The Horned Viper (15 page)

Both cult and mortuary temples were huge, amazing buildings. Many of them have survived, and you can still see the massive walls, columns and statues, and the hieroglyphs that were carved everywhere. It’s a little bit harder to imagine the bright colours that the temples were painted in.

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The Sea People

The crew of Hat-Neb’s boat are ‘Sea People’ who have settled in Egypt. No one is really sure who these people were or where they came from, but they gave some of the New Kingdom kings a lot of bother. Waves of Sea People attacked Egypt along the north coast during the reign of the great king Ramesses II (who reigned from approximately 1279–1212BC), but Ramesses defeated them, taking many captives. Later, these captives formed part of the Egyptian army and helped to fight other enemies, so some of the Sea People would have made Egypt their home.

About a century later, during the reign of Ramesses III (approximately 1186–1154BC), there was another wave of Sea People attacks. Again, the Egyptians defeated and killed many of them. But there would have been captives, too, who settled in Egypt.

In this story, I have put together their knowledge of boats and the role that they played as mercenaries, and imagined that some of them would have hired themselves out as guards and sailors on the Nile.

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GODS AND GODDESSES

Ancient Egyptian religion was very complicated. There wasn’t just one god, but hundreds, each symbolising something different. Many of them were linked to a particular animal or plant. The Egyptians believed that their king or pharaoh was one of the gods, too.

Not everyone worshipped the same gods. It would have been very difficult to worship all of them, because there were so many. Some gods were more important than others, and some places had special gods of their own. People would have had their favourites depending on where they lived and what they did.

These are some of the most important gods of the New Kingdom, and all the special ones that are mentioned in this book.

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Amun
The great god of Waset (Thebes), a creator god and god of the air. When Waset became very powerful in the New Kingdom, he was combined with the sun god Re and became
Amun-Re.
He was shown with tall feathers on his head, or with a ram’s head.

Anubis
The god of mummies and embalming. He was usually shown with a jackal’s head.

Apep
The great snake god of darkness, chaos and evil. He was usually shown as an enormous serpent, but sometimes as a crocodile or even a dragon.

Bes
A god who was worshipped in people’s homes, rather than at shrines and temples. He was shown as a bearded dwarf, often with his tongue sticking out, and was believed to protect people’s houses, pregnant women and children.

Hapi
The god of the Nile, specifically the Nile flood that happened every year. Although he was a male god, he was shown with large breasts because he represented fertility.

Hathor
A goddess of fertility, love, music and dancing. She was usually shown as a cow, or a woman with a cow’s head, or a woman with a cow’s ears and horns.

Horus
The falcon-headed king of the gods, who fought and won a battle with his evil uncle Seth. The reigning king of Egypt was believed to be the embodiment of Horus. His cult temple was at Djeba (Edfu).

Isis
The mother of Horus and wife of Osiris, the goddess of motherhood and royal protection. She was associated with the goddess Hathor.

Khepri
The scarab god, the god of the rising sun. It was believed that he pushed the sun up every morning in the same way that a scarab pushes its ball of dung.

Khonsu
The moon god of Waset, worshipped in the great temple complex there. He was the adopted son of Mut.

Mut
The great mother-goddess of Waset, worshipped with Amun and Khonsu. Because Waset is often called Thebes, these three are known as the ‘Theban Triad’.

Osiris
Husband of Isis, father of Horus and brother of the evil god Seth. He was the king of the underworld, so he was usually shown as a mummy.

Re
(or
Ra
) The sun god, who travelled across the sky every day in a
barque
(boat).

Serqet
The goddess of scorpions. She was believed to cure the stings and bites of all dangerous creatures like snakes and scorpions.

Seth
The brother of Osiris, the god of chaos, evil and the Red Land (the desert). He was shown with the head of a strange dog-like creature that has never been identified.

Sobek
The ancient Egyptian crocodile god. On the whole, he was feared by the Egyptians, but he was sometimes seen as a god of fertility, too. There were two big cult temples to Sobek – one in the north, and one south of Waset at a place that is now called Kom Ombo. But there were also sacred crocodile pools and smaller shrines dotted along the Nile, as I’ve described in the story.

Tawaret
A hippopotamus goddess who protected children and women, particularly during childbirth. Like Bes, Tawaret was worshipped in people’s homes rather than in temples.

Thoth
The god of writing and scribes. He was shown as an ibis, or with the head of an ibis.

GLOSSARY

acacia
A small, thorny tree. Some types of acacia grow particularly well in dry, desert regions.

alabaster
A whitish stone that is quite soft and easily carved. The Egyptians used it to make many beautiful objects.

amulet
A lucky charm, worn to protect a person from evil.

carnelian
A reddish stone used by the Egyptians to make jewellery.

clerestory window
A window set high in a wall to let in some light. Only big houses had windows – most people’s houses were very dark inside to keep them cool.

deben
A measurement of what things were worth. There was no money in ancient Egypt – people bought things with grain or just swapped one item for another. But they estimated how much things were worth in
deben
, usually of copper. Gold was much more valuable.

Djeba
(You say ‘Jay-ba’) This is one of the ancient names for the site of the cult temple of Horus, south of Waset. Today it is called Edfu. (See the section on Egypt’s temples.)

doum palm
A kind of palm tree that grows along the River Nile. Its fruits are much bigger than dates (which grow on a different kind of palm), and many have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. (Sometimes written
dom
or
doom palm
.)

emmer wheat
The type of wheat that was grown in ancient Egypt. Barley was the other main food crop.

frankincense
A kind of tree resin that was used to make incense and perfumes.

hieratic
A shorthand version of hieroglyphics, which simplified the hieroglyphs to make them quicker to write.

hieroglyphics
The system of ancient Egyptian picture writing. Each individual picture is called a hieroglyph.

Imhotep
A very famous architect, doctor and engineer who lived in the Old Kingdom, about 1,400 years before the time of Isis and Hopi. He was so clever that later Egyptians worshipped him as a god. No wonder Tutmose thought it was a good name to choose!

lapis lazuli
A deep blue semi-precious stone that the Egyptians valued highly. It wasn’t found in Egypt, but had to be imported from modern-day Afghanistan.

limestone
Along with sandstone, this was a rock commonly found in Egypt and used to build the many temples (but not houses, which were made of mud brick).

lotus
Lotus flowers were actually blue water lilies that grew along the Nile. Their flowers open in the morning and close at night, so they were seen as a symbol of the rising and setting sun, and the cycle of creation. They were used in perfume, and were believed to have healing powers, too.

ma’at
The ancient Egyptian principle of divine justice and order. The principle was represented by a goddess of the same name.

mercenary
Someone who hires himself out as a soldier. Unlike most soldiers, who fight for their country or government, mercenaries fight for whoever is paying them.

myrrh
A kind of tree sap or resin that has a powerful smell. The ancient Egyptians used it to make incense and to perfume their oils.

Next World
The place ancient Egyptians believed they would go after death. It would be better than this world, of course, but quite similar – which was why they needed to take their bodies and many possessions with them.

obelisk
A tall, narrow granite spike that was often erected in temples.

ostracon
(pl.
ostraca
) A small piece of pottery or a flake of limestone used as ‘scrap paper’ for writing on.

papyrus
A kind of reed that used to grow in the marshes alongside the Nile, especially in the Delta region to the north. It was made into many things – mats, baskets, sandals and even boats – but it is most famous for the flat sheets of ‘paper’ made from it, which are named after the reed.

pharaoh
The ancient Egyptian term for their king. It was only used by the Egyptians themselves in the later stages of their history, but we now use it to refer to any ancient Egyptian king.

prow
The front of a boat.

scarab
A kind of dung beetle that was worshipped by the Egyptians. Scarab amulets were thought to give great protection. The scarab was the creature of the god Khepri (see the Gods and Goddesses section).

stern
The back of a boat.

temple
Temples were a very important focus for the ancient Egyptian religion. There were cult temples for the worship of a particular god, and mortuary temples for the worship of a king after his death. (See the section on Egypt’s Temples.)

turquoise
A green-blue semi-precious stone that was mined by the Egyptians in Sinai. They used it to make beautiful objects, inlays and jewellery.