Night #588 - Nerd Musings 1: Bred in Social Chaos

I'm going back over my Egyptian Paganism books, and this author (Sharon LaBorde) discussed the civil and subsequent religious turmoil prevalent in Third Intermediate and Late Period Egypt. Now, some ardently religious readers of my blog may know that this is the time frame in which I placed Ahkmenrah and by extension his brother Kahmunrah (and their parents Merenkhare and Shepseheret).

It got me thinking about the religious and political landscape that helped rear the Brothers. According to LaBorde, at least (I have yet to check her work), religion was becoming increasing more individualized as people realized they could not depend on the state to provide a strong foundation for civil order. I talked in my last post on the point (found here) that it can be suggested the rivalry between the Brothers (which is mostly one-sided, as Ahk is just nice to everybody as a general rule) is reflective of the two separate dynasties established during this period. What I mean to say is the rivalry could be seen as reflective of the larger social unrest and the changing times, of which the two plus dynasties are symptomatic.

The TL;DR version of the Intermediate Periods of ancient Egyptian history is everything is going to shit and religio-socio-political changes result. Then somebody comes along and establishes order, for a while. Lather, rinse, repeat until the Greeks, Romans, and Ottomans take over.

The Third Intermediate and Late Periods are really no different than previous Intermediate Periods. And if I'm right that during this time Ahkmenrah and Kahmunrah were brought up, then it's kind of telling. It also speaks at least to some of their father's behavior during the time. Simply put, and this is pure speculation, but if I was Merenkhare, what I would do is try to establish myself as as strong a king as possible in order to keep shit together because whatever we got goin' on right now ain't workin'. I reckon that in his own way, Kahmunrah would operate very much the same, and his brother would try to find the solution that appeased the most people. All three parties are trying to restore order to the kingdom, none of them succeed. Ahkmenrah was killed too soon to see any sort of success, Kahmunrah was probably sowing the seeds of bonkers before that major political event (for somewhat unrelated reasons), but I have some reason to suspect he might've been somewhat successful. If he's about fifty or sixty in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, then he had a fairly long life, maybe a decently long reign, as well. He'd have military training (from the fighting to the summoning of a combat-ready army from the underworld, which are likely to have been his own soldiers, the deceased left on fields of battle abandoned before his time and after, or both), which means he'd have some skill in putting down possible rebellions. Hell, he might have even succeeded in reuniting the kingdom, given the chance and presuming he's sane enough. It's likely, even, that he was close to success and killed by a political enemy who considered himself the rightful ruler of Egypt.

That's just my first reaction thoughts to a passage in a book on Egyptian Paganism, because I like to nerd my way through these things sometimes. (Perhaps I'll post more of my nerd musings. That's a good idea for a series.)