also these otherworldly features that make up the Duat. Like lakes of fire, and walls of iron, and trees of turquoise.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. I— I'm sure we'll interrogate this a lot. You know, there are all kinds of like colonialist angles, of course, to like Egypt, Romania, and the exploitation and erasure, and stealing, and imperialism of Egyptian history, mythology, and artifacts, especially from Britain. But there's also just this like inherent, I think, draw and fascination of nerdy kids to Ancient Egyptian Mythology. And I gotta tell you, Julia, I think the maps are a big part of that. We got maps and diagrams of pyramids. We got maps of tombs, we got maps of the underworld. The— the Egyptians loved a map, and children loved maps, especially children who read fantasy novels. So I— I'm all— I'm all for it. I'm all over this.
JULIA: I was just gonna say the thing that always attracted me to a fantasy novel as a child—
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: —was a cool map in the front of the book. That's how I knew, I was like, "This is a book for me."
AMANDA: That's all you need.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Maybe even a cloth bookmark if you're getting fancy.
JULIA: So imagine you were a— a fantasy novel, however—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —instead, you're a dead Ancient Egyptian.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: As you might remember, the dead must journey through the 12 regions in the afterlife. But once you pass all of the hazards that occurred along the way, the dead would arrive at the Field of Reeds, which is known as Aaru. And here, that's where you would be judged by the gods, which, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about that in future episodes, I promise. And if you were to pass judgment, you would have access to the afterlife.
AMANDA: Right on. I like that the journey is kind of a initial judgment. You have to, you know, with your resources and cunning and dedication, get through it.
JULIA: Yes. And there is like a certain level of elitism to that. We'll talk a little about that later. But I do think that it's like really interesting that, in a certain way, you have to be accomplished enough to then be judged.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. I imagine there— I mean, I— I know there was a whole kind of, you know, death economy to resource your loved ones. But I— I'm very excited to learn more about this ritual. And Julia, may I just say the Duat sounds like a cool dance—
JULIA: It does.
AMANDA: —the kids were really into around rock and roll.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. I like that. I'm into it. Alright. So we've talked about the three kinds of regions, let's talk about the Realm of Chaos. So chaos existed before creation and contains the potential for all of life. So the Egyptians kind of pictured this— and we just talked about this a moment ago. They pictured the Realm of Chaos as this dark, watery domain of unlimited depth and extent. These waters, which were known as Nu or Nun continue to surround the world, even after the creation. And the Egyptians believe that the Nun is the source of the Nile as well, which is extremely important to Egyptian culture, and I'm sure we're going to talk about it a lot in future episodes.
AMANDA: I also have such a strong memory of our Advanced Placement world history class starting with, "So the Nile River Delta, important, this is what silt is, hence civilization." And I'm like, "Oh. Oh, okay."
JULIA: You want to know what irrigation is? They invented it.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: So it's actually really interesting because sometimes Nun was personified as a deity, which was seen as both a parent, both like father and mother of the creator. And additionally, after the creation qualities of this kind of primordial state of chaos, such as darkness, et cetera, were seen as having a consciousness and became—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —a group of deities that were known as the eight, who had qualities similar to reptiles and amphibians, which, of course, like makes a lot of sense given the origins from these primordial waters of chaos.
AMANDA: That is incredibly enriching and exciting. I can already, you know, open up tabs of, like, articles I want to read about, you know, imagery of like wombs and swamps, and, like, you know, fluid— like, oh, I'm so excited. Yes.
JULIA: It's— it's really cool. So these eight, these, like, amphibian, reptilian eight, were beings that had to join forces in order to shape the creator or in some versions were the early version of the creator themself. However, in order to become or make the creator, they had to either change in like sort of a metamorphosis sort of way.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Or had to die in order to give their power to the creator.
AMANDA: Julia, I may be mistaken, but I don't remember like a creator figure in Egyptian Mythology. There isn't like a— a huge blind spot in this, like, cosmology?
JULIA: Yes and no. So you'll notice I'm not using a proper name for the creator, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that different times believed that there were different creator gods.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Some say it was Nun themselves, some say it's Aton, but we'll— we'll get there, eventually, in— in kind of exploring the deeper elements of the creation myth and stuff like that.
AMANDA: Cool.
JULIA: But what we do know is that the end of the world will probably come about because of either quarrels among the gods, or the rebellions by humanity. Regardless as to why it happens, we know that the Ancient Egyptians believed that the creator would become tired of existence and would subsume the world back into the primordial waters of chaos.
AMANDA: Highly relatable. And basically, that's composting, and I'm in favor of it.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. And this is also really important because time is something that is super important for us to discuss, to better understand the Egyptian Pantheon. Because the mythical story of Egypt is divided into seven stages. We have chaos aka pre-creation, we have the emergence of the creator, the actual creation of the world and its inhabitants, the reign of the sun god, something we'll talk about later. The period of direct rule by other deities, the period of rule by the semi-divine kings, which is the, like, actual historical part of Egyptian history—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —for the Ancient Egyptians. And then the return to chaos, which is not something that has happened yet.
AMANDA: Fun. We love an unwritten chapter.
JULIA: Yes. And as you can imagine, your average Ancient Egyptian existed during this period of time, which was the rule of the semi-divine kings. So there was, as kind of laid out by the religion of Ancient Egypt, a time in which there were gods on Earth among the people, but that time had largely passed by the time history was starting to be recorded by the Ancient Egyptians. So that's, like, really important to know, is like this is the period of time that the religion of Ancient Egypt is being practiced.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: But they truly believed that there was a time in which the gods were on Earth with humans and interacting with them.
AMANDA: Heard.
JULIA: Yes. And they're interesting, because there's also, like, is— an obvious delineation of that period. The Ancient Egyptians believed that there was still a chance that gods would and could appear on Earth. It's just like they weren't doing it as often as they did in the past.
AMANDA: I mean, that makes sense. Like, hey, animals used to be bigger, trees used to be bigger, gods used to walk the Earth. And, you know, here we are now, in our sort of mortal era.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. And— and that being said, we can see that Egyptian cosmology is cyclical. So it's kind of no surprise that the Egyptians saw human life as similarly cyclical, just on a smaller scale. So you have four an Egyptian person, birth, life, death, afterlife, and then rebirth. And, you know, we— we talked about this briefly, and we sometimes jokingly referred to the fact that the Egyptians were, quote-unquote, "obsessed with death" which, like, to some extent is true. But it's also like the way that kids are kind of obsessed with what they're going to be like when they grow up or like what adulthood is going to look like for them, because death was, to the Egyptians, another phase of life that they just didn't know a ton about.
AMANDA: Yeah. I— I think that's a really valuable point. Like, it's— it's not fair to say they were obsessed with death. I think they, you know, at least from what you're describing now, plan for it and sort of understand and accept it, and devote resources to it as another part of a journey that a being, or family, or, you know, people will take.
JULIA: The reason we think of like, ah, we think Egyptians and we think of death in the afterlife, part of the reason is because— and we'll get to this in the second half of the episode. Most of the written stuff that we have, most of the texts that we have that survived to modernity from Ancient Egypt, they're all related to death. And there's a really good reason why that is, and I'll— I'll tell you about that a little bit after our refill. But I just— I wanted to say, like, there's a reason behind that.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
JULIA: It's not just like, "Oh, yeah, it was just a death-focused culture." It wasn't. It's just that's what we have information about still.
AMANDA: Oh, exactly. And like if— if people were to, you know, go through like my recycling, they'd be like, "Damn. This girl's obsessed with, you know, cold brew concentrate and egg cartons." And, like, I mean, yeah. But also, if— if all your— if all that's left for you to look at, you know, from this high far vantage point in the future, it's going to skew our perception, just what was important to them. Whereas— where there's lots of stuff that isn't necessarily as documented, preserved, you know, made official, that'll skew our perception. So, again, very basics, I'm sure for, like, all students of history out here, but I love that I get to remind myself as a layperson and enthusiast of history about all this stuff.
JULIA: Yeah. And you know what? Like, at the end of the day, death was extremely important in the culture of Ancient Egypt and the Egyptian religion. And to that point, that is why we have the resources that we have, because Egyptians took very good care of the tombs of the dead. It was to make sure that you had everything that you needed in this new part of your life. Like, sending your kid off to college with only like the best things so that they, you know, don't get homesick or whatever. And as we discussed before, afterlife and rebirth were not these guaranteed things. Like, you had the journey through the Duat, and the judgment there before you can move on to the Field of Reeds and, like, really enjoy your afterlife. And I— I really like how researcher Sally put it in her notes, she said, "Your things that were left with you in the afterlife would be waiting for you in the Field of Reeds, assuming you were to make it there, sort of like a valet service."
AMANDA: Aw, so cute. Like you check into the hotel earlier, they're like, "Oh, we'll store your luggage for you." And then when your room is ready, they bring it up to you.
JULIA: Yeah. Or like when you go on a cruise, and they're just like, "We'll take your bags." And then, you know, in two hours, your bags will be in your room and you're like—
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: —"Great, that's so easy. I'm gonna go get a soft serve and some cocktails over on the veranda." The last thing that I wanted to note, and this is kind of very important, is that the Ancient Egyptians had no official holy book that we know of.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: The relationships between deities, as well as between mortals and deities, was never really a fixed thing, but rather something that changed often over time and developed over thousands of years in Ancient Egypt. And as such, there was never really like this kind of, quote-unquote, "authorized version of the religious stories and beliefs" and very few treatments of mythology that have survived to modernity. So what we do have is a very laboriously pieced together through a variety of different sources and as such, tends to vary depending on the source. Because Egyptologists— a lot of this stuff is just from like the 18th Century British people stealing stuff, and then being like, "This is what I think this means."
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And not necessarily super accurate to what was likely the case.
AMANDA: So there's Talmud, no Torah, very clear to me.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. So what we do have, our three main sources that are often quoted and pulled from. We have the Pyramid Texts, we have the Coffin Texts, and we have perhaps what is the most well-known, which is the funerary texts, which include the Book of the Dead.
AMANDA: Which I have definitely seen copies of in museums.
JULIA: Yes. And, of course, these are not the only sources that we have. They are just the main ones. But what we do have are sources from the various periods, dynasties, and kingdoms of Ancient Egypt. And we will get to those, Amanda, just as soon as we grab a refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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JULIA: Hey, it's Julia, and welcome to the mid-roll. Of course, we have to start by thanking our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Paige, Pat, Lindsay, Katie, and Jennifer for joining us here on the Patreon. They joined the ranks of our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And of course, our legend-level patrons. Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And if you would like to have your name read here on the podcast and get some cool rewards like recipe cards, ad-free episodes and so, so much more, head over today to patreon.com/spiritspodcast to check out those cool rewards and sign up today. That is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. I also have a recommendation for you this week. I really enjoyed the cozy fantasy novel, Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. I like cozy novels, in general. I think we should have more like genre cozy novels as a whole. I'm a huge fan of the Wayfarers series, and Legends and Lattes kind of scratch the same itch that those books did, and so check that out. That's Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. And, of course, have you ever wondered what life would be like on a planet different from our own or how writers create your favorite fictional worlds? Well, wonder no more because Exolore has the facts for you. Every other week, astrophysicist/folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier explores fictional worlds by building them with a panel of expert guests, interviewing professional world builders or reviewing the merits of worlds that have already been built. You will learn, you will laugh, and you will gain an appreciation for how special our planet, the planet Earth really is. You can subscribe today by searching Exolore in your podcast app or going to exolorepod.com. This episode of Spirits is brought to you by Wildgrain. And Wildgrain is the first ever bake-from-frozen subscription box for sourdough breads, fresh pastas, and artisanal pastries. Every item baked from frozen in 25 minutes or less with no thawing required. And the team at Wildgrain just sent me a new box. Some super delicious stuff in there. I am kind of obsessed with their giant chocolate chip cookies right now. They are amazing. And they have this walnut bread that Jake made the other weekend that is to die for. It's like a little bit sweet, kind of savory, and we put a little like herb butter on top of it, and it was the perfect breakfast accompaniment ever. It was so freaking good. And now, you can fully customize your Wildgrain box, so you can get any combination of bread, pasta, or pastries that you like. So if you want a box of all bread, all pasta, or all pastry, you can have it. Plus for a limited time, you can get $30 off your first box plus free croissants in every box when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits to start your subscription. You heard me, free croissants in every box, and $30 off your first box when you go to wildgrain.com/spirits. That's wildgrain.com/spirits, or you can use the promo code Spirits at checkout. And finally, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. So here's the thing, what are some things that you want to keep the same about yourself and your life in 2024? Do you think you're like already crushing it? Hey, that's awesome. If you think you are already crushing 2024, I am so proud of you. That is amazing. So instead of thinking New Year, new you, let's think the opposite, because around New Year's we kind of get obsessed with how to change ourselves, instead of expanding on what we're already doing right. And I know that when I'm talking to my therapist, it's always for me about building up the areas that I know that I have already been working so hard at. And I know that there's room for improvement. But at the same time, I don't need to, like, start from scratch. I don't need to, like, create an entirely new and different cycle for myself. I can just work on the things that I know I can work on and the things that I already like about myself. And that is something that I utilize my therapist for all of the time, and I'm so glad that I do it. And if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. So celebrate the progress you've made already, visit betterhelp.com/spirits today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: So, Amanda, we're back. And for this episode, I want to do a cocktail that was inspired by Ancient Egypt before we really got into the, like, individual gods cocktails.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And so I wanted to introduce you to Shedeh, which is a Ancient Egyptian drink that is kind of similar to wine, but like distinctly different from wine. We know that it was used in some religious offerings as well as embalming. And my favorite reference to Shedeh is it was often used in romantic poetry in reference to what a lover's voice sounds like.
AMANDA: Oh. Like— like the— you know, the dulcet tones, the, like, honey, you know, et cetera.
JULIA: Honeyed voice of my lover, yes. It's kind of similar to that.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: So originally, it was believed to be made out of pomegranate, though recent archaeological studies indicate that it was most likely made from red grapes and not pomegranate.
AMANDA: Both delicious, Juls.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. So my cocktail is somewhat inspired by both schools of thought in that. So it combines a Pinot Noir with pomegranate juice, and then accented a little bit by some orange liqueur.
AMANDA: May I suggest, Julia, for all the discerning conspirators in the US at least? Go to your local Trader Joe's, pick up sparkling pomegranate beverage, which is a lovely pomegranate juice, sparkling, non-alcoholic beverage, and sort of tastes like cran-apple juice with a distinctly pomegranate tone. So if you don't want to buy, like, pomegranate molasses or straight up pomegranate juice, it's a good entry point.
JULIA: Nice. Good to know. I haven't been to a Trader Joe's in a while because the closest one to me is, like, 30 minutes away, but—
AMANDA: Not acceptable.
JULIA: —I got to do that. I got to do it now.
AMANDA: It's good.
JULIA: Alright. So with these in hand, let's talk about the different periods of Ancient Egypt and how the gods were kind of portrayed in worship and story. So we'll start with the Proto-Dynastic and Early Dynastic periods, which took place from 3200 to 2686 BCE.
AMANDA: So for folks who may have, you know, been a little disoriented during history class, imagine the timeline and there's a dot in the center, and that's the year zero CE to the left, as we move away from the year zero, the numbers get longer. And to the right, as you move away, numbers get longer. So—
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: —we're going to talk about the bigger number first, which is unusual and weird. And if you find that a little discombobulating, you're not alone.
JULIA: Also, everything that we're going to be talking about in this is BCE and not CE, so think— the bigger the number, further away from where we're at.
AMANDA: Bye-bye. Farewell. You're standing on the zero mark going ta-ta because it's far away.
JULIA: So from hieroglyphic writings, we get kind of these allusions to the existence of the gods as they relate to business and rituals. However, we do not get a lot of stories and myths from this period, and there is a reason behind this. So Geraldine Pinch, who is an Egyptologist and an author who wrote the handbook of Egyptian Mythology explains that, quote, "Myths often focus on episodes of intense conflict or tragedy. By the Egyptian rules of decorum, usually, that made it impermissible to illustrate such episodes in formal art. The images used in art were felt to have power to affect the real world, so order had to be shown triumphing over chaos and good over evil." So as such, this early period did not depict much, if any mythology, whatsoever. So the only thing that we have are these ritual objects, which were basically like court art for a series of kings, which would depict the gods, but as such, does not show much of the big conflicts that would make up kind of the canon of the mythology and the Pantheon, which was much more established later.
AMANDA: That makes a lot of sense to me. And again, one of those sorts of ways in which we need that expertise and context to understand why— you know, what remains is not a perfect representation of what was present for people's daily lives. But, I mean, we do that now. Like, we know, we make monuments and statues of people who we're proud of, or are victorious, and more rarely ones to depict conflict. But that has been, you know, in my understanding, a more modern urge and something that— you know, go to your average like City Square, you're going to see like, you know, a quote-unquote, "conquering hero" and not, you know, reminders of great Discord.
JULIA: Right. And so this period of time was much more focused on, like, the gods association with day-to-day life, so like business and rituals that may be done in terms of religion and stuff like that. But we weren't getting like stories about the gods. We weren't getting real, like, depictions of, like, who they were and, like, what their personalities might be.
AMANDA: I thought you were gonna say, "Because carving stone is hard, laborious, and expensive." Which I'm sure it also is.
JULIA: That's—that is true. That is true. That's why the only real art that we have from this is Court Art for Kings.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm. Which like—
JULIA: That's about it.
AMANDA: —what are you going to write down, who owes you money, what the laws are, and you know, something very ritually important.
JULIA: Yes. And that becomes really important as we get to the Old Kingdom, which lasted from 2686 to 2055 BCE. So we— this is where we get the Pyramid Texts.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So the Old Kingdom, even for later Ancient Egyptians, was kind of seen as this like golden age, but at the same time, extremely elitist in that golden age.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So literacy was mainly confined to officials and upper-class households. And many of these officials were serving as part-time priests in their communities. So from this period, many of our depictions of the gods come from temples, which had these things called naos or inner shrines, which were the earliest known integrated texts and reliefs that we have in terms of religion in Ancient Egypt. These were mainly depictions of the gods, but they were also carved alongside short speeches, saying like what the gods will do for the king.
AMANDA: Hmm. Okay. So all the gods are lining up to be like, "Great job, king. Here to support you. Love you, bestie."
JULIA: Exactly. And what we also get from this period that make up these Pyramid Texts is a topographical list. So this list of deities according to where their cult is located and also summarizes the gods by their functions, qualities, and epitheta.
AMANDA: Sounds like a useful table.
JULIA: Yes. So extremely useful for us in knowing a little bit more about the gods. But again, we're not getting into these kinds of conflicts and myths that we'll see later on. Now, at this point, we really don't know much about what daily religious life during this period looked like, because inscriptions in tombs were the main source of information that we have. So the most comprehensive of these Pyramid Texts that were carved into tombs comes from the pyramid Tomb of King Weni. These Pyramid Texts are, if I am to believe, research correctly, the oldest religious writings in the world. And they're made up primarily of principal funeral literature in Ancient Egypt.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: So these texts were reserved for the soul of deceased kings by his scribes and priests, and were made up of a series of spells and incantations that were designed to free the soul of the king from the body and help it ascend into the afterlife. And these are important not only for the study of religion and mythology in Ancient Egypt, but also acted as a primary source for the lives of kings that they were written for, because it gave you an idea of what the role of the king in Egyptian civilization was like during this time period, as well as kind of like the specific accomplishments of that ruler, and also like the general vibe of their personality. Like if they were particularly forgiving, it was noted in these funerary texts.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: They also gave instructions on how the deceased would traverse the afterlife and the journey of their ka, which is the equivalent of the soul from the body to eternal life. And a ruler also had the ability to live an eternal life among the quote, "imperishable stars," meaning, basically, they were able to live a life among the gods in their afterlife.
AMANDA: Lovely. And right away tying, you know, divine right to rule with the ruling family.
JULIA: Yes, because the gods were like literal god kings in this period of Ancient Egypt. And that's like extremely important to keep in mind—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —as we kind of go through the history, until we get really to, like, the Ptolemaic period.
AMANDA: Can't wait.
JULIA: The Pyramid Texts are also really interesting. They— the Pyramid Texts themselves make reference to over 200 different gods and goddesses. But again, they only, like, allude to events in mythology or these, like, iconic moments that basically, are all about harmony, restoration, stability, and order. Again, we can't have stories about chaos or conflict. It has to be about the harmony and restoration, and stability, and order.
AMANDA: Like the—
JULIA: So, like—
AMANDA: —Christmas specials of sitcoms. I'm— I'm getting that kind of vibe.
JULIA: Exactly. So like, for example, in one of these Pyramid Texts, Thoth, as the God of Wisdom and Writing would be invoked to help the king be wise, you know?
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Or like stories, like the contentions between Horus and Seth would be alluded to, in order to remind the king about like the gods and their goodwill.
AMANDA: I see. Like there was once contention, but now we're all fine.
JULIA: Exactly. And the Pyramid Texts are also really important for the greater cosmology as a whole, because they are the first written reference to the god Osiris, who is the King of the Dead, and our first reference to the judgment of the soul in the afterlife.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: Extremely important. And very early on that we're talking about those, even though we're not talking about, like, really how Osiris came to be King of the Dead, why the judgment is happening, et cetera, et cetera.
AMANDA: But evidence that it was important then and is still important now.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. And so after the Pyramid Texts, we get to the Middle Kingdom, which is from 2055 to 1550 BCE, and the Coffin Texts. So while the inscriptions in royal tombs defined the Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom featured more coffins of, like, officials and other members of the elite, which were sometimes painted with texts or scenes. Now, the Coffin Texts remain our kind of primary source of this period, because many of the temples to deities from this time did not survive. And the inscriptions in the royal tombs kind of became less prominent during the Middle Kingdom.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: So the Coffin Texts are similar to the Pyramid Texts in terms of being a collection of spells, and incantations, and religious writings to help the deceased to navigate the afterlife. But again, they were no longer specifically for these kinds of god-kings, right? The most prominent part of the Coffin of Texts is the Book of Two Ways, which kind of gives us the first example of the cosmography of Ancient Egypt. So these are, like, where we get those maps of the afterlife and the best ways to kind of avoid the dangers of that journey.
AMANDA: New favorite word, cosmography.
JULIA: I know, it's really good.
AMANDA: That's really good.
JULIA: So, basically, the— the Book of Two Ways was kind of this illustrated guidebook to the afterlife, though, to a certain extent describing it as that is misleading because it was never really like a book as we picture it. It's more just a series of detailed maps that then corresponded with the rest of the text that was painted inside of the coffin.
AMANDA: Got an atlas, an index, just a helpful road guide for you on your way.
JULIA: Again, calling back to the— the fantasy little girl nerds that we were—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: — we were like— we would have been like, "A series of maps that explain how to traverse the afterlife? Yes, please."
AMANDA: Yes, please.
JULIA: Now, the Coffin Texts kind of show this significant cultural and religious shift from the Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom, and also it helps show the development of religious beliefs in Ancient Egypt at the time. So no longer was there this ruling authority of the, like, central figure god-king for the religious movement. It became decentralized, it allowed more people the freedom of expression in art and architecture. The state basically stopped mandating how the gods were to be represented, and instead, each region and cult would kind of create their own art about the gods as they pleased.
AMANDA: Very exciting for scholars. That sounds awesome.
JULIA: Yes. But also kind of— again, this decentralization means we don't have a lot of these written down stories and surviving texts, and creates this kind of— I don't want to say chaos, but like, less defined for— and less easy for scholars to figure out what exactly is going on.
AMANDA: Totally.
JULIA: This also allowed for us to see more of the major events of the Egyptian greater story depicted in art, where it had not been before. We have Atum-Ra, who is the main creator god of this period, and his offspring which were depicted more often as well. And just— like outside of the Coffin Texts, we have some other records that reference the gods. We have hymns that were inscribed onto papyrus. We have other popular surviving texts like the one where— there's a series that's basically like fathers imparting wisdoms to their sons about the right way to behave, but also—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —the way that humanity has to act in relation to the gods.
AMANDA: Wow. Very helpful. A real Polonius situation.
JULIA: Real Polonius situation and real like— you know, kind of giving you an idea of, like, how society felt about the gods and how they interacted with them, which is extremely important from like a anthropology perspective and an archaeological perspective as well.
AMANDA: So cool.
JULIA: And during this period as well, most of the stories that survive that were about the gods, were stories in which humans encountered gods rather than stories about like the gods interacting with one another. And this would change, but before we talk about how that changed, we have to talk about the New Kingdom and the Book of the Dead.
AMANDA: Alright. I mean, it makes total sense, Julia. Like, how should I, as a human, have the gall to describe what happens between the gods? Like that— that just makes inherent sense to me.
JULIA: Yes. And it's much more interesting, especially in this kind of decentralized period of the Middle Kingdom, where you're like, "Okay. Well, now, we all can depict the gods how we want in art," while still being respectful, obviously. But ,like, now you can talk about— "Yeah, you know, my grandpa one time he met Ra in the desert," and et cetera, et cetera.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Like, it's— you can tell stories that feel more personalized and more human, rather than the like, "Oh, I don't get involved with what the gods are interacting with each other like."
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, with the New kingdom, the New Kingdom was from 1550 to 747 BCE. And this is really considered the high point of Egyptian culture. So many of the surviving great art and architecture that survives into modernity to this day, was produced during this period. So this is the period that we have the underworld books, which most notable of all those is the Book of the Dead. But the underworld books in general was a general term for mortuary texts that were used in tombs during this time. And by the time the New Kingdom ended, there was 12 different books that were kind of used across Ancient Egypt. Now, while these books were written in hieroglyphics, which you would think it meant like, "Oh, you know, they're— they're very accessible." As long as one was, like, literate, they would be able to read it. They were intentionally made hard to read—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —because the knowledge contained was meant only for, like, the king and those holding high-ranking priestly offices.
AMANDA: Fascinating.
JULIA: Again, we're still, like, kind of elitist in this period in terms of, like, who gets to traverse the afterlife and actually know all the secrets.
AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, especially when, you know, religion and statehood are married, you know, and— and glued together. It's like protecting state secrets. It's like encryption. It's like code— you know, encoding important data. When you do that, though, you know, to your point, like this is not— this is not something where anybody could kind of, you know, read a text or understand a ritual and, you know, feel really close and really empowered to have a personal relationship with the gods. That is not at all what we're describing here.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. And it's also really important to note too, that like the balance of the cosmos was extremely important in the religion of the Ancient Egyptians. And very much the purpose of these texts only being accessible to the king and these high-ranking priests was to maintain the balance in the cosmos.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And it was also like secondary— like, aid the king's transition into the afterlife because he was associated with the sun god, Ra. And that's the only reason why the king in particular gets to have this afterlife where he's interacting with the gods.
AMANDA: And Julia, you wouldn't want to overthrow your ruler, would you? You wouldn't want to knock the entire universe out of alignment?
JULIA: No. Why would I want to do that? I definitely don't want to eat the rich. That's fine. We get now to the Book of the Dead, which is a name that was coined by 19th Century Egyptologists. So keep that in mind.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: This is actually a body of text that the Egyptians referred to as The Spells of Going Forth by Day, which I personally like a little bit better than the Book of the Dead. The Book of the Dead does feel very like tabloid-esque.
AMANDA: Yeah. It— it feels like someone is printing like a flyer and coming to me, wearing like a, you know, late 19th Century newsboy hat, to be like, "Extra, extra. You know, come see this exhibit of stolen Egyptian artifacts here in the, I don't know, Shropshire.
JULIA: The— The Spells of Going Forth by Day actually makes a lot more sense when you keep in mind that the main theme of these mortuary texts is about the kind of like daily journey of the sun god, Amun-Ra or Ra-Amun. But this like daily journey of crossing the sky is said to parallel that of the soul's journey through the underworld, only he did it on the daily.
AMANDA: Every day? Damn.
JULIA: That— well, that's why he's the god and the king is the king, you know?
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: But, again, like, we tend to think of the Book of the Dead— or at least like the Western idea of what the Book of the Dead is, we're like, "Oh, that's like the Bible or the— the Torah of Ancient Egypt." It's not like that at all.
AMANDA: That's how museums depict it. They're like, "Look at this, the entire Ancient Egyptian religion is here on the wall." And like, listen, it's cool that it's millennia-old papyrus, don't get me wrong, but it sounds like that's not anywhere close to the truth.
JULIA: It's just a series of instruction manuals to help spirits of the dead, but again, only the elite dead really, to achieve and maintain a full afterlife, you know? Listen, we're going to be talking a lot about the Book of the Dead in future episodes. I'm gonna leave you wanting more here, but just—
AMANDA: Okay. Okay.
JULIA: —know we got a lot more to discuss.
AMANDA: Alright, we'll get there. Listen, I— I love a manual. In a different life, I think I'm a technical writer, a writer of manuals, just because I think it's very satisfying. So, you know, I'll— I'll— I'll go along with this.
JULIA: Yeah. I— I would be like remiss not to like kind of make a reference to Beetlejuice and the— the Handbook for the Recently Deceased and how they say it's— it reads like stereo instructions.
AMANDA: It's kind— not— yeah.
JULIA: Super far off. It's just a very important stereo, I guess.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yes. the— but the stereo is your soul.
AMANDA: The stereo is your life, man.
JULIA: So finally, we get to the late period and the Ptolemaic period, which is from 747 to 20 BCE. And this is admittedly where we're gonna get a lot of our mythology for Ancient Egypt from, because this is where we start to step away from solely oral tradition for the most part and the stories of the gods become written down. A big part of that has to do with the fact that in 525, the Persian King Cambyses conquered Egypt, executed the royal family, took over. Now, the Persians permitted the Egyptian religious worship to continue in Egypt. And part of the reason why Egyptian Mythology started to be written down was because it was starting to be, like, viewed and commented on by foreigners. So—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —we have Herodotus who is writing about the mythology, and then much later Plutarch as well. And when Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great in 3032 BCE, that began the rule of Ptolemy and his descendants, who created this new god, Serapis. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about Serapis in the future. But basically, it allowed the cults to develop dei— four specific deities. They flourished during this period, along with, like, rituals. And the Ptolemaic period, in particular, saw the rebuilding of a lot of these cults' temples.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Because the Ptolemaic line really wanted to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the Egyptians, so they're like, "We're going to rebuild your temples. They're going to look great." And this is part of the reason why we have all of these stories, because these temples were well-maintained and a lot of the religious texts were commonly inscribed on the temple walls.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And this is— you know, these are temple walls that were built in 300 BCE and not 3000 BCE, so they're better preserved to these days.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: This is also really important because, like, the priesthood was very solidified as custodians of Egyptian culture during the Ptolemaic period.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Which means we have these kind of longer-lasting resources for scholars to study in modernity.
AMANDA: This is so interesting. I mean, religion, and statecraft, and ruling people has never been separated, you know, until very, very recently in human history.
JULIA: Yes. And because of this period of time, that's where we're going to be getting a lot of our written down stories about the actual mythology in terms of, like, mythological events that happened in Ancient Egypt. And this is where we're gonna leave off here, because I think this leaves us with an idea of how the history of Egypt and what we know today kind of where this all comes from. Which leaves me, honestly, like, really excited to start digging into more of the Egyptian Pantheon. For our listeners, for you, Amanda, if there is anything that you definitely want to hear more about in this series or that you want to specifically hear about in this series, let me know. I think we're definitely going to be revisiting some topics that we've talked about in previous episodes, but through like new lenses or, like, further expanded now that we, like, have some time to really focus in on them. So I'm— I'm really excited to kind of start this series off with a historic bang.
AMANDA: I am excited, too. This was awesome. Well done, Julia. Well done, researcher Sally. I can't wait. And, yeah, we'll be visiting our Ancient Egypt series, accepting name recommendations on social @spiritspodcast or spiritspodcast@gmail.com. Roughly once a month, interspersed with our other episodes of guests roundups. You know, tropes are solo episodes with me and Julia. So I am stoked to start 2024 out on a pyramid-shaped, let's say, instruction manual-filled, very like harmonious note.
JULIA: I agree. And next time that you are emerging from the primordial waters of chaos, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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