Egyptian Mythology

I'm putting together a new unit for my Mythology class. It has seemed strange to me that Egyptian Mythology is not a part of the course, so I thought I'd add a unit about the Egyptians. So for days now, whenever my mind wanders away from reality, it ends up thinking about the Egyptians. Not by choice, really. It's just in my head. Last night I worked on some overheads for the afterlife. Fascinating. I knew some of it already--the bit about the brain pulled out throught he nose and that they didn't think the brain was a useful organ. And the canopic jars housing some of the other organs. I knew the Anubis was in the underworld, but I always assumed he was the god of the dead.

He isn't. It's Osiris. And I knew a little about the Osiris story because my wife mentioned in once when we were watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There's an episode called "The Judge," I think, that has a demon who has been dismembered and his parts buried in different areas of the world. This is just what Set did to Osiris once he turned up in the chest again.

So Osiris is the god of the dead and Anubis is sort of his henchman, I gues. Because he's the one who leads the dead to the gods for judgment and he's the one that puts the heart on the scale for weighing against the feather of Ma'at. It's ironic, in a way, that he is Osiris's helper, since he is the son of Set and Nephthys. But then, Nephthys did help Isis to recover Osiris after Set tricked him into the chest.

It's interesting stuff, though I'm not sure how much the students enjoy it.

Another thing I was making overheads of was the pyramids. I traced the Great Pyramid at Giza and the bent pyramid, for which they allegedly ran out of supplies and funding and had to taper it in at the top. The Great Pyramid is the only one that has a burial chamber above ground. It's odd in that way.

I also made overheads of pictures of various things--the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, the mummification performed by Anubis, the judging of the dead, canopic jars, and some coffins as well. I hope in time to get them done at Kinko's in color, but for now they're just black and white.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind. Egyptian Mythology, but mostly the afterlife because that's what I've most resently been researching.