So from that we can easily judge that Larry's father's name is Milton Daley, but that has nothing on how the Brothers Egypt refer to themselves. Next easiest is Kahmunrah's "great king of the great kings", which speaks to his pride more than anything else as he is verbally placing himself above every other great king in history. Note: the ancient Egyptians believed that having something written out a certain way made it so, making fiction a very powerful political tool. For example, Hatshepsut used writing to claim that she was of divine parentage and chosen to rule by her father, who was dead by the time she took the throne as she'd served as regent for her husband/brother/nephew/some such weird relation for some number of years prior to taking the throne herself. This also plays into the idea that if someone tells himself something long enough, he begins to believe it, which leads back to Kahmunrah's past of being neglected and/or abused by his parents and passed over in favor of his younger, more legitimate brother Ahkmenrah, therefore why he wants to raise himself above everyone else. It makes him feel important to refer to himself as "great king of the great kings" and become the ruler of the world, therefore the most important man alive. And to serve that end, he would speak of himself as already having attained that position to add to the idea that it is so.
However, the great challenge is Ahkmenrah's self-referral: "I am Ahkmenrah, fourth king of the fourth king, ruler of the land of my fathers." It could very well be that this is a case of odd generational math, such as in the Bible: "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations" (Matt. 1:17, King James Version). If Ahkmenrah is speaking of himself in similar terms, this would mean four generations (four kings) separate him from the "fourth king". Ahkmenrah dates himself by stating that the tablet was given to him three thousand years ago, roughly a thousand years before Christ and establishing himself, according to Wikipedia, at the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period (Note in reference to last night: if the tablet and the gate were made closer to Egypt's creation/foundation, this gives it ample time for it to become one of the Egyptians' most prized possessions as it is by the time of Ahkmenrah). I doubt the writers are fully aware of this, but at this period in Egyptian history, there were several dynasties at once, which is (perhaps unintentionally) represented in the conflict between the two brothers, or at least the one-sided perceived conflict on the part of Kahmunrah.
Ahkmenrah's introduction also serves as the greatest demonstration of his humility with regard to his status as well as his greatest point of comparison with his fellow Brother Egypt. Where Kahmunrah states that he is above every other king that ever lived or will ever live (especially in this day of constitutional monarchies, I've gotta give him that), Ahkmenrah simply states that he is the eighth in his dynasty to rule Egypt.
Next on "For the Love of Night at the Museum": The first in my new series Notes From the Commentary Underground.
Countdown: 337 Days to NATM 3
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