From Mummification to the Building of the Pyramids (Herodotus The Histories Book 2, Part 3)

We continue on in our Egyptian adventures with Book 2 of Herodotus' Histories! We finish up looking at the customs of the Egyptians, and start with the history of the region as understood by Herodotus. There's lots of fun little stories and things that make absolutely no sense, but at least this time there's no hippo nonsense. Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby. Enter our podcast guest https://www.mythsbaby.com/contact form if you'd like to be on the show as a conversation guest! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. I try to provide direct warnings when there is reference to anything with overtly traumatic themes but be aware that Greek mythology regularly features assault, death, and many other potentially triggering events. Sources: Herodotus The Histories translated by Tom Holland. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 0:00Liv Albert?

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• 2:14Speaker 03

  Good morning, all you lovely people, and welcome back to Let's Talk About Myths, Baby with Michaela Pangorish, your resident history babe. We are continuing on with our journey in Herodotus's Histories Book 2. Last week, Herodotus told us about all the various customs of the Egyptians, how they're very opposite, eh, than all the other people in the Med. He then went on to talk about the various animals of Egypt, which was a relatively short section in it all, but still full of lots of delightful things. If you're wondering, no, I am not over the description of hippos, because they do not have manes or tails like a horse. They simply are very different. Now, I won't say that I'm an expert on hippos in any way, but I've seen a picture or two in my time. Plus, I have a healthy

• 2:59Speaker 03

  dose of respect for them, because my god, are they fearsome creatures. Very territorial, very aggressive. And also, have you guys seen that hippo that's like, on like Instagram Shorts and whatnot? Mars, the one who, when he was young, he would like, refuse to move or go places? I, I love him. He's such a mood. I'm all T Mars. Oh, and also, hippos don't swim. Yeah, they don't swim. They simply run underwater. Look it up. It's terrifying. I, for one, will never be going into water the hippos are in. I value my life too much. But on the other hand, Michaela Pangorish, Death from Hippo, has quite a ring to it,

• 3:39Speaker 03

  doesn't it? Well, we will have to see. We are moving on from the animals too, but continuing with Egyptian customs for a bit. I'm hoping we can start on the Egyptian history as well, but that will depend on how much I rant and ramble, how many tangents I take. We're doing Herodotus. I can't help it. And also, thought you all'd like to know what it's like when I'm writing this. I'm in my favorite little study slash work spot on campus. It's quiet, warm, and with little to no people. I can leave my laptop and things alone and Go grab a snack or or or other things. And then I just chilled there with my water, my banana and Herodotus, listening to music and writing. Today, I'm listening to one of my favorite playlists that I found on Spotify many years ago.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  It's called Sea Shanties for Thoughts by Naomi O. I highly recommend it to everyone out there. So if this episode goes off the rails, it's the sea shanty's fault. Not really sorry about it. Okay, off we go into the next little Herodoty in bits.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  From Mummification to the Building of the Pyramids, Herodotus, the Histories, Book Two, Part Three.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  So we start with finishing talking about the various Egyptian customs that Herodotus has learned about. Here, he is specifically talking about those who live in the area of the regions where farming and various cultivating practices take place. He starts with talking about the love of purgatives, things that clear the body out in one way or another. He says that for three days every month, they take both emetics and enemas. They believe that the food they eat, while while keeping them alive, also is the reason for all sickness that can plague mankind. They are very concerned with health. He goes on to say that other than the Libyans, the Egyptians are quite possibly the most healthy people in the world, in part thanks to their stable climate.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Because of course, what makes people ill is change, so we must safeguard from that. The seasonal changes seem to be the biggest culprit, which I mean, okay, I can kind of understand. We always expect flu and cold seasons to come around the cold wintry times and not the warmer summer months. The Egyptians love bread, which they call chylastis. I totally pronounced that wrong, but whatever. They make this bread from emmer wheat, which is really just a certain type of wheat. And actually, it was the first kind of wheat that was cultivated in the Near East. In Greece, wheat was actually kind of a, I don't wanna say luxury, but kind of a luxury. It wasn't easily grown in Greece, so it was just less easy to get your hands on or cultivate. Greece was big on barley.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Moving on, the Egyptians make their wine from barley. I think it's called beer, but it's fine, because there's no vines in Egypt, he says. They eat fish that they dry in the sun or pickle. For the birds that are eaten, quails, ducks, and other small birds, they are salted and then eaten without cooking. For the other birds and fish, they boil them as preparation. Of course, these are the fish and birds that are not considered sacred. They would never dare to eat a sacred fish. Okay, well, what about feasts and drinking parties? We don't get much, simply a little anecdote about the feasts of the richer peoples. See, during these feasts, they will bring out a wooden carving of a corpse, painted to look as real as possible.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  They then bring this wooden corpse around and show it to every guest in attendance, saying, "Hey, look at this. Drink and enjoy yourself, because remember that one day you should be dead just like this." Which is fun! I actually really love these kind of practices, the memento moris, to use the Latin term, that show up throughout history. We are really obsessed with remembering that eventually we will all be dead. It's inevitable. He says that the Egyptians are traditionalists and don't like to change things up much. No interest in innovation here, is the words used. Here, he then talks briefly about the Linus song.

• 8:00Speaker 03

  And, okay, we need to take a brief tangent, just a quick little aside, because Herodotus doesn't actually tell us what a Linus song or the Linus song is. And I think it's important to add a little context, because I needed it, so I'm sure you all do as well. This is one of those moments where everyone who is either reading this or hearing it in antiquity would know what the Linus song is and wouldn't need an explanation. So, from what I can gather, no, the Linus song is not from the peanuts. It's actually a type of laventation, a dirge, an elegy for the dead. These type of songs, or generally lyric songs, seem to be credited to a man called Linus.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  I still haven't said who he was, and this is because it's murky and very much in the mythic history realm. So I'll do my best. He was a Thracian man, maybe? Who his parents were is also murky and could be one of ten different pairings, but Apollo appears lots in this, which is not surprising in the least, what with the Song of it all. Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, and Cleo, the muse of history, appears as mothers. And one tradition even states him as the brother of Orpheus. The stories around him are just as all over the place. In one, he is the son of Apollo and Samanthi, a princess of Argos. Samanthi exposes him, where he is then devoured by dogs and Apollo gets pissed off.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  In some traditions, he is the inventor of the Threnos, a mourning poem or song. In one story, he is killed by Apollo in a music contest because he said he was a better singer. Classic. Finally, in another story, he was the music teacher of Heracles, who killed him. Because of course he did. Regardless of what the "truth," heavy air quotes here, was, he was heavily connected with mourning songs, not only in the Greek world, but also amongst those living in the Near East, the Phoenicians and the Cypriots. In Egypt, he isn't called Linus, though. He was called Menaros and was the only son of the first king of Egypt.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  He died young, and so in his memory, they sing a Threnody, Threnos, for him, which was their first song. After this, he tells us that the Lacedaemonians and the Egyptians have something in common, which is that when a younger man meets an older man on the road, the younger will step out of the way for the older. Not only that, but if the younger is sitting down and an elder should approach him, he will stand up. Wild concept. Other than that, the custom of the Egyptians is totally different than what they do in Greece, because, don't you know, if two Egyptians meet on the road, they put their hands on their knees and bow to each other instead of speaking. How baffling and interesting for Herodotus. Now, on to clothes. Right, so the Egyptians wear linen tunics with fun little tassels.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Called calyceris and over these they will throw on white woolen cloaks. Gotta love a good cloak, honestly, but they will never wear wool in a shrine or at a grave. That's insane. Why would you even think of wearing wool to one of these places? Herodotus says that the Orphic and Bacchic traditions are similar in this way. But that's only because these got this tradition, not only from the Egyptians, but from the Pythagoreans as well. There's a super sacred tale as to why wool is not allowed, which you think Herodotus would tell us. But of course he does not. That would be asking for way too much. The Egyptians are also very superstitious. And believe that each day of the year corresponds to some god or another.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  And the day that a person is born on says more about the future than anything else. I was born on May sixteenth. It was a Monday. I wonder what they would say. I was born a Taurus and I'm happy about that. Not a Gemini, no offense to you Geminis out there. I was supposed to be a Gemini. My actual due date was in Gemini season, but my mother had me early. It was a choice. There's a story there. I'm not gonna tell it now. It is great though, and another wonderful bit of Nancy lore for all who have heard of her. Anyways, the Egyptians, they are very good at identifying real portents. They make careful note of it when it happens and keep an eye out for whatever it is telling them to look out for.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  They also are very big on divination, which they believe very much was made by the gods, but only some. These gods include Heracles, Apollo, Athena, Artemis, Ares and Zeus. I wanna go to this oracle of Ares. That sounds like crazy fun. But the oracle that held the highest esteem is to Leto in the city of Buto. Moving on, Herodotus talks about the highly specialized forms of medicine that they have going on. They have a doctor for everything, even dentists, which like I've never heard of a dentist in antiquity, so it's just cool to see mention of them pop up at some point. But this moves us right along into the matter of death and what happens to the body when someone dies.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  That's right, folks, we are talking embalming now. So we start with the mourning process, which is in a lot of ways incredibly similar to how the Greeks did it. The whole household goes into mourning and in terms of mourning in a household of an appointed man, the women will cover their head and faces with mud. They will then leave the house, loosen their clothings and go about the streets beating their chests. The men will do the same, but in another part of town. After all the lamentations, the body is then taken off to be mummified. This is done by specialists who are very well acquainted with the process. There are three different options based on price.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  And once again, we are met with the well-painted wooden corpses, which show the family which option they can go for. The best form of mummification is thus. First, they insert an iron hook through the nose to mix up the brain and scoop it all out. They also pour some sort of drug into the nose to get the rest of the brainy bits out. And after this, they use an Ethiopian obsidian knife to cut along the belly of the body where they remove the intestines, which they then clean up. After this, they stuff the rest of the body with various good smelling herbs, but never frankincense. They sew it all back up again and then they pickle the body with natron, a type of mineral salt, and pack the body away in a dark place for seventy days.

• 14:27Speaker 03

  On the seventieth day, they wash the body and then wrap it in linen bandages and gum, which they use as glue. After this, the relatives come to retrieve the body, which is placed in a wooden coffin shaped like a person, and then deposited into the burial chamber, standing upright.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  The second method is of moderate cost. That previous one is the most expensive. In this, they use a syringe of cedar oil, which they insert into the anus and then plug it up so none of it can seep out. Which is delightful. The body is then pickled as normal for the usual amount of days. And then the obomers remove the cork so the body can drain the oil, which includes a bunch of other fun things as well. Basically, the body is dissolved by this oil and the natron so that all that remains is skin and bones. The body is then returned to the family. The final cheapest method involves rinsing the guts with a purgative, pickling it as normal for the seventy days, and then returning it to the family.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Herodotus makes sure to tell us that if an important or a beautiful woman has died, the family holds on to them for a couple of days because, well, actually, I think you can guess as to why, which is disturbing, to say the least. If one dies in the Nile for one reason or another, it is the responsibility of the city the body washes up upon to handle the burial rites. In this case, the body is treated with the utmost respect, mummified well and adorned with all sorts of treasures before buried in a consecrated tomb. No one is allowed to touch the body, not even family or friends, as it is believed to have become something more than human. Only the priests of the Nile are permitted.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  The Egyptians shun Greek customs. Most customs, actually. They really keep to their own, which is fair. Yet the one that allowed is, that is allowed is Perseus, as there is a square temple to Perseus in the region of Thebes. Perseus seems to be a pretty big deal to this region. They believe that he visits not only the temple but the entire region, and if someone should find his sandal, Egypt will enjoy a prosperous age. Some Greek practices creep in, namely an athletics contest. The people of this region, the city Kemos, claim that Danaus and Limcaus, four barrows of Perseus, were natives of this region. When he was bringing the Gorgon's head from Libya, he actually first came to Egypt, they say,

• 16:51Speaker 03

  where he visited Kemos and acknowledged kinship to those there. "These are the customs of those who live upriver," says Herodotus. "But those who live in the marshes live similar lives, so not much has changed." But these people have innovated in the way of cheap food and found ways to really get a good snack in for not very much. I'm going on way too long about these practices because I want to go into the history. So I'm going to leave this particular section aside for any who want to explore it for themselves. It's not long, but I ramble and I want to get to the history. These are chapters ninety-two to ninety-nine of book two for any who wish to read. There's a fun bit about fish, which is wild.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  It includes a description of how they they they breed, they how they spawn, where the male fish swims ahead and expels their sperm, to which the female fish then swallows it and is thus pregnant. And you know, that's that's totally how that happens. But let's head to the history after a quick ad break.

• 18:01Liv Albert?

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  Love the crown molding.

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  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

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  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

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  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

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  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye bye.

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• 21:10Liv Albert?

  Yay, well, on to the history now. Hovhadi starts by telling us that none of this he has witnessed himself, which, thanks, man. I kind of guess, but you know what? Good on you. He tells us a little of his research. These are things he heard from Egyptians, the priests, et cetera. Most of this is what he has been told, but he is giving us additional information from his own observation.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  He starts with talking about Min or Menes who ruled from around or in around the thirty-two-hundred to three-thousand BCE range. And he is the one who first built the dikes which protect the city of Memphis. In fact, Memphis wasn't even around until these dikes were built. He started by damming the southern bend about a hundred states upriver from Memphis along the mountains alongside Libya. This caused the area to dry up and diverted the river so it ran midway between the mountains. These dikes were incredibly important throughout time, with even the Persians being deeply concerned with their uptake and repairing any of them as soon as they were damaged. See, if these dikes ever failed, well, the entirety of Memphis would be flooded.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Min also founded the city of Memphis and to its northwest he excavated the lake. He also had a temple shrine to Hephaestus built. Herodotus briefly steps aside now and talks about Min's successors quickly. He tells us that the priests pulled out a list of three-hundred-and-thirty kings total of pharaohs. Of this list, all were Egyptian except for eighteen Ethiopians. And then there was also one woman. This woman was called Nidalekris. That name is familiar, isn't it? It is the same name of a queen of Babylon discussed in Book One that we looked at back in September. The one whose tomb was over a gate?

• 22:57Speaker 03

  Well, this is a different Nidalekris and she did her own little things over here. What we have is that she was apparently a very vengeful, I love a vengeful woman. See, she took vengeance on behalf of her brother who had been murdered. She had an underground chamber built where she then had a formal ceremony ceremony take place in it. She invited all who had had her brother killed to it. And once they gathered, sitting down to feast on all the foods, she had a large pipe which had been concealed opened. And the room was flooded by the river, drowning all inside. There's not much else, but apparently she threw herself into a room full of ashes. I guess that means fire, who knows? Herodotus doesn't have anything else to say about any of the other kings that were on that list.

• 23:41Speaker 03

  Except for the very last, Moeris, the lake one. And Menemhat the Third who had Lake Moeris made? Well, he also had a gateway made in the sanctuary of Hephaestus and some pyramids around the lake too. That's it. The other kings apparently achieved nothing that Herodotus deemed important to tell us about, so we move on. Instead, we're going to talk about their successor, a certain pharaoh Sisostres, who according to some light research appears to be largely mythologized and likely inspired by several pharaohs, including Senusret I, Senusret III, and maybe Shoshank I and Ramses II? Well, this is what Herodotus tells us about Sisostres.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  He started by sailing into the Arabian Gulf and started military campaigns all around, subduing people left, right, and center. After a while, he returned to Egypt and then made up a new army to head into the mainland, subduing left, right, and center all over again. He would erect pillars wherever he met people who he deemed particularly valorless. Or valorful. These are the valorful people. Get it together, Michaela. And on these pillars, he had his name, his homeland, and that he was the one who defeated them on it. For the people he conquered easily, he would erect the same pillars, but on these ones, he would also have women's genitals carved in them. Because they didn't do a good job defending themselves, so yeah, let's put women's genitals on them

• 25:07Speaker 03

  to say that they're weak and cowards. That makes sense, dipshit. Anyways, he did this all over and even crossed through Asia into Europe, where he conquered the Scythians and the Thracians. He made his way back to Egypt at some point, and at the river Phasus and Colchis, along the eastern edge of the Black Sea, either he left some soldiers behind, or the soldiers just said, fuck this guy, we're staying. Herodotus isn't sure, and isn't sure anyone will ever be able to find out. Herodotus tells us this because isn't it obvious that the Colchians are originally Egyptian? Why is this? Well, partially it's because of the way they look. Jesus. But also because they are one of the few people in the world who practice circumcision. And remember that circumcision is a very Egyptian thing to do.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  In fact, he claims that it is only the Colchians, Egyptians, and the Ethiopians who practice circumcision. And you can always tell where the Egyptians had great influence, because there the people would practice it. The Phoenicians and the Palestinian Syrians learned circumcision from the Egyptians, but the Syrians and the Maecronians near Colchis say they learned it from the Colchians. But these people are all following the Egyptian lead, except the Ethiopians. Maybe the Egyptians learned this practice from the Ethiopians, he says, and not the other way around? Regardless, it happened so long ago that there is no way to know for certain, and he is certainly obsessed with this whole circumcision thing. Sestotis's pillars that he erected wherever he went and conquered aren't standing anymore.

• 26:35Speaker 03

  Well, except for some in Palestinian Syria, which have both the inscriptions and the genitals, which Herodotus says he saw himself, so of course, we must trust this. Further, there are two statues of men, one on a road from Ephesus to Phocaea, the other between Sardis and Smyrna, which hold weapons that look both Egyptian and Ethiopian, and are inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics that say, "It was upon my shoulders that the winning of this land was born." But no name, so who knows who put them up, honestly. On his way home from Egypt, he passed through Daphne in Pelusia, where he was invited to dinner, dinner, I can speak, my god, where he was invited to dinner by his brother. His brother who he had left in charge.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Him and his sons went to this dinner, and his brother was just like, I don't know, set a great fire outside the door of the banquet hall so they can't leave and die. Sestotis turns to his wife, because his wife is there too, and asks, "What should they do?" She said that, "Well, I don't know, we have six sons, why don't we just have two of them make a bridge with their bodies so we can walk over them and escape?" Which is what they did. Presumably, they didn't care much for these two sons who died. Anyways, he returns to Egypt, gets revenge on his brother, doesn't say how, and then he has to decide what he will do with all the people that he has enslaved and dragged back to Egypt. He gets them to drag stones that created whatever he had made at the shrines of Ephesus,

• 28:03Speaker 03

  and then he went and dug a massive network of canals that made horses and carts effectively useless. This also made it so that the towns that were more inland, you know, the ones when the Nile was seeded, where they would lose access to clean water, well, now they had access to clean water because of these canals, so hey, there's that. He also did land and tax reforms, I'm not gonna talk about that, you can't make me anyways. More on Sestotis. He apparently was the only Egyptian king to rule Ethiopia, and had six statues made in front of Ephesus's temple. Two of him and his wife, and four of his, the live sons. And when Darius made his way into Egypt, he wanted to have his own statue made and put in front of Sestotis's,

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Sestotis's, say that ten times fast, but the priests said, "No, what have you ever done that has rivaled what he has?" And Darius said, "Fair enough," and that was that. Sosostros was succeeded by his son Pharaohs. On one occasion, the Nile flooded quite heavily and there was great winds that caused the waters to be extremely dangerous. This pissed the king off. How dare the Nile do what the Nile does? So what did he do? Naturally, he took a spear and threw it into the middle of the roiling mass of waves. Immediately after this happened, he was struck blind. The Nile got back at him. He was blind for ten years and then one day an oracle arrived from Buto, you know, the one where Leto, the oracle to Leto is.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  That said, if he wanted to get his sight back, he would have to wash his eyes with the urine of a woman who has always been faithful to her husband. So he started with his own wife and, well, that didn't work. Awkward. And then he tried another and it didn't work and, and this went on for a while until he found one whose urine worked. So, hey, that's great, I guess. He took that woman as his wife and, well, well, he, he burnt all the other women, cuz men, they do this anyways. After Pharaohs was a man named Proteus. I wonder if this name is familiar to anyone? There's a fun little Homeric reference in this section and Herodotus talks about it quite a bit.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  He talks to the priests and asked them to tell him about Helen. It starts with Paris, who while making his way across the Aegean was swept into Egypt. He ended up falling at a shrine of Heracles, a sanctuary where you could not take away any slave after they had been branded by the iron of the god. Well, Paris's slaves learned about this and they went and got branded. Paris got pissed off and tried to get them back, but they went and told on him and told the priests their everything that he had done. The priests got the warden, a man named Thonis, to hear these charges as well. Thonis then sent a message off to Proteus and Proteus ordered that Paris and Helen be sent to him immediately.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  He was horrified by what Paris had done, not only the theft of treasure, but also the kidnapping of Helen. You don't get to do that to a host, he thinks. Well, Paris and Helen make the way to Memphis, where Paris then starts to tell Pausius about everything. Proteus heard it all and then delivered his judgments, which was basically, cool story, still murder. What he did then was he took all of Menelaus's property and locked it up to be collected by him at a later date. And he also had Helen stay with him. He wouldn't let her go off with Paris. And then he sent Paris off back to Troy. Herodotus is fascinated by this account and gives us some passages from Homer to help back up this idea of Helen in Egypt.

• 31:38Speaker 03

  He quotes the Iliad and the Odyssey and then tells what he learned about Menelaus from the priests in Egypt. Menelaus first sent a message to Troy. "Hey, where's my wife at?" The Trojans respond saying, "Hey, we have no idea. She ain't here, but she might be in Egypt. We heard that Paris was there." Menelaus was like, sick, then headed off to Egypt to see Proteus. He sailed up the Nile to Memphis and told Proteus what was going on and, and his property and Helen was returned to him. But he wasn't so great when he left Egypt. See, the winds were sucking. They weren't great. They were sucky winds. Can't, can't sail with sucky winds, so he couldn't get himself out of there.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  His natural inclination was to take two local children and sacrifice them, chopping them up into bits and then to sail off. Really, I don't know. What is up with these men just showing up in places and being absolutely horrendous? It's not fun. I don't like it. Men need to be stopped. Herodotus says this is the Egyptian account and he agrees for many, many reasons, namely that it didn't make sense for the Trojans to keep Helen around. Especially after the Greeks started wrecking shop. And this is a really interesting part. He goes really into his theory about why he believes this makes sense, citing that

• 33:00Speaker 03

  it, the, there was no way that the Trojan king, Priam, or the son Hector would allow, you know, one woman to stay for one of the sons when all these other sons are being killed. It just doesn't make sense and I have to say, I agree with Herodotus. Well, back to Egyptian history. Now we on to Ramsinitus, or Ramsinit, a fictional king, but hey, there's a fun story, so. This guy apparently had managed to amass a great amount of wealth. And he had a little treasury made just off his palace that was made of entirely stone. That sentence made sense. It was made entirely of stone so that it could be kept safe.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  But the craftsman, well, he decided to fit one of the rocks in such a way that it could easily be removed and a man could make his way in. This craftsman then was on his deathbed one day. And he had both of his sons come to him and he told them about what he had done. He told them to go remove it and take some of the money so they could be rich for the rest of their lives. They did this, and the king opened his treasury and noticed that some of his money was gone. He was distraught, upset mentally and will with some of his money missing. This happened a couple of times, so now the king decided to set traps in the room so that he could catch the robbers. The next times the brothers came by to rob the treasury, one of the brothers was caught in the trap.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  At once, he told his other brother to cut off his head so that he couldn't be identified. His other brother was horrified, but after his brother kept telling him to do so, he finally did it and left. The next day, the king came in and saw the headless body. He was surprised but upset that this still didn't solve the mystery. So, the next step was that he ordered the body to be strung up on the city walls. And anyone who was visibly mourning him to be arrested. When the other brother's mother saw what had happened, she immediately chastised her remaining son, telling him that he either had to go admit what he had done, or she would turn him in. This went on for a while and eventually he decided that something must be done. So he packed up a wagon with some wine skins and went to the wall.

• 35:11Speaker 03

  When he got there, he pulled on the fastenings of some of the wine skins so that the contents started to pour out. He started scrambling, oh no, what was he going to do about his wine? Or beer, or whatever it is, the guards noticed this and ran over. They started to fill their own wine skins with the flowing wine, or beer, or whatever it is, and helping him out. They started cracking jokes together, laughing, enjoying themselves until they all decided to sit down and keep drinking. Eventually, the guards got so drunk that they passed the fuck out, man. And the brother cut down his brother's other brother, uh, other brother's body. The other brother cut down the brother's body and brought him home. Well, when the king was told this, he was so bothered, like, oh, my god, can't anyone catch this one guy?

• 35:57Speaker 03

  So he decides to take an extreme step and put his daughter in the brothel with the instructions to not sleep with anyone until they answer the following questions. What is the cleverest thing you have done? And what is the most wicked thing? And if someone mentions these events, she was to grab hold of their arm and not let them go. Eventually, the thief heard about this and decided to play another trick on the king. He finds a s- still-warm corpse? Not gonna question that, actually, I'm just gonna accept it. He cuts off the arm of this corpse and hides it in his clothes. He then makes his way to the brothel and sits down with the what? The woman, the daughter. She asks him these questions and he responds that the most wicked thing he has done

• 36:40Speaker 03

  was to cut the head off his brother's body in the king's treasury. And the most clever was tricking the guards. At this, she grabs onto his arm, but oh ho, it was the arm of the corpse and he runs off. Well, when the king hears about this, he finally concedes. This guy is cool. What a smart, smart guy. It's cuz he's Egyptian. Don't you know the Egyptians are the most clever of all the peoples? And then he gives the thief the hand of his daughter in marriage. Okey dokey. There's also stories of Ramses going to the underworld on various occasions to play dice with Demeter. And he did so good one time that she gave him a golden headdress. Don't you know the Egyptians considered Demeter and Dionysus to be the gods of the underworld? But that's enough about Ramses. Now on to Chiops.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  Chiops is the name Herodotus uses for Khufu, who doesn't have the best of reputations, but he did do something, so, uh, hey. He apparently closed down sanctuaries and didn't allow blood sacrifices.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Not, not a great move, but anyways, let's talk about some pyramids, cuz we do get to talk about that to discuss Chiops. Well, Chiops started with forcing all Egyptians to do labor for him. He gets them to haul large blocks of stones from the quarries in the Arabian Mountains to the Nile, where they are then ferried across, and then they have to be dragged to the Libyan range of mountains. That is a lot of work. The Egyptian people took ten years to just build the roadways that would be used to drag these stones along. The road was so much more than a road, it was made of polished stone and was adorned with carvings all along it. During these ten years, there was also the construction of underground burial chambers for Chiops.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  These were made in the hills where the pyramids would stand, and, and he also made an island with the help of some canals. I say he, he, he made the Egyptian people did, do this, he did nothing, the lower class, cuz you know, that's what they're there for. Well, on to the pyramids. His pyramid took twenty years to build, and Herodotus gives us the very specific measurements of it, which I will not, cuz I don't like numbers. He then tells us about how the pyramid was made so as to look like a flight of stairs, and that it was made from the bottom, not the bottom up, it was made from the very top, and then all the way down, made with winches and levers and machines and the such. I don't know, construction, I'm sorry, I'm a dirty academic, there was a lot of machinery, which is cool, when you think about it.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  What is also cool was that on the ground level, there was an inscription that indicated how much was spent feeding the workforce, which Herodotus is just, you know, blown away by. But we have to shit talk Chiops some more, right? So, Chiops had his own daughter go into a brothel, cuz he was running out of money. He told her how much to charge, which she seemed to do, but she also decided to ask each of her clients to donate a stone for the pyramids. And these stones made up the middle pyramid. Chiops was in power for fifty long years, and after he died, his brother, Chaphren, or Cafri, took over and made his own pyramid, though it wasn't quite as big as Chiops.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  These two reigned for a total of hundred and six years, which, uh, the math ain't quite mathin', but I'm just gonna accept it. And, oh my god, the Egyptians hated them the whole time because the shins were closed and they just generally sucked. This is what Herodotus tells us at the very least.

• 40:23Speaker 03

  Okay, friends, that's it for this week. This episode already feels quite long, although looking at the time, I don't think it is. Um, we made our way through the last of the Egyptian customs and started up on Egyptian history. What do you guys think? I find this to be really interesting, but I also find it difficult to fully understand because I have no idea about anything to do with Egyptian history, right? Like there was a, a, a context that I am entirely missing because my head and my training and my interests sit very solely in the Greek world, some Roman, but mostly Greek. You know, I find it hard to trust Herodotus.

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Uh, but I'm not trying to say that his reporting is flawed or bad in a way, more just that he is a foreigner in Egypt and he is looking at things through a Greek lens, which means that he has a very, very clear bias. I don't think that bias shows up so much, but it would be interesting to compare Egyptian accounts to Herodotus and absolutely someone has done this. Great, if you guys, you could come on, we'd love to talk to you. Um, so we can understand sort of the full scope of what's happening here. Regardless, the stories are fun. I do like a good, zany story. Uh, I love that I can't pronounce any of the names. Great, because I, I mean,

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Chiops is probably more a cheops, uh, but whatever. Uh, the gods are always fun. A quick note on the gods there. They, he'll say things, you know, like the underworld gods are Demeter and Dionysus. And, and I think it's important to remember that this is Greco interpretario, right? This is him looking at Egyptian gods. Um, and seeing similarities with Greek gods and then just mapping them on that way. You know, so he, it's not literally Demeter as, as we have learned it on the show or the Greeks understood it. But it is similar in the way that he could see this character, the Greek, or the Egyptian underworld gods to be like Demeter and Dionysus. And I'm sorry that I don't know the gods' names.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  There is someone out there yelling them at me right now. And just so you know, I love you. Anyways, next week we will finish off book two of Herodotus, which is really exciting. I'm so ready for it. Um,

• 42:54Speaker 03

  how will this end? I don't know. Do you know? We will know. Future tense. Okay. I have to go translate some more Virgil and Herodotus because school is killing me, but whatever. Peace out, home scouts. Talk to you all next week. Let's talk about Myths Baby is written and produced by the one and only Liv Albert. Michaela Pangowish is the Hermes to all your Olympians, the producer. I want my coffee and sleep, but can't have either. Select music by Luke Chaos. Thank you, Luke. The podcast is part of the Memory Collective Podcast Network. A collection of creators that all strive to bring you accurate and reliable information on the ancient world. These include The Wonderful Friends and Movies We Dig, The Partial Historians, Sweet Bitter, and so much more.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Get ad free episodes and much more by subscription to the Oracle Edition on Patreon at patreon.com slash myths baby. Or via the link in the episode's description. Are you a scholar or academic or an expert in something from antiquity, from Greece, Rome, Egypt, or anywhere in the Near East? We would love to have you on the show as a conversation guest. Go to mythsbaby.com slash contact and fill out our podcast guests form. We want to hear from you, so please reach out. Talk to you next week. Bye bye.

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