by Gill Harvey
Ramose Eldest son of Nefert and Paneb, aged five. Mut’s brother.
Kha Younger son of Nefert and Paneb, aged two. Mut’s brother.
Menna Hopi’s tutor, and a priest of Serqet in the town of Waset. (A priest of Serqet was someone who treated snake bites and scorpion stings.)
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Other Characters in This Story
Hat-Neb A powerful overseer of public works. He is currently the overseer at the new temple being built for the god Horus in Djeba. He has a reputation for great cruelty.
Nebo Hat-Neb’s fan-bearer and guard. He is from Nubia, the area just to the south of Egypt, and part of the ancient Egyptian empire.
Tutmose A qualified doctor who has worked in the royal court, but now treats wealthy men.
Kerem The head of a group of Sea People sailors, who hire themselves out to work on boats on the Nile. They also act as mercenaries, which means they will fight for whoever pays them.
Senmut The leader of a group of rowers who know of Hat-Neb’s reputation.
Ipuy A young scribe who works at the temple site in Djeba.
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FASCINATING FACT FILE ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT
The World of Isis and Hopi
The stories of Isis and Hopi are based in ancient Egypt over 3,000 years ago, during a time known as the New Kingdom. They happen around 1200–1150BC, in the last great period of Egyptian history. This is about a thousand years after the Old Kingdom, when the pyramids were built. Waset, the town in which Isis and Hopi live, had recently been the capital of Egypt, with an enormous temple complex dedicated to the god Amun. By 1200BC, the capital had been moved further north again, but Waset was still very important. Kings were still buried in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank, and the priests of Amun were rich and powerful. Today, Waset is known as Luxor; in books about ancient Egypt, it is often referred to by the Greek name of Thebes.
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A Little Bit about Horned Vipers
The snake that Hopi finds in this book is a desert horned viper, also called the Sahara horned viper. These snakes have a sandy-coloured body with brown blotches, a wide, triangular head, and two big scales that stick up behind the eyes to create ‘horns’.
Horned vipers are desert snakes. They tend to live in dry river beds and among sand and rocks. They are usually nocturnal – in other words, they are active and do their hunting at night. During the day, they bury themselves in sand or hide somewhere shady, though they are sometimes seen basking in the sun. They move by ‘sidewinding’, which means pressing part of their body down while throwing another part sideways and forwards. This leaves an unmistakable track in soft sand.
As venomous snakes go, horned vipers are not very aggressive – but when they strike, they strike fast. Hopi’s viper would have had no problem catching a rat in the hold! The bite of a horned viper is dangerous, but it does not often kill people.
When it is cornered, a horned viper sometimes curls into C-shaped coils and rubs its scales together as a warning. This makes a rasping, hissing sound. What’s interesting is that the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for a horned viper is also the letter ‘f’. People now think that this might be because of the sound the snake makes with its coils: fffff.
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Boats and the River Nile
The ancient Egyptians didn’t bother building lots of roads, because the River Nile was like a big highway running from one end of Egypt to the other. Away from the Nile, there was only desert, where no one wanted to go. Because the Nile flooded every year, covering the fields, roads close to the river got washed away. So to travel up and down the length of Egypt, people used boats.
The Nile flows from south to north, emptying out into the Mediterranean Sea. Luckily, the wind in Egypt usually blows in the opposite direction, from north to south. So to travel north, boats could go with the current, often with the help of oars. To travel south, boats had sails to catch the wind and carry them against the current. Because of this, the hieroglyph that meant ‘travel north’ was a picture of a boat without a sail, and the hieroglyph for ‘travel south’ was a picture of a boat with a sail.
For pottering around close to home, fishing or hunting in the marshes, people made little boats out of papyrus reeds bundled together. By the New Kingdom, some of these would have been made of wood instead.
For religious ceremonies and to carry the king, there were elegant, brightly painted boats that we now call barques. These were slender boats with a beautifully carved prow. The Egyptians believed that the sun god Re sailed across the sky in a barque every day. Wealthy people, like Hat-Neb in the story, might own pleasure boats built of wood. Like barques, these would have been brightly painted, with a cabin to keep the owner sheltered from the sun.
There were big rowing boats to carry cargoes, and massive barges to carry very heavy loads, like blocks of stone. These barges were so large that they had to be towed by smaller boats, like the one in the story.
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Egypt’s Temples
Temples were central to religion in ancient Egypt. They were built for the glory of the gods and king, and only priests and priestesses could enter the inner areas. Ordinary people had to stay outside, but they could still make offerings and pray to the gods, using the priests and scribes attached to the temples as go-betweens.
There were two main kinds of temple – cult temples and mortuary temples. Cult temples were for the worship of a particular god, like Sobek or Amun. The temple being built in the book is a cult temple dedicated to the god Horus, in a place that is now called Edfu. The ancient name for the temple site was Djeba, and there was a temple there from Old Kingdom times. Kings in the New Kingdom added to this temple to make it more impressive, but it’s difficult to say exactly how much. This is because from 237BC onwards, the Ptolomies (Greek invaders) built a big new temple on the same site. You can still visit this temple today.
Mortuary temples were for the worship of a dead king. For this reason, they were usually built on the west bank – the Kingdom of the Dead – not too far from the tombs where the kings were buried.
Both cult and mortuary temples were huge, amazing buildings. Many of them have survived, and you can still see the massive walls, columns and statues, and the hieroglyphs that were carved everywhere. It’s a little bit harder to imagine the bright colours that the temples were painted in.
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The Sea People
The crew of Hat-Neb’s boat are ‘Sea People’ who have settled in Egypt. No one is really sure who these people were or where they came from, but they gave some of the New Kingdom kings a lot of bother. Waves of Sea People attacked Egypt along the north coast during the reign of the great king Ramesses II (who reigned from approximately 1279–1212BC), but Ramesses defeated them, taking many captives. Later, these captives formed part of the Egyptian army and helped to fight other enemies, so some of the Sea People would have made Egypt their home.
About a century later, during the reign of Ramesses III (approximately 1186–1154BC), there was another wave of Sea People attacks. Again, the Egyptians defeated and killed many of them. But there would have been captives, too, who settled in Egypt.
In this story, I have put together their knowledge of boats and the role that they played as mercenaries, and imagined that some of them would have hired themselves out as guards and sailors on the Nile.
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GODS AND GODDESSES
Ancient Egyptian religion was very complicated. There wasn’t just one god, but hundreds, each symbolising something different. Many of them were linked to a particular animal or plant. The Egyptians believed that their king or pharaoh was one of the gods, too.
Not everyone worshipped the same gods. It would have been very difficult to worship all of them, because there were so many. Some gods were more important than others, and some places had special gods of their own. People would have had their favourites depending on where they lived and what they did.
These are so
me of the most important gods of the New Kingdom, and all the special ones that are mentioned in this book.
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Amun The great god of Waset (Thebes), a creator god and god of the air. When Waset became very powerful in the New Kingdom, he was combined with the sun god Re and became Amun-Re. He was shown with tall feathers on his head, or with a ram’s head.
Anubis The god of mummies and embalming. He was usually shown with a jackal’s head.
Apep The great snake god of darkness, chaos and evil. He was usually shown as an enormous serpent, but sometimes as a crocodile or even a dragon.
Bes A god who was worshipped in people’s homes, rather than at shrines and temples. He was shown as a bearded dwarf, often with his tongue sticking out, and was believed to protect people’s houses, pregnant women and children.
Hapi The god of the Nile, specifically the Nile flood that happened every year. Although he was a male god, he was shown with large breasts because he represented fertility.
Hathor A goddess of fertility, love, music and dancing. She was usually shown as a cow, or a woman with a cow’s head, or a woman with a cow’s ears and horns.
Horus The falcon-headed king of the gods, who fought and won a battle with his evil uncle Seth. The reigning king of Egypt was believed to be the embodiment of Horus. His cult temple was at Djeba (Edfu).
Isis The mother of Horus and wife of Osiris, the goddess of motherhood and royal protection. She was associated with the goddess Hathor.
Khepri The scarab god, the god of the rising sun. It was believed that he pushed the sun up every morning in the same way that a scarab pushes its ball of dung.
Khonsu The moon god of Waset, worshipped in the great temple complex there. He was the adopted son of Mut.
Mut The great mother-goddess of Waset, worshipped with Amun and Khonsu. Because Waset is often called Thebes, these three are known as the ‘Theban Triad’.
Osiris Husband of Isis, father of Horus and brother of the evil god Seth. He was the king of the underworld, so he was usually shown as a mummy.
Re (or Ra) The sun god, who travelled across the sky every day in a barque (boat).
Serqet The goddess of scorpions. She was believed to cure the stings and bites of all dangerous creatures like snakes and scorpions.
Seth The brother of Osiris, the god of chaos, evil and the Red Land (the desert). He was shown with the head of a strange dog-like creature that has never been identified.
Sobek The ancient Egyptian crocodile god. On the whole, he was feared by the Egyptians, but he was sometimes seen as a god of fertility, too. There were two big cult temples to Sobek – one in the north, and one south of Waset at a place that is now called Kom Ombo. But there were also sacred crocodile pools and smaller shrines dotted along the Nile, as I’ve described in the story.
Tawaret A hippopotamus goddess who protected children and women, particularly during childbirth. Like Bes, Tawaret was worshipped in people’s homes rather than in temples.
Thoth The god of writing and scribes. He was shown as an ibis, or with the head of an ibis.
GLOSSARY
acacia A small, thorny tree. Some types of acacia grow particularly well in dry, desert regions.
alabaster A whitish stone that is quite soft and easily carved. The Egyptians used it to make many beautiful objects.
amulet A lucky charm, worn to protect a person from evil.
carnelian A reddish stone used by the Egyptians to make jewellery.
clerestory window A window set high in a wall to let in some light. Only big houses had windows – most people’s houses were very dark inside to keep them cool.
deben A measurement of what things were worth. There was no money in ancient Egypt – people bought things with grain or just swapped one item for another. But they estimated how much things were worth in deben, usually of copper. Gold was much more valuable.
Djeba (You say ‘Jay-ba’) This is one of the ancient names for the site of the cult temple of Horus, south of Waset. Today it is called Edfu. (See the section on Egypt’s temples.)
doum palm A kind of palm tree that grows along the River Nile. Its fruits are much bigger than dates (which grow on a different kind of palm), and many have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. (Sometimes written dom or doom palm.)
emmer wheat The type of wheat that was grown in ancient Egypt. Barley was the other main food crop.
frankincense A kind of tree resin that was used to make incense and perfumes.
hieratic A shorthand version of hieroglyphics, which simplified the hieroglyphs to make them quicker to write.
hieroglyphics The system of ancient Egyptian picture writing. Each individual picture is called a hieroglyph.
Imhotep A very famous architect, doctor and engineer who lived in the Old Kingdom, about 1,400 years before the time of Isis and Hopi. He was so clever that later Egyptians worshipped him as a god. No wonder Tutmose thought it was a good name to choose!
lapis lazuli A deep blue semi-precious stone that the Egyptians valued highly. It wasn’t found in Egypt, but had to be imported from modern-day Afghanistan.
limestone Along with sandstone, this was a rock commonly found in Egypt and used to build the many temples (but not houses, which were made of mud brick).
lotus Lotus flowers were actually blue water lilies that grew along the Nile. Their flowers open in the morning and close at night, so they were seen as a symbol of the rising and setting sun, and the cycle of creation. They were used in perfume, and were believed to have healing powers, too.
ma’at The ancient Egyptian principle of divine justice and order. The principle was represented by a goddess of the same name.
mercenary Someone who hires himself out as a soldier. Unlike most soldiers, who fight for their country or government, mercenaries fight for whoever is paying them.
myrrh A kind of tree sap or resin that has a powerful smell. The ancient Egyptians used it to make incense and to perfume their oils.
Next World The place ancient Egyptians believed they would go after death. It would be better than this world, of course, but quite similar – which was why they needed to take their bodies and many possessions with them.
obelisk A tall, narrow granite spike that was often erected in temples.
ostracon (pl. ostraca) A small piece of pottery or a flake of limestone used as ‘scrap paper’ for writing on.
papyrus A kind of reed that used to grow in the marshes alongside the Nile, especially in the Delta region to the north. It was made into many things – mats, baskets, sandals and even boats – but it is most famous for the flat sheets of ‘paper’ made from it, which are named after the reed.
pharaoh The ancient Egyptian term for their king. It was only used by the Egyptians themselves in the later stages of their history, but we now use it to refer to any ancient Egyptian king.
prow The front of a boat.
scarab A kind of dung beetle that was worshipped by the Egyptians. Scarab amulets were thought to give great protection. The scarab was the creature of the god Khepri (see the Gods and Goddesses section).
stern The back of a boat.
temple Temples were a very important focus for the ancient Egyptian religion. There were cult temples for the worship of a particular god, and mortuary temples for the worship of a king after his death. (See the section on Egypt’s Temples.)
turquoise A green-blue semi-precious stone that was mined by the Egyptians in Sinai. They used it to make beautiful objects, inlays and jewellery.
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