Desert God: a Novel of Ancient Egypt Free

FREE DESERT GOD: A NOVEL OF ANCIENT EGYPT PDF Wilbur Smith | 425 pages | 20 May 2015 | William Morrow & Company | 9780062377623 | English | United States Ancient Egypt History Ancient Egypt 's gods and goddesses looked at least partly like humans and behaved a bit like us, too. Some deities had animal features--typically their heads--on top of humanoid bodies. Different cities and pharaohs each favored their own specific set of gods. Anubis was a funerary god. He was tasked with holding the scales on which the heart was weighed. If the heart was lighter than a feather, the dead would be led by Anubis to Osiris. If heavier, the soul would be destroyed. Bast is usually shown with a feline head or ears on a woman's body or as a usually, non-domestic cat. The cat was her sacred animal. She was a daughter of Ra and was a protective goddess. Another name for Bast is Ailuros and it is believed she was originally a sun goddess who came to be associated with the moon after contact with the Greek goddess Artemis. Bes may have been an imported Egyptian god, possibly of Nubian origin. Bes is depicted as a dwarf sticking out his tongue, in full frontal view instead of the profile view of most of the other Egyptian gods. Bes was a protector god who helped in childbirth and promoted fertility. He was a guardian against snakes and misfortune. Geb, god of the earth, was an Egyptian fertility god who laid the egg from which the sun was Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt. He was known as the Great Cackler because of his association with geese. The goose was Geb's sacred animal. He was worshiped in Lower Egypt, where he was depicted as bearded with a goose on his head or a white crown. His laughter was thought to cause earthquakes. Geb married his sister Nut, the sky goddess. Set h and Nephthys were children of Geb and Nut. Geb is often shown witnessing the weighing of the heart during the judgment of the dead in the afterlife. It is believed that Geb was associated with the Greek god Kronos. Hathor was an Egyptian cow-goddess and personification of the Milky Way. She was the wife or daughter of Ra and mother of Horus in some traditions. He was the pharaoh's protector and also patron of young men. There are four Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt names believed to be associated with him:. Horus was the falcon god, although the sun god Re, with whom Horus is sometimes associated, also appeared in falcon form. She is mentioned in Plato's Timaeus as coming from the Egyptian district of Sais. Neith is depicted as a weaver, like Athena, and also like Athena as a weapon-bearing Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt goddess. She is also shown Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt a red crown for Lower Egypt. Neith is another mortuary god connected with the woven bandages of the mummy. She was worshiped all over Egypt and elsewhere. She searched for her husband's body, retrieved and reassembled Osiris, taking on the role of goddess of the dead. Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt then impregnated herself from Osiris' body and gave birth to Horus whom she raised in secrecy to keep him safe from Osiris' killer, Seth. She was associated with life, the winds, the heavens, beer, abundance, magic, and more. Isis is shown as a beautiful woman wearing a sun disk. Nephthys is sometimes depicted as a falcon or as a woman with falcon wings. Nephthys was a death goddess as well as being a goddess of women and the house and a companion of Isis. Nut Nuit, Newet, and Neuth is the Egyptian sky goddess depicted supporting the sky with her back, her body blue and covered with stars. He is dressed like the pharaohs wearing an atef crown with ram's horns, and carrying Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt crook and flail, with his lower body mummified. Osiris is an underworld god who, after being murdered by his brother, was brought back to life by his wife. Since he was killed, Osiris thereafter lives in the underworld where he judges the dead. Re or Ra, the Egyptian sun god, ruler of everything, was especially associated with the city of the sun or Heliopolis. He came to be associated with Horus. Re may be depicted as a man with a sun disk on his head or with the head of a falcon. Set or Seti is the Egyptian god of chaos, evil, war, storms, deserts, and foreign lands, who killed and cut up his older brother Osiris. He is depicted as composite animals. Shu was an Egyptian air and sky god who mated with his sister Tefnut to sire Nut and Geb. Shu is shown with an ostrich feather. He is responsible for holding the sky separate from the earth. A fertility goddess, Tefnut is also the Egyptian goddess of moisture or water. She is the wife of Shu and mother of Geb and Nut. Sometimes Tefnut helps Shu hold up the firmament. Share Flipboard Email. Ancient History and Latin Expert. Gill is a Latinist, Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt, and teacher of ancient history and Latin. ThoughtCo uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. By using ThoughtCo, you accept our. Who and What Is Ma'at in Ancient Egypt? Egypt suddenly seemed an excellent place to get some sun. It might seem surprising that two Victorian-era women would set off so nonchalantly for Egypt, but at the Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt the wonders of the Nile were a hot topic of conversation in fashionable circles in London, Paris, and New York. Napoleon's invasion of Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt had been short-lived he was booted out by the British three years laterbut its cultural and scholarly impact was immense. I'd arrived in Egypt this past March on short notice as nonchalantly as Edwards had, the difference being that when I went, very few others were going, having been scared away by travel warnings in the Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt of the army's ouster of Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist and Egypt's first democratically elected president. I knew Egypt—I had lived there as a child, traveled there as an adult—and knew, too, that the reality on the ground was usually more nuanced than headlines would suggest. Taking some basic precautions such as staying away from demonstrations— rare occurrences anyway in what was, until he was formally elected president in June, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's army-controlled Egypt would be a small price to pay for not having the scrim of tour groups and buses—for experiencing Egypt's wonders up close and practically in private. I am, I confess, an Egyptomaniac. I do not collect King Tut kitsch or plates with the rays of the sun god Ra on them, but I do have a boundless appetite for the sights and experiences of the country. I am enthralled by the richness of its inheritance pharaonic, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, French, Britishintrigued by the charm and curiously enduring relevance of its myths, enchanted by its ancient art, and riveted by its tumultuous present. It is the key Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt Middle East peace, the voice of the Arab world, and the crossroads between Europe and Africa. The time felt right to go again. My only preparation was calling Jim Berkeley, a U. Libyan, Desert, where I had never been but about which I harbored plenty of Egyptomaniacal fantasies: dunes, mirages, moonlit desert hot springs, midnights in the oases. Like Amelia Edwards, I too would travel with a friend, Grey Hirschfeld, who decided, also on impulse, to accompany me as had Jim, who would be our trip impresario. She'd never been anywhere like Egypt, much less unsettled, post-revolutionary Egypt and much less its desert, the realm, according to ancient Egyptian mythology, of Set, the vaguely fox-headed, red-skinned bad-boy god of storms, chaos, and violence, who, Cain-like, killed his brother Osiris and, even worse, chopped him into 14 pieces and scattered them all around. Amelia had four months for her adventure. We had 14 days. And there were feluccas to Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt sailed, stars to be slept under, shishas to be smoked, colonial-era hotels to be reveled in, Arabian horses to be galloped, hot mint teas to be sipped, mummies to be seen, shopping to be done. Grey, as is her talent, pretty much summed it up: "Whoopee! Its two modern towers notwithstanding, the Marriott, on Cairo's leafy Zamalek Island, just over a bridge from Tahrir Square, is the city's most historic hotel. We could have stayed happily put on our first, jet-lagged afternoon, but we opted for an end-of-day felucca sail on the Nile. The Nile! You are never not aware in Egypt of its mythic status. Its cyclical fertilizing floods gave rise to unparalleled agricultural riches, to the world's first massive labor force it was farmers freed from the flooded fields who built the pyramidsand, holding out as they did the possibility of endless renewal, to such radical concepts as resurrection and the afterlife, embodied in myth by the green-skinned, endlessly arising Osiris. But Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt, the zaftig god Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt the Nile, represented in temples up and down the river with a soft belly, sometimes breasts, and flowers sprouting goofily from his head, is a friendly and hospitable sort, and we felt comfortable quaffing large cans of Sakara beer as the sun set, the waters darkened, and the lights came on in Cairo.

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