For Wednesday: Writings from Ancient Egypt: “The Cannibal Hymn” (pp.89-92) & “The Great Hymn to the Orb” (pp.101-105)
Answer
TWO of the following:
Q1: In
many ancient societies, the king was seen as the living embodiment of the gods
or a specific god, or else their direct intermediary on earth. According to “The
Cannibal Hymn” what is the king’s
relationship to the gods? How does the hymn/song help the listener ‘see’ Unas’
position in the relationship between gods and men?
Q2:
Psalm 104 from the Old Testament seems to echo many of the ideas in “The Great
Hymn to the Orb,” which was written much earlier—and as the Hebrews lived among
the Egyptians, it makes sense that they would have heard or read it. Why do you
think the writers of a monotheistic religion would borrow (or be inspired from)
this earlier poem, even though the Egyptians were more or less their enemy (and
certainly not believers)?
Q3:
Though written almost a thousand years apart (around 2350 BCE and 1350 BCE),
what similarities do both works share in terms of language, the identity/power
of the king, and conception of the divine? In other words, how do we know that
the same culture wrote both poems, even though Egyptian culture had
changed/matured by the time “The Great Hymn” was written?
Q4: “The
Cannibal Hymn” contains surprisingly lurid imagery, as it imagines the king
feasting on the bodies of gods, using “the legs of their elders” in his
cauldrons and “their women’s legs” to scrape out his pots. Why would a culture
want to celebrate a king who is basically a “cannibal,” even if he didn’t
literally eat their corpses? Why might this have been an effective image in
ancient times?
Q1: In "The Cannibal Hymn", Unas is described as the master of all the heavens and the earth - as though he is king of all of the physical world. It describes him as "a possessor of offerings" and describes how he has prepared himself for the death that will let him make those offerings to the gods so that they will give him their strength. It says his power is in the horizon, his nobility in the heavens, and that he is stronger even than his own father. I wonder if this implies a certain weakness that he might overcome after death - this curiosity seems validated by the comments about how his "neck is in the correct position"? The way the gods are described and the way Unas is described, it seems as though the relationship is transactional; Unas brings offerings so great that they trip over themselves to give to him the thing he has purchased with those offerings - themselves. He is the "possessor of tribute who issues commands." (Wilkinson, Toby. Writings from Ancient Egypt (Penguin Classics) (p. 90). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.)
ReplyDeleteQ4: There is a parallel in the way Unas is imagined to be partaking of the strength of the gods to the way people gain strength (energy) from their meals. Particularly meals which are made up of meat. I think it seems significant that the methods used to slaughter the gods is the same one used to slaughter the animals they eat - this seems to both diminish the gods and to raise, and make somewhat sacred, the animals Egyptians consume. I think the bloody nature of this hymn celebrates the work of the common man - slaughtering animals and preparing them for meals is a daily reality but one not likely to be the responsibility of the king; here, the detailed description of the process and it's execution by the king elevates its stature to that of a sacred rite.
1. To them Unas is the god of all of them. "The nobility of Unas will not be taken from him... The lifetime of Unas is everlasting his limit eternity... As food for the gods, roasted FOR Unas from their bones." In all of these we see they value Unas more than the other gods themselves, also believing he will last forever. The food for the gods, roasted first for Unas, then giving the bones from it to the gods. Personally, if I was one of the gods, I would have smited him for thinking himself higher, but that's just me.
ReplyDelete4. They want to because he is their equivalent of a god made over.They're truly believing he came from a throne, down to reign amongst them, "eating" the magic from the sacrifices made for the rest of the gods as well. These legs represent that he is a powerful king, the old still having use and the women 'still knowing their place' (this is quotations because I do not agree with it, but that is a story for another time). In ancient times, women sometimes would rebel for attention or to get their point across, as would the elderly. So to have them doing as he pleases without back talking or anything, to them it was an accomplishment.
1. Unas is the god of all the other gods and beings. He was higher up than any of the other gods, and was believed to last forever. "The food for the gods, roasted first for Unas, then giving the bones from it the the gods". He even ate before the rest of the gods. he was large and in charge and that is all there is to it.
ReplyDelete4. He is the most powerful thing to walk the Earth. He is believed to have come from above to rule over them all, living off of their sacrifices. The use of the legs to me gives almost a non human aspect to it because he is uses legs to stir and scrap his pots.
Question 1. In "The Cannibal Hymn" Unas is basically the main God, the God of all the other Gods and higher up then all the others, He is the most powerful of them all in the story.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 4. I found it odd how they would butcher and cook everyone who passed then would be eaten by the kings, to me it was too detailed of a story and honestly made me sick imaging it as I was reading it, but in this hymn I took it as a way of him showing he waws higher up and better because he was the king and wanted that to be known, as to why he would eat the cooked and butchered bodies, to gain their "powers and spirits."
~shaynee
1. Unas is seen to be an all powerful figure, an ever-present deity that always comes back, not even death can defeat his power. He is above all of the other gods, feeding on their bodies and using them as tools. He is all-powerful, and obviously can get away with even the most heinous of crimes.
ReplyDelete2. The Hebrew people lived in Egypt, with Egyptian people and their traditions and beliefs. Even though no Hebrew could say that they liked the Egyptians, their beliefs and cultures still mixed a little bit. I have no doubt that there is much similarities between Hebrew and Egyptian works during the same time period, it would be highly unlikely that their words at the least would not be similar.
Q1. The king's relationship with the gods is him using them for power, in the beginning of the song it states that the gods are above him but towards the end it calls him a god too, a firstborn who eats magic and has great powers.
ReplyDeleteQ4. They aren't necessarily celebrating his cannibalistic ways they could be saying he gets all of his power directly from the people, not by eating them but by feeding off their energy and praise, after all no leader is the leader of no one, they have to have followers to lead. They are celebrating how well he may have used their peoples energy for good things. This could've been an effective image in ancient times to show that he fed off their energy and their praise.
-Tanner
1. In "The Cannibal Hymn" Unas is portrayed as the main God. He has way more power then anyone. He is made out to be above everyone else, it seems he feeds off peoples bodies to get their powers this is something that we are not used to hearing people do but since he is a God no one sees anything of it.
ReplyDelete4. Reading these was very odd to hear it is not a normal thing for people to kill and eat each other. In my opinion he showed his power by butchering people and eating them. The author uses imagery to descriptively tell the reader how he eats the victims. The way he uses women legs legs to clean out his caldoren is a sickly for the author to show the mans power.
Chloe Wigington
Q1. In "The Cannibal Hymn", Unas is the God above all Gods. He is meant to last forever. He is fed before any other God and then everyone else is given the leftovers (the bones).
ReplyDeleteQ4. I don't think it is to really celebrate him, but to instill fear in others. To gain energy, one must eat to strengthen themselves for whatever they are about to do. He feeds off of the other Gods to make himself even stronger, so that none of the other Gods would become stronger than him and overrule him. That is his way of staying in control.
-Victoria Aguilar
1.Unas was believed to be the the most powerful God. He is so powerful that he eats people and uses there body parts as tools. Unas eats their bodies for power.
ReplyDelete4.They would worship him because they see how powerful he is, in the sense that he eats other gods and there is no punishment for him. They worship gods, so to them someone who is so powerful that he can eat them is the ruler over all.
- Callie Kennison
Joshua Willis
ReplyDeleteMFW 9am
Q1: The work describes Unas as an absolute force, one that is greater than even the gods. His role is to be powerful and to spare his subjects if it pleases him to do so.
Q4: I feel that seeing the king in such a way was something of a stabilizing force. The king is such a figure of power and awe that even the gods should know and fear him. With such a figure at the helm, why bother opposing him? What army could pose a threat? What work could go undone under his reign?