#the show concept is so fucking interesting bc theres so much POTENTIAL for interesting avenues of storytelling

[void-writing]

Me as a teenager before I read about Egypt and Old Egypt: Oh, that's neat, Presly is a reborn prince.

Me after reading up: Oh. Oh dear. Something went deeply wrong since Rapses' soul is still on Earth rather than in the Afterlife!

I KNOW RIGHT!!

I need to rewatch the full series again (because I am to the point that I am starting to conflate details from the original canon and my own canon) but I'm certain that it's implied that Scarab went full "Set with Osiris' corpse" on Rapses' corpse (maybe to get at Rapses' now trapped soul after Scarab killed him, or to spite Amenhotep and the Guardians' efforts by denying Rapses his eternal rest), which is why Amenhotep had nothing to bury but an empty sarcophagus :(

Making sure that the body is properly mummified and buried is a BIG STINKING DEAL in ancient Egypt and if the body was lost or destroyed then the spirit wouldn't be able to find its way! Destroying the body (or the khat, as it was referred to) is like smashing the spirit's compass to pieces! It can't pass into the afterlife and become lost without the familiar touchstone of its earthly body!

(Honestly, really makes me wonder about what the procedure was for war times because I doubt the war dead could always be found, identified, and mummified before burial. Did ancient Egypt have their own version of dog tags? Did their beliefs have a loophole/special exception for dead soldiers whose bodies couldn't be recovered or treated? Were they just screwed if no one recovered their body before decomposition set in or the scavengers got to it? Another avenue of research to add to the ever growing pile, I suppose)

This is what I interpret to be the reason that Rapses' spirit wandered for so long. Poor boy was super lost!

So lost that he somehow managed to wander clear to the other side of the world and end up reincarnated in modern times. (Honestly, I'm unclear about how ancient Egyptian mythos regarded the idea of reincarnation. I'll have to do further research but I don't have time rn sadly, but from what I do know, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility)