#tumblr egyptologists

[aboutanancientenquiry]

As I have announced in my last post, I decided to take a break from posting on tumblr. But I learn that bizarre things take place on this site. 

As it is perhaps known to people who follow me, I had some time ago a feud about Herodotus with a group of tumblr egyptologists (the “f..k Herodotus” and “Herodotus is my b...ch” mob, none of whom is in fact active as Egyptologist outside tumblr), who tried many times to have my account deleted and even to have the...UK police take action against me for “stalking”! 

I am now informed that one among the tumblr egyptologists (rudjedet) had earlier today a dispute with an anon about the historicity of the Book of Exodus and suddenly, under the influence of some illumination, she decided that this anon was...me! As if I were by definition behind every critical anon message that her and the others of the same group receive... 

So, as I learn and I see in screenshots sent to me by a friend on this site, she launched in a totally crazy rant with many slurs another campaign of reports against me. But this time she enlisted the help of a user presenting themselves as member of the tumblr staff (@jv), who in a totally scandalous way promised publicly in a note rudjedet and the others of her ilk that they will act in order to have my account deleted! 

I have reported all of them for harassment immediately after this whole story reached me and, moreover, I have reported again rudjedet for hate speech because of her use of ethnic slurs of racist character (”greekb...ch) against me. I don’t know what will happen with this affair, I don’t know whether this account will survive or not, but the sure is that I will not cower before this sad bunch of people and their intolerant, dishonest, and bullying practices.

PS: I learned also that the ‘scholar” with the very beautiful name somecunttookmyurl took part in the negociations of the tumblr egyptologists (via notes under a post!) with the user jv (supposedly a member of the staff of tumblr) in order to have my blog deleted. I reported this person too for harassment and hate speech because of her many posts in which she uses against me the racist and hateful term ‘greekb...ch”.

[catdemontraphouse]

I got excited after seeing this because I didn’t remember which pharaoh TBOB mentioned

I was like omg the Aten is that you????

But alas, it was not Akhenaten the “heretic Pharaoh” 😭 and here I thought I was connecting some dots

It was Amenemhat, who idk anything about lol. Damnit why the hell not the other guy?? that would have been funny 🥲From what I understand everyone hated his ass because he forced everyone to worship his singular god, idk it feels… TBOB-y.

So yeah Bill is Aten theory *shattered!* can we just pretend plz plz

[abrahamvanhelsings]

tagged by @zaegreus thank you!! 💙🐳

coffee or tea | early bird or night owl | chocolate or vanilla | spring or fall | silver or gold | pop or alternative | freckles or dimples | snakes or sharks | mountains or fields | thunder or lightning | egyptian mythology or greek mythology | ivory or scarlet | flute or lyre | opal or diamond | butterflies or honeybees | macarons or eclairs | typewritten or handwritten | secret garden or secret library | rooftop or balcony | spicy or mild | opera or ballet | london or paris | vincent van gogh or claude monet | denim or leather| potions or spells | ocean or desert | mermaids or sirens | masquerade ball or cocktail party.

obviously can't choose between opera and ballet :') and london and paris are such different cities, they both have much to love about them. also i haven't been to paris since i was 12 but am going again this summer so mayhap judgement will shift

tagging @garlandgerard and some people i see in my notes a lot though most of them are prolly terror sideblogs who've already been tagged in this five million times and whose mains i do not know ignore meee if so @lieutenant-catboy-little @theroseandthebeast @croziers-compass @burrowingregg @euxara @20thcenturyvole @tideswept

[specialagentartemis]

shit’s complicated. if anyone ever tries to tell you shit’s simple they either don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re trying to sell you something

[rudjedet]

Egyptologists: The pyramids weren't built through slave labour but rather by workmen who received wages

Tumblr randos: Oh my god can you stop being slavery apologists for like one second you filthy fucking imperials??

Egyptologists: The strikes under Ramses III were caused by a famine rather than a deliberate and malicious mistreatment of the workforce. That's projecting a modern bias and uncool for a number of reasons.

Tumblr randos: Jesus christ you capitalist shills, stop sucking pharaoh dick like royalists

Egyptologists: You all need to stop claiming ancient artefacts of non-white people are cursed and need to be put back, that's fucking racist

Tumblr randos: Well yeah you're colonialist racists the lot of you!!

Egyptologists: ...you really have no idea what words mean do you

[darielivalyen]

Eldritch Tales: Inheritance | Sept 25, 2024 Update

Hi guys! Once again, I've been missing in action (health stuff, but it's better now, so no worries!), and I apologize for that. The good news is that I'm back with another update! Here’s what it adds to the game:

This update includes the second portion of Chapter 2, which is about 18.500 words, excluding code. It doesn’t make any single playthrough much longer, but it introduces the first scene for each background (egyptologist, librarian, etc).

Each background can lead you to a background-specific ending (there will also be endings available to all players), and these scenes kick off the storylines.

I also edited Chapter 1. There have been no changes to the story or choices, but I was not too fond of the way I wrote certain things. I hope the current version is okay!

This next update will close Chapter 2 and let you delve deeper into the mysteries of Blackthorn Manor.

FORUM | DEMO | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | KO-FI

[whencyclopedia]

Ancient Egyptian Agriculture

Agriculture was the foundation of the ancient Egyptian economy and vital to the lives of the people of the land. Agricultural practices began in the Delta Region of northern Egypt and the fertile basin known as the Faiyum in the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000 - c. 3150 BCE), but there is evidence of agricultural use and overuse of the land dating back to 8000 BCE.

Egyptologist and historian Margaret Bunson defines ancient Egyptian agriculture as "the science and practice of the ancient Egyptians from predynastic times that enabled them to transform an expanse of semiarid land into rich fields after each inundation of the Nile" (4). In this, she is referring to the yearly flooding of the Nile River which rose over its banks to deposit nutrient-rich soil on the land, allowing for the cultivation of crops. Without the inundation, Egyptian culture could not have taken hold in the Nile River Valley and their civilization would never have been established. So important was the Nile flood that scholars believe many, if not most, of the best known Egyptian myths are linked to, or directly inspired by, this event. The story of the death and resurrection of the god Osiris, for example, is thought to have initially been an allegory for the life-giving inundation of the Nile, and numerous gods throughout Egypt's history are directly or indirectly linked to the river's flood.

So fertile were the fields of Egypt that, in a good season, they produced enough food to feed every person in the country abundantly for a year and still have surplus, which was stored in state-owned granaries and used in trade or saved for leaner times. A bad growing season was always the result of a shallow inundation by the Nile, no matter the amount of rainfall or what other factors came into play.

Tools & Practices

The yearly inundation was the most important aspect of Egyptian agriculture, but the people obviously still needed to work the land. Fields had to be plowed and seed sown and water moved to different areas, which led to the invention of the ox-drawn plow and improvements in irrigation. The ox-drawn plow was designed in two gauges: heavy and light. The heavy plow went first and cut the furrows while the lighter plow came behind turning up the earth. Once the field was plowed, then workers with hoes broke up the clumps of soil and sowed the rows with seed. These hoes were made of wood and were short-handled (most likely because wood was scarce in Egypt and so wooden products were expensive) and so to work with them was extremely labor-intensive. A farmer could expect to spend most of a day literally bent over the hoe.

Once the ground was broken and the clods dispersed, seed was carried to the field in baskets and workers filled smaller baskets or sacks from these larger containers. The most common means of sowing the earth was to carry a basket in one arm while flinging the seed with the other hand.

Some farmers were able to afford the luxury of a large basket one attached to the chest by hemp straps which enabled one to use two hands in sowing. To press the seed into the furrows, livestock was driven across the field and the furrows were then closed by workers with hoes. All of this work would have been for nothing, however, if the seeds were denied sufficient water and so regular irrigation of the land was extremely important.

Continue reading...

[ktempestbradford]

Ancient Egypt and Ostrich Feathers

Have a question for the Egyptologists and knowledgeable fans of Ancient Egypt about ostrich feathers.

(btw is there an Egyptologist Tumblr community? I follow @thatlittleegyptologist but don't know of any other accounts. HMU!)

When I was in Egypt last month I went to the Grand Egyptian Museum to take the very limited tour of the atrium they offer now. It... wasn't worth the money. Anywho, our tour guide did his best to make it seem valuable by talking a LOT about each thing he showed us.

Next to the colossal statue of Ramses II that dominates the atrium there's a table showing the emblems of royal iconography. The sun disk, the nemes headdress, cow horns, and a feather. He asks us if we know what that last one is and I or someone says it's the feather of Ma'at. Correct! Do we know what bird it comes from? The ostrich, someone else says. Why did they choose ostrich feathers for Ma'at and also certain crowns?

On this trip I had gone to the Nubian museum and thus had just seen several pieces of art from pre-historical peoples that utilized ostrich eggs, including a famous one that had three pyramids etched into it along with some animals. So I said something like: The ostrich has been an important animal even before the pharaohs. They relied on it for food and made art with the eggs. The tour guide (Mark) said: That's an awfully materialistic view. No, that's not why.

Now... I know I'm not an expert even though I know a lot about ancient Egypt. But "a materialistic view"? Like somehow it's not enough that ostriches provided food and probably were used in other, important ways? Why do you think Hathor is represented as a cow and there are cow horns incorporated in crowns? Because they look cool? wtf?

Mark then goes on to tell this story. Back in the dawn of civilization in Egypt the Egyptian man didn't have much to do during the day. (eyebrow raise) So he started collecting feathers from all the birds that flew above him in the sky. (...um... wait...) He would collect and then count the barbules and do you know what he discovered? Only the ostrich had the same number of them on both sides. That's why this is the feather of balance and justice.

Friends. I have never wanted to scream SHENANIGANS or at least CITE YOUR SOURCES so much in my life. Like... what?

Leaving aside the implication that ostriches were somehow flying above ancient Egyptians or that there was some point where men didn't have a dang thing to do all day but count the little hairs on feathers, I feel like this explanation is complete hooey. I mean, it could be that all or some of an ostrich's feathers have the same amount of barbules on either side of the middle bit. You might even be able to convince me that this isn't true for any other bird that someone from the Nile valley 6,000+ years ago had access to. But I'm going to need a ton of supporting evidence that this is the sole reason why the feather of Ma'at is an ostrich feather and not for the "materialistic" reasons I cited.

Also, I'm sorry, but I'm real sure predynastic Nile valley dwellers were far more concerned about food and shelter than coming up with complex reasons for using a certain kind of feather to represent a metaphysical thing.

However, I could be wrong! So I'm asking: is there evidence for Mark's version of events? Is this, you know, written somewhere in a papyrus or on a temple wall or another place? I would honestly love to read any papers on this subject, whatever the background on it.

As to the Grand Egyptian Museum, I really hope that whoever they hire to give tours when the whole thing opens are better at this than Mark. I wasn't impressed with his tour overall and eventually gave up listening to him once I saw that there was a gelato place open for business inside.

[hurt-care]

It's allergy season and I was looking back through my old writings and found this short allergy-centric fic I wrote several years ago in response to a request. I don't know that I ever posted it here on Tumblr, but even if I did, there's a lot more people here than back in 2019 when I wrote it.

It's OCs, modern day setting, takes place in Egypt. Thom is a grad student in Archeology doing a practicum placement in Egypt. Turns out, there's still pollen and allergens in the desert... enjoy :)

---

The jingle of a cell phone ring broke through the cloud of white noise coming from the air purifier and the AC unit. Thom rolled over and reached for the phone, almost knocking it off the bedside table as he fumbled sleepily.

He squinted at the display and toggled the slider to answer.

“Mhm? Hello?”

“I'm out front. It's ten past.”

Thom sat up with a start and blinked at the clock across the room.

“Oh fuck. I'm sorry Asha, I overslept. Give me a few and I'll be right down.”

He kicked off the sheets and tore through his closet in the small flat for a fresh pair of khakis and a thin linen shirt. He splashed some water on his face and ate a banana quickly while he refilled his water bottle and searched for his baseball cap. Thankfully, his backpack was still stocked from the previous day of work, so he slung it over his shoulder, grabbed his keys, and raced down the two flights of stairs out into the busy Luxor street.

Though it was barely seven, the sun was already blazingly hot. Asha sat, idling her motorcycle and chatting with a street vendor.

“Sorry, sorry,” Thom said as he approached. 

“Doctor Rutledge is gonna kill us,” she said, pushing her helmet back down and handing the spare one to Thom. “Let's go.”

Thom sided onto the bike, put on the heavy face-shielded helmet, and took hold of Asha's waist. The bike roared to life and they sped off towards the dig site.

He'd first met Asha two months ago when he'd come to Egypt for his practical experience under the tutelage of renowned Egyptologist, Doctor Emila Rutledge. Asha was a daughter of Luxor, born and raised in the city and her knowledge of its winding streets and the surrounding archeological sights had proved very useful. She was a local assistant on the dig, helping with some of the more tedious sorting and packing of artifacts. And her motorbike was a much faster way to reach the desert than taking a bus and then walking.

They turned down a street leading out of the city and towards the Theban Necropolis dig site. The bike slowed as they turned down the side road and came to a halt where the road turned to sand.

They tugged off their helmets, the sweat dripping down their faces drying instantly in the arid climate. With Asha pushing the bike, they walked the last bit down the sandy path to the tents that marked the research areas. 

Thom blinked in the dry air and rubbed at his left eye, turning it a little pink. As they ducked under the canopy of the first tent, he cleared his throat and took a deep swig of his water bottle. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, capping the bottle and putting it back in his pack. “It's my fault. I didn't set a proper alarm.”

Doctor Rutledge looked up from her table of equipment and glared at him.

“There's limited time out here during the storm season,” she warned him. “Don't waste it being late.”

March and April in the desert meant sandstorms and sometimes they struck unexpectedly, plunging the camp into a fog of dust and undoing weeks of excavation work. Thankfully, none had hit the site thus far in the season.

Thom set down his things and turned to his work, Asha at his side, cataloguing a tray of rocks that had eroded off a nearby statue. 

“You alright?” she asked, looking at him critically. “Your eyes are kinda pink.”

He blinked and rubbed at his left one again. They did feel a bit gritty.

“Still half asleep,” he said. “Didn't have time for coffee.”

She laughed.

“You'll have to suffer until break then.”

Thom nodded and made a mark in his notebook about one of the artifacts. He rubbed the back of his hand to his nose distractedly, pawing away an itch.

In the distance, the air was growing murky and dim as a far-off storm kicked up sand into the air, turning the sky an unworldly red. 

His throat felt drier than usual out in the heat of the open desert. Putting his notebook down, he reached again for his water bottle.

“You sure you're fine?” Asha asked suspiciously. “Your eyes look awful.”

Thom pushed his water bottle cap shut and opened his mouth to answer her, but he was distracted by a sudden, very urgent itch. He wrinkled his nose and turned away, cupping his hands to his face.

Hurh-TSGHT!

“Blessings to you,” she offered. 

Thom sniffled and wiped at his nose. He could feel the familiar burning of an allergic reaction growing in his respiratory system and suddenly his stomach sank. In the haste of his departure that morning, he'd neglected to take his allergy medication.

He'd always been someone who struggled with allergies, to everything from cats to pollen to mold and dust. His youth had been full of inhalers on the sidelines of the soccer pitch, extra allergy pills packed for sleepovers, and his own air purifier for his college dorm room. Adulthood had not improved things as much as he'd hoped. He'd expected that the dry air of Egypt would be a relief to his hayfever, but he'd been warned about dust-storm season and the large amounts of pollen and mold and dust kicked up by the strong winds. The local pharmacy had put out a display of face masks only a week prior.

“Oh shit,” he groaned, digging through his backpack. Maybe he had some spare pills stowed away.

“What?” Asha asked.

“Ugh, my allergies,” he said, sniffling again. “I forgot my medicine this morning.”

“Wow, you really did fuck up the start of your day,” she teased. “You have allergies? Bad ones?”

“Yes, bad ones,” he said, reaching to the bottom of an outside pocket and feeling his rescue inhaler. At least that was some relief. “Bad enough to need a prescription daily.”

“And it's storm season,” she said. “The worst for that.”

“I've been told,” he said miserably. He could feel his eyes beginning to water and he ran his tongue along the top of his mouth and back towards his throat, trying to settle an itch.

Hhrr-TSGHHT!

He sneezed roughly into his shoulder.

“Well,” he said, pulling a bandanna out of his pack. “This might help a little.”

He tied the triangle of cloth over his nose and mouth, tucking the excess into the top of his shirt.

“Very mysterious,” Asha teased. “My work partner, Zorro.”

Thom went back to his notes, but concentrating was extremely difficult. He wrinkled his nose under the bandanna and tried to focus on his work, but the itching was too strong. 

Hehh-ehh-GSHTT!

A damp spot blossomed on the bandanna under his nose.

He clamped a hand over the fabric and pinched his nose, turning away from Asha.

NghT! Hehh...eh-TSGHT! Tsh'GXHT!

Three rapid stifles tumbled forward, held in by his fingers. 

Tsgh! Ehh-TSGH!

“Wow,” Asha said, watching. “You were not kidding.”

“No,” he said miserably, letting go of his nose. “This is pretty mild, actually. Usually I...I..hehhh...heh-TSGHT!”

He sneezed once again into the bandanna and tugged it free from his face, using it as a proper handkerchief. 

“I'll ask around to see if anyone else has some medicine,” Asha offered. “Sit down a minute.”

He sunk into a camp chair with the bandanna over his nose.

Hehh-ehhhh-GSHTT!

By the time she returned, his breath was growing wheezy and his eyes were swollen. He coughed hoarsely into his fist and swallowed hard.

“No luck,” she said.

“What going on over here?”

Doctor Rutledge was standing behind them, looking expectantly at them both.

“Thom is having an allergic reaction, Doctor,” Asha explained. “I was looking around to see if anyone had any medication.”

“And?”

“No one does,” she said. “I'm sorry, Thom.”

“That's okay,” he croaked. “I just need a minute. I—heh-SGHHT!”

He sneezed thickly into the bandana and pinched his nose before giving it a sharp blow.

“It's storm season, Thom,” Doctor Rutledge said. “The longer you're out here, the worse it'll get.”

Ehhh-GSXHTT!

He was starting to feel the strain in his lungs and he fished in his bag, curling his fingers around his rescue inhaler just in case.

“I think you should go back home, Thom,” Doctor Rutledge said. “It looks like the winds are headed this way.”

He could barely see her through his watering eyes.

“Are you sure, doctor? I could go work in one of those more covered tents across the way.”

“No, that isn't necessary. Asha, will you get him home?”

“Yes, I'll do that.”

Doctor Rutledge turned to head back to her work as Thom launched into another fit.

Ehh-tsxSHTT! Ngh'GSHT!

Thom curled in on himself, sneezing rapidly.

Tsgh-GSHT Tsh'GHT! TXGHT!

He blew his nose hard into bandana and surfaced from the fit with a wheezy gasp.

“Hold on,” he croaked, raising the inhaler. “I need this first.”

He took a puff and breathed in the medication, holding it in as long as he could before he started to cough and exhaled nosily.

Asha sighed sympathetically and held out her water bottle. He took a deep swig from it and thanked her.

“Let's go before you get worse,” she said.

They returned to the motorcycle, going slowly along the path because of Thom's swollen eyes. He shoved the helmet over his leaky face and climbed on the bike behind Asha.

The ride back into Luxor was a blur of exhausted sniffling and two very unpleasant sneezes inside the helmet before they pulled up in front of Thom's apartment.

“C'mon,” Asha said gently, taking his arm and leading him inside. He started to climb the two flights of stairs but on the first landing he was forced to pause as another fit took over, wrenching him forward with several forceful sneezes that tore out of him rapid-fire.

Hurhhh-TSGHHH! Ngh-TSGHHT! Hehh....ehh-TSCHHH!

They staggered up the next flight and into Thom's flat. He swallowed two of his prescription pills from the medicine cabinet before slouching down into his sofa and taking another puff of his inhaler.

“I thought leaving England would be the end of all this mess,” he said miserably.

“Oh no, we've got all our own special allergens here too. Storm season is infamous. I'm sure you've been told.”

“I have,” he said. “I probably would still be a bit of mess with my prescription, but I can't believe I managed to forgot taking it at all!”

“I guess we'll see,” Asha said. “There's two months of this dust. Maybe invest in a mask. Lots of people wear them this time of year.”

Eh-TSCHH!

Asha shoved a box of tissues across the coffee table towards Thom.

“And maybe invest in a few more of those too. Sounds like you might need them.”

[hexpositive]

Hex Positive, Ep. 036 - Margaret Effing Murray with Trae Dorn

Margaret Murray was a celebrated author, historian, folklorist, Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, first-wave feminist, and the first woman to be appointed to the position of lecturer in archaeology in the UK. So why so we get so annoyed whenever her name is mentioned in conversations about witchcraft? Well, it all has to do with a book Margaret wrote back in 1921…which just so happened to go on to have a profound influence on the roots of the .modern witchcraft movement.

Nerd & Tie senpai and host of BS-Free Witchcraft Trae Dorn joins me in the virtual studio to discuss the thoroughly-discredited witch-cult hypothesis, Murray’s various writings and accomplishments, and why modern paganism might not have caught on so strongly without her.

Hex Positive is now on YouTube⁠!

Check my ⁠Wordpress⁠ for full show notes, as well as show notes for past episodes and information on upcoming events. You can find me as @BreeNicGarran on TikTok, Instagram, and WordPress, or as @breelandwalker on tumblr. For more information on how to support the show and get access to early releases and extra content, visit my ⁠Patreon⁠.

Visit the ⁠Willow Wings Witch Shop⁠ to purchase my books and homemade accoutrements for your craft!

Proud member of the ⁠Nerd and Tie Podcast Network⁠.

View the full article on WordPress

[practically-an-x-man]

I'm having a scatterbrained day, so for talk shop Tue, can I get a commentary reel/directors cut style talk about how WWFA came about? How you got the idea, how Kat was developed and how you decided to insert your plot into the movie canon?

Oooh man, great question!! Thank you!!

So first things first... there were absolutely elements of Katherine and her story that were logically chosen for a specific position, and as with all of my stories, I did have the plot in place before I started writing, but there was a lot of this story in particular that evolved as I wrote it.

So WWFA? first came about after I went through a huge NATM hyperfixation in late 2021. The movies have always been really comforting and close to my heart, especially as a history and mythology buff, but there was something about that time rewatching it that just sent me headfirst into it. I don't remember how specifically I came up with Katherine as a character, but the first little inkling of plot came from the idea of an artist leaving sketches for the night guards and janitors to discover, not knowing that it was the exhibits themselves who ended up appreciating them.

So that's where I started the story: Katherine, leaving her drawings, simple and sweet. I had my point A (her leaving the drawings), my point B (following the third movie, the tablet dying and being restored), and my point C (hush now, we haven't gotten to that yet), but hadn't quite gotten all the details of how I was going to work Katherine into the story. I always had her coming along for the ride, but it's safe to say that the original concept did not have her nearly as deeply woven into the story as her final version does. She brought her drawings to life, building off the idea of the tablet bringing museum artworks and exhibits to life, but at that point I didn't have much of an explanation as to why her.

And then I started college. I'd always been a history nerd and had a good base of knowledge to start the story, but then I was a history nerd taking various college-level anthropology, history, and archaeology classes, and it took my knowledge to a whole new level. I've said this before, but I nearly wrote a paper on how I believed the Egyptian god Tutu was borrowed from the Babylonian god of the same name (though that fizzled when the Egyptologist I tried to contact never emailed me back, and he was the only expert in that particular god I could find). I love that sort of thing, and if college had been a better fit for me it might've ended up being my lasting career. My knowledge skyrocketed, so did my inspiration, and that's what springboarded the fic into its present mythology-heavy form.

As for how Kat was developed... it was a lot of those more spur-of-the-moment decisions. She became descended from Bastet on a whim, and that ended up being a driving force that worked so well for the rest of the story. Her name, Katherine Johnson, is a reference to the NASA scientist who contributed to the moon landing, but that reference itself was just sparked from the fact that I couldn't decide on a name at first. Her physical appearance, her backstory, whatever else? I just wanted to create a fun, dynamic character, someone who really felt like a real person rather than a plot device - and part of how I do that is just to stop thinking too hard about it and let things just flow.

Idk, it's kind of hard to describe. I don't want to say I was flying blind at any point, but there were a lot of areas in which the story just fell together as I wrote it. Most of my work came from creating Katherine and establishing her within the first few chapters - after that, she just seemed to fall into the story.

[a-witch-in-endor]

Three Jewish Commonwealths: Reflections on Religion

Today has been Yom Ha’atzma’ut, or Israel’s Independence Day. I’ve been thinking about what it means to live within a historical period while able to reflect on past time periods, and my “thinking out loud” (or: via tumblr post) on that has turned into this slightly unhinged text on the history of religious development in the three Jewish Commonwealths. I have no excuse. Just lots of thoughts. Feel free to join me on a meandering path through religious history...

Please note: my expertise is religious studies, not in modern politics. If you have a unique perspective or expertise in politics, I’m generally happy to chat (recently met a previous head of the Shin Bet; it was intense; I was interested and frightened), but at this point I have learned Too Much and it is all falling out of my ears, so I won’t be engaging much with political discussions. 

The First Jewish Commonwealth: ???? BCE - 586 BCE 

When and how did the First Jewish Commonwealth come about? The truth is: we don’t really know. 

The earliest potential reference to Israel is the Merneptah Stele (1213 BCE - 1203 BCE). It’s absolutely gorgeous! Behold!

https://www.worldhistory.org/image/9384/stele-of-merenptah/

Does it refer to Israel? Maybe. I’d err on the side of “probably”. The hieroglyphs do lend to being read as “Israel”, and the context would make sense. But there are alternative readings, and it’s an unusually early reference. For comparison, David (second king of United Israel, after what the Bible reports to be a long period of “Judges” [read: tribal chieftans]) looks to be around at 1000 BCE. 

And here is the recent discovery at Mount Ebal in Hebrew, which parallels almost absurdly well with a Torah story, which is dated to around 1200 BCE.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/inscriptions/mt_ebal_inscription/

So let’s assume that we’re unsure about the stele but happy with the tablets. The tablets tell us a few things: worship of the God of Israel was already in place (note: it does not tell us the extent, just the existence); Hebrew literacy had begun; the Torah story of the curses of Mt Ebal have some kind of historical basis. 

The Jewish cultural narrative is that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, escaped with Divine aid, spent 40 years in the wilderness, and ended up in the Holy Land (where some of their ancestors had previously been but had left due to famine). It’s a great story. In terms of its historicity, it’s unclear. Until recently, archaeologists were tending toward being minimalists and stating that basically nothing was historically accurate up to, really, the reign of King David. It turns out, some hats do need to be eaten (due to things like the stele and tablets above), but they can keep some of their hats.

In terms of historical evidence outside archaeology, there are some fun linguistic and historical-social reasons to assume that at least some of the people who would come to call themselves Israelites had an experience of slavery in Egypt. For more on this, I recommend Richard Elliot Freidman’s “The Exodus” (biblical scholar; thesis: a small group went through slavery and came to Israel, introduced their monotheism/monolatry, and the story became part of the cultural narrative) and Jan Assman’s “Moses the Egyptian: the Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism” (egyptologist; thesis: the short-lived monotheistic/monolatric cult of Pharaoh Akhenaten influenced Jewish, and therefore monotheistic, history). 

(Also, by-the-by, they’re both wonderful guys as well as fascinating scholars.) 

What we do know is: there was a monotheistic cult (or perhaps a monolatric cult) who worshipped what we now recognise as “God” with a capital G. There was a certain amount of theological messiness with Canaanite polytheism (inasmuch as polytheism really exists, which is a rant for another day). The lines between the two are very blurry indeed, which indicates that much of what we now think of as “Israelite” religion was really a development within “Canaanite” religion. Genetically speaking, we know that “Israelites” and “Canaanites” were really the same people. So it’s a safe assumption, when one adds the archaeology and the genetics and the linguistics all together, to see the development of the Israelite religion as internal to the Land of Canaan/Israel, as well as pondering how/when/to whom an exodus from Egypt really occurred. 

That’s a short note on the origins of Israel. By the time we get to King David, we’re more comfortably in Israelite history, though how united his reign really was remains unclear. But we do know that, however united it might have been under his son King Solomon, it was not destined to remain that way. 

The Time of Two Kingdoms: The Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah

The good news is that we’re in more solid territory, archaeologically speaking. 

The bad news is that the kingdom split asunder. The Southern Kingdom had, in Jerusalem, the Holy Temple (known herein as the First Temple, which is spoiler-y, I suppose). The First Temple was the central place of worship for the monotheistic cult, but it was in constant battle with bamot, or “high places”, where Israelites would worship God (with a capital G) in ways that were, um, a little idolatrous according to the Temple cult. 

In the Northern Kingdom, more bamot were built. According to the biblical narrative (which, at this point in biblical literature, is mostly dry history with a good helping of Polemic Against the North), King Jeroboam I (first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel) built two particular sanctuaries at Beth El and Dan, in which he placed two golden calves for worship. Cows were certainly an important religious symbol, and golden calves have an, um, historical... thread... in Israelite religion, so it’s entirely possible it played out this way. I’ve been to the ruins of Dan and the sanctuary there, which fit pretty well with what the biblical narrative describes. Beth El is a lot trickier to identify, and if it has been found (which is arguable), it doesn’t really seem to align as well. 

The Southern Kingdom fluctuates in terms of religious practice, but seems to stick more clearly to what we would recognise from biblical literature. However, to be clear, this is because the Southern Kingdom of Judah is where most of the biblical literature gets written, and even when it doesn’t get written there, it usually gets edited there. So take its aspersion on the North with a grain of kosher salt. 

The North Falls: 722 BCE

The Northern Kingdom eventually falls to the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The entire land was divided into tribal settlements even when it was “United”. The North consists of Ten Tribes. The South is mostly just Judah, which is where it got its name. Therefore, when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was dispersed, we mostly lost ten whole tribes. It’s a huge upset to Israelite history, and certainly to the history of religious development in the area. The Southern relationship with the Temple tightens. Whatever was going on in the North, religiously, is understood by the Southern Kingdom to have been their downfall. 

(Note: some groups claim to be part of the Ten Northern Tribes. Most famously, Ethiopian Jews have an oral history of descent from the Tribe of Dan. While we don’t know the historicity of that claim, the Ethiopian Jewish community is old af, with whispers of their existence reaching the mainstream Jewish community as early as the 9th Century CE, so it’s certainly plausible. Most Ethiopian Jews now live in the Modern State of Israel, having arrived under the Law of Return after fleeing persecution. Their experience is a mixed bag; better than Ethiopia, and with much love of the Holy Land, but Israel retains a racism problem that is having a significant impact on their ability to thrive.)

The First Exile: 586ish BCE - 538ish BCE

We’re in safer hands now, historically speaking. Israel is enough of an entity that not only are they popping up everywhere archaeologically, but the story of the exile itself is recorded (above is a pretty cuneiform tablet referencing the exile, from 580ish BCE, in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin). 

The Babylonian Exile began and ended in stages, which means that while we do know when things occurred, it’s harder to define when the exile actually began and ended. For the Israelites, this meant life without access to a) the Holy Land, which the entire religion was built on, and b) the Holy Temple, where worship occurred. In this time, we see the first seedlings of religious practice being community-based in a way that wasn’t, um, arguably idolatrous according to the Temple cult. We might call this the beginning of the era of synagogues. 

The seeds of messianic redemption are born in a pre-exile world, and probably sustain the Jews through the First Exile. The idea is messy and contradictory, but it boils down to: God will bring us home. Jeremiah tells the exiles to pray for the country in which they reside (which is the basis of the Prayer for the Country that Jews still do in synagogues today). 

Why did this exile happen (historically) and why did the exiles think it happened? Largely, the First Exile was due to a game of politics. The kingdoms were small and needed to make allies, and variously become vassals of other states, and sometimes made decisions that were obviously poor in the grand scheme of history but weren’t so obviously poor at the time. The story retained in the South would be mixed explanations about turning against God: idolatry, lack of trust, trying to play games with empires instead of just trusting that God would protect, etc.

But what really bothers me about it is: if the North and South had managed to be consistent allies with one another, or perhaps not split in the first place, they probably would have been in a much stronger position. But it seems they were constantly squabbling with one another, including (but not limited to) royal assassinations. And in a sea filled with bigger, more dangerous fish, it probably doomed them more than a little. 

Return From Exile (Thanks to Cyrus the Messiah): 538ish BCE

Big picture history: the Neo-Assyrian Empire went caput, giving a brief period of terrifying political vacuum (at which point the Southern Kingdom of Judah kept changing its mind on allies and betting on the wrong horses), leading to the rise of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The Assyrians had scattered the Northern Kingdom of Israel (722 BCE). The Babylonians then exiled the Southern Kingdom of Judah (destruction of the First Temple was 586 BCE). Then the Babylonians fell to the Persians, and we came to the reign of the only non-Jewish king referred to as a moshiach (messiah) in biblical literature: Cyrus the Great. 

We love him. Why? Because Cyrus had some weirdly forward-thinking views about religion, and he sent the Jews home and supported the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.

The Cyrus Cylinder details how Cyrus was in the practice of sending peoples home and restored shrines. We stan one (1) Achaemenidian Emperor. 

The Second Jewish Commonwealth: 586ish BCE - 70 CE

Second Temple Judaism was a slightly different creature. The Israelites had now survived being uprooted from the sacred land and had to deal with what it meant to, well, replant themselves on it. This is the period in which the prophets of old drew their last breaths and a more textual Judaism came to be. 

Some scholars argue that this is when the religion developed from monolatry (the worship of one god, but the belief that many exist) to monotheism (the belief that there is only one God). Honestly, I am decreasingly convinced that any of these labels reflect religious reality anyway, so take what you want from that. However, the idea that the experience of being away from the land belonging to the local god could develop into the concept that there truly is only One God is, in itself, fascinating as a development. 

Our expectations, when an indigenous religion is uprooted from the land, might be that the development is a) defensive (a scramble to keep the culture and practices alive, sometimes to the point of adapting in opposition to the surrounding culture), b) inwardly assimilative (not always deliberately, the beliefs/culture/practices of the surroundings become part of the indigenous religion), and c) outwardly assimilative (not always deliberately, the beliefs/culture/practices of the indigenous group become part of the surroundings). If we agree with the scholars who claim that monotheism was a development of exile, we have quite a bizarre example of religious development which fits under none of those categories. 

(Super interested in examples of other indigenous cultures developing in exile in a way that doesn’t fit a, b, or c. Do reach out if you know of any.)

But the newly-returned exiles aren’t safe. Yehud/Judea is still a teeny thing without much political power. It goes through phases of vassalhood, independence, and occupation (famously by the Greeks, who then got booted out in a rebellion, which you might know as the Story of Chanukah). 

The Second Temple Mark I was a bit plain compared to the First Temple, but became absolutely glorious when restructured under the reign of Herod. However, it never quite gains complete centrality. The reason now is less to do with alternative worship (such as the bamot of old), but rather to do with groups like the Pharisees (a group devoted to the working classes, interested in literacy and learning, and... you know, law and stuff, we stan) and the Essenes (who say “fuck it, everything’s corrupt, let’s go to the wilderness and not have babies for some reason”). 

Messianism/redemption theology continues to develop, now utilising the previous exile-and-return as a model for what will happen in the future, too. Various messianic figures pop up, famously including Bar Kokhba (a military leader who led a rebellion aimed at Jewish independence from Roman occupation). He turns out to be one of the most influential messianic figures, because the failure of his great revolt led to...

The Second Exile: 70 CE - 1948 CE?

The Romans eventually got tired of the people they were occupying fighting back and decided to squash all future rebellion through... well, murder, destruction, and exile. The Second Temple was destroyed. Due to the seeds planted by the Pharisees (regarding Jewish practice of individuals and communities being able to exist outside of the Temple-based system), Rabbinic Judaism is able to grow from the ashes of the Temple. It was not a guarantee that Judaism could survive at all, but thanks to the rabbinic movement and the fact that the Jews had survived one exile, Judaism struggled forward. 

Why did this exile happen and how was it understood? Historically, we can point to the constant occupations and empires. But the rabbis have woven different narratives alongside the politics: it happened because of sinat chinam, they said; “baseless hatred” between Jews. Or it happened because leaders were so interested in harsh justice and forgot that mercy has always been a part of the law. Either way, the surviving story is less interested in the evil of the Roman Empire and more interested in how our values and actions on an individual level spin out of control and affect the whole world. It’s a slightly less theological explanation. While the First Exile was due to “God is punishing us”, the Second Exile is understood more along the lines of “we caused this with our actions and values”. 

The Second Exile stretches long and far. Empires fall, as they are wont to, and other empires colonise and capture and conflict with one another. Jews spread out farther than ever before, but whenever they set down roots anywhere, expulsion is a constant threat. 

Christianity develops out of a mixture of Judaism and Hellenism, based on the cult following of a messianic figure, and crawls to a position of power and then starts running in the way it spreads. Islam is birthed by a single central leader with inspiration from both Christianity and Judaism and is immediately on the move and spreading. Christian and Islamic political entities conflict with one another. Things are generally worse for Jews in Christendom and pogroms are a semi-constant threat. Ashkenazi Jews, as a result, become more religiously defensive (see point a above) and develop a firmer view of the law. Rule under Islamic empires is usually better, but maintains a level of hostility, such as special taxes being levied and not being allowed to be physically “above Muslims”. 

The messianic dream continues to develop; the idea that “God will take us home” remains a deep and important thread in Jewish religion and liturgy. Jewish languages develop out of Hebrew and relationship with the outside world, such as Judeo-Arabic and Yiddish. Jews suspicious of the outside world tend to be more entrenched in messianic ideals. 

The Enlightenment seems like a positive thing for Jewish life in exile; many Jews get increasingly comfortable with life in exile. Some are more suspicious, due to events such as the Dreyfus Affair, and start to deliberately move the messianic dream into a potential political reality, now referred to as Zionism. The messianic dream becomes a political goal to end exile. 

Big picture history: The land is captured and colonised and recaptured time and time again. For a very brief version, it goes (deep breath): Roman Empire into Byzantine Empire, conquered by the Arab Caliphate (7th Century), conquered by the Fatimid Caliphate (10th Century), some skirmishes with the Byzantines wanting things back, into the Crusades where it went back and forth for centuries (no fun at all, do not recommend, zero stars), then the Mongols turned up and were ultimately defeated by the Egyptian Mamluks (13th Century), who were then conquered by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire (16th Century), who were then defeated by the British (20th Century). Phew.

In this time, the holy site of the Temple (”Temple Mount”, or Mount Moriah) has been the site of the First Temple (destroyed by the Babylonians), the site of the Second Temple (destroyed by the Romans), the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque / the Dome of the Rock (still there), and, briefly, an Augustinian Church (I admittedly do not know how they did this, but I imagine they just turned up and said “this is a church now”). 

Back to the exile itself: one third of all Jews were murdered in the 20th Century in the Sho’ah. (We’ve just about recovered those raw numbers at this point, but the world population has gone from 2 billion to 8 billion in that time - so in reality, we’re a quarter of what we should be.) The British were occupying a land with some significant violence occurring and no living empire to give it back to, and they overpromised to get allies. A mess was made. The UN made a half-hearted suggestion about trying to fulfill two promises at once, and we get to...

The Third Jewish Commonwealth (1948 CE - present)

I’m going to make an assumption here that you know some of this story already, and we’re treading into “modern politics” land, which is neither my forte nor my interest. In short: Everything was a mess when the British left. Israel declared independence. The Nakba. The war, then another war, then another war. There have been small glimmers of hope and then everything has crashed back to being terrible again. 

Religiously, the establishment of the Third Jewish Commonwealth has had a really interesting impact on self-definition. Did exile end with 1948? Some say yes; we’re now in diaspora rather than exile. Some say no; there might be a Law of Return, but with the state of the State, it’s hardly true that all Jews feel safe returning, and there’s no reason to think of diaspora as meaningfully different to exile. This brings up questions of Jewish identity worldwide. Are we a people exiled or a people redeemed? Is it possible to be neither of those things? Do we understand the establishment of the State in the kind of theological terms we understood the return from Babylonian Exile, or does the fact that we ultimately drew our understanding of the Second Exile from naturalistic/value-based/human causes mean that we see the “end of the exile” in the same ways?

There are no good answers to the above questions. Communities and individuals are split. On the one hand, it’s miraculous. On the other hand, it’s really, really not. 

In general, something that I think is religiously fascinating about Take Three is that the Jewish population is split between the very religious and the very secular. The middle path, what I might call Mainstream Judaism (from mainstream Orthodoxy through to Reform Judaism) barely exists at all. But what divides the Chareidim (ultra-religious) from the Chilonim (secular) is not a matter of Jewish identity or relationship with the land; it’s just a difference in whether or not religion matters. The answers appear to be “absolutely yes” and “absolutely no”, without much room for anything between. There is a kind of symbiotic relationship between the two sides, but they are very much two sides.

That there is such secularism is of course partly due to living in the modern world. But it also tells of a whole new relationship to the land. Chilonim still identify with the ancestral homeland, still see it as sacred in a sense, but don’t tie this sanctity to God. 

Why is the middle missing? Why has mainstream Judaism failed to get a foothold in the Third Jewish Commonwealth? It’s not for lack of trying. I’m at a bit of a loss as to why this would be the case. Looking back to Take One and Take Two, I can see how the development in the area led to the religious/political groups, but I’m at a loss for this one. Perhaps it’s about the impact of politics requiring people to take more extreme stances. Perhaps the trend is toward secularism, but the Chareidim just have so many babies that it bucks the trend. Perhaps middle-of-the-road Judaism is only appealing in exile/diaspora. 

And that brings me to the end of my musings. This has been on my mind because Israel’s democracy is currently under internal threat, which I find interesting in comparison to the First and Second Jewish Commonwealths. As Kohelet would say: there’s nothing new under the sun. 

[dwellerinthelibrary]

The Amduat papyrus of Meshareduisekeb. Left to right, the goddess Amentet, with her hieroglyph for a head, raises her hands in worship; a large white heart hieroglyph, covered in black hieroglyphs; a scarab, a heron, a seated Maat, a snake wearing an ostrich feather; and finally the deceased, in white finery, holding up her red heart in one hand.

Here's a good example of why you must never rely on this Tumblr as a reference source. I think that the deceased holding up her heart, and the white heart covered in writing, represent the heart spells from the Book of the Dead (chapters 26-30). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if what's written on the heart is Spell 30A, which begs the heart not to confess any wrongdoing when the deceased is being judged. But I don't know; you want a proper expert for that. I'm just a lay Egyptologist, an amateur.

When: Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty

Where: Egyptian Museum, Turin

[greenpanda-basicfakewitch]

The Founders of Wicca as we know it.

The list of most known contributers of what we currently know about Wicca.

Maragaret Murray

1921: “Witch Cult in Western Europe.”

The Rituals of Modern Wiccan Practice can be traced to famed first wave feminism, egyptologist, anthropologist and Folklorist Margaret Murray. She wrote several books on mediaeval religion centred around Witch cults in mediaeval Europe that inspired British seekers to create their own Covens and Structure worship around her description. Later scholarship disputed Murrays claims about Witch cults but her influence could not be erased within Wicca.

Gerald Gardner

1954: Witchcraft today, Wicca used to be “Wica” before the added the extra ‘C’ in 1960’s according to Gardner the world derived from Scots- english meant, “Wise People.”

 He first heard the word Wica in 1930’s when he became involved with a coven in Highcliffe, England. He was initiated into the group in 1939.

 In 1846 he bought land in the village of Brickett Wood to establish a center for Folkloric Study that would serve as a headquarters for a coven of his own.1940-1950 Book of Shadows, a collection of Spells and rituals, is central to Wiccan Practice. Initiates were required to make their own copy by hand. The Origin of the title is unknown. Others believe he borrowed it from the work of Scottish children's author Helen Douglas Adams [aha sure he borrowed.]

_________________________________________________ Alester Crowley

1912: Crowley wrote a Wiccan Rituals and Gardner strongly took inspiration from Aleister Crowley, an occultist whom he met in 1947. The two men had similar ideas and proposed forming a new religion that would pull from old pagan traditions worshipping the Earth. Celebrating Equinoxes and Solstices other hallmarks of nature-based worship.

__________________________________________________________

Doreen Valiente

1952: Future Wiccan Leader, Doreen met Gardner when she contacted him following an illustrated magazine that presented to their readers the reality of Covens. As well as their practices in a context of normal, educated people.

So with Gardners direction both had revised the Book of Shadows for popular consumption and thus tons of rival covens with Valiente becoming a prominent advocate and Scholar.

____________________________________________________________

Raymond Buckland

1936: Was in the US with Gardner, in 1970 to New Hampshire and developed Seax-Wica. Which invoked Anglo-Saxon mythology into Wiccan Practice.

Image: N/A

Sybil Leek A hereditary witch, a popularizer Wiccan in American, Leek became involved with the new forest coven in the late 1940’s, continuing her practice through several covens in England before moving to the US and settling in LA.   Leek transferred her Wiccan Practice into celebrity status centred around astrology, Writing numerous books and regular columns in Ladies Home Journal.

Image: N/A

[Source]

PSA:

Link To Further 'practioners' including Gardner/Allistar etc and their problematic history: [Source/Tumblr]

[fieldofpapyrus]

Hi ! I hope Ur well first up ,

Second up Ive allways had an interest in Egypt and Egyptian mythology but never looked at it more then an interest. I've been a Hellenic polythiest for about 2+ years now but have started reaching out elsewhere, so here I am my question is where can I find reliable information about Egyptian deities and religion etc If you have any info or advice I'd really appreciate it xx if not that's totally fine !!!

Ah shite I can't believe I'm seeing this now!

Well personally I've learned a lot through Sharon Laborde's YouTube channel called "Kemeticindependent" and her books such as Circle of the Sun, Celebrating the Egyptian Gods and Following the Sun. She does legitimate historical research and spends a lot of time writing her books to be factual and also practical and easy to understand. She however considers herself a part of Kemetic reformation. She does book reviews aswell. Just be careful buying books because there's lots of misinformation or personal bias/interpretation in many neopagan/witchy books out there. Then again at the end of the day it's up to you what you want to believe and how you interpret etc.

I personally spent time learning about many different deities/their correspondences/myths etc. and then started reaching out to the Netjeru directly, they're very open and friendly (in my experience I can't speak for everyone). I've learned a lot through personal interaction with the Netjeru.

I've read some excerpts from translated papyri (The Greek Magical Papryi or the Leyden Papyrus for example) or temple hymns which provide helpful insight into how it was historically done. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a popular one (not the one by Budge however!)

A great blog to check out for actual historical info is thatlittleegyptologist who is an actual Egyptologist. The Kemetic tumblr community/pagan community who include Egyptian deities are also helpful as a lot of us post informational posts/links/etc. to other resources.

EDIT: ADDING IN BOOK RECS AGAIN BECAUSE TUMBLR DELETED MY ENTIRE PARAGRAPH

Decent book recs:

• An Ancient Egyptian Herbal by Lise Manniche (about herbalism in ancient Egypt)

• Ancient Egyptian Magic: A Hands-On Guide by Christina Riggs

• Everlasting Egypt: Kemetic Rituals for the Gods by Richard J. Reidy

• Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

There's a website that has a crap ton of great info that I will add onto this post as a reblog later on because I can't remember the name of it specifically at the moment.

I wish you luck on your journey and have a wonderful new year! I'm always open to talk whether it's asks or DMs. 🧡

[arctic-hands]

My dad tried blowing my mind last night with historical trivia facts like Shakespeare and Pocahontas were alive at the same time, MLK and Anne Frank were born in the same year, the last recorded wooly mammoths were around by the time the first Great Pyramid was being built, and that we're closer to Cleopatra in time than Cleopatra was to the building of said pyramids... and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had also seen the historical graphic he had just seen on facebook... years ago. On tumblr.

But my father and I have, for all thirty years of my existence, always tried to one-up each other in random shit, so he had to read multiple large messages of how woefully inadequate I was in in knowledge of the long history of Ancient Egypt but I was fascinated by the twenty-year period of Atenism, when Pharoah Ankhenaton (Nerfertiti's husband and also potential father to Tutenkhamun–previous name: Tutankhaten) instituted a monotheistic sun-based religion and eventually shut down and persecuted the polytheistic temples and followers of the old pantheon but when he died he was so reviled by the people for this that he was pretty much obliterated from the records and this legacy was part of why Tutenkhamun was nearly forgotten too until the discovery of his tomb in the twenties, and it's disappointing that the only accessible non-academic books available on Atenism are one written by an egotistical archeological couple who parade around Egyptian sites posing in nineteen twenties garb and he was her professor when they started dating and she got her position at the same university because of him and he was eventually banned from the university for ten years because of this and the reviews for said book on how Ankhenaton and Nerfertiti as a "ancient power couple" said that the authors are totally projecting themselves on said power couple, and the other book was written by an actual nineteen twenties British Egyptologist and written in the style of such where the opinions of Sir White British Dude's opinion on the subject as irrefutable fact and is thus woefully useless as a source but I'm still looking for a good book about it to learn more and

At which point my father conceded that he had to google everything I had just said because he had no idea what the hell I was talking about and that I won this round