Egypt in 1800 BC

piece of jewellery of Sithathoriunet’s, daughter of Senusret II. Now at the Met in New York.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 60 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,350 km of the Nile, from Semna (21.5° N), halfway between the Second and Third Cataracts. Also includes nearby oases and the Fayum.
• Population: 1.5 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Bubastis, On (Heliopolis), Memphis, Crocodilopolis, Itjtawy, Asyut, Abydos, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: Itjtawy.
• Language: Middle Egyptian – the classic form of the language, thanks to the literature of this period.
• Religion: idol worship in the temples of Osiris, Horus, Hathor, Osiris, Ra, Amun, Sobek, Montu, etc; The democratization of the afterlife in the past few centuries, by way of coffin texts (magic spells painted right onto coffins), makes Osiris, the resurrected god who rules the underworld, the most popular god by far. His tomb and temple in Abydos becomes a centre of pilgrimage and the scene of the Mysteries of Osiris for the next 2,300 years.
• Government: Amenemhat IV, the second-to-last god-king of the 12th Dynasty, named after the god Amun.
• Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer, monumental architecture, pyramids.
  • imports: gold (Nubia), copper, turquoise (Sinai), cedar (Byblos), pottery (Crete).
• Currency: none. Barley a common medium of exchange.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport. Camels unknown. Canal around the First Cataract.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk), bronze (not yet iron), mechanical lock, saw, alphabet, bathroom mirrors.

The last 100 years: the -1800s:

• Kings:
  • 12th Dynasty: overlapping reigns of: Amenemhat II, Senusret II, Senusret III, Amenemhat III, Amenemhat IV.
• Egyptian literature and craftsmanship reaches its height this century and last.
• Pyramids are built with a mudbrick core and a limestone casing. The casing has long been stripped away so that they now look heavily weathered. Despite secret passageways, trap doors, and so on, they were robbed long ago. Only some of the queens and princesses had managed to hide their jewellery well enough for it to be left undiscovered for thousands of years (much of it now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York).
• The high Sesostris is what Greek historians will call Senusret III, who ruled from about -1874 to -1855. He recentalized power away from the governors (nomarchs) in the provinces (nomes). He extends Egyptian power beyond the Second Cataract for the first time, from Lower Nubia (now a province) into Upper Nubia. Beyond lies:
• “Vile” Kush: This is what Sesostris called the Nubian kingdom of Kush that lay south of the Third Cataract. Its capital is Kerma, one of the oldest cities in Africa, standing where important trade routes crossed the Nile. Kush in the King James Bible is translated as “Ethiopia”. It will become Egypt’s main enemy for the next several hundred years.
• The Fayum, mashland west of the capital fed by the Nile, is drained and turned into farmland – owned by the king! Increases the wealth and population of Egypt.
• The Labyrinth – built as part of the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III in Hawara in the Fayum. It is now a field of rubble, long since stripped of its building stones, but when Herodotus saw it in the -400s he found it more amazing than even the pyramids.

Meanwhile in Britain, Stonehenge is 200 years from completion.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Egypt in 2100 BC
  • Egypt in 2000 BC
  • Egypt in 1900 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• alphabet
• Egyptian gods
  • Ra
  • Osiris
  • Amun
• Coffin Text
• Nubia
  • The term “Ethiopia”
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Stonehenge
• Bible chronology

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The Cranberries: Zombie

Remarks:

This came out in 1994, a top-20 hit on pop music charts throughout the Anglosphere except in the US where it did not even make the top 100, though it did reach #1 there on the alternative rock music chart. Four years later on Good Friday peace was made in Northern Ireland. I thought the agreement would hold for maybe five years at most. Northern Ireland had been sunk in violence for as long as I could remember. It seemed hopeless. But the peace has now just passed its 25th anniversary. Hard to believe.

Samuel Bayer, who directed this video, has appeared in this space twice before:  “Stupid Girl” (1996) by Garbage and “Welcome to the Black Parade” (2006) by My Chemical Romance.

See also:

• songs: the 1990s
• my past predictions for the future
• also about Northern Ireland:
  • The Police: Invisible Sun
  • U2: Where the Streets Have No Name
• also about zombies:
  • Fela Kuti: Zombie
• also directed by Samual Bayer:
  • My Chemical Romance: Welcome to the Black Parade
  • Garbage: Stupid Girl

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaken?

[Pre-Chorus]
But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family
In your head, in your head, they are fightin’
With their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are cryin’
[Chorus]
In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
What’s in your head, in your head?
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie, oh

[Post-Chorus]
Du, du, du, du
Du, du, du, du
Du, du, du, du
Du, du, du, du

[Verse 2]
Another mother’s breakin’
Heart is takin’ over
When the violence causes silence
We must be mistaken

[Pre-Chorus]
It’s the same old theme, since 1916
In your head, in your head, they’re still fightin’
With their tanks and their bombs and their bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are dyin’

[Chorus]
In your head, in your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
What’s in your head, in your head?
Zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie-ie, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, eh-eh-oh, ra-ra

[Instrumental Outro]

Source: Genius Lyrics.

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Letters of Hekanakhte

One of his letters, written in hieratic, a cursive from of hieroglyphics.

Hekanakhte (circa -1960), also spelled Hekanakht or Heqanakht, was a priest and farmer who lived in Ancient Egypt. All we have left of him are eight pieces of papyrus discovered in +1921. They were accidentally buried at a building site near where he worked as a priest. They contain business accounts and some letters that were never sent. They inspired Agatha Christie to write a murder mystery: “Death Comes as the End” (1944).

Excerpt: To Merisu, his steward, probably his son by his first wife:

“Now, expel that housemaid Senen from my house! Beware, on the day Sihathor [the scribe] reaches you (with the letter), she shall spend (only) one (more) day in my house. Is it really you who lets her do ill to my second wife. Have I ever allowed ill to be done to you? What did she do against (any of) you, you (Merisu) who hates her?

And greetings to my mother Ipi a thousand times, a million times. And greetings to Hetepet [older female relative, maybe his aunt], and the whole household, and Nofret [daughter]. Now, what shall be done about these bad deeds committed against my second wife? Do your duty. Are you not established as my partner? How good it would be for you to stop it (i.e. the evil deeds).

His second wife was considered to be a slut and did not get on well with the rest of his extended-family household of 17 other relatives and dependents and three servants.

The letters were written between the year 5 and 7, probably meaning the reign of Senusret I. That would be between about -1960 and -1958, give or take 60 years (that is how uncertain dates are that far back). Some are business letters written in a formal style by professional scribes, others are letters home written by himself in an informal style, something approaching spoken Egyptian with some old-timey expressions, like “they are eating people here”. His letters are used at university to teach Egyptian!

His farm was in Nebsyt, probably somewhere near Memphis. It was big enough to have sharecropping families. It raised cattle, barley, emmer wheat and flax, and produced linen (from the flax) and processed copper.  His letters are full of concerns about debt, leasing land, and the yearly flood. The Nile flooded every year, leaving a rich layer of top soil – and the water to irrigate it with. The higher the flood, the more land that could be farmed. But if it was too high, it could spell disaster. Or, if too low, famine. Hekanakhte: “I’ve managed to keep you all alive all these years”.

Money: Hekanakhte mainly uses barley as a medium of exchange – for rations, paying off debt, etc. His large reserves of barley from the good years were like money in the bank.

His day job: Hekanakhte also worked as a priest some 500 km away down south in Thebes. He was a ka-priest (mortuary priest) in the cult of Ipi, who was a vizier (a top civil administrator) under Mentuhotep II in the -2000s. Hekanakhte’s priestly duties helped to keep the soul of the dead old vizier alive and well.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• century readings
• Egypt: a brief history
  • Egypt in 2000 BC
  • Egypt in 1900 BC
• Egyptian – the language
• papyrus
• ka – part of the soul

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Egypt in 1900 BC

Necklace of Princess Khenmet, whose unrobbed tomb was discovered near the pyramid of Amenemhat II, likely her father. 

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 60 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts. Also: nearby oases. And: Nubia up to the Second Cataract, now a province after a brutal scorched-earth military campaign.
• Population: 1 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Heliopolis, Memphis, Itjtawy, Abydos, Coptos, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: Itjtawy.
• Language: Middle Egyptian – the classic form of the language, thanks to the literature of this period.
• Religion: idol worship in the temples of Ra, Horus, Hathor, Osiris, Amun, Sobek, Satet, etc; magic spells; Coffin Texts, democratization of the afterlife. Amun of Thebes, the old capital, now a top god.
• Government: Amenemhat II, a god-king of the 12th Dynasty, named after the god Amun. (The necklace pictured above was probably his daughter’s.)
• Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer, monumental architecture, pyramids (once again).
  • imports: gold (Nubia), copper (Sinai), silver, cedar (Byblos), slaves and immigrants (Palestine), pottery (Crete).
• Currency: none. Barley is a common medium of exchange. Silver more valuable than gold.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport. Camels unknown.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk), bronze (finally,  but not iron yet), mechanical lock, saw, alphabet.
  • Newish: bathroom mirrors.

The last 100 years: the -1900s:

• Kings:
  • 11th Dynasty: Mentuhotep III, Mentuhotep IV.
  • 12th Dynasty: overlapping reigns of: Amenemhat I, Senusret I (Sesostris I), Amenemhat II.
• This period is very well known. It is the time of Sinuhe, hero of a masterpiece of Egyptian literature. And of Hekanakhte and his letters home. And Joseph, if you go by traditional Biblical chronology. We have enough of a ship to build one that sails. From tombs we have scale models of daily life, including brewers and bakers. We even have the grave of a cleaning lady. And a baby bottle decorated with protective gods. But its kings are now all under the water table.
• Egyptian literature and craftsmanship reaches its height this century and next.
• Pyramids: Amenemhat I builds the first pyramid in nearly 200 years. He stole stones from older pyramids, even from the Great Pyramid at Giza. If it was ever taken apart it could be an archaeological treasure trove. His pyramid’s pretty white limestone casing was stripped off in +1837 to build a bridge. Like in the -2100s, pyramids were built with a rubble core and stood about 100 cubits (52 m), one third the height of the Great Pyramid. Impressive in their day, they now just look like mounds of dirt.
• The lost city of Itjtawy was the new capital. It was presumably somewhere near Lisht where the kings of the time were buried. Lisht is about 35 km south of Memphis, 60 km south of Cairo. That puts it south of the Delta and east of the Fayum, near the demographic centre of the country. The old capital was at Thebes, way to the south.
• The solar temple of Heliopolis was rebuilt. All that now survives is one of its two 22-metre-tall red obelisks. The rest is now a parking lot at the Cairo airport.
• Walls of the Ruler – is a string of forts between the Delta and Palestine.

Meanwhile in Britain, Stonehenge is 300 years from completion.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Hekanakhte
• Egyptian century readings
• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Egypt in 2100 BC
  • Egypt in 2000 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• alphabet
• Egyptian gods
  • Ra
  • Osiris
  • Amun
• Coffin Text
• Nubia
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Stonehenge
• Bible chronology

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Karol G & Shakira: TQG

Remarks:

This came out in 2023. As of April 9th it has gone #1 worldwide and in their native Colombia, #7 in the US, #88 in the UK. I love the beat. I did not recognize Shakira at first, but her old-school moves gave her away as being older than she looks. I remember her from way back in the 1990s. The 1990s are now way-back!

I picked a video with English subtitles. They got dumped by their boyfriends but now think they are too good for them, being big-time singers and all. Assortative mating. Or just sour grapes maybe. But it still hurts:

“like covering a wound with make-up”

See also:

• songs: the 2020s
• Shakira: Ojos Así – from 1999.

Lyrics: 

[Intro: KAROL G]
La que te dijo que un vacío se llena con otra persona te miente
E’ como tapar una herida con maquillaje: no se ve, pero se siente
Te fuiste diciendo que me superaste (Ey) y te conseguiste nueva novia (Novia)
Lo que ella no sabe es que tú todavía (Auh) me está’ viendo to’a’ la historia’ (Papi)

[Coro: KAROL G]
Bebé, ¿qué fue?, ¿no pues que muy tragaíto’? (-íto’)
¿Qué hace’ buscándome el la’o? Si sabes que yo errore’ no repito (Eh, papi)
Dile a tu nueva bebé que por hombre’ no compito
Que deje de estar tirando, que al meno’ yo te tenía bonito

[Verso 1: Shakira]
Verte con la nueva me dolió (Dolió)
Pero ya estoy puesta pa’ lo mío
Lo que vivimos se me olvidó
Y eso e’ lo que te tiene ofendido
Que hasta la vida me mejoró
Por acá ya no eres bienvenido
Vi lo que tu novia me tiró
Eso no da ni rabia, yo me río, yo me río

[Verso 2: KAROL G & Shakira]
No tengo tiempo pa’ lo que no aporte, ya cambié mi norte
Haciendo dinero como deporte
Llenando la cuenta, los show’, el parking y el pasaporte (Ey)
‘Toy más dura dicen lo’ reporte’ (Sí)
Ahora tú quiere’ volver, se te nota, mmm, sí
‘Pérame ahí, que yo soy idiota (Ah)
Se te olvidó que estoy en otra
Y que te quedó grande La Bichota

[Coro: Shakira & KAROL G]
Bebé, ¿qué fue? (Fue), ¿no pues que muy tragaíto’? (Ah)
¿Qué haces buscándome el la’o? (Ey) Si sabes que yo errores no repito
Dile a tu nueva bebé que por hombres no compito
Que deje de estar tirando, que al meno’ yo te tenía bonito (Shakira, Shakira)

[Verso 3: Shakira & KAROL G]
Tú te fuiste y yo me puse triple M
Más buena, más dura, más level
Volver contigo never (No), tú eras la mala suerte
Porque ahora la’ bendicione’ me llueven
Y quiere’ volver, ya lo suponía
Dándole like a la foto mía
Tú buscando por fuera la comida
Yo diciendo que era monotonía
Y ahora quieres volver, ya lo suponía
Dándole like a la foto mía (A la mía)
Te ves feliz con tu nueva vida
Pero si ella supiera que me busca’ todavía

[Coro: KAROL G & Shakira]
Bebé, ¿qué fue? (Fue), ¿no pues que muy tragadito? (Ah)
¿Qué haces buscándome el la’o? (Ey) Si sabes que yo errores no repito (Ey)
Dile a tu nueva bebé que por hombres no compito (Mueve el culito)
Que no tiene buena mano, y al menos yo te tenía bonito

[Outro: KAROL G & Shakira]
O-O-Ovy On The Drums
Mi amor, es que usted se alejó mucho
Y yo de lejos ya no veo, bebé
TQM, pero TQG, jajaja
Barranquilla, Medallo

Source: Genius Lyrics.

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Stormy Daniels

Stephanie Clifford (1979- ), better known as Stormy Daniels, is “one of the best loved porn stars of all time” according to hotmovies.com in 2023. She co-wrote and co-starred in “Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre” (2005), arguably her best work. But she is best known for featuring in one of Donald Trump’s many scandals. It puts her at the centre of one of four criminal lawsuits against Trump that threaten to overshadow the race for US president in 2024.

The scandal: In 2006 Trump had a year-long adulterous affair with Daniels. In 2016, when he was running for president, he bought her silence for $130,000 by way of his lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump recorded it as a legal expense, not a campaign expense. In 2018 she went public and Cohen was sentenced to prison for three years for tax evasion and campaign finance violations. In 2023 on April 4th it got Trump himself arrested, the first time a former US president has been arrested. Because he can easily make bail, unlike Kalief Browder, he avoids jail, at least for now.

Note: Daniels did tell In Touch magazine of the affair in an interview in 2011, but they did not publish it till 2018. Why not in 2016?

The lawsuit: Trump is accused of falsifying business records 34 times, a misdemeanour. That is turned into a felony because he did it to cover up another yet-to-be-named crime – presumably the campaign finance violations that got Michael Cohen sent to prison. The timing of the pay-off, ten years after the affair but just weeks before an election, suggests he did it to benefit his campaign, not for personal reasons. Which makes it an undeclared campaign expense.

White Evangelicals Protestants, strong Trump supporters, gave him a pass on his adulterous affair. As Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Politico in 2018:

 “[Evangelical Christians] were tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists. And I think they are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”

When asked about turning the other cheek:

“You know, you only have two cheeks. Look, Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.”

Daniels ran for Senate in 2010 in her native Louisiana. Like Trump she is a lifelong Democrat turned Republican. On becoming a Republican:

“While this decision has not been an easy one, recent events regarding Republican National Committee fundraising at Voyeur, an L.A.-based lesbian bondage themed nightclub, finally tipped the scales.”

She explains:

“As someone who has worked extensively in both the club and film side of the Adult Entertainment Industry, I know from experience that a mere $1900 outlay at a club with the reputation of Voyeur is a clear indication of a frugal investment with a keen eye toward maximum return.”

and:

“I cannot help but recognize that over time my libertarian values regarding both money and sex and the legal use of one for the other is now best espoused by the Republican Party.”

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also: 

• Kalief Browder
• Donald Trump
  • Trump’s sex scandal – the Hollywood Access tape scandal, back then his only sex scandal.
• White Evangelical Protestants
  • White Evangelicals and the US border camps
  • White Evangelicals and Trump’s recent racism
• Roy Moore
  • Why did White women vote for Roy Moore?
• Bill Bennett: The Death of Outrage – in 1998 during President Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky sex scandal

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Raye ft 070 Shake: Escapism

Remarks:

This song has been ringing in my song of late. It came out in 2022 and went to #1 in her native UK and #7 worldwide. It has been a top-10 hit thoughout the Anglosphere except in the US where White adults do not seem to like it so much.

See also:

• songs: the 2020s

Lyrics:

[Intro: RAYE]
Sleazin’ and teasin’, I’m sittin’ on him
All of my diamonds are drippin’ on him
I met him at the bar, it was twelve or something
I ordered two more wines ’cause tonight, I want him

[Verse 1: RAYE]
A little context if you care to listen
I find myself in a shit position
The man that I love sat me down last night
And he told me that it’s over, dumb decision
And I don’t wanna feel how my heart is rippin’
In fact, I don’t wanna feel, so I stick to sippin’
And I’m out on the town with a simple mission
In my little black dress and this shit is sittin’

[Pre-Chorus: RAYE]
Just a heart broke bitch, high heels six inch
In the back of the nightclub, sippin’ champagne
I don’t trust any of these bitches I’m with
In the back of the taxi sniffin’ cocaine
Drunk calls, drunk texts, drunk tears, drunk sex
I was lookin’ for a man who was on the same page
Now it’s back to the intro, back to the bar
To the Bentley, to the hotel, to my old ways

[Chorus: RAYE]
‘Cause I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
Doctor, doctor, anything, please
Doctor, doctor, have mercy on me
Take this pain away
You’re askin’ me my symptoms, doctor, I don’t wanna feel

[Verse 2: RAYE]
Toke this joint how I’m blowin’ this steam
Back to my ways like 2019
Not twenty-four hours since my ex did dead it
I got a new man on me, it’s about to get sweaty
Last night really was the cherry on the cake
Been some dark days lately and I’m findin’ it cripplin’
Excuse my state, I’m as high as your hopes
That you’ll make it to my bed, get me hot and sizzlin’
If I take a step back to see the glass half-full
At least it’s the Prada two-piece that I’m trippin’ in
And I’m already actin’ like a dick, know what I mean?
So you might as well stick it in

[Pre-Chorus: RAYE]
Just a heart broke bitch, high heels six inch
In the back of the nightclub, sippin’ champagne
I don’t trust any of these bitches I’m with
In the back of the taxi sniffin’ cocaine
Drunk calls, drunk texts, drunk tears, drunk sex
I was lookin’ for a man who was on the same page
Now it’s back to the intro, back to the bar
To the Bentley, to the hotel, to my old ways

[Chorus: RAYE & 070 Shake]
‘Cause I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
Doctor, doctor, anything, please
Doctor, doctor, have mercy on me
Take this pain away
You’re askin’ me my symptoms, doctor, I don’t wanna feel, mm (What?)

[Verse 3: 070 Shake & RAYE]
‘Cause I don’t wanna feel like I felt last night
I don’t wanna feel like I felt last night
Be at peace with the things you can’t change (Last night)
I’ll be naked when I leave and I was naked when I came, yeah
Out of reach, out of touch
Too numb, I don’t feel no way
Toast up, so what?
Street small, but it go both ways
So, you’ll run, yeah
But you’ll never escape
Sunset in the maze
(You’re askin’ me my symptoms, doctor, I don’t wanna feel)
[Chorus: RAYE]
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night, oh
Doctor, doctor, anything, please
Doctor, doctor, have mercy on me
You’re askin’ me my symptoms, doctor, I don’t wanna feel

[Bridge: 070 Shake]
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night
I don’t wanna feel how I did last night

[Outro: RAYE]
Mm, lipstick smudged like modern art
I don’t know where the fuck I am or who’s drivin’ the fuckin’ car
Speedin’ down the highway, sippin’
Mixin’ pills with the liquor ‘cah fuck these feelings
I left everyone I love on read (Uh-huh)
Spilling secrets to the stranger in my bed (Uh-huh)
I remember nothing so there’s nothing to regret (Uh-uh)
Other than this 4/4 kick drum poundin’ in my head

Source: Genius Lyrics. 

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Egypt in 2000 BC

Mentuhotep II, circa -2004.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 65 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts. Also: nearby oases.
• Population: 1 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Herakleopolis, Asyut, Abydos, Dendera, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: Thebes, the provincial capital that won the recent civil war.
• Language: Middle Egyptian – the classic form of the language.
• Religion: idol worship in the temples of Osiris, Ra, Hathor, Isis, Horus, Nut, etc; magic spells; Coffin Texts, divine judgement, Osiris as personal god, democratization of the afterlife.
• Government: Mentuhotep III, a god-king of the 11th Dynasty.
• Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer, monumental architecture.
  • imports: gold  (Nubia), copper (Sinai), cedar (Byblos).
• Currency: none.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport. Camels unknown.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk), bronze (finally), mechanical lock, saw, alphabet.
  • warfare: bows and arrows, spears, clubs, maces. No horses or chariots. Not even helmets or armour. Even the arrows are not tipped with metal – just flint or ebony instead. Mercenaries from Nubia and Palestine.

The last 100 years: the -2000s (the BC mirror years of our own time):

• Kings:
  • 10th Dynasty (Herakleopolis): Khety II and others. Rules northern Egypt till -2025.
  • 11th Dynasty (Thebes): Intef II, Intef III, Mentuhotep II (reunites Egypt under one dynasty), Mentuhotep III.
• Civil war between Herakleopolis in the north and Thebes in the south. Herakleopolis fell in about -2038 followed by mopping-up operations going after loyalist troops as far as the Dakhla Oasis out in the Western Desert. But the moral turning point came decades earlier when Herakleopolis retook the holy city of Abydos, looting and burning the ancient tombs of the 1st Dynasty (-3100 to -2890). It was said that “the stars fall upside down on their faces and are unable to raise themselves”. Even Khety II of Herakleopolis said, “Egypt fought in the graveyard, destroying tombs in vengeful destruction. As I did, so it happened, as is done to one who strays from god’s path.”
• The Middle Kingdom (-2055 to -1650) is the name Western scholars give to the 400-some-year period of peace and prosperity that followed the civil war.
• Karnak is being built in Thebes. It is a temple to Ra and to a local war god, Amun. In about 800 years it will become the largest religious building in the world and Amun the most powerful god.
• The rise of Osiris: with the democratization of the afterlife anyone has a chance after death of going to Osiris’s paradise of the Field of Reeds. To make it your good deeds will have to outweigh the bad, and you will need a guidebook, the:
• Coffin Texts – these were knock-off versions of the Pyramid Texts of the kings and queens of old. Some came complete with maps! You could have a papyrus copy or have it painted right onto your coffin!
• The alphabet invented by Palestinian mercenaries as a knock-off form of hieroglyphics.

Meanwhile in Britain, they are moving the bluestones of Stonehenge, but they keep falling over. Stonehenge was not built in a day and there were periods of poor construction, like this one.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Ankhtify
• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 3100 BC
  • Egypt in 3000 BC
  • Egypt in 2900 BC
  • Egypt in 2800 BC
  • Egypt in 2700 BC
  • Egypt in 2600 BC
  • Egypt in 2500 BC
  • Egypt in 2400 BC
  • Egypt in 2300 BC
  • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Egypt in 2100 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• alphabet
• Egyptian gods
  • Ra
  • Osiris
  • Amun
• Pyramid Text
• Coffin Text
• Nubia
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Whitehawk Woman
  • Stonehenge

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My adventures in music

Age 5: One week at school the teacher gave us each a musical instrument to play. The cool kids got the cool instruments. I got a triangle.

Age 6: I wanted a guitar. I overheard my parents saying they would give me a cheap one because they thought I would quickly lose interest. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy: the guitar was more a toy guitar than one you could play actual songs on.

Age 7: My parents gave me a transistor radio. Now I had some control over the music I heard. I was not limited to whatever radio stations or records my parents played. At least as long as the batteries lasted!

Age 10: My parents wanted me to learn how to play the clarinet! They said learning to play a musical instrument was good for me. Suddenly. My school did not offer guitar lessons – just lessons for instruments needed for the high school band. Ugh. I hated the clarinet. I learned the clarinet for three years. I learned two things: how to read music and the value of practice – to be really good anything takes loads and loads of practice. About 10,000 hours according to one estimate.

Age 12: My parents gave me a tape recorder and a plug-in radio. Now I could play the radio as long as I wanted – I was not limited by batteries. And I could record my favourite songs and play them to death. The New York version of Top-40 radio became the audio wallpaper of my room. I would listen to it even while doing my homework. To this day music helps me to concentrate.

Age 13: I became a serious reader. And started wondering about sex and love. So now the words of a song became the most important thing. I searched them for clues, like how archaeologists search the remains of lost civilizations. I did read the sex part of “The Naked Ape” (1967) by zoologist Desmond Morris, and knew what the older brothers of friends said, but it left something out.

Work: I worked at several places where I did not control the music played. So if the head dishwasher liked George Michael, I was stuck. One day I did get control of the radio, but the next day my boss hid the radio.

University: We were required to know something of the great literature of Western civilization. This was back before DWEMs became decidedly uncool. Literature, and art more generally, was about the mysteries of life, or so I was informed. I approached pop music the same way!

Marriage: I could no longer lay in bed all day and just listen to music and wonder about life. Nor go to Tower Records and blow $100. So my taste in music fossilized, pretty much at the moment Sade ran through the streets of LA in a wedding dress in “No Ordinary Love” (1992). Not that I stopped listening to music. In some ways it receded back into the wallpaper, but in other ways it became more important than ever. It has helped me through some bad, bad times. Only religion, not even money, can top it.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

• songs
• other adventures in: porn, sports.
• My 1970s media diet
  • Time Warp Radio: 1979
• Sade
  • No Ordinary Love
• The 10,000 hour rule

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Pyramid Texts

Pyramid Texts (-2300s to -2100s) are the endless columns of hieroglyphs you see on the walls inside later pyramids. They are the oldest surviving large body of writing about anything in any language. In this case they are in Old Egyptian and are religious – prayers, hymns, funeral rites, magic spells, and so on, to help the pyramid’s king or queen in the afterlife. They were the forerunners of the later Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead.

Time: They are found in the pyramids of the kings and queens who ruled for the 250 years from about -2375 to -2125, namely:

• 5th Dynasty: Unas.
• 6th Dynasty: Teti, Pepy I, Merenra, Pepy II (and his queens Neith, Iput II, Wedjebten).
• 7th/8th Dynasty: Ibi.

In Unas’s burial chamber they are carved into alabaster and painted in the blue of the watery abyss of the underworld.

Location: The pyramids that have them are in Saqqara, the ancient city of the dead near Memphis (near present-day Cairo). The famous pyramids, like the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Step Pyramid, do not have them. They are a later innovation. In fact, the pyramids that have them look like mounds of rubble. That is no accident: kings had lost faith in mere stone and placed it in magic spells.

Spells: The Pyramid Texts are made up of hundreds of spells or “utterances”. Some are just a line, others run on for several paragraphs. Pyramid Texts have between 236 and 675 spells. There are 759 different spells altogether. They were seen as so powerful that hieroglyphs of dangerous creatures, like lions or scorpions, were dismembered. Many of the spells would have been said during the funeral or later as part of the king’s cult.

Sources: Most probably came from the “secret knowledge” found in the now-vanished libraries of temples and palaces. Some utterances seem to be new – they mention pyramids or feature the latest in Osirian theology – while others seem to have been ancient even then – back to a time before mummies, before writing (before -3200).

Theology: The theology is mostly solar, the main Egyptian religion based on the god Ra, but some of it is based on the newer Osirian theology, or even the ancient stellar theology.  The theologies are inconsistent with each other but also melt into each other right before our eyes: the theology changes markedly from the oldest to the newest Pyramid Texts.

Afterlife: There were several on offer even within the same Text:

• The king “becomes one with the imperishable stars”, one of the northern stars that never set.
• The ba part of his soul becomes a human-headed bird that flies between tree and tomb.
• The king travels to Osiris’s paradise, the Fields of Reeds (sḫt-jꜣrw) or Yaru, in the north-eastern heavens, guarded by the ferryman Turnface.

Democratization of the afterlife: Some of these spells show up later in the Coffin Texts (fl. -2055 to -1795) or even later in the Book of the Dead (after -1500). They offered the afterlife to more than just kings and queens, but one where the gods judge the dead.

– Abagond, +2023.

See also:

• century readings
• Egypt: a brief history
  • Egypt in 2300 BC
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics

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Jhumpa Lahiri: In Other Words

“In Other Words” (2015) by US writer Jhumpa Lahiri tells of her oft-unrequited love affair with the Italian language. Growing up in the US she spoke Bengali at home and English at school, but felt at home in neither – despite winning a Pulitzer Prize, the highest literary award in the US, for “Interpreter of Maladies” (1999). So in 2011 she set out for Italy to learn Italian. This book tells that story. She wrote it in Italian itself. The 2016 edition I read has an English translation by Ann Goldstein of the New Yorker. 

Bengali was her mother tongue, English her stepmother – and Italian her lover. Each one an ocean.

She spoke only Bengali for the first four years of her life. She was born in London when her father was going to the London School of Economics. When he got a job as a university librarian in the US, they thought they would live there for only a few years. A few turned into forty. She grew up in Rhode Island.

She started speaking English when she started school. Because it was the language she learned to read and write, the language she received her education in, it became her stronger language. But it was not the language she was loved in. So much so that when her son was born she spoke in Bengali because the words in English did not come. Yet family trips to India to see relatives made her feel inadequate in Bengali. She spoke with an accent, did not always understand.

She was a perpetual foreigner in India, and, like many Asian Americans, treated like one in the US. (My way of putting it, not hers).

Her experience growing up is most like that of Latinos in the US. For them there are four main outcomes according to psychologist Beverly Tatum (none of this appears in the book):

1. Withdrawal – into the Spanish-speaking world.
2. Assimilation – into the English-speaking world.
3. Bicultural – at home in both the Spanish and English-speaking worlds.
4. Marginalization – at home in neither.

She is marginalized, at home in neither. So she left to find a new home.

She fell in love with Italian by way of Latin on a trip to Italy with her sister in 1994. Her many attempts to learn Italian in the US ended in frustration. So in 2011 she resolved to only read, write and speak in Italian. Which meant moving to Italy. Her husband’s native Spanish allowed them to get by at first.

In time she felt more at home in Italian than either English or Bengali. But there is still a distance. First, because she does not know it like someone who has spoken it since childhood and feels she never will. Second, because of:

The wall: No matter how good her Italian – good enough to write a book after just two years! – there are always some people who cannot understand her, even though they can understand her Guatemalan husband’s markedly worse, Spanish-inflected Italian. Because he looks Italian, she does not. She came up against the same wall in the US, a big reason she could not feel at home in English.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

• Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Stuff I Might Like
• growing up Latino
• Asian Americans
• The perpetual foreigner stereotype
• exiles
  • James Baldwin
  • Josephine Baker
  • W.E.B. Du Bois
• Bengali
• English

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Taylor Dayne: Tell it to My Heart

Remarks:

The instrumental part of this song sounds so late-1980s to me that it stands in for all the half-forgotten songs from that time. Her father lent her $6,000 to make the demo. It came out in 1987, hitting #1 in Europe and the top ten on pop charts across the Anglosphere, #7 in her native US. Some thought she was Black or at least not White. Like Billy Joel, she is Jewish American from Long Island, born as Leslie Wunderman.

See also:

• songs: the 1980s
• People who I thought were Black
• ethnic
• birth names

Lyrics:

I feel the night explode
When we’re together
Emotion overload
In the heat of pleasure

Take me I’m yours into your arms
Never let me go
Tonight I really need to know

Tell it to my heart
Tell me I’m the only one
Is this really love or just a game
Tell it to my heart
I can feel my body rock
Every time you call my name

The passion’s so complete
It’s never ending
As long as I receive
This message you’re sending

Body to body, soul to soul
Always feel you near
So say the words I long to hear

Tell it to my heart
Tell me I’m the only one
Is this really love or just a game
Tell it to my heart
I can feel my body rock
Every time you call my name

Love…love on the run
Breaking us down
Though we keep holding on
I don’t want to lose
No…I can’t let you go…

Tell it to my heart
Tell me I’m the only one
Is this really love or just a game
Tell it to my heart
I can feel my body rock
Every time you call my name

Tell it to my heart
Tell me from the stars
Tell it to my heart
Tell it to my heart
Tell me from the stars
Tell it to my heart

Never make it stop
Oh take it to the heart
Oh no no ah ah

Tell it to my heart
Tell me I’m the only one
Is this really love or just a game
Tell it to my heart
I can feel my body rock
Every time you call my name

Source: AZ Lyrics.

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People who I thought were Black

I thought Bobby Caldwell was Black. It was not till he died the other day that I discovered he was White. But he is not the only one like that. Here, in chronological order:

Note that links in italics go to YouTube and are subject to link rot:

Robert Lamm as the lead singer on “Beginnings” (1971) by Chicago. The song, though, was inspired by Richie Havens, who is Black.

Elliot Lurie as the lead singer on “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” (1972) by Looking Glass. I thought Brandy was Black too.

Robert John in “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (1972). I thought he was a Black woman! To be fair, I thought Billy Joel was a White woman in the falsetto part of “Piano Man” (1973).

Kenny Nolan as a Sex-O-Lette on “Get Dancin'” (1975) by Disco-Tex. I thought he was a Black woman till 2021!

Kiki Dee on “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (1976), which she sang with Elton John. She was the first White woman from the UK to sign with Motown’s Tamla label. So I was not completely on drugs. But probably more than a little naive in thinking Elton John would do a duet with an actual Black woman – even though he did sing “Island Girl“  just the year before.

Bobby Caldwell in “What You Won’t Do For Love” (1978).

Alicia Bridges in “I Love the Nightlife” (1978). When I saw her on a talk show, I was shocked!

Dan Hartman in “I Can Dream About You” (1984). To be fair, the music video does show him as a Black man. Click on the link and see for yourself. An actual case of Blackwashing.

Simply Red on the song “Holding Back the Years” (1985). I thought he was a Black woman till I saw the video on MTV. Now I cannot even imagine how I thought that.

Jeanette Jurado in “Come Go With Me” (1987) by Exposé. She is Mexican American, born in East LA, not even a bit Afro-Latino. I am only now finding out that much of the dance music I liked back then was, like this song, Latin freestyle.

There are no doubt others that I do not even know about yet!

What most have in common is having a Top-40 song in the 1970s without being famous enough to be on television or have their picture in the newspaper. Some were so unfamous I did not even know their name until just now when I looked them up in the Wikipedia.

In the 1970s in the US there were few music videos, music on the radio was way less racially segregated – even the bands themselves were less segregated – and Whites freely copied Black styles of music (well, they still do). And, as noted elsewhere on this blog, it was when music became beige.

In the 1980s Japanese electronics gave us the Walkman and the boom box – stereo radio most people could afford. That led to the rise of FM radio, which was far more segregated. Whites favoured Black artists who were D.O.R.F – Dead, Old, Retro, or Foreign.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

• People who I thought were White
• R&B: a brief history: 1975-1979 – when music became beige
• dorf
• singers and race:
  • The blackness of Mariah Carey
  • The blackness of Madonna
  • The blackness of Eric Clapton
  • Teena Marie
  • Why Jimi Hendrix fans are mostly White
• Hollywood whitewashing

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Egypt in 2100 BC

Harpoon fishing like it’s circa 2100 BC. From the tomb of Ankhtify.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 70 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

• Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts.
• Population: on the low side of 1 million.
• Major cities: north to south: Memphis, Herakleopolis, Asyut, Thinis, Abydos, Dendera, Coptos, Thebes, Elephantine.
  • capital: none
• Language: Middle Egyptian – the classic form of the language.
• Religion: idol worship in the temples of Ptah, Ra, Hathor, Osiris, Isis, Horus, Min, Seth, Nut, etc; magic spells; morally judged by the gods after death.
• Government: warlordism.
• Economy: A string of provincial economies. Wheat, barley, flax, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, honey, figs, beer. No pyramid is being built.
  • imports: Nubian archers.
• Currency: none.
• Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Rare: roads, horses, and wheeled transport, camels unknown.
• Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, stone blocks, paper, glass, bee-keeping, linen (not cotton or silk). Not bronze but copper hardened with arsenic.

The last 100 years: the -2100s:

• Kings:
  • 6th Dynasty: Pepy II, Nitiqret (Nitocris).
  • After -2181, only local dynasties:
    • 7th/8th Dynasty (Memphis) : “70 kings in 70 days” and then 17 kings in 20 years.
    • 9th/10th Dynasty (Herakleopolis): Khety I, Khety II.
    • 11th Dynasty (Thebes): Mentuhotep I, Intef I, Intef II.
• Famine strikes Egypt repeatedly, part of the megadrought of the 4.2-kiloyear event. One tomb autobiography says parents even ate their children. Egypt stored grain for the bad years, but not enough for a megadrought. The national government collapses in -2181 leading to:
• Warlordism: The power of the kings of the 7th and 8th Dynasties barely extend beyond Memphis. Beyond Memphis life goes on much the same – power and wealth in Egypt had been decentralizing for the past 200 years. But with no national capital to keep the peace, city begins fighting city. By century’s end Egypt has settled into 110-year civil war between Herakleopolis and Thebes.
• Memphis, the now-former capital, fills with sand, pyramids are robbed, the nearby Step Pyramid becomes the haunt of herdsmen. By -2125 there is not even a king anymore.
• Thebes, a one-donkey town, becomes the top city in the south by century’s end thanks to its core fighting force of Nubian archers and control of important desert routes.
• The First Intermediate Period (-2181 to -2055) is the name scholars give to this time of troubles. It comes between the Old Kingdom period (-2686 to -2181), aka the Pyramid Age, and the Middle Kingdom (-2055 to -1650). Writers in the Middle Kingdom, like Ipuwer, will make it seem like a period when morals broke down, but in fact morals were taken more seriously:
• Democratization of the afterlife: The magical spells of the Pyramid Texts that only appeared in the pyramids of kings and queens to protect them in the afterlife, now begin to appear in Coffin Texts of non-royals. Religion is no longer so much a matter of performing the right sacrifices but of right acting: after death your good and bad deeds will be weighed against each other. In about 2,100 years Egypt will become a formative influence on Christianity.

Meanwhile in Britain, brown-skinned people like the Whitehawk Woman are moving the bluestones of Stonehenge, but they keep falling over thanks to poor construction.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

• Ankhtify
• Egyptian century of the week
  • Egypt in 3100 BC
  • Egypt in 3000 BC
  • Egypt in 2900 BC
  • Egypt in 2800 BC
  • Egypt in 2700 BC
  • Egypt in 2600 BC
  • Egypt in 2500 BC
  • Egypt in 2400 BC
  • Egypt in 2300 BC
  • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Egypt
  • Egypt: a brief history
  • Ancient Egypt
• Egyptian
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
• Pyramid Text
• Coffin Text
• Nubia
• The British
  • The British through time: the last 10,000 years
  • Whitehawk Woman
  • Stonehenge

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Harkhuf

Harkhuf (early -2200s) was an Egyptian explorer. His autobiography, one of the oldest in Egypt, is cut into the rock across the Nile River from what is now the city of Aswan (and just north of Elephantine Island). Worn away by the winds of 4,000 years, it is still readable. It runs about 50 lines of hieroglyphs, equal to two to three pages of printed English. It goes from about the year -2287 to -2276, when he made his journeys to:

The Land of Yam: No one is sure where this is. But it is probably somewhere in what is now northern Sudan, either somewhere along the Nile or possibly to the west in Darfur. It took him some seven months and 300 donkeys to make the trip. That comes to about a thousand miles (1600 km) according to one estimate. Harkhuf gives his route – but it is full of place names no longer known.

What he brought back:

“With 300 donkeys loaded with incense, ebony, heknu oil, shesat [an aromatic product], panther skins, elephant tusks, throw-sticks, and all sorts of wonderful products did I travel.”

Nubia: He also brought back reports of what was going on in Nubia, the country just south of Egypt (called Ethiopia by the Greeks, Romans and the King James Bible). He travelled through Nubia on the way back. Egypt had long kept Nubia on edge as a matter of foreign policy, but now it was becoming united and hostile, so much so that in a later expedition Harkhuf needed an armed guard to cross Nubia.

The Road of Forty Days, aka Darb el-Arba’in in Arabic, may have been part of his route: 3,000 years later, in medieval times, it was a trade route from Darfur bringing just the sort of products Harkhuf brought back from Yam. On one of his expeditions he said he took the Oasis Road, the road west the Kharga Oasis, where the Road of Forty Days begins. If so, then Yam is Darfur.

Nilo-Saharans were the people who then lived in Darfur and along the Nile south of Nubia. They still live along the grasslands south of the Sahara, as far as the Great Bend of the Niger River where Timbuktu is.

Pygmies: On his last journey, in about -2276, Harkhuf brought back a “dwarf”, widely believed to be a Pygmy.

Pepy II, then eight, was excited. Harkhuf quotes from his letter:

“Come north to the Residence straight-away! Cast [everything else] aside, bring with you this dwarf who is in your charge, whom you brought from the land of the Horizon-dwellers. May he live, prosper and be healthy, so that he may dance for the god and gladden and delight the king of Upper and Lower Egypt Neferkare [Pepy II], may he live for ever!

When he goes down in your charge into the boat, station reliable people around him on the deck lest he fall into the water! When he sleeps at night, ensure that reliable people sleep around him in his quarters. Make inspection ten times per night!

My majesty wants to see this dwarf more than the tribue of Sinai or of Punt [Somalia?].”

– Abagond, +2023.

See also:

• century readings
• Africa: the last 13,000 years
  • Egypt: a brief history
    • Egypt in 2300 BC
    • Egypt in 2200 BC
  • Nilo-Saharans
  • Bantu Expansion
• Nubia
  • The term “Ethiopia”
  • Diop: Contribution of Ethiopia-Nubia and Egypt
• Sudan
  • Darfur
• Timbuktu
• Africans as zoo animals
  • Sarah Baartman
  • Ota Benga
  • human zoos

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