Reading Notes: Ancient Egypt B

Reading Notes:

The Book of Thoth:

(Thoth, Credit to Jeff Dahl)

The Book of Thoth is broken up into a few different stories that are all about a man named Nefer-ka-ptah. Nefer-ka-ptah was an avid reader of ancient script and searched for the Book of Thoth in order to gain the knowledge and magic that it possessed. When he succeeded, Thoth became angry that his sacred book was stolen and convinced Ra to kill Nefer-ka-ptah and his wife and his child. In this version of the story I was surprised at the amount of anger and vengeance that Thoth possessed after his book was stolen. I thought it was very cruel that he killed Neger-ka-ptah's entire family. I feel as though it could be interesting to tell this story from Thoth's perspective and give more reasoning on why the book is so important to him. In accordance to this, it could be intriguing to see Nefer-ka-ptah as a villain.

The Tale of King Rhampsinitus:

The Tale of King Rhampsinitus was probably my favorite story from section B of the readings over Ancient Egyptian mythology. This story was about a man and his brother who were told the secret entrance into the King's treasure room. The brothers stole all of the treasure from the King, but one night one of the brothers got caught and killed. The brother went to recover his brother's body and was so stealthy and cunning that the King promised to pardon him if he came forward. In my opinion, the story was a little gruesome when the man had to cut off his brother's head, and if I were to rewrite this story I definitely would not include that. In fact, I may not include the brother at all in the story and make the man even more clever and cunning. Another way I could change the story is to not include the part where the man was told the secret entry, but rather have him think of an ingenious plan to get in undetected.

Bibliography:

Egyptian Myth and Legend, Donald Mackenzie, link