RE-AIR: Conversations: There’s Much to Do, and Many Unknowns On the Horizon… Herodotus in Egypt w/ Dr Kate Minniti

This episode originally aired in May 2022. Herodotus was an incredibly influential ancient figure... And he also wrote a lot of bizarre stuff. Liv is joined by Kate Minniti who shares all the weird and wonderful things Herodotus "saw" and "learned" in Egypt. Plus, AC Odyssey talk, obviously. Follow Kate on Twitter https://twitter.com/ammit_?s=21&t=hQz2KxLdSuUSR6Dw5AkoFw and catch her streaming lots of Archaeo-gaming content on the Save Ancient Studies Alliance Twitch account https://www.twitch.tv/saveancientstudies! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. 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.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com grouptrip.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I've got big news. I switched to Verizon and got the new iPhone 18 Pro. Shh. I can keep my old phone. And I also get the latest iPhone every year. Shh, anything else? Verizon let me choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on them.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Everybody, listen up.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Shh. Switch to Verizon and get the new iPhone 18 Pro now. No trade in needed. And the latest iPhone every year with Simplicity Plan. Plus, choose Apple Watch Series 12 or iPad on us. Simplicity Plan with Simplicity Pro required. Plan and device payment purchase are separate agreements with separate terms. Service plan for watch or iPad required. Additional terms apply for all offers.

• 1:13Speaker 03

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• 2:10Liv Albert?

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Mid-Spain, and I am your host, Liv. And I'll be honest, this episode is a re-air, but it's been like, god, like at least four years, if not longer. And it's super relevant and also a super fun episode. And so here we are. This week, I have to tell you all quickly first, this week, I finished the edits on my Odyssey. It's going to print any day now. And, oh, okay. It was so good. It's so good. I'm so excited. And also, my nervous system. We're gonna get her back on track.

• 2:51Liv Albert?

  But in the meantime, if I'm perfectly honest with you, my nervous system cannot handle listening back to an episode I recorded with another person because the social anxiety, it's so, hmm, it's so strong. Anyway, we do have a couple new conversations coming, but this week I simply couldn't listen back to myself talking. So, we're doing this one instead. But next week, we're back. And honestly, I realized what Michaela was covering on on her history episodes and Herodotus, and specifically booked to you about Herodotus. And I thought, you know what? Oh, my gosh, I had such a fun conversation with Dr. Kate

• 3:36Liv Albert?

  Minniti, who is an Egyptologist, and also a goddamn delight, and an Archeo gamer. And so in today's episode, she and I talked all about Herodotus in Egypt, and also linked it heavily to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, because why the hell not? And this episode is so fun. We all get to learn the origins of Hippopotamus, the river horse, and what wacky, wacky thing Herodotus was actually talking about. I mean,

• 4:18Liv Albert?

  Basically, Herodotus discovering animals in Egypt is just a core memory for me and a goddamn delight. And I think we all, right now, need something a little bit lighter than current events. So let's go back in time.

• 4:50Liv Albert?

  Conversations. There's much to do and many unknowns on the horizon. Herodotus in Egypt with Kate Minniti.

• 5:14Speaker 06

  I'm like, I'm a jack of all trades. Like, Herodotus is not the topic of my dissertation, but I'm like, I have classics and I have Egyptology and I have classical archaeology. So I'm like, and I've been dealing with Herodotus since high school. We met in high school.

• 5:30Liv Albert?

  I mean, I don't, I literally only have a BA, but I can talk about mythology to the ends of the earth. So it's really all about like the thing you can talk about a lot, right?

• 5:39Speaker 06

  Absolutely. I'm always here for the slander.

• 5:42Liv Albert?

  Right? Oh, my God. Yeah, no, I'm ready for it. I don't know enough about like, because I don't really focus on history much. So, but I the really like, I get that aspect when I'm talking to people like you. So it's very fun for me. Yeah. So let's just dive right into Herodotus, then. Why don't we just kind of start this off? I'm just gonna let my listeners know how this started, this conversation, which was purely a matter of, we did a stream of Assassin's Pre-Odyssey, where Kate was playing. And then that always leads to talk of Herodotus. And then I think you just vaguely were like, I can Talk Herodotus in Egypt. I was like, please, let's do that. Because all of my knowledge of Herodotus is based on Assassin's Creed Odyssey,

• 6:24Liv Albert?

  which, while I think that's perfectly fine, it is definitely not historically accurate in any way, much like Herodotus himself, as I've gathered. So it kind of suits.

• 6:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, he's, he's, he's that kind of guy. Uh, yeah, I, I basically slid into the DMs and say, hey, do you want to talk Herodotus and Egypt? Uh, and the answer was resounding, yes, that was enthusiastic consent. So yes.

• 6:52Liv Albert?

  I mean, any reason for me to have like opportunity to bring up Odyssey in a conversation as well? Because as my listeners have learned by this point, like I did not play video games other than N64, until I bought a PS4 specifically to learn to play Odyssey. It remains basically the only game that I play. I've played like a bunch of Origins. I'll go through like a period where I'll play some Origins because at least it's ancient Egypt. And so I'm like, I can still get my fix of the ancient world. But then I get frustrated with the gameplay and I just go back to playing Odyssey, which I've played through like five times now. Cause I have a problem.

• 7:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, that works. I'm replaying Origins several times. When I want to relax, I just fire up Origins.

• 7:35Liv Albert?

  That's exactly me with Odyssey because I just know the gameplay so perfectly that it's easy. But then the Origins, like if I, because I learned on Odyssey, Odyssey's a little bit fancier. So I always get frustrated with what you can and can't do in Origins.

• 7:51Speaker 06

  Poor Bayek, he's only a man.

• 7:53Liv Albert?

  Ah, it's just so much more tricky. But.

• 7:56Speaker 06

  I know, I know. So, sorry, we just.

• 7:58Liv Albert?

  No, no, I mean, again, I could do it. I can do it anytime.

• 8:01Speaker 06

  Listen, digressions are very Herodotian, so I think we are very on topic here.

• 8:09Liv Albert?

  But yeah, I mean, Herodotus in general is so interesting, like the very idea of him. I've, I've covered very briefly, um, like, I think it was just like two bits of story from the histories in the podcast, which I did like, I don't even know. It was like at least three years ago now. But I know it was like, was, is it Artemisia? Yeah. And, and another woman that he talks about, whose name I've completely forgotten. But basically I was like, well, I found cool stories of women in Herodotus. I'm going to cover them. And that's like all I've ever done. But Egypt was my first love as like just mythology and history general generally like long before I really got into to Greek mythology. So I'm excited to hear what on earth that man did down there and what on earth he came back saying.

• 8:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, so so maybe we can start from like the very beginning like he does and um and introduce Herodotus to listeners who may not be

• 9:03Liv Albert?

  Great idea.

• 9:04Speaker 06

  you know, familiar with him. So Herodotus is apart from being a character in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, he was a historian, a self reclaimed historian. He was born in Halykar Nassus, which is in modern day Turkey, and he was a Persian subject. He was not a member of like any Greek police because at that point Persia heads ruled over Anatolia. And he is the hmm the scion of a tradition of people trying to make history and trying to write about history with, you know, differing outcomes. And he tries very hard to. So his his goal

• 9:47Speaker 06

  is to write and he says this like at the very beginning of his of his book, which is well, it's titled by the Alexandrian scholars who then reorganized it and divided and everything. As you know, Alexandrian scholars, they reorganized everything. They had issues. He says he wants to tell the story of how Greece and Persia came to blow. And he takes it very, very, you know, large. And so he takes it from very far. And he starts with mythological women being kidnapped between Africa and and Europe, between Asia and Europe, actually. And so he talks about Aio and he talks about Europa. And then he talks about thieves and the foundation of thieves and your boy Cadmus. And he he tries to give this

• 10:32Speaker 06

  very large over, you know, overarching arc of history in which everything has brought to the point of the Persian wars, which he had not seen in person. He would have been a baby, maybe when the when the second one happened, but he Tells us that he had interviewed people that had been in the wars, or that he knew people who knew people who were in the wars. And so he's trying to build this sort of big project to explain why this animosity had, you know, had developed between the two, the two empires, although Greece is not an empire, should have not used that word, but you know, he's trying, that, that is his goal.

• 11:15Speaker 06

  And in this, in this, in his work, he tries to also describe the Persian Empire. And the way in which he does is he does these giant digressions in which he's talking about things that are in the Persian Empire, but not necessarily related to the Persian Wars, and Egypt is one of them. So it is very easy to take book two, the part of book two that is about Egypt as a a nice fun, you know, historical experiment about describing Egypt or like its ethnography or anthropological studies and everything else, but it's actually still part of Herodotus' agenda of describing the Persian Empire and then explain why they started the Persian Wars. Wow, I didn't take a single breath.

• 12:02Liv Albert?

  I know that feeling well. I like, just love the idea of like their intentions behind everything, you know, and like what that really does end up saying about what the actual writing is. And then so often that gets kind of forgotten when people are reading it now because it's been twenty-five hundred years. And so it's like, you, you often just read what they're writing, you know, at face value. I've encountered this primarily in Plato talking about Atlantis and just the the way I can't seem to fully get through to, to some people, the idea that like, no, but all of it is a lie. So you can't, you can't question any of it. So somebody recently like, Uh, gave me a review where they kind of asked a question about Atlantis, which is not an easy way to respond to anything.

• 12:48Liv Albert?

  But they were basically like, well, but like, but Solon talked to people or something. And I was like, no, you, you're if by like believing that Solon talked to Egyptians about Atlantis, you are inherently ignoring the primary point, which is that like, there's literally no evidence that the person talking about Solon had any contact with Solon, or maybe was even real at all.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  Exactly, or that Solon ever actually went to Egypt.

• 13:10Liv Albert?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 06

  People would fight you about.

• 13:13Liv Albert?

  Let alone like talk to somebody later who talked to somebody who then talked to Plato, or not Plato, who talked to Socrates, who then talked to Plato. No, anyway. That's all I can think about when I hear this talk of, of like, you know, the, the reasons why I think Herodotus was writing. So, but the Egypt, and now this is me completely having no grasp on, on the history, which I really should have a better one, but was Egypt taken over by the Persians?

• 13:38Speaker 06

  Yes, it had been taken over in, what twist, in 525 BCE. It had been taken over. The last pharaoh of Egypt was a really sad affair. Not him, but like what happened to him because he was taken and deported as an enslaved person, which is a very sad way of, you know, ending a glorious tradition of everything. But he is also, so we, we don't really know what happens to him. Yeah, so, um, so Egypt is under recommended rule. They absolutely hate it. We are told in non-certain terms by Egyptian sources and other sources that they did not like the Persians.

• 14:20Speaker 06

  And Herodotus makes a point in telling us about how Cambyses, who was the, uh, the Persian king who had conquered Egypt, was a terrible man. He killed the Apis pool. He disrespected all the gods. He looted, you know, temples and everything else. There's really no record of this in Egyptian sources, which is on the one hand, if anything horrible had befallen them, maybe we have, we would have no record because Egyptians tended to. Let's just say glide over things that were not properly favorable to them. But on the other hand, there's really no record of this and it would not make sense because this is one of the things that happened with Egypt and we see that with Alexander and the Romans too.

• 15:03Speaker 06

  You go there, you need to adapt. So you take an Egyptian name or, you know, the Egyptian transliteration of your name. And you are represented according to Egyptian art canons and you do all the things that you need to do. So it's not like the Persians rolled in and decided, no, this is, you know, this is Persian territory now. So we're doing everything according to Persian customs, which is something that they don't do to begin with. The Achaemenid Empire leaves relative freedom to people to worship and do as they, as they will, as long as they pay taxes and give troops to the empire. And this also, I know, thanks to another podcast, which is the History of Persia podcast.

• 15:46Speaker 06

  That is the source of my knowledge of the Achaemenid Empire.

• 15:49Liv Albert?

  Amazing. Now I know what to listen to.

• 15:51Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, it's riveting. But yes, Egypt is not, like, it's not its own empire anymore. It is not as great as it was, let's say, a thousand years before. It is diminished somehow. It has been, like, there has been like a resurgence period right before the Achaemenid conquest. The 26th dynasty with the capital in Sais, which is in the delta, has reconquered Egypt, done great things. They've done a great PR work around the Mediterranean in trying to establish themselves again as like an international superpower. They trade, they, they send donations, fantastic donations to Greek sanctuaries and international sanctuaries.

• 16:33Speaker 06

  And among which, you know, and among these kings, there's like Amazis, who is in Herodotus. They start making, like, they're producing art that is like reminiscent of the art of the great kings of the previous dynasties. They make scarabs with the cartouches of great kings of the past, which maybe is a way of saying, look, we are here now. So we're going to be just as good as them. At the end, it doesn't really work out, but it is a good period. And this is also the one on which Herodotus has like the strongest grasp because it had just happened. Anything before that, let's just say, it's a slightly less historically accurate.

• 17:15Speaker 06

  Let's put it this way.

• 17:17Liv Albert?

  I'm excited to hear some of the wild things he said too, because I feel like that's what I tend to hear most about Herodotus is like the absurd stuff he says.

• 17:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, so at the beginning, he states um his methodology. He's really trying to be as accurate as he can and as method uh methodical as he can. So he says, oh, so my methodology is verifying things and I am going to use hearsay from the Egyptian priests themselves, or from other Egyptians, or from other Greeks that live in Egypt, but I'm also going to use the literary tradition, the Greek literary tradition. So he's gonna use, of course, Homer, because Homer talks about Egypt. And he's going to use Anaximander and Hecateus of Miletus, which were his direct predecessors

• 18:05Speaker 06

  in writing histories about Egypt. Um, Hecateus of Miletus had been to Egypt and he had been made fun of by the Egyptian priests, who were taking no prisoners. Um, and Herodotus also makes fun of him for having been made fun of by the Egyptian priests.

• 18:24Speaker 06

  And he's, he's trying, he's trying to be rigorous in his scholarship. The problem is that his scholarship has a purpose. It's, he's not writing an ethnographic treaty for the sake of it. He is writing because he wants to verify Greek traditions. Uh, so probably he's asking leading questions to the priests. He's also writing to illustrate um and confirm like uh the Greek moral universe in which he's saying his, his tales, he's spinning his tale, and how the world works, which is how the Greeks wanted to work. And many motivations and characters are a little too conveniently consistent

• 19:10Speaker 06

  with his themes. So there's some, you know, uh, so his methodology is like very clear, very open, but the goal behind it is, you know, an agenda, if that makes sense.

• 19:23Liv Albert?

  Yeah. So if he's like born in Halicarnassus, traveling to Egypt for all of this, like where does he, do we know where he gets this desire to emulate the Greeks? So specifically?

• 19:35Speaker 06

  Well, so the, that part of the Persian Empire had been.

• 19:41Speaker 06

  Greek before it was Persian.

• 19:44Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 19:44Speaker 06

  Because that's the one that starts the Ionian. Yeah, yeah. So the Ionian revolt is there.

• 19:49Liv Albert?

  Well, if it had been Hellenized before and then he can, then they were Persian. And then he's growing up in this world that's Hellenized, but is Persian. Like, that makes sense where that kind of background is coming from. And yeah, that, that.

• 20:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:03Liv Albert?

  That makes sense.

• 20:03Speaker 06

  He's also, he's also writing in Greek and Greek is his first language.

• 20:07Liv Albert?

  Right. Yeah. So it's just a very Greek place for being under the Persian empire at that time.

• 20:11Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 20:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 06

  Exactly. But the problem of the language also opens up several questions about how he's interviewing Egyptians.

• 20:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 06

  There's no, that's the reason for the Egyptian priests to be speaking Greek, especially not the Egyptian priests in like, you know, down, down in the country. So they may have used interpreters. And I mean, God knows what, what they understood, what they told each other, you know, it's, it's always a matter. And some, in some places you can, like, he says, oh, this is what I understood from what the priest was, were telling me. So, you know, there's, there's some concerns there about things getting lost in translation. As a bilingual person, I would, you know, I know that sometimes you want to say A and then B comes out and it sounds weird. So the, the bigger thing that he is doing with his Egyptian logos,

• 21:02Speaker 06

  uh, which is Egyptian, you know, um, books, is trying to prove that many of the things that the Greeks have come from Egypt. Because Egypt, as, as we know, was considered, was held in very high regard from the Greeks because it was a very ancient civilization. They were revered as doctors, uh, priests, magicians, slightly orientalistic. I mean, I hear, you know, Edward Said rolling in his tomb, but you know, uh, they were, they were held in very, in very high regard. So Herodotus is trying to, um, to prove that like many things that the Greeks were doing well, uh, are coming from Egypt, including the gods, which is one big thing.

• 21:46Speaker 06

  Because sometimes when people read book two, he's using the Greek names of the, uh, like the Greek names of gods to indicate Egyptian gods. But that's not because he's trying to make it easier for his readers. He's actually saying these are the same gods.

• 22:02Liv Albert?

  Interesting. That that's so interesting and it's funny because I like I fairly recently covered Memnon and and then just generally like myths from Greece that were about Africa. And just the way that specifically with Egypt, you can tell in so much of Greek mythology that they wanted to connect themselves with this incredible civilization that was so much older than them. And, you know, and I think I used what I think is a good example in that episode of just imagining being a Greek in that time and you go somewhere and the pyramids are so much older than you.

• 22:41Liv Albert?

  And like imagining exploring a place where like you barely have, like you've got your temples, but you know, if you're talking really early in Greece, the temples are nothing compared to the pyramids and you're seeing this place and you're like, oh, my God, like, holy shit, who are these people like? Well, if Greeks are anything, we must have have some connection to them. So I just always love the myth of Io, right? Like Io goes down and she travels all around and then she has a family down there and then they go back up to Greece and you're like, okay, well, that's your way of saying not only are the Egyptians more ancient and impressive, but they were Greek first.

• 23:16Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 23:17Liv Albert?

  The Egyptians are actually Greek and like, oh, I just love the way they kind of bend over backwards to to have that kind of like impressive backstory.

• 23:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, he's really, really trying. And this and with the gods is fantastic because like the the lengths to which he goes to try to fit several Greek gods onto like to map them onto Egyptian gods.

• 23:40Speaker 06

  Sometimes it's it doesn't quite work.

• 23:42Liv Albert?

  No, their gods are so different.

• 23:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, he has. He has always been like, oh, well, Amun is Zeus. And I'm like, okay, well, he's technically the head of the pantheon, but Amun is not a sky god. He's the hidden one. He's like the god. You know, like, okay, well, that's that's fair. And like a moon has the the ram horns and Zeus sometimes has the ram horns. Okay, I can see that. Hathor and Aphrodite, that's okay. You know, fertility goddesses, sex, drugs, you know, happiness, music. Okay, that I can see that. Uh, then when you get to like, oh, um, Neith is Athena. It's like, yes, a warrior goddess. That's fair, but Neith is not a goddess of crafts. She's really like a warrior. Hmm, hmm, questionable, rise Helios. That's fine. You know, the sun god and everything else.

• 24:27Speaker 06

  And then you get like, oh, Isis is Demeter. No.

• 24:31Liv Albert?

  Why? Yeah, I don't do that.

• 24:34Speaker 06

  No, that, that's, that doesn't, that doesn't really work. And like, I, nothing against Demeter. Like Isis is the great of magic. She's like the, like, one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful Egyptian goddess. She knows the secret name of Ra. She can control him because she knows the secret name. And Demeter is really not that.

• 24:54Liv Albert?

  No, she's important, but in her own way of like.

• 24:57Speaker 06

  Right. And the similarity is from, is from the story of like Isis going around the earth to try and gather the pieces of her husband. Which fair, Demeter does that, but just to find, to find her daughter. Uh, but then he conveniently ignores the rest of the story and the rest of, the rest of what Isis is. And the fact that her child is not a daughter, but like a son. So it's, it's, it's, it gets complicated. And even like Osiris and Dionysus. Yes, um, Osiris gets killed and then is kind of reborn, but he's still a mummy. And he's still in the underworld. He's the ruler of the underworld. So by those standards, he should be hated, but he's not.

• 25:37Liv Albert?

  That is, yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 06

  See, see what I'm getting at? It's, it's complicated.

• 25:41Liv Albert?

  Osiris as Dionysus is like, I don't get that at all. Just Egypt is so interesting because there, you can make other, like, obviously there's a lot of connections between gods across the Mediterranean, but it is harder to map them on to Egypt than it is even to map like Phoenician gods and like an Assyrian gods onto Greek. Like they fit better than the Egyptian ones do, at least in my limited knowledge. But you know, like.

• 26:08Speaker 06

  And, and the other issue with Egypt is that like every province or city has its own very specific gods. There are so many, there are so many. And sometimes he takes a very specific god from like a smaller province and makes it into, you know, a larger one. And that doesn't really work. Or he takes a goddess that is relatively important because she's one of the, of the two ladies that signify Egypt. Like she's the goddess Wajah and she's a snake. And he says, oh yeah, she's Lito and. Why? How? How did you get there? How did that, you know, how did that happen? And of course, he tries to fit in Greek mythological figures and heroes.

• 26:49Speaker 06

  But he has to kind of make them into gods. So he has, oh, clearly Epaphos, who is the, the son of Ayus, clearly the Apis bull. Which was a relatively new cult in Egypt at the time, uh, relatively new, like a millennium. Uh, so you know, relatively new in Egyptian.

• 27:05Liv Albert?

  In the Egyptian, yeah, no other culture.

• 27:08Speaker 06

  Egyptian times. Um, or he's trying to say that Heracles is clearly Egyptian and he's, uh, the god Khansu. But Khansu is a, a lunar god and yes, he's, he's a warrior, but he's mostly a lunar god and he's a god. He's not a hero. So he's, he's trying, he's trying to make this, or, uh, Perseus. Um, he says, oh, he's the, probably the god of Akmin, uh, but the god Min is clearly not Perseus. Um, he, he. I, I was about to say something vulgar. Um, I'll say this and then we'll cut it. He has something long and jutting and it's not a sword. He's an etifalic god.

• 27:45Speaker 06

  He's trying to make these things, but he wa, he really wants to make this connection and to cram in the Homeric tradition. Into the chronology and mythology of Egypt.

• 27:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Do you want me to cut that out? It was a good joke.

• 28:00Speaker 06

  We'll think about it.

• 28:02Liv Albert?

  There's way worse on my podcast, that's all.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  Surely, surely.

• 28:07Speaker 06

  No, Min is, is a, is a very etifalic fertility god and, um. When the Christians were trying to erase, uh, some of the gods, or at least the worst parts of the gods. They chiselled out just his erect penis, but now it's even more visible. On the wall, on the temple walls, because that's the only part that chiselled out. It's like. That is not the wing you thought it would be.

• 28:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, it backfired somehow. Anyways.

• 28:37Speaker 06

  So no, back to, back to Homer. So he's trying to put in, um, the Homeric tradition. Into Egyptian history. So he's taking literary figures and trying to make them into real figures. Which is not unusual, but it's, uh, it's not as graceful because he's trying. To work out the Egyptian chronology, following the literary tradition that gives dates for the Trojan War.

• 29:05Speaker 06

  And so he crams in, um, what's his name, uh, Proteus? In between kings, because it's like, well, this is when we know the Trojan War took place. So clearly this is where this king would have fit in Egyptian history. Which is not how history works.

• 29:24Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, it's just that sort of, uh, I suppose it kind of almost fits with like the notions generally behind like pseudo archaeology. You're like, I have this point, I want to prove it. So I'm going to take my preconceived point and I'm going to nestle, nestle it in to actual history and just decide that it fits there because I want it to.

• 29:49Speaker 06

  Yes, yes, he's, he's, he's really trying to like, he, he makes like a really good, like solid reasoning with chronology. The problem is that the chronology is off.

• 29:58Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 29:58Speaker 06

  There's no chronology because Proteus never existed. Uh, and he's cramming it in there with, with real people. So that's, uh, you know, that's, that's kind of an issue.

• 30:06Liv Albert?

  Any chronology based on the Trojan War is going to have an issue.

• 30:09Speaker 06

  Several, several.

• 30:13Speaker 06

  But he's trying, and he's trying to identify, you know, where Menelaus and his people, uh, landed and where, you know, where Paris and Helen landed. But this is also interesting because Euripides has not written Helen, uh, yet.

• 30:27Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 30:27Speaker 06

  So this was, this must have been an earlier tradition that he somehow caught, you know, and tried to work it into his, uh, uh, digression about Egypt, which is very interesting. Probably, I, I don't know if it was because he just wanted, you know, to prove once more that Egypt was connected to Greece, or if he just thought that was cool and that Proteus needed to be an Egyptian pharaoh and he had to put it into the, the list of kings. One also has to wonder if his question, because for anything that he says like, oh, and the priest told me this and that. So one has to wonder if he literally asked the priest, oh, do you know of this tradition? And they were like, yeah, sure, whatever.

• 31:13Speaker 06

  And

• 31:13Liv Albert?

  He's like, it's proof, it's true.

• 31:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, it is absolutely true. They're like, yes, sure, sure. It is, it is 100%. Mm hmm. Yes, excellent.

• 31:24Speaker 06

  But he's, he's, he's fine. And he's trying, so the division of the book, because I realize now they're like, I'm talking about this book like everyone knows how it's divided. It's, okay, so let me go back. So the first part, he's talking about ethnography, anthropology, religion, daily life, social classes, all sorts of things. And then the second part, he is getting straight into history and chronology, getting it wrong. For some ways, like the, the main periods in which Egyptologists divide the history of Egypt is there. But he, um, he misses the pyramid builders by like, I don't know, a few millennia. Um, somehow, you know, easy to overlook.

• 32:08Liv Albert?

  Sure, yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 06

  And then he's, he's much better at history that was like a century old than, than anything before that. But his, his observations about the country are fantastic and wild. The, the, the thing that always struck me the most, and actually the first thing we translated in high school about Herodotus is when he says, oh, Egyptian men and women behave completely opposite to how Greek men and women behave. And then he proceeds to list, um, a lot of things that somehow are absolutely contradicted by art history, um, and archaeology and what we know. He's, he has ideas. Uh, he says, oh, you know, uh, the man, like everyone relieves themselves, um, inside instead of outside, which, okay, fair.

• 32:57Speaker 06

  I mean, they had shaper pots and everything else. That's okay. Women, uh, pee while standing and men crouch. You're like, first of all, why did you feel the need?

• 33:07Liv Albert?

  Like, why?

• 33:10Speaker 06

  To, to include this. Um, second of all, oh, okay. Uh, then he talks about, you know, how they, how they carry weight when they go to the market, um, and he misses. Um, then he talks about using the loom. Certainly true for his period, but it was not always the case. He's making a lot of weird.

• 33:31Speaker 06

  Claims that are easily disputed by simply looking at the art or reading texts. Uh, he's, he has ideas and he tries to put in like, um, some, for instance, um, some taboos about food. But he gets them. So he gets the taboo right, but for the wrong reasons. Uh, so it's like, oh, they don't eat, um, fava beans because like in the Pythagorean doctrine, they are impure and that's actually not true. Uh, they, I mean, one of the commentary says, oh, fava beans that were probably considered impure, not because of the Pythagorean, um, doctrine, but because they, they cause gas. And so you don't want to eat them, especially if you're a priest and you have to present yourself to the God every day.

• 34:15Speaker 06

  Which makes sense. You, you wouldn't want to, you know, um, pass gas in front of your God. He is absolutely spot on on the fact that there are many, many, many, many, many animals being worshipped. He gets that right. Uh, what he gets absolutely wrong is the description of several animals. Um, so let's, let's, let's get into that. So he, he talks about crocodiles and he says, oh, they're giant lizards. Okay. Fair enough. Uh, they're big reptiles. They're, they're evil and mean. And they get, uh, you know, they get hunted by hanging like an animal on the probe of a boat. And then you catch the crocodile and that's all. I mean, you wouldn't really want to catch a crocodile, but we have representations of people hunting crocodiles.

• 35:00Speaker 06

  Uh, for that. So that works. Then he goes into.

• 35:03Liv Albert?

  This episode is brought to you by Quince. You know, the drill. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and premium stretch denim. I have been speaking into a microphone about Quince for a while now and I have no complaints. I have a bunch of their stuff. I've got a couple cute sweaters that, I mean, it's, it's nearing sweater season. So those will be back in the rotation anytime now. And I have this leather bag that I absolutely love. It's like this braided. Leather and I use it like basically every day because that's the thing they have really

• 35:46Liv Albert?

  great basics like they have really great things that you can wear with so many other things just the options are endless and as the weather gets colder like all the sweaters in my closet quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe from warm responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch and of course everything at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you're paying for quality not brand markup and if we haven't learned anything in the last 10 years isn't it just getting rid of the middlemen you know making

• 36:28Liv Albert?

  things more affordable so find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at quince download the quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too and when quince asks where you heard about them let them know it was me let's talk about myths baby it's the best way to support the show

• 36:56Speaker 01

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• 37:09Speaker 02

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• 37:27Speaker 03

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• 37:33Speaker 04

  Love the crown molding

• 37:34Speaker 03

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• 37:38Speaker 04

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• 37:42Speaker 03

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• 37:49Speaker 03

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• 37:51Speaker 05

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• 37:58Speaker 06

  Hippos. And I, I, I don't know. I don't know. He describes something that has hooves, a snout like a horse, a mane, fangs, a tail, and makes the sound of a horse.

• 38:16Liv Albert?

  I've got so many questions.

• 38:18Speaker 06

  I've, I've many questions. We know that he takes this description from Hecateus of Miletus, who clearly had never seen a hippo in his life. However, first of all, hippos were there at the time.

• 38:30Liv Albert?

  Like in Egypt, you mean?

• 38:31Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. And they were, you know, even if you are very cautious and you don't want to go meet a hippo in person, which is advisable because hippos are the devil, as we know from many streams of Assassin's Creed origins.

• 38:46Speaker 06

  They are very common in art because the hippo is an animal of the god Set, which is the god of, let's, let's say the god of chaos, but you know, several caveats and an asterisk there. But also, female hippos are the incarnation of the goddess Tauret, who is a protectoress of pregnant women. So she is a standing pregnant hippo with a wig and knives who protects pregnant women.

• 39:13Liv Albert?

  Well, that's incredible.

• 39:14Speaker 06

  So the question is, how did he never see the representation of a hippo? Or maybe he saw it and made the connection, but didn't have the right word for it?

• 39:27Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, and my initial thought was like, something around the word itself, which is one of my favorite ancient Greek, two English words of river horse. So maybe it's like more like he's, because it sounds like what he's describing is more like a river horse versus an actual hippopotamus.

• 39:49Speaker 06

  Right. So, but then maybe he saw like the representation of these chunky units of animals and did not ask what they were?

• 39:56Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 06

  Did not make the connection? It is, it is somewhat, somewhat weird. And some people also say that he has never, like, he, he never actually went to Egypt. And that's why he gets so many things wrong. But I think he gets so many of them right. If, you know, by his weird interpretation that I don't see why not. I mean, he does get right the snakes. He says that there are vipers with horns. Very true. I mean, they don't have horns, so like little, little things on their heads, but in writing, they actually have little horns. Uh, he talks about um, winged serpents, which is another favorite, uh, flying serpents with wings. And um, many possible explanations for this one.

• 40:38Speaker 06

  Uh, there are winged serpents in art, which is fair. Uh, cobras have the, the hood that they flare.

• 40:44Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 40:44Speaker 06

  And I've learned, uh, to my horror, that some, some serpents actually jump. They fling themselves. So, probably, probably that. Uh, you know, is, uh, that he, that he got right. Um, he has a whole thing about some weird fishes. Once again, why, he wrote it as why, he says, oh, these fishes eat, uh, eat the eggs, and so they try to kill each other. He observes something that happens, but it's not what he thinks. He thinks that the, the male fishes are eating the eggs and then trying to kill the babies. When actually for this type of fish, and I went into a horrible Google dive,

• 41:25Speaker 06

  the, the eggs actually end up in the mouth of the female and they just, you know, stay there until they hatch. So he's, he observed something and got it wrong.

• 41:35Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 41:36Speaker 06

  Can't hold it against him.

• 41:37Liv Albert?

  I just love the curiosity inherent in all of this, where somebody's, and I, I mean, I'm sure it's just also like a matter of existing in the ancient world versus now when we have so many answers. But like, I just want that curiosity of like, going around and looking at things and being like, why does this happen? Like, why does that fish have eggs in its mouth? Why is this serpent flying? Like, I just love that idea. It's so precious.

• 42:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, he's, he's, he really like, and uh, some of these touches are like, true enough to like, make me think that he really went and observed. Um, I, I have to wonder what the Egyptians thought about him. Uh, because he went a bit around asking weird questions and asking leading questions about it. Be like, yeah, sure, whatever, whatever you say. But he seems, he's very curious. He's always asking why, and he's always trying to offer an explanation for things.

• 42:59Speaker 06

  Sometimes he sees... Here's the problem. So, his sources are not historians, right? The Egyptian priests do not make history. They record whatever it is that they need to record for theological reasons or for propaganda. And so many times the explanations that he gives are either theological explanations or straight-up Egyptian propaganda that he's eating up and he doesn't even realise.

• 43:25Speaker 06

  So, when he talks about the phoenix, that's a theological thing. The phoenix is the Bennu bird and he's Osiris. But he looks like a real bird that lives in Egypt. So he's not catching the theological part of the bird and he's taking it at face value. Says, "Oh, you clearly have a bird that actually is reborn from his ashes." Or, you know, when he talks about animal worship, he gets many, many things right, but other he gets wrong. When he talks about the Apis bull, he's saying, "Oh, the priests are checking out these animals that they want to sacrifice because they need to be pure enough."

• 44:08Speaker 06

  And actually, no, they're probably checking that they're not sacrificing a bull that could be the incarnation of the Apis. So he's observing stuff, but he's really missing the religious substratum of many things that he's seeing. Or misses it, like he talks about dying by crocodile or drowning. And he says, "Oh, the people who are eaten by crocodiles or drowned are made into gods." And that's not how it works, right? How it works is that in the tenth hour of the night, the god Horus goes down to the underworld and lifts up the people who have drowned or have been eaten by crocodiles to bring them

• 44:52Speaker 06

  to the afterlife because they haven't had the proper burial. So he's not getting it completely wrong, but he's still missing something.

• 45:00Speaker 06

  Infuriating, but also very endearing.

• 45:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it sounds like it's it just probably also all comes down to like if he did go to Egypt, then his biggest issue was that he didn't speak Egyptian. So he didn't get to ask the follow up questions, right? Like he had one or two questions and then he based all of his studies off of that versus like actually asking multiple questions and getting more details like, you know, I mean, it sounds like it would be pretty easy to sort out like, oh, you mean, not all of these birds are born from their ashes? It's just this one story and it looks like this actual bird? Or or yeah, like, wait, wouldn't that make for a lot of gods if everyone who drowned or was eaten by a crocodile?

• 45:45Liv Albert?

  Ended up a god? Like, I think I'm missing something here. Why don't I drill down and get some details?

• 45:51Speaker 06

  Exactly, exactly. But like for some things, he's um, he's really not not catching. Um, or like when when he talks about religion, he misses completely how it is practiced. He talks about, you know, big concepts and everything else. He has a vagueness of what the Egyptian pantheon, one of the Egyptian pantheon looks like. And he tries to make several of the gods into the twelve Olympians. But these are like the eight gods of one particular province, to which he adds three, because well, four, because he has to get to twelve. But that's not for all of Egypt. So he's he's missing out, he's missing out on on some things. And he has zero awareness of like why the rituals are performed the way they are.

• 46:37Speaker 06

  So for instance, mummification, right? For like, if you open any book about mummification, you will find a lot of his writing and and then the Doriculus about mummification. But that's not how that's it's not that simple because it's, oh, there are three tiers of mummification. The first one is, you know, you make a cut and then you remove this and that and then you clean it, you know, cut it, sew it back on and wrap the person and then off you go. And then the second one, you just, this is gonna get really gross.

• 47:07Liv Albert?

  Please, I love mummification.

• 47:09Speaker 06

  Fantastic. Yeah, I I I wish I could say the same. I don't.

• 47:13Liv Albert?

  I mean, I don't want to get mummified, but it's also interesting.

• 47:16Speaker 06

  It is. It is interesting.

• 47:18Liv Albert?

  I I might have seen the movie The Mummy like a comfortable 200 times since it came out.

• 47:23Speaker 06

  Not the new one, I hope.

• 47:24Liv Albert?

  No, gods, no.

• 47:25Speaker 06

  Oh, OK. Thank you.

• 47:27Liv Albert?

  No, no, 1999. I'm sure I watched it on day one, and I've been watching it ever since.

• 47:32Speaker 06

  That is a great classic, which has more accurate things than you would expect.

• 47:39Liv Albert?

  I'm glad to hear that.

• 47:42Speaker 06

  I'm also a fan. So he says, wait, what? Oh, yeah. The the second one is you basically. Oh, how to say? Um, you inject a a a substance inside the person and then you um you plug them and then you wait. And then when you uh pull the plug, uh all the insides come out. I I really don't have. I I don't think my English is good enough to express this. In a more refined manner.

• 48:07Liv Albert?

  That was pretty good. That's pretty disgusting.

• 48:09Speaker 06

  And the third one, uh, yeah, and the third one, you um you get like maybe a a sheet, like a a shroud. And then you get yeeted into the desert um in in a hole. And the desert preserves you. He's making it very simple. He's also making it um unnecessarily, you know, uh tiered. Uh, we know that not everyone who was rich was mummified the same way. We know that the techniques changed. Uh, toward, you know, in different time periods. He doesn't seem to really understand why the bodies need to be preserved. Which is, once again, him not understanding the theological part.

• 48:52Speaker 06

  Because uh the body and and that's that's, oh my, that's uh related to another big thing that he really, really misses. He says that Egyptians are the inventors of the theory of uh Metempsychosis, which is reincarnation. No, absolutely wrong. Like, this, that that's probably like the biggest mishap, more than displacing the pyramids by like several millennia. Because that's.

• 49:18Speaker 06

  I mean, you can kind of understand why, I'll get to that. But like with with the reincarnation, he says, oh, the Egyptians invent them at Themyscira. He's like, no, there's nothing more wrong for Egyptian doctrine, because you have five, there are five parts to a person. There's the name, there's the body, there's the spirit, there's the, what we can call vital force, and then there's the magic. And you are complete if all of those survive in this life and the next one, which is why you need the body to be preserved. And you want your name to be preserved, which is why you write your name on fucking everything. And, you know, outside of your tomb. And that's why when someone needs to be erased,

• 50:02Speaker 06

  because they've done something unspeakable, you erase their name. So you really hope that they will be annihilated in in the afterlife and they will not survive. And Herodotus completely misses that, but like, and also with this conception of only having like one, let's say, one life. You understand that Metempsychosis is not possible, because you can't reincarnate. You are one, and that's all there is.

• 50:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 50:29Speaker 06

  Right?

• 50:31Liv Albert?

  That's so interesting. I didn't know any of that about Egypt. So now I'm just taking that all in.

• 50:36Speaker 06

  Do I have reading recommendations?

• 50:38Liv Albert?

  I love it. No, I've been, I mean, if I'm ever going to move on from Greek broadly in the podcast, it's going to be into Egyptian, because it's the only other one I really care about.

• 50:48Liv Albert?

  But I like basically haven't learned more about it since I was young. But that's, that's so lovely. I didn't, yeah, I didn't realize that it's all about, everything else can survive, but you have to keep the body.

• 51:00Speaker 06

  Like, yes.

• 51:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 51:02Liv Albert?

  Oh, that's lovely.

• 51:03Speaker 06

  You really, you really need to. And it's, and that's also why the body is protected. And if you have some missing parts, from a certain period onwards, you get a substitute, let's say. So when when certain parts are missing, if you're very rich, you can get like a gold replica of them. If not, you can use wood or other stuff. And also, the whole body is covered in amulets, and they're very specialized. So you have one for the heart, you have some for, you know, the limbs, and one to give your voice, and one to preserve your spirit. It's like, it's a whole process. It's not just cutting someone, getting the things out.

• 51:41Speaker 06

  You know, closing them and then, and then off they go. Uh, it has, it has a ritual. I can't believe I'm saying this word. It has a ritual meaning.

• 51:51Speaker 06

  Uh, that he kind of, he does, he doesn't get it.

• 51:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Well, it'd be hard because when you come from a world that is so completely different, like the, really, the Mediterranean has a lot of similarities, except Egypt stands out in a lot of really interesting ways, like mummification and everything to do with that. But yeah, if you're, if you're not in a position to like, wrap your head around something that's so completely different from the life you lead, you come up with all these bizarre explanations or simplifications instead.

• 52:24Speaker 06

  Yes, he's, he's simplifying some things, also because he's trying to make them fit into his worldview.

• 52:31Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:31Speaker 06

  So they have to make sense for what he's trying to prove with his writing. So he's trying to, to cut down and, you know, and make it, and make it more simple. And sometimes he ends up making it more Greek, like when he talks about warriors. They're kinda too similar to the Spartans. Um, so you know, he's not, um, he's not really spot on there. Or when he talks about the priests, um, he says, oh, every god has like seven thousand priests, but like, uh, they only worship one god. Uh, and so you're only specializing in one god. True for some. He says there are no female priestesses.

• 53:11Speaker 06

  Which is, so for the Greek conception of what a priestess would be, yes, he is right. For the Egyptian idea of what a woman might do in a temple, he's wrong. Because we know that there are, uh, people who are like chantresses for the gods and they are, you know, they are adoring the god. So there is this one priestess who is like the, the god's wife of a moon, who is basically a high priestess of a moon. And he has a sort of like, a whole lot of duties that the males cannot fulfill. Uh, because they're also related to, you know, the fertility of the god and all, all sort of weird things going on with the statue of the god. But he's, uh, he's kind of missing some of these.

• 53:52Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 53:52Speaker 06

  And he also divides, and this, this is a big thing. He kind of divides, uh, society into, um, layers.

• 54:03Speaker 06

  But he doesn't seem to understand that someone could be many things at once. So like even in many history books, when you see, oh, the, the group of the scribes. But a scribe is almost never only a scribe. Because many noblemen are general of these, overseer of these, royal scribe. Um, so it's not like a profession, it's more of a title. And he's kind of not getting the sense that many of these titles can overlap in the same person. Even among priests, you can have someone who is, you know, the second prophet of these and also working as something else, or someone who is, you know, uh, the chief of seers of this god, and then he's also doing something else.

• 54:49Speaker 06

  And he's, he seems to have weird ideas about, uh, priestly practices. In terms of like, um, they, they need to abstain from this and that and everything else. I was like, yes, but they're not in service for the whole year.

• 55:03Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 55:04Speaker 06

  So they need to abstain from sex, um, for instance, like when they're in service, but they're not in service for the whole year. They're doing like a month, three months, everything else. But like, many things are lost on him. I wonder what these priests were tell, were telling him, to be fair.

• 55:22Liv Albert?

  I like the idea that maybe they were just fucking with him, you know?

• 55:25Speaker 06

  I love the idea. They did fuck with, uh, with Hecateus, because he went there. And this is Herodotus telling us. So he's, he's kind of throwing shade. He tells us that Hecateus of Mylatos went there, uh, to do ethnography, botany and everything else, and myths and cartography and geography. And he told the Egyptian priests, oh, my, I don't know, sixth generation ancestors were gods. And the priest opened the door to a room that was full of statues of priests. Up to, I don't know, the 30th generation, right? These were all men, children of men, so you're saying bullshit. Uh, and Hecateus was just like, yeah, that's it, owned and, and left. Uh, and this is Herodotus telling us.

• 56:06Speaker 06

  So he's not trying to claim that his ancestors were gods. But he still tells us that gods did walk, um, in Egypt at the very beginning of their story, which is 100% Egyptian propaganda, and he's just giving that up.

• 56:23Speaker 06

  He's he's hearing that and he's like, yeah, yeah.

• 56:26Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:27Liv Albert?

  Totally checks out. This place is magical. So yeah, what other kind of, or are there other good examples of stuff that's just straight Egyptian propaganda versus him misunderstanding everything?

• 56:39Speaker 06

  Who? I mean, yes. So when he starts talking about pharaohs, he has a few. So he changes all the names because he says the names in Greek. So we have to interpret who's he's talking about. So he talks about, you know, um, Seisostres, which is Aes and Wazret. Which one? There were several, we don't know. One of the probably the third one because because of what he says. Uh, and then Moeris, which is Amunhot, um, Amunemhat. And then he changes. And then he's the one who gives us Kyos, uh, Kyops, Kefren and Mykarinos for the names of the pyramid builders, uh, which are like his

• 57:18Speaker 06

  kind of okay transliterations of like the phonetic rendition of the names of the pharaohs. So that's good. And sometimes you can see the Egyptian propaganda like coming out and slapping you in the face. Like you're saying, oh, Seisostres conquered up to, you know, up to Skithia and then down to Kush. And then he went all over the place. Um, and this is like a double layer propaganda because on the one hand, we know that Samwazret the third was really big on his own propaganda because he did went to Nubia. He did conquer and then he built these giant ass fortresses on the border, on the Nile, to prove that that was his territory.

• 58:03Speaker 06

  And he put up stele everywhere with him trampling over the enemy. Well, every pharaoh did, but he was like really big on that. And his name was associated with like this, like. The myth of this like great warrior, great conqueror. However, he never went past, you know, the northern borders of Egypt. So where did he get that from? And the general idea in the scholarship is that um the Egyptians kind of made that up to prove that he had been bigger than the Akhenaten, who never conquered Scythia, right? They went to uh tried to conquer and then they never did. And then once Alexander rolled in and he had actually conquered more, then of course they wanted to claim him as one of their own and the heir to these big pharaohs.

• 58:48Speaker 06

  So um he's, you know, he's he's taking all this propaganda, like when he talks about uh Ramsinitus, which is Ramesses, pick your Ramesses, because there's like eleven of them, building all over Egypt and doing this and doing that. And it's like, hmm, that sounds like Ramesses the Second, who did exactly that. Um, he was a great PR man. Uh, so he's he's reading this. And also, interestingly, he's also reading the unfavorable Egyptian propaganda on some of the kings.

• 59:18Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 59:19Speaker 06

  So he's getting that the tea and he's dishing it out in Greek. So when he talks about Khops, there's a whole tradition that depicts him as a tyrant, uh as a terrible man. And he absolutely repeats that uh when he talks about um, I think it's Mycarinus. And he has like a smaller pyramid and so and that like he he has like a favorable reputation in later Egyptian sources. So he says, oh, he built like smaller pyramids because um he had lost his daughter. And so he decided to build, you know, smaller pyramids to to remember them. Or when he talks about and and he gets into one of his favorite topics, which is prostitution.

• 59:59Speaker 06

  When he talks about uh Khops not having enough blocks of limestone for his pyramid. And so he forces his daughter to become a prostitute. And she asks for um money and limestone blocks for each of uh of her customers. And this is like, wh- where where did he get this from, right? Uh, or he says like, he does like um a weirdly Greek with Egyptian undertone taste of like a proto Cinderella. Uh, of someone who loses a sandal uh and an eagle grabs it and brings it to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh searches the whole land for, you know, this woman's sandal and then he marries her.

• 1:00:40Liv Albert?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:44Speaker 06

  He's, you know, he's merging together like some very like Egyptian literary tropes and then, and then Greek folktales. So like, he tells a lot of things that you read them and you're like, this, this is a folk tale. This is not propaganda. This is not stuff. So like, um, you know, brothers like, uh, betraying each other and killing each other. The tale of the, of the two brothers that are stealing together. One of them is trapped and the other one to not, to not have his brother identified chops off the brother's head and runs away with it. It's, it's a whole of, it's a whole of weirdness. He's, you know, uh, he has like all this information that comes from all sort of, you know, propaganda and biographies and also like, uh,

• 1:01:28Speaker 06

  some didactic literature that he kind of misinterprets. There's one passage in which he says, "Oh, um, when they, uh, have banquets, they have little miniature coffins with a dead man inside, a fake dead man, like the model of a dead man and like a, a sign that says, remember to enjoy life now because you're gonna be like me."

• 1:01:50Speaker 06

  The thought is in line with Egyptian literature because we have plenty of poems that say, "Live now because when you're dead, you're not coming back, you know, and you're not gonna enjoy anything." Uh, but that doesn't mean that they would have little, you know, memento mori coffins at, uh, banquets. So he had learned something from the literature and then probably seen something and put two things together that really did not go together. But I love him. He's fantastic.

• 1:02:21Liv Albert?

  That is morbid as hell. I would love if that was true. Like, that is just so over the top and like dramatic in the best possible way.

• 1:02:33Speaker 06

  He, he really has the flair for drama. There's, um, another story about a cow. Um, so I think it's, I think it's once again, Micaelinos's, uh, daughter who knows that she has to die. And she asks to be put into a, the, this, this basically sarcophagus shaped like a cow and to be brought back out, um, to see the light of the sun once a year. And you're like, wait, what did he see that made him jump to that conclusion?

• 1:03:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:04Speaker 06

  Uh, and this is probably one of the um, of the Uziria uh, festivals of koyak, which is a festival of um, how do you say, of like, when, when the crops are ready and you just harvest and the harvest, there we go.

• 1:03:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:15Speaker 06

  Um, and they would take out, you know, a statue of the goddess Hathor in her shape of a cow and bring it out.

• 1:03:23Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:23Speaker 06

  Or, you know, uh, or something of the sort. So he's, he has some notions of Egyptian literature, uh, like especially about older kings, more ancient kings, but then he has this tendency to put it together in in weird ways and mixing folk tale things and Greek moral teachings, which are very different from Egyptian moral teachings.

• 1:03:49Liv Albert?

  Now I can't get over why he would say Isis is Demeter instead of Hathor. Like, is Hathor better connected to Aphrodite?

• 1:03:58Speaker 06

  Uh, yes. Um, and she's also connected to Astarte.

• 1:04:03Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:04:03Speaker 06

  And Astar, she's like a very, yeah, she's a heavily uh, fertility related goddess. And she also appears as a cow, uh, which would make also sense with Demeter because Demeter appears as a Tauropolos. So she's like on the, on a bull, but then again, I mean, Hathor for Aphrodite makes more sense. Although, and this is, this is where he really, like the, so in Egypt, there were temples to Aphrodite, especially at the time that he, he visits. Uh, we know that there's a big temple to Aphrodite in Nocratis, which is a Greek city in Egypt, in the delta. And that's where like, he really knows what he's talking about.

• 1:04:44Speaker 06

  And so they knew Aphrodite, but they did not really identify her with Hathor in there, uh, because the dedications are all in Greek to Aphrodite.

• 1:04:55Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:56Speaker 06

  So, but I mean, I, I see where the, oh, fertility goddess. Pipeline goes, but the Isis Demeter is most probably because of the of the underworld situation, although Isis like only really deals with the underworld when her husband is chopped to pieces.

• 1:05:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and Demeter only deals with it when she's searching for her daughter, but she doesn't go there, like she notably doesn't go there. So yeah, that's so interesting. I just, I mean, and I guess it all comes down to the very nature of like, they can't be equated because they are very different goddesses all across the board. But it is just so interesting thinking about that because like, because technically Demeter is also a fertility goddess. She's just like a less traditional, like a less sex fertility goddess and a more like earth fertility goddess.

• 1:05:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, and he also, he also puts like, um, like, um, Isis also as like Selene, as like the moon, which is not entirely correct because, uh, the moon is a man. I mean, in Egypt, the, it's, it's a moon god and not a moon goddess. And also, which is another thing that really sent Greeks in a loop, um, the earth is male and the sky is female.

• 1:06:09Liv Albert?

  Hmm, very different.

• 1:06:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this, this must have, must have looked weird to them, but for the Egyptians, it did make sense because the, the fertilizer is the man. And so the earth being really fertile clearly is a man. And also sometimes the, the sky goddess is said to give birth to the, the sun god every morning, which is why the sky is red. So they had a good explanation for that. But he's, he's, he's kind of, kind of missing this. He does get, however, the, the, like, the, the good connection he makes

• 1:06:49Speaker 06

  is like, um, Hephaestus is Ptao Memphis, which is like spot on because Ptao is a craftman. He is the one who makes, well, in one of the many traditions, he makes humans. Um, and he is, I mean, he's not a blacksmith, but he, he, he works things and he's the craftman god. So that, that one's like, yeah, that one he got right. That was easy. But, but he's not. But he's not the unwanted uh child of anyone. And he's actually in a somewhat happy marriage with the lion unheaded goddess. And their son is a lotus flower. So it's a good family. Um it's a happy family.

• 1:07:32Liv Albert?

  Very unlike.

• 1:07:34Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:07:35Liv Albert?

  Not a happy family. Oh, I just I I just find it so interesting that just the ways in which the Egyptian gods are so different and so unique and like just the animal nature of all of them too. Is so different from kind of so many other of the regions. I just they're they're generally just so extra fascinating, which I'm sure you agree because you study Egyptology.

• 1:07:58Speaker 06

  I do. I I've studied these things. Like I'm probably like if I had gone there as a, you know, as a carrion in the fifth century, I would have also been very taken aback by the fact that they did worship things. Oh, my God, we need to talk about the cats. So

• 1:08:11Liv Albert?

  Please.

• 1:08:12Speaker 06

  I for how did how did I forget the cats?

• 1:08:16Speaker 06

  Greeks did not have cats at this point. So he he goes um and he sees these these these weird animals that are worshipped. And he gets rightfully the sense that Egyptians were bonkers about them. So he tries to um he tries to explain how the cats behave. He kind of fails. And then and then he says that when there's a great fire, the cats jump into the fire. Uh and Egyptians jump into the fire after the cats because they are so valuable. Not untrue. That they would probably jump into the fire for their cats. However, I don't think cats would jump in.

• 1:08:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it seems unlikely.

• 1:08:57Speaker 06

  It seems unlikely, like they would probably just cause the fire and then run, you know, and then like it.

• 1:09:01Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Speaker 06

  Uh but he gets it that he's fascinated by these animals, which I mean, they're they're very important for Egyptians because they eat the rats. Uh which were an absolute plague when you have grain, when your whole economy is based on grain. Um or when you have poisonous snakes or like snakes that are, you know, uh they're not deadly, but like the really unpleasant. You want these animals to be to be on your on your good side. Um and they've had them for like ages. And Herodotus is like absolutely fascinated by these people's love for for the cats. And then he also talks about other animals uh that like that they use to fight the to fight snakes and and rats. He talks about ichneumons, which are.

• 1:09:43Speaker 06

  Kind of mongooses, I think they're the kind of mongooses, but sometimes, and this this sends me in rage, in um on museum, uh in museum uh labels or like in books, just like, oh, and these are river otters, like, no, they're not otters, they're, these are, these are mongooses.

• 1:09:59Liv Albert?

  Interesting. I don't know anything about mongooses, but.

• 1:10:02Speaker 06

  They are, um, think Timon, but like, but like Egyptian.

• 1:10:08Liv Albert?

  Okay.

• 1:10:09Speaker 06

  Like slightly chunkier, um, and then there are like other, I think ichneons are of the, hmm. Like, yeah, they're they're called Egyptian mongooses, and they're like, they really don't look like otters, but in art, unfortunately, they kind of look like river otters. Um, and some of them have like the solar disc on them and everything else. And he's he's fascinated by all these, all these weird animals. He's absolutely taken with the fact that they worship them, um, that they worship the crocodiles. And sometimes they dress them up and spoil them. They were, I mean.

• 1:10:39Liv Albert?

  Explain.

• 1:10:41Speaker 06

  How do you dress up a crocodile? Well.

• 1:10:42Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 1:10:43Speaker 06

  Um, so in certain uh cities, uh, there was a cult of the crocodile god Sobek. And we are told that they would have like, um, let's say sacred crocodiles that they would feed. Uh, probably in like, um, canals or like basins, um, linked to the temples or sacred enclosures. Some crocodile mummies have holes drilled where the ears, in theory, should be, if you were looking at a, at a human face. And so people have hypothesized that maybe they were putting earrings on the crocodiles. Now, did the crocodiles like that? I find that hard to believe. Would a crocodile let you put earrings on them?

• 1:11:28Speaker 06

  I also find that hard to believe, um, but, you know, maybe, maybe. But they were spoiling them and feeding them, which is something they did. I think other, in other, um, in other nomoi, they had, you know, sacred rams and or, you know, other sacred animals. And he is absolutely fascinated by these. The word that he uses to describe most of Egypt is Solma, which is the, I think it's the Doric version of Thalma, which is like a wonder.

• 1:11:57Speaker 06

  All in for it. It's like this place has most wonders than any other places, place on earth. And he's also ready to believe some things that are not true, but they are propaganda about like how things are real. So he sees Lake Moeris. And somehow he understands, and we don't know if they tell him or he understands that that was a manmade lake that a pharaoh had made. It's a giant lake. It's, it's not manmade. But he's like, yes, they totally did this. It's like 100%. I believe that. I buy into that. So, you know, he's, um, he's buying this and then, um, he talks about the labyrinth. And you're like, the, the what? The what? And it's like, yes, there's a labyrinth and there's, you know, and there's a pyramid on top of the labyrinth and everything else.

• 1:12:40Speaker 06

  And then when you look at it from an Egyptian archaeology perspective, you realize what it is. It's not a labyrinth. It's a tomb.

• 1:12:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 06

  It's a big mortuary temple for the worship of, um, Amenemhat III in the Fayum. And it has many rooms and many corridors and many other things. And then there's a pyramid, like not on top, it's like a little forward. But to someone who came with ideas.

• 1:13:06Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:07Speaker 06

  Labyrinth ideas that would have looked like a labyrinth. So he's like absolutely making a mess out of things. He's describing, describing some things that exist. But the how and why he gets kind of wrong. Same for the pyramids. Or, you know, the, um, uh, when he says how they were built, when he talks about, um, other buildings, he's using Greek construction techniques.

• 1:13:34Speaker 06

  And ascribing and twitches says, oh, they used cranes. And I'm like, no, they did not have cranes when they were building the pyramids. Like, oh, they only used iron tools. They're like, ah, also wrong. They only had copper at the time. It works. It works. Experimental archaeology has proven that yes, you can cut granite with copper and sand and a lot of patience. But they had patience and time. So he's, um, you know, he's, he's, he's trying, he's trying his best. Um, and then he's, and then when finally he talks about. Saidic Egypt, so from um six hundred and sixty four-ish uh onwards. Then he's actually spot on with the with the history and whatever happens. Then he's like talking about something that really happened.

• 1:14:17Speaker 06

  Anything before that questionable? And he also talks, and this is the the funniest cross reference that we have. He talks about the famous um Heterai, or if you prefer prostitutes of Nocratis.

• 1:14:34Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 1:14:35Speaker 06

  And he mentions one of them called Rhodopis, so um rosy cheeks, who was so rich and so famous that commissioned golden, giant golden skewers to be put in Delphi on her name. And he also tells us that this is the same courtesan that Sappho's brother had freed and spent all of his money on. And we have this fragment of Sappho insulting Aphrodite and asking her to bring back his her brother because he's squandering all his money on a prostitute from Nocratis. So.

• 1:15:14Liv Albert?

  Oh, that's so fun.

• 1:15:18Speaker 06

  So he's he's getting the ancient tea um kind of getting it right. It's possible that someone from Nocratis dedicated the skewers. But then he also adds that she was freed, I think, along like Azotus, who was also enslaved, and that's like totally bonkers. That's like not really, that's like another tradition that he he we've seen. And so he he takes something that is like that that happened, which is what Sappho tells it happened. And then he puts it on top of something that was real, which is that Nocratis being a harboring had a lot of prostitutes. And then he adds donations to Delphi, which is a it's a it's a it's a trope in literature, right?

• 1:15:58Speaker 06

  We uh we're told, I don't remember who it is, that um Phryne, the famous um Athenian Heterai, wanted a statue of hers in uh in Delphi. And she also offered to reconstruct the walls of Thebes if the Thebans had put the sign saying, oh, Alexander destroyed it and you know, and Phryne rebuilt it and they were like, no, thank you. So

• 1:16:19Liv Albert?

  That would have been cool.

• 1:16:20Speaker 06

  Fine. We'll pass on that man. But you know, but he's he's just mishmashing together all these various informations. Uh, and his, his portfolio of Egypt is fantastic and fabulous. But I, I, I would love to go back in time and be like a fly on the wall and see what the priests were thinking and saying.

• 1:16:41Liv Albert?

  Yes. Oh, God, I feel that way about so many different things, but this might be a new one for sure.

• 1:16:47Speaker 06

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:48Liv Albert?

  But like, yeah, just the way these misinterpretations happen and what kind of was going on in people's minds? And what were they saying? And what were they already like, had stuck in their head that they couldn't get rid of? So it just like reinforced all their ideas or, oh, man, especially like, I think this just makes me think that, that Odyssey really, really does Herodotus quite well because he's just so like, I mean, he's always asking questions, but he's also just kind of like there, sort of existing and being slightly obnoxious. But in a fun way, you know, kind of threw out.

• 1:17:27Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm sure like, I mean, I'm sure. I don't know. I'm not that old, but like, maybe real life Herodotus was like that. Um, you know, he, he might have been chill dude, then like,

• 1:17:39Speaker 06

  I mean, it takes like a lot of intellectual curiosity and like also a good dose of guts to just travel to Egypt. At that point and just, you know, trying and ask, um, he probably didn't travel through the whole of it because he omits, what is arguably like one of the biggest cities, which is Thebes. He talks about Thebes because he knows about Homer. But from the things that he omits, um, it's clear that he doesn't go there because like some of the biggest festivals in the Egyptian year were in Thebes, like the festival of Opit and like the beautiful festival of the valley, which is a great festival of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and the dead.

• 1:18:18Liv Albert?

  Amazing.

• 1:18:18Speaker 06

  Which takes place down there. And he probably wasn't there for the whole year because he says, oh, it never rains in here. We know, no, it, it, it did rain. But he's probably not there for the time. But I, you know, I like to believe that he went and he was just, yeah, trying to learn the things and saying fascinating and looking at things and

• 1:18:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Speaker 06

  obnoxiously poking the priests and asking them, but do you know about this tradition? And they were like, yeah, sure, sure.

• 1:18:42Liv Albert?

  Sure, just go away. Yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, please. We need to worship. Just, just go away. Just leave us alone.

• 1:18:50Liv Albert?

  It's interesting. Does he make like a lot of the connections between like Greek and Egyptian Thebes? Because I would think that if you're trying to like make these explicitly kind of Greek connections alongside Egypt, then Thebes is a really good example because I actually recently found myself, I've clearly like not been clear enough with my listeners because I had a listener ask me saying they'd heard of Thebes in Egypt and was that wrong? Were they talking about the Greek one? And I was like, oh, God, no, no, no. The Egyptian Thebes was way more important than the Greek one. Sorry if I've ever suggested otherwise.

• 1:19:26Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:29Liv Albert?

  But yeah, it's just so interesting that they have the two.

• 1:19:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, but he doesn't go there. He knows about it. And probably like the name Thebes is his version of one of the names of Luxor, which is Taipet, which is the temple, because it's the temple. There are other interpretations, but this one, I mean, it makes sense. But he doesn't talk about it a lot because he, he stops in like Middle Egypt. He doesn't go in Upper Egypt.

• 1:19:59Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:19:59Speaker 06

  And there's already a lot to do. And also his main interest in like the Homeric connection is with the Delta because of Helen.

• 1:20:08Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:20:08Speaker 06

  And Menelaus and Paris. He knows more or less where Egypt ends and like how far down it is. But he doesn't, he doesn't even go there, unfortunately. It would have been cool if he had seen Thebes. He would have been impressed with Thebes. And I mean, God knows what he would have understood. But Theban theology is, is complicated. Menfeid theology is also complicated. Also, Pet Thebe, he doesn't learn or doesn't talk about one of the big creation myths, which is absolutely crazy, which is the one of the great honker. So at the beginning, there is the waters of the noon, the waters of the nothing.

• 1:20:48Speaker 06

  And then an egg comes out and out of the egg comes the great honker, which is Agus, which is the sun god who honks everything into existence.

• 1:21:00Speaker 06

  There is a beautiful, beautiful figuring of these among Tutankhamun's grave goods. And it's amazing. I'm gonna send it. I'm gonna tweet it at you because it's fantastic. The great honker. I mean, if they had told me, told him, his mind would have exploded.

• 1:21:18Liv Albert?

  Yeah, mine, mine basically did.

• 1:21:22Liv Albert?

  So that just makes me think too, then, so that the Egyptian name for Egyptian Thebes, that's a Greek name that we use now. Is that right?

• 1:21:32Speaker 06

  Yes. Yeah, the Egyptian names for Thebes were wasit.

• 1:21:35Liv Albert?

  Ah.

• 1:21:36Speaker 06

  So which is, which is why we're like kind of confused where he got Thebes from. Because the Egyptians did not call it Thebes. But then if you think like Taipet, which is kind of close. But there's also the, the question about the name Egypt, right?

• 1:21:52Liv Albert?

  Right.

• 1:21:53Speaker 06

  So where, where did he get that from? And this is, this is something that I learned in high school first and, and learned again because I had forgot about it. Probably he gets like the name Egypt, which, whoa, this is my throat telling me to stop. And comes from, so in, in, in Greek is like Iguptos. But, and it's probably coming from the Egyptian name for the Temple of Time Memphis, which is, now I don't want to mispronounce it, so I'm gonna look up the transliteration.

• 1:22:27Speaker 06

  Because, you know, otherwise UCL is gonna revoke my,

• 1:22:33Speaker 06

  my degree is Hudkaptah. So from Tahudkaptah to Iguptos, if it was not pronounced how I pronounced it, but it was like slightly more aspirated and everything, chances are that the name Egypt comes from there. So.

• 1:22:52Liv Albert?

  And then they wrote it into their mythology.

• 1:22:54Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:55Liv Albert?

  Like I O.

• 1:22:57Speaker 06

  Exactly, exactly. We're just regurgitating Egyptian propaganda and Greek propaganda.

• 1:23:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:04Liv Albert?

  I love that bit of Greek propaganda, though. I could just keep talking about it because it's just so clearly an example of them being like, "These guys are really cool. We want to be cool like them. How can we write it into our origin mythology that we are cool like the Egyptians?"

• 1:23:18Speaker 06

  This is like the OG self-insert fanfiction.

• 1:23:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah, they're retconning Egyptian history to just make the Greeks seem so much more cool. Oh, yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, these are, these are the same gods. And then, I don't think it's him. I think it's Diodorus that says, "Oh, but actually the Egyptians worshiped animals because the Greek gods ran away and turned into animals and ran to Egypt. And so the Egyptians saw them and they were like, "Yes, we will worship these weird gods that are in shape of animals, but actually those are the Greek gods." So it turns it on its head.

• 1:23:53Liv Albert?

  That's amazing. Yeah, that's even more ridiculous. Like, just really bending over backwards to make this fit your narrative.

• 1:24:01Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's, uh, yeah, it's, it's, it's complicated. And the fact that some of the animals are like really not Greek makes it even funnier because like, "Oh, and Artemis became a cat." And like, "You didn't have cats until like 100 years ago. What are you talking about?"

• 1:24:16Liv Albert?

  Well, yeah, and like crocodiles and hippos, like, those are not in Greece.

• 1:24:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Herodotus also talks about bears, which is, which is somewhat of a, of a weird thing. We know there were bears in the Near East, but not wild bears in Egypt. So maybe he was told, maybe he saw them or representations, but weird, weird. But he must have had, he must have had a ball with all these weird animals. He doesn't talk about giraffes.

• 1:24:45Liv Albert?

  That's unfortunate.

• 1:24:45Speaker 06

  Alas. Well, giraffes were also imported, so maybe they were not importing them.

• 1:24:50Liv Albert?

  The, I've been learning modern Greek, and one of my favorite things to learn was that the word for gra, or for giraffe is just spotted camel.

• 1:25:00Speaker 06

  It's Camelopardus in Latin.

• 1:25:03Liv Albert?

  Camelipardali in modern Greek.

• 1:25:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:25:07Liv Albert?

  Spotted camel and you're like, okay, I can see where you got this. You saw camels first. Yeah, you're like, I'm familiar with camels. And then you see this big one. Sure. Does it have a super long neck? Yes, maybe it's just freakish, but it sure does look like a spotted camel.

• 1:25:21Speaker 06

  It does. Well, I mean, the, the name obelisk is like a big, a big skewer. And you're like, yeah, yeah. I can see that. Yeah, yes. That is what, and like, and, and crocodile is, is a big lizard. You're like, that, that works. That works. A big murderous lizard.

• 1:25:38Liv Albert?

  Leopard is spotted lion.

• 1:25:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's true. That's true. And then there's the mystery of the hippo. So, who knows?

• 1:25:45Liv Albert?

  River horse that doesn't remotely resemble a river horse in any discernible way.

• 1:25:51Speaker 06

  It's not a horse. It doesn't have hooves. It doesn't have a, it doesn't have hair. It's just, it's got the fangs, but like, they're not really, I mean,

• 1:25:59Liv Albert?

  they're like, and they're blunt. Yeah, they're not. Yeah. They don't even really look like fangs in the same way, you know, like they look much, they look dangerous, but they don't look like sharp fangs.

• 1:26:08Speaker 06

  They are dangerous.

• 1:26:09Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Those things are terrifying. Much like unlike horses. It's just so, I love it. Yeah. And I just, it's gotta be the only English word that's like a direct Greek word too of like, this is direct to Greek words put together and then put into English. Cause I think that's, that's pretty rare that it doesn't even get adapted much. It's wonderful.

• 1:26:32Liv Albert?

  Anyway, let's talk about etymology forever. Um, this has been so much fun. Thank you for telling me everything about Herodotus in Egypt and all of his wild and wacky things. Like, I was slowly transitioning into the, the podcast into like, what are the weirdest things from the ancient world? What are the most bizarre examples we have? Like, Alcestis started today on the podcast, a series on Alcestis.

• 1:26:56Speaker 06

  I can't wait.

• 1:26:57Liv Albert?

  Oh my God, I had so much fun. I didn't know what it was when I started. I was just like, it's a Euripidean tragedy. And then my, I'm reading it and I'm like, no, it's not.

• 1:27:05Speaker 06

  No, it's not. What is this? What is this? Also, I've met a sigh. Anyways.

• 1:27:10Liv Albert?

  Oh my God, I admit it sucks. Yeah, no, and I uh, soon on the podcast, I'll be reading. Uh, what else was I doing? Oh, I'm just doing um, the Batra Cat, Batra Comio Macia.

• 1:27:22Speaker 06

  Macia, yes.

• 1:27:23Liv Albert?

  Is coming next month. And then after that, I'm just doing a straight reading of Lucian's True History. So I'm just really like, I'm having a great time on like, what is the batshit stuff from the ancient world? And let me share it with everyone. So I feel like Caradus fits really well.

• 1:27:43Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. Uh, so much, so much for his attempts to be a historian. Well, he tries.

• 1:27:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah. He made a valiant attempt. I mean, it was a different time. It would have been very hard to do much better than he does. Like, it would have been difficult.

• 1:27:58Speaker 06

  It would have also been very hard to try and parse the Egyptian propaganda because they don't write down anything else. So they, they just cancel kings and, you know, conveniently forget defeats or turn draws into victories. I'm looking at you, Rasmus, just a second.

• 1:28:15Speaker 06

  You know, his, his task was monumental. Um, but yeah, apart from the hippo, you know, he kind of got some things.

• 1:28:25Liv Albert?

  I mean, he had fun along the way.

• 1:28:28Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, surely, surely.

• 1:28:31Liv Albert?

  Oh my God, that's so wonderful. Well, um, I will let your throat have a rest and let you go. But why don't you tell my listeners like where they can find more or follow you if you want or watch your streams and all that fun stuff?

• 1:28:45Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, sure. Uh, so well, first of all, thank you for having me. Uh, and I, I hope that like my giant ramble, uh, discussion about something that is equally as rambling made sense.

• 1:28:56Liv Albert?

  Absolutely. My favorite thing is just to get people rambling because I think it's just so much fun. Like, at least it's fun for me and my listeners never complain. So I'm just assuming everyone loves it because it's truly wonderful.

• 1:29:06Speaker 06

  Uh, that's very easy to get me rambling. So, um, I can be, I can be found, I can be spotted in my natural habitat, um, on Twitter.

• 1:29:15Speaker 06

  At Amit with an underscore, so A M M I T underscore. Yes, that is the name of the eater of souls in ancient Egypt. Yes, that is also the name of spoiler alert, the villain in Moon Knight. Um, so my girl is getting. She's getting a bad rap. She has no agency. Anyways. And I stream for Save Ancient Studies Alliance, SASSA, on Twitch every Friday at 2:00 PM Eastern Time. And that is so twitch.tv/saveancientstudies. We are doing an ArchaeoGaming series. Right now, we are streaming Uncharted 4 with a bunch of archaeologists.

• 1:29:56Speaker 06

  The next game we are going to stream is going to be Heaven's Fault, which is a delightful game that has to do with Egypt and sci-fi and deciphering things. And then for the next installment, I think after the fall, we have to start Tomb Raider, because it is necessary.

• 1:30:16Speaker 06

  Like ArchaeoGaming 101.

• 1:30:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I think that is everywhere I am.

• 1:30:26Liv Albert?

  I mean, that's great. Twitch stuff is so fun. I've never, like, because I've just never been in that world. Like, I thought I would have trouble watching somebody else play a game without me playing. So my first experience with any of it was streaming with you and just watching. And then I was like, no, wait, this is fun, because particularly because I love that game so much. But, like, yeah, I can see the appeal, for sure, of, like, watching people play all these games.

• 1:30:47Speaker 06

  Start your own series and also come back as a guest. We will be delighted to have you again.

• 1:30:51Liv Albert?

  Very, very happy to come back as a guest. Whether I figure out the technology and, like, give up the fact that Odyssey is my, like, I eat an edible and shut down and play Odyssey at night, I don't, like, I couldn't do it the same way.

• 1:31:09Liv Albert?

  But yeah, maybe one day, but I'll definitely come back as a guest.

• 1:31:12Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. We have things planned for Mother's Day. We have Oedipus Dating Simulation for Mother's Day. You have no idea.

• 1:31:22Liv Albert?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:31:22Speaker 06

  You have no idea.

• 1:31:24Liv Albert?

  Okay, I'm gonna be in Greece. I'm gonna try to watch that from over there. Well, truly, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. It was very, very fun.

• 1:31:34Speaker 06

  Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. Less for my throat, but that's my problem.

• 1:31:56Liv Albert?

  Let's Talk About Myths, Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians. She honestly handles so much, particularly while I'm away. Just a true lifesaver and always willing to help out with more. I absolutely love her. Stephanie Foldy works to transcribe the podcast for YouTube captions and accessibility. Plus, as I've been saying, we have an intern this month. Have I actually worked with her by the time I've recorded this? No, unfortunately, she doesn't start until I'm already in Europe. Such is life. Grace Roby, I am sure she's going to be so helpful. The podcast is hosted and monetized by Acast. I am Liv and I love this shit.

• 1:33:32Speaker 03

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 1:33:38Speaker 04

  Love the crown molding.

• 1:33:40Speaker 03

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

• 1:33:43Speaker 04

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 1:33:47Speaker 03

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

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 1:33:54Speaker 03

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

• 1:33:57Speaker 05

  Get Verizon FiOS because when you're moving, it's 100% or nothing.

• 1:34:03Speaker 01

  Enemy of My Dreams by Jenny Williamson is a historical romance novel set in the time of the late Roman Empire, where Alaric, a brutal Gothic warlord, and Julia, a Roman princess, with a love of good wine, team up to take down Rome.

• 1:34:20Liv Albert?

  The much awaited sequel, Game of Thieves, comes out December 8. In this sequel, Julia and Alaric must overcome centuries of conflict to work together, or the turbulent riptides of rebellion and the demons of their past will tear them apart.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  And now, for a limited time, when you preorder Game of Thieves through Burning Pages Bookstore, you'll get a signed book plate and a free art print of one of Jenny's favorite spicy scenes from across the series.

• 1:34:48Liv Albert?

  Get this amazing artwork only from Burning Pages at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves. Don't wait. Order your copy from Burning Pages today at burningpagesnc.com/game-of-thieves.