Week 8 of my humanities crash course focused on ancient Egypt with musical excursions to modern North Africa. I also finally saw an astonishing opera I’d heard countless times but had never seen. The internet delivers!

Readings

Rather than a specific text, like the Odyssey or the Histories, Gioia recommended an anthology of ancient Egyptian texts. I couldn’t find that specific collection as an ebook, so I went with Writings From Ancient Egypt, an anthology compiled by Toby Wilkinson.

The book includes text fragments found in papyri, buildings, and objects such as stele and sarcophagi. Egyptian culture focused on the afterlife, and many of their writings deal with preparations for death and beyond. But several focus on the here-and-now. (Or rather, there-and-then.)

Wilkinson groups them by function:

  • Autobiographical inscriptions: boasting about conquests
  • Battle narratives: same
  • Hymns: prayers to gods and Pharaohs (who were considered gods)
  • Lamentations: philosophical tracts
  • Legal texts: contracts
  • Letters: communications
  • Mortuary texts: instructions for successfully navigating the afterlife
  • Royal inscriptions: found in monuments to Pharaohs
  • Songs: mostly instructive; as with Homer, sung by blind harpists
  • Teachings: explicitly instructive texts

Most are dense and reflect unfamiliar formal language patterns. For example, references to the Pharaoh and/or his palace are invariably followed with the phrase “life, prosperity, health.” Religion directed Egyptian thinking.

My favorite texts in this collection were the teachings, especially those dealing with writing. Few people could write at the time; these texts were part of their instructions. As such, they’re explicit about the superiority of writing over other occupations.

These people believed in life after death and most of their art and writing was anonymous. So it was fascinating to see that they, too, understood writing as a means for a kind of immortality:

Be a writer, take it to heart, so that your name will fare likewise. A book is more effective than a carved tombstone or a permanent sepulchre. They serve as chapels and mausolea in the mind of him who proclaims their names. A name on people’s lips will surely be effective in the afterlife!

Audiovisual

Again, Gioia led me to astonishing music I hadn’t heard before. This time, it was two artists from North Africa, Ali Farka Touré and Tinariwen. The latter sounded to me like Tuareg Radiohead. (!)

The following lectures provided an intro to ancient Egyptian art and architecture. I studied some of this in university, but it was a good reminder. As with the Mesopotamians, part of the lesson here is that for the ancients, “the arts” were functional (and not merely decorative) expressions.

Reminder: I’ve started a YouTube playlist of videos I’m sharing in this course.

Rather than a movie, this week I watched an opera. I’m a fan of Philip Glass’s work, and his 1983 opera Akhnaten is one of my favorites. But I’d only ever heard it. Akhnaten’s libretto includes some of this week’s readings, so I thought it’d be a good opportunity to finally see the show.

I wasn’t disappointed. Apple TV has a lovely recording of the 2019 Metropolitan Opera production starring Anthony Roth Costanzo. It includes jugglers!

It’s a stunning show, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a first opera. Glass’s music is an acquired taste; there are long (repetitive!) passages where characters walk very slowly through the stage singing in ancient Egyptian. I loved it, but I was familiar with the music. YMMV.

If you do plan to watch, note that it’s a four-hour show. I took in each of the three scenes on subsequent nights, which is doable. But Apple TV gives you 48 hours to watch rentals, so you must plan if you want to see it over three nights.

Reflections

As happened with the ancient Mesopotamians, these texts connected me with the ancient Egyptians. Sure, there’s a lot of formal, ritualistic language in there. But humanity breaks through: amidst the repetitive formulas, you can see people struggling with everyday moral dilemmas.

One interesting pattern evident in both Egyptian texts and arts: their society had strict hierarchies, and people in higher rungs were represented more formally and abstractly than “common” folk. As a result, the latter are much more relatable.

Accordingly, hymns and royal inscriptions are highly formalized, whereas more practical/intimate writings (letters, teachings) are fluid and relatable. Of course, that’s true today as well: consider the stylistic differences between a Vatican pronouncement vs. a post like this one.

One big difference: reading and writing were much rarer back then. Unlike today’s authors, Egyptian scribes had an exalted position in society. One of the writings explicitly mocked manual laborers, contrasting their back-breaking and dirty work with the scribe’s idyllic job.

Another difference was the ancient Egyptians’ preoccupation with life after death. The Book of the Dead contains lists of assertions the recently departed were supposed to convey to the gods when requesting passage into the afterlife:

I have not done people wrong.
I have not impoverished my fellows.
I have not done wrong in the Place of Truth.
I have not learned false things.
I have not done evil.
I have not, on any day, made extra work beyond what was due to be done for me.
I have not caused my name to become tainted as a slave-master.
I have not deprived a poor man of his property.
I have not done what the gods abhor.
I have not slandered a servant to his master.
I have not caused pain.
I have not created hunger.
I have not caused tears.
I have not killed.
I have not given orders to kill.
I have not created suffering for anyone.
I have not diminished the food-offerings in the local temples.
I have not destroyed the gods’ loaves.
I have not taken away the spirits’ food.
I have not slept around.
I have not fornicated.
I have not reduced provisions.
I have not committed fraud.
I have not encroached upon (others’) fields.
I have not interfered with the weights of the hand-scales.
I have not disturbed the plummet of the standing-scales.
I have not taken milk from the mouths of children.
I have not deprived herds of their pastures.
I have not snared the birds in the gods’ reserves.

It goes on like this, page after page. (Like a Philip Glass opera!) The point isn’t gaining actual passage into the afterlife, but living better. Many of these assertions are sound advice. But while advice is good, accountability is better. Threat of eternal discomfort is one way to do it.

Notes on Note-taking

I didn’t use AI to help with the course this week. The texts were fragmentary, so there was no story to track; I mostly followed unaided. (Except by Wilkinson’s excellent notes.) As usual, I created an Obsidian note for the book and captured my reflections there. (Some of which I pasted above.)

Overall, this week felt like a break from thinking. While watching Akhnaten, I laid back and let the spectacle wash over me; it was more an experience than a story. This was also true of the texts. Some stuff to think about, but much to feel. Not gonna try to bottle that.

Up Next

Next week, we’re reading selections from the Bible: Genesis, Ecclesiastes, the four Gospels, and the Epistle to the Romans. I grew up with these teachings and read the whole book back in 2009, so we’ll be revisiting familiar ground.

Check out Gioia’s post for the full syllabus. Again, there’s a YouTube playlist for all the videos I’m sharing here. And as a reminder, I’m also sharing these posts via Substack if you’d like to subscribe and comment.