What happens when an ancient Egyptian king recycles a statue—and then an empire steals it more than 3,000 years later? In this episode of Afterlives of Ancient Egypt, Kara Cooney and Amber Myers Wells take you on a deep dive into the life, reuse, and relocation of the colossal statue fragment known as the “Younger Memnon” (British Museum, EA 19). Once a towering monument to Amenhotep III, then reused by Ramses II, and finally carted off to London as a result of 19th-century colonialism, this statue has lived many lives—and it still looms large in the British Museum. It’s the first thing you see when you turn the corner to the Egyptian galleries…

Tune into learn how a two-toned block of granite became a symbol of solar kingship, modern colonial power, and the politics of museum display. From Shelley’s Ozymandias to the ethics of repatriation, it’s a conversation about ownership, ideology, and the stories we choose to tell. What a magnificently complicated piece.

Don’t miss Kara’s written companion post to this episode, “The ‘Younger Memnon’: A Colossal Lesson in Power, Reuse, and Colonial Trophy Hunting,” on the Ancient/Now Substack.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Younger Memnon, British Museum EA 19

Anya and I had so much fun in our recent Substack Live with Classical Wisdom. Anya was in Greece, I in California, and the topic was ancient Egypt. One of our main points of discussion was the newly conserved hypostyle hall at Karnak, which Anya had just seen in person. Enthusiastic as I am about this extraordinary space, I expressed a teeny tiny bit of concern about fresh paint colors being newly revealed. Don’t get me wrong: the newly conserved hypostyle hall looks bright and fresh, but we must remember that these colors are now exposed to air and light, and that means degradation. I have to assume the columns have been convered in some modern material to avoid decay, but one worries nonetheless. I am very much torn about all this conservation, and a large part of me is happy to have them more safely preserved under layers of soot and dirt. But that’s problematic protectionism, perhaps. In addition, I mentioned to Anya how the cracks between the column drums are now covered with modern conservation materials—which indeed better reconstructs how they would have looked in the Ramesside period. But, it limits our study: the joins between column drums are now invisible, and given many of them were put back in the wrong places after collapse, there is no way to further study the individual parts and construction methods of the hypostyle hall. We must be very grateful to Peter Brandt for his team’s published documentation of the hypostyle hall before this extensive conservation. Indeed, in my own work with coffin reuse I find myself apoplectic when a coffin has been so conserved that I cannot see where painted plaster has fallen away from the wood. Making the object perfectly beautiful almost always destroys further research possibilities; indeed, it also makes the object more modern than it is ancient…but this is a topic all on its own, and I’ll leave it there!

Anya and I also discussed the extraordinary geology underneath the Giza Plateau—because that is what was recently discovered with ground penetrating radar: rock formations. It is our own human minds that are making this geology into human / alien constructions. The Giza pyramids were built on this plateau for a reason; this is and was a dynamic and awe-inspiring place. There was a rock formation on this plateau in the shape of a crouching lion! Because that leonine outcropping was shaped into a human headed Sphinx with nemes headdress and beard by the ancient Egyptians, we humans have cognitively transformed this entire space into a humanly constructed one. I would urge caution: this is an earthly plain perceived as magical and empowered, thus chosen by 4th Dynasty kings for their mountains of stone. If we put this into a Chicken and Egg dynamic, the plateau came first; it is the Egg. But the Chickens—those three pyramids— are so overwhelming to our senses that they have somehow transformed our view of the Egg. To really understand the power of this space, and these recent discoveries, I urge us all to imagine a Giza Plateau in the millennia before human claims and transformations.

And then Anya’s internet connection died (!), at which point I strangely and abruptly ended the live feed! Ah well, but we at Ancient/Now have learned a few things about live Substacks and will attempt a few of our own. So be on the lookout.

Thank you Kimber S Prewit, Isabelle Plante, Jim Sanders, Tee Ree, Ama Diya aka Alaya Dannu, and many others for tuning into my live video with Classical Wisdom! Join me for my next live video in the app. :)

There is this strange and confusing text about a pissed off goddess sent off to destroy the world and gobble up all of humanity. The sun god Re sends her out on a mission of destruction. She’s called the Eye of Re, meaning she’s a part of her father, the god, but also somehow separate, a goddess in her own right named Hathor. The Egyptians seem to be telling us that when you have a problem that needs immediate solving, you send a woman, a really angry woman. Re’s problem is nothing short of rebellion against his rule. He’s become old and worn out, and no one is listening to his orders anymore. Time for a clean slate, Re thinks. Let’s annihilate the humans! (I mean, who hasn’t had such thoughts lately, right?) My daughter Hathor can do the deed!

Except, Re second-guesses himself after seeing the carnage. Creator gods always feel bad when they witness the deep-sixing of their creation, after all, thinking well maybe I want these pesky humans around after all. They do give me offerings… They’re not bad all the time… But once unleashed, the goddess will not be calmed, enraged in her thirst for blood. Can Re pull the Eye of Re back in time? What will he do?

The Destruction of Mankind is not a tale exactly, but it’s not a religious text either. The first version was inscribed on one of the gilded wooden shrines surrounding Tutankhamun’s burial ensemble, meaning its creation must predate that time. Some think it finds its origins in the confusing post-Amarna period when people were extra traumatized by Akhenaten’s solar obsessions. Other scholars believe it predates Tutankhamun’s reign and finds its origins in deep questioning about the place of humanity in the world: Why are we here? Do we matter at all?

In this episode Kara and Amber dive deep into the myth of the “Destruction of Mankind,” a confusing blend of religious text and fairy tale. The discussion explores the themes of divine judgment, the power dynamics between masculine and feminine deities, and the emotional versus rational dichotomy within patriarchal systems. The narrative returns to how the sun god Re considers obliterating humanity but then chooses to keep his creation, ultimately using trickery to mitigate the destruction. The brutal lioness version of the goddess must be turned into a soft and pliable version of herself using humanity’s favorite elixir—beer, died red to resemble human blood.

Kara and Amber delve into Ancient Egyptian mythology, the roles of gods and goddesses, and the social and emotional implications this mythology holds for contemporary patriarchal structures. The crux of it all is: if the Eye of Re is an offshoot of her father Re, can her violent power be considered resistance, or is she just a tool?

There’s lots going on here, so check out the links:

Theban Mapping Project: Photo of the Heavenly Cow in the tomb of Seti I (KV 17)

Theban Mapping Project: Line drawing of the Book of the Heavenly Cow I the tomb of Seti I (KV 17) (copy reversed from orientation of the original)

Sources

Guilhou, Nadine. 2010. “Myth of the Heavenly Cow.” In Jacco Dieleman and Willeke Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Los Angeles. http://digital2.library.ucla.edu/viewItem.do?ark=21198/zz002311pm.

Hornung, Erik. 1982. Der Ägyptische Mythos von der Himmelskuh. Eine Ätiologie des Unvollkommenen. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Auflage.

Lichtheim, Miriam. 2006. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom. 2nd ed. University of California Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppr00.

Spalinger, Anthony. 2000. “The Destruction of Mankind: A Transitional Literary Text.” Studien Zur Altägyptischen Kultur 28, 257–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152827.

What does sun worship mean? The sun is the giant ball of fire in the sky. It warms us, embraces us. It lights up the air all around us, and its absence creates coldness, an implicit threat of non-return, something we must placate with entreaties, offerings, brave deeds. The sun is the most powerful element in our sky, heroically returning to us every morning, helping us start our daily labors of farming or carpentry or war, and as such, the sun usually takes on the guise of a masculine ruler. Indeed, solar worship is permeated with elements of kingship—thrones, crowns, scepters, sovereignty. This is masculinity incarnate. Ancient cultures did not feminize the sun; its fiery abilities are associated with masculinized omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. The ruler, he is always watching; he knows all. He is wealth unparalleled, like pure yellow gold that seems to give off its own light from the depths of the mine.

In ancient Egypt, people created solarism in tandem with the formation of their state, perfecting it as they marched through the millennia. They built straight sided pyramids, their angles personifying solar rays hitting the earth, essentially creating mountains of miraculous sunlight. The obelisk was a monolith of red granite, meant to be a shaft of light hitting the earth in perfect symmetry and purpose, its placement in temples like Heliopolis charging it with the sun god’s intimate presence.

Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty transformed himself into Egypt’s “Dazzling Sun,” the epitome of transformative kingship. His son, also named Amenhotep, would change his name to Akhenaten—The One Who Is Effective for the Aten—showing his intimate, and unique, connection to that physical ball of fire in the sky. His new solar theology was one focused on the physicality of the sun—its warmth, its ability to make things grow, its light that allows people to see. For Akhenaten, everything was about this precious light. He built temples with no covering so that the sun’s rays could touch every part. His radical, new theology was about the sun’s creation of everything, everywhere.

In this episode Kara and Amber discuss solarism in ancient Egyptian religion and how it coincided with the rise of divine kingship, solar hymns, the Great Hymn to the Aten, and the theological universalism that emerged in the late New Kingdom from the contemplation of the divine centered on the sun and light. And we contemplate how the sun doesn’t just create things, but also destroys them.

Sources

Suty & Hor stela

Read more about the Great Hymn to the Aten

Great Hymn to the Aten – Original text

Baines, John. 1998. The dawn of the Amarna age. In O'Connor, David B. and Eric H. Cline (eds.), Amenhotep III: perspectives on his reign. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press p. 271–312.

Lichtheim, Miriam. 2006. Ancient Egyptian literature. A book of readings, volume II: The New Kingdom. Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press.

The concept of monotheism often hijacks the history of ancient Egyptian king Akhenaten because he funneled all his attention to one, previously little-known god, the Aten, the visible sun in the sky. Many scholars ask: Was Akhenaten, ancient Egypt’s so-called “heretic king,” the world’s first known monotheist? Did he say that other gods did not exist? Did he impose the belief that the Aten was superior to all other gods? In this episode, Kara and Amber discuss Atenism, the exclusionary and dogmatic religion at the center of Akhenaten’s regime. What is our understanding of it, and why have some people been so eager to connect his religious revolution with monotheism?

Or, should one even follow the monotheistic angle? In many ways, our monotheistic obsessions say more about us that they do about the ancient Egyptians. Because monotheism is such a modern concept of European theology, it might not even be appropriate to apply it to ancient Egypt. Listen and find out what we think!

Further reading

Hoffmeier, James K. 2016. The Great Hymn of the Aten: the ultimate expression of Atenism? Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 42 (2015-2016), 43-55.

Hoffmeier, James K. 2015. Akhenaten and the origins of monotheism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Lichtheim, Miriam 2006. Ancient Egyptian literature. A book of readings, volume II: The New Kingdom. Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press.

Lipson, C. (2013). Comparative Rhetoric, Egyptology, and the Case of Akhenaten. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 43(3), 270–284. https://doi.org/10.1080/02773945.2013.792696

Reeves, Nicholas 2001. Akhenaten: Egypt's false prophet. London: Thames & Hudson.

Redford, Donald, “The Monotheism of the Heretic Pharaoh: Precursor of Mosaic monotheism or Egyptian anomaly?,” Biblical Archaeology Review 13:3, May/June 1987.

Redford, Donald B. 1984. Akhenaten: the heretic king. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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