Past civilizations had always intrigued people’s imagination. The testaments of their grandeur have gotten buried under many layers of dirt and dust, but their legacy lives on. And fiction is one of the mediums they live through. They serve as settings for stories. They serve as inspirations for fictional worlds.
Out of all civilisations, one stands out in particular when it comes to representation in art, culture, and media: Ancient Egypt. It appears that this particular setting is perfectly adaptable to practically any genre of fiction: be it fantasy, science fiction, action-adventure, horror, or thriller.
Books, films, video games…many works of fiction are set in Ancient Egypt. Many others explore the civilization’s legacy, its archaeological treasures and mysteries. But what makes Ancient Egypt so unique and what factors drive creators to revisit this place again and again in works of fiction? This entry is the first instalment in a series of blog posts where I intend to cover this topic.
Geography and Environment
And indeed a very important component of the Egyptian setting is its geography and environment. This land has all the attributes needed for a setting for an adventure story. First of all, let’s look at the geography of the country.
1885 map of Egypt
Hostile Deserts
The desert makes up most of Egypt’s territory outside the Nile valley. Due to this, most of the country is scarcely populated with human habitation limited to small oasis towns or nomadic Bedouin camps. Once you venture into the desert, you go into a domain of sand, dunes, and dry winds. It is a harsh environment, yet it has an ecosystem of its own; the fauna just as hardened as its surroundings. You can find camels, ibex, mongooses, jackals, and Fennec foxes.
It is also a haven for several types of poisonous snakes, spiders, and scorpions. So anybody who decides to camp out in the Egyptian desert should really take precautions in order to avoid rolling over a cobra or Deathstalker scorpion that might crawl into the tent whilst they sleep.
The Heartland: Fertile yet Still Perilous
At the same time, a different part of Egypt is a sharp contrast to the desert: the Nile Valley. Closer to the end of its journey into the Mediterranean, the Nile splits into seven branches, thus creating a larger valley known as the Nile Delta. Since ancient times the Nile River has been a lifeline of the land. Moreover, the Nile Valley is Egypt’s heart and historical core. The waters of the river are rich with silt, which makes the soil of the area one of the most fertile in the world. In contrast to the desert, this area is lush green, covered with various types of plants, bushes, and trees. The river is also dotted with many islands. Here you can come across many species, including hypos, gazelles, turtles, and ibises. Danger lurks in the waters as well since the Nile has traditionally had quite a high concentration of crocodiles. And the Nile crocodile is actually the largest crocodile in Africa.
The groves and swamps on the banks of the Nile and especially the Nile Delta can be quite thick, creating a barrier that is hard to penetrate, so they can serve as great hiding spots. Fugitives and rebels have used these areas as camps and evaded the law protected by the the thick vegetation. Smugglers have hidden their contraband amidst the bushes.
And every now and then, you would see the remnants of Egypt’s ancient past all around. Whether you sail along the river banks or pass an island, whether you are traversing the desert by jeep or camel, you see ruined temples and intact monasteries, statues and tombs. Even some technology might feel like something out of a historical film: such as the crane-like shadoofs and the felucca boats that have remained practically unchanged since the times of the Pharaohs.
Tale of Two Lost Cities
And yet the surroundings can change. What was once arable land can be conquered by the desert. What was once on the surface can become submerged under water and silt. This is an ancient land and throughout the millenniums, the landscapes of Egypt have had a habit of swallowing and hiding not just landmarks, but entire settlements until they get rediscovered by chance.
Among them is Amarna, a city which served as Egypt’s capital for a very short time; a city of royal palaces and vast temples, which was abandoned and left to the desert mere decades after its founding.
World, I. f. t. S. o. t. A. (2017, September 21). Smaller Aten Temple, Amarna. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/7324/smaller-aten-temple-amarna/
Licenced under CC BY 2.0
Another is Thonis-Heracleion. Once a major commercial hub of northern Egypt, the city was destroyed by floods and earthquakes closer to the end of the first millennium BC, only to be rediscovered under the waves of the Mediterranean just over 20 years ago.
Excavations of Amarna and Heracleion have uncovered various artefacts that shed light on the country’s past, from busts to bas-reliefs, from jewellery to remains of boats.
And these are likely just the tip of the iceberg (or pyramid, in this case). A logical question arises: how many more Amarnas and Heracleions are still left to uncover? Who will uncover them? When? Under what circumstances?
Ancient Egypt: A Society unlike Any Neighbour
Anybody who read about the history and culture of Ancient Egypt quickly noticed how different this civilization was from its neighbours in the Mediterranean and the Near East. Ancient Egypt relates to neither Greece nor Rome, neither Israel nor Persia, neither Babylon nor Phoenicia.
The Unearthly Pantheon of Ancient Egypt
Probably the most memorable aspect of the ancient Egyptian culture is their pantheon. When we think about ancient paganism, we tend to think about personified deities. Think of the gods of Ancient Greece: Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Athena, Hermes, among others. Their statues and paintings were meant to highlight their regal and divine nature. And yet Zeus or Apollo still seem close and relatable. Perhaps it is because they look human no matter how much idealised the ancient artists tried to make their images?
In contrast, ancient Egyptian gods seem completely otherworldly, like visions that appear in a trance. They can be described as surreal. And yet this surrealism adds a tint of mystery to them.
The Ogdoad of Hermopolis: the eight primordial deities of Ancient Egypt
Only a few deities of the Egyptian pantheon resemble humans, and even then some attribute makes them stand out. One of them is Osiris, the ruler of the underworld, who tended to be depicted in a mummified state. There are Isis and Hathor, the goddesses of healing and beauty respectively; but both were sometimes portrayed sprouting cow-like horns. There are some exceptions, of course, including Ptah, the god of creation, who was usually presented fully human-like, no different from a statuette of a Pharaoh or priest.
The other deities appear as amalgamations of humans and various animals the ancient Egyptians encountered on a daily basis. The two solar deities Ra and Horus had the heads of eagles. Thoth, the god of wisdom, had the head of an ibis. The fierce war goddess Sekhmet had the head of a lion whilst her sister, the guardian deity Bastet had the head of a cat. And these are just a few examples.
The Land of Many Animal Cults
Ancient Egyptian religion itself appears to have been more animistic than those of neighbouring cultures. There is a stronger attachment to nature that seems lacking in the religions of Greece and Rome. Ancient Egyptians considered many types of animals sacred. They had temples dedicated to animal worship. For example, the Fayum region of western Egypt was the centre of crocodile worship. In his work Histories, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus described one such temple in the region where priest would select a crocodile, clad it in golden rings and bracelets and tend to it throughout its lifespan.
At the same time, the Memphis region in the north of the country had a similar practice, but centred on cows, which Egyptologists call the cult of the Apis bull. Excavations in different parts of Egypt uncovered graves containing the mummies of various animals. Archaeologists discovered an entire cat cemetery near the necropolis of Saqqara where thousands of cat mummies have been uncovered to this day.
Statue of the Apis Bull
Domain of the Mummy
And of course it is impossible to skip over the burial practices of the ancient Egyptians as their mortuary rites have always been one of the most memorable features of this civilization. Cremation was the most widespread funeral practice in Greece and Rome; the civilizations of the Ancient Near East had a tendency towards inhumation. But in Egypt, mummification was the standard. Egyptians believed in the immortality of the human soul. They believed that the afterlife was not that much different from the mortal world. What was needed in life would have been needed in death. So ideally the body too had to be preserved.
Mummification was a complex process that lasted for many days. As part of the process, the deceased’s inner organs were removed and stored in special jars. Special balms were rubbed into the skin of the body and mixtures poured into the bowels to keep it preserved. In the end, the body would be wrapped in cloth and put into a sarcophagus.
Due to the time and resources required for a specialist mummification process, the upper classes were mainly the ones that could afford this “service”. And yet the lower classes did not really need to turn to professionals, for the dry environment of Egypt’s vast deserts has all the components needed for natural mummification. Graveyards of the lower classes have been found across al of Egypt. Natural mummies tend to be preserved worse, but, still, there have been numerous finds.
Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Another element of ancient Egyptian culture that makes Egypt so different was their writing. It was unlike the alphabets of the Greeks and Romans or the cursive scripts of the Jews and Arabs. Egyptian writing was hieroglyphic.
Each hieroglyph symbolises a word or a combination of words. I should mention now that the Egyptians were not the only civilization of the Mediterranean to develop hieroglyphics, but they tend to be the only ones that come to mind. Hieroglyphics were replaced with the Coptic alphabet as the main writing system of Egypt during Late Antiquity and eventually their meaning was forgotten. Due to this, a significant part of ancient Egyptian history and cultural heritage was last to the eons. But temples, obelisks, and tombs that had hieroglyphics adorning the walls and facades continued to stand. Throughout many centuries, traders and pilgrims, warriors and explorers, Christian and Muslim, passed by these monuments, their gazes guiding towards the silent symbols that felt like encrypted messages from a lost age. And yet they could not decipher their meaning.
The inscriptions remained in Egypt, but intrigue travelled to distant lands. From the times of the Renaissance, several scholars made attempts to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics. None were successful as they started the wrong way and real clue to rely on. The situation changed with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799, a stele that bore inscriptions in Egyptian as well as Greek. Comparing the inscriptions in these languages allowed French philologist Jean-Francois Champollion decipher the hieroglyphics in 1822.
The Missing Epic
Literature had an important role in the cultural history of the ancient world. And among the genres of ancient fiction, epics had a special place. Epics were long narrative poems that united several plots that tended to focus on great feats of heroes. Greeks had the Iliad and the Odyssey; the Romans had the Aeneid; the Babylonians had the Epic of Gilgamesh; the Indians had the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
However, we have no examples of epic poetry from Ancient Egypt. Perhaps this tradition never fully developed in Egypt. Or perhaps there were Egyptian epics, but none of them survived to this day.
Ancient Egyptian literature is primarily preserved through religious texts, such as the famed Book of the Dead. However, the Egyptians wrote fiction as well. Though no epics remain, we do have works of Egyptian short fiction. The one that stands out most is the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which tells the story of a man, sole survivor the crew of sunken ship, who gets washed up on the shores of a mysterious island and recounts his encounters with the world of the supernatural.
Egypt also had a poetic tradition with short poems written on a variety of topics, from pastoral life to love.
Fragment of a papyrus with spells from the Book of the Dead
Affinity with Monumentalism
Egypt’s monumental architecture is perhaps the most recognizable feature of the Egyptian civilization. Every structure seems grand. Dwarfing any figure that stands beside them, the monuments of Ancient Egypt appear to rise to the heavens. So much effort was put into their construction; some might even wonder what the purpose of these endeavours was. Even their temples feel different with their enormous halls where gigantic columns rise high above the heads of people.
Everybody knows about the pyramids and all the theories surrounding their construction. But do you know that not all Egyptian pyramids have triangle shapes? For example, the pyramid of Djoser is a stepped pyramid, more akin to a Mayan temple or a Sumerian ziggurat. Egyptians also erected obelisks for ceremonial purposes, usually placed in front of temples. The Romans later took many of them to Rome. The turbulences of history would later move some of them to other locations, including Istanbul and London.
The Pyramids of Giza were not the only one of the Seven Wonders of the World located in Egypt. Another was the Pharos of Alexandria built in the 3rd century BC, the tallest lighthouse of the ancient world.
With this I conclude my first blog post about Ancient Egypt. The next entry in the series will cover the puzzle that is ancient Egyptian history. In the meantime, I have prepared a couple of questions for my readers. You can find them below. I look forward to your answers.
Questions for readers
Have you ever been to Egypt? If yes, what is your favourite location? If not, which place would you like to visit the most?
What other cultures in the Mediterranean region used hieroglyphs?
What other places (real, legendary, or fictional) remind you of the lost cities of Amarna and Heracleion?
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