Egyptian Horned Viper

Stuart and I started the new game last night. I hope it went well character creation took a lot longer then we we thought so we only got through about a fourth of what we had planned.

Art

goal for the week 20hs

Today 

still sanding

Animal

photo by Jwinius

Mythology

It can be difficult to talk about Egyptian mythology with certainty, because there are so many different versions of things.  In my favorite Egyptian creation myth (I'm not sure what city it is from I heard it in my archeology of Ancient Egypt class, it might be a few of them combined and some speculation) the world was created by primordial reptiles (probably the Ogdoad) that created a few of the gods and then mostly wandered off (presumably they had other primordial reptile things to do) they left behind one of their own, Apep to be the destruction of the world. I have alway liked the metaphor of that one with the world coming from a sort of uncaring chaos that presumably wandered off to go make other worlds. Apep is generally represented as an Egyptian horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) this snake was also used to represent the "F" sound to simulate the sound it made as it moved through the sand. Its association with Apep made it feared enough by the ancient Egyptians (in some places) that they would carefully sever the heads of that hieroglyph to avoid Apep's influence. It was also thought to represent Apep undamaged gave him more power. It was thought by ancient Egyptian's that every night Apep would attempt to eat Ra (in many cases there were some variants that involved other gods) and every night Ra in the sun boat and a small army of gods including set and the dead would kill him (sort of) and Apep's blood would dye the dawn pink.

image of Apep

"F" hieroglyph horned viper from the temple of Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri (at the bottom)