Friday, October 27, 2006

lifestyles of the rich and pharaonic

For 1500 years, the pharaoh's main job was to lead the country in worship of the gods of air, love, mummification, and other important matters. The pharaoh was always drawn and sculpted with a lean body -- in Brian's words, the "19-year-old swimmer's build".





Then came Akhenaten, who insisted on his statues having enormous hips and thighs.





He also decided to disband the religion, and switch to a single god Aten. Aten is the sun god. Akhenaten changed his name to have "aten" in it, moved the capital of Egypt, and sent a band of workers around the country to scratch out the names of other gods. These workers scaled temple walls and 30-foot obelisks, carving out the denounced gods.

Akhenaten was pretty badass.

Unfortunately, after he died, the pissed-off former priests labeled him a heretic, and then formed their own coalition. This time the name scratched out by these migrant workers was Akhenaten's.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always wanted to go to Egypt. How much was the air fare??

Anonymous said...

Ahh..somewhat similar to typical merger and acquisition .." I'm moving in"..CEO behaviour then... ;p different eras...but still typical human 'power' based behaviour.. ;p

Unknown said...

Hatshepsut was pretty badass too. She was my favorite pharaoh :-)