Egypt
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The Festival of Drunkenness
No, dear reader, this is not Panama City on Spring Break. This is an actual religious festival from ancient Egypt. We have discussed how beer played a part in religious festivals, and that the Sumerians actually had a goddess specifically for it. (For more on Nin-kasi, please see this post: http://www.historynaked.com/nin-kasi-lady-fills-mouth-beer/ ) There was an importance placed on beer in Egyptian culture as well. The source of this festival is a mythological story of how beer saved the world. The story goes that Re, the sun god, was frankly salty about the “duplicitousness” of mankind and called his children together to discuss it. A Council of the Gods is called,…
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The Vanishing Persian Army of Cambyses
When your dad is Cyrus the Great, you have a lot to live up to. He began the Achaemenid Empire and reigned over the territory from Asia Minor to India. Unfortunately, Cyrus met his match in a warrior queen named Tomyris and went to his long home. (More on her in this post: http://www.historynaked.com/tomyris-the-woman-who-brought-down-cyrus-the-great/ ) This left his son Cambyses in charge. There had been a bit of trouble when he was overseeing things for his father in Babylon. No one is quite sure, but the Chronicle of Nabonidus indicates there was an issue during the very important New Year’s Akitu festival. Possibly with Cambyses being armed during the ceremony,…
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The Harem Conspiracy
The royal court is never an easy place. Its full of intrigue and deception and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true today as it was in ancient times. In Egypt, no one was more powerful than the Pharaoh. However, in the Twentieth Dynasty, Pharaoh Ramses III was getting old. He had ruled Egypt for a little over thirty years, and people were getting antsy. Since he wasn’t vacating the throne on his own power, perhaps it was time to help him along. Ramses had many wives like most pharaohs, however, unlike most pharaohs he did not name a Great Royal Wife. This left the harem open to scheming and…
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The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great conquered the known world, but died unexpectedly in Babylon in 323 BCE at 32 years old. His death left his empire in disarray, and his generals scrambled to save pieces of it even as Alexander’s funeral preparations drug on for two years. At one point, one of these generals, Ptolemy, took control of both Egypt and the great general’s body. According to Roman historian Curtius Rufus, “Alexander’s body was taken to Memphis by Ptolemy, into whose power Egypt had fallen, and transferred from there a few years later to Alexandria, where every mark of respect continues to be paid to his memory and his name. This was…
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Ancient Ghost Stories
Anyone familiar with Greek myth knows that any hero worth his salt had to make a visit to the underworld. However, the afterlife was not an unfamiliar concept to any of the cultures of the ancient world. In fact, ancient peoples were probably more sure that the soul survived bodily death than some in the modern world. The details of the afterlife differed from culture to culture, but there are consistent themes. The afterlife was a place ruled by specific laws and souls could only roam the earth if given specific permission from the gods for special circumstances. These usually included murder, where the murderer went unpunished, improper funeral rites…
