Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Reading Diary B: Ancient Egypt

Continuing the Ancient Egypt unit, this will either be really long or not long at all, I haven't figured it out yet, mostly because the second half of the unit is literally three stories divided into eight sections.

So let's get this underway. The first story to focus on is The Two Brothers. The first thing that stuck out to me was the fact that Bata does whatever Anpu want him to (his older brother). Bata is a loyal brother to him. Sadly, as happens so often in old tales and myths (thinking along the lines of Jezebel), Anpu's wife tries to sabotage Bata by saying he attacked her. Anpu plans to kill him, but the oxen he takes care of start talking to him, which makes it sound like Bata is tripping on something.

Bata leaves after he explains to Anpu that he is upset he tried to kill him without letting him tell his side. So for once, Bata gives Anpu the orders. He tells him to go find him under an acacia tree where his soul will be when the time is ready.


The gods give Bata a beautiful wife, but then say she'll die a quick death, which is kind of messed up if you ask me since they gave her to Bata so he wouldn't be lonely. What's the point of that? Also, later in the story she goes back to where the king is at, and the acacia tree gets cut down. So not only does Bata get his wife taken, but he also dies. He lives and dies a couple of times, and eventually becomes the king of Egypt so this story actually had a happy ending, which was nice. 

I'm going to cut the post here for brevity because if I don't it'll end up being about 800 words, but I thoroughly enjoyed this unit. The stories were interesting and seemingly humanized the gods in a way that the Greek myths didn't, as far as I'm concerned. 

1 comment:

  1. That story actually sounds really interesting but quite tragic. I think that I'll have to read it because it also seems to be a bit confusing. It seems that Bata has a hard time in every aspect of the story. He gets a wife and then that wife dies? That sounds horrible. I haven't even read the story and I feel bad for him.

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