Which Goddess Wears the Horns?

In the dining room, the galley staff is patiently waiting for us with a feast worthy of the gods. A full lunch with all the trimmings awaits our eager palates. For a group that is over two hours late for lunch, we’re certainly treated extremely well. I’m sure the chef and waiters had other things to do than prepare and serve a whole separate meal for the eleven of us, but nothing in their demeanour suggests that they are anything other than happy to see us.

While enjoying the good food, we arrive at Kom Ombo, situated approximately forty kilometres north of Aswan, for a short stop. After our late lunch, we’re invited to partake in an evening excursion to the temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to the crocodile-headed god Sobek. This lovely jaunt, which will take place after sunset, is planned for those in our group brave (or foolish) enough to attempt the visit in the dark. This must be the Egyptian equivalent of a haunted house tour; it does, after all, have mummified crocodiles buried in crypts beneath the temple. 

Flashlights are strongly recommended since this delightful activity will be devoid of sunlight, natural or artificial—Ptolemy XII, builder of the temple, didn’t install any hydroelectric facilities, the inconsiderate swine. This does sound very exciting, and at any other time, I would have been first in line to go. But according to Yasmin, the terrain is not wheelchair friendly even in the daytime. It doesn’t take Einstein to conjure up all the inherent perils of a night stroll among the ruins for a crutched individual, even one equipped with a light source. 

Besides, the flashlight I’ve brought along doesn’t use batteries. This nifty eco-friendly model has a dynamo which is recharged every time you crank the handle attached to it. In order to use the crutches, I would have to fasten the flashlight to my head with duct tape—believe it or not, I did bring a small supply—and crank my forehead every so often to keep the illumination forthcoming. 

Really, this is not the vision of myself I want to offer to the world. Nor do I want to run the risk of wrecking anything else on my person. To that end, I opt to stay on the ship, firmly ensconced in a comfy lounge chair, and read about the ancient gods in my travel book. I pray that Sobek won’t be offended by my absence. To appease him, I’ll read about him while sipping a gin and tonic to his health. 

One of the distinguishing features of the ancient Egyptian civilization is the countless number of gods and goddesses that populated every aspect of the Egyptians’ daily life. First among the gods is Amun, the king of the gods. He’s the big boss, the CEO of ancient Egypt, most often portrayed in human form with a crown adorned with two huge plumes. He’s credited for basically creating everything. 

You may think that with nothing else to do, all the other gods hung around drinking Margaritas and playing Canasta. Not exactly. Take Osiris for instance. He was also an important dude in Egyptian mythology, being the big honcho of the Underworld assigned to judge the dearly departed. His wife, the beautiful Isis, must not have been much of a cook, as Osiris is often depicted with a green face, an obvious clue to the chronic indigestion from which he must have been suffering. 

As the story goes, Osiris was murdered by his brother Set, a guy with the head of an unknown creature which, to me, looks like a disgruntled aardvark. Apparently, Set was jealous of Osiris. I rather think that he was peeved because when they were giving out god heads, he got the ugly one. After killing Osiris, Set cut him up in a bunch of pieces and scattered them all over Egypt. Isis, with the help of her sister Nephthys, travelled throughout the land to find and collect the pieces of her husband in a kind of morbid Easter egg hunt. She enlisted the aid of Anubis and Thoth to help put Humpty Osiris back together again. 

After finishing the Osiris jigsaw, Isis somehow revived him and had her way with him. She then gave birth to a son, Horus, who really stands out in a crowd by the fact that he’s a man with the head of a falcon. That must have made the headlines: Dead guy’s wife gives birth to bird-headed son!  Regardless of the ridicule he must have endured while growing up, Horus became a popular fellow and went on to kill Set, thereby avenging his father’s death who, by then, had been promoted to the Underworld gig. 

Another headline comes to mind: Hideous aardvark killed by angry birdbrain dude in retaliation for murder of green heartburn victim! All this drama within the confines of one family. That’s right; didn’t I mention that Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, and Set were all brothers and sisters? Yup, Isis married her brother, so Horus is Osiris’s son and nephew. Dysfunctional does not begin to describe this lot!

Next, we have Anubis, a chap with the noggin of a jackal. He’s the top dog of the necropolis, the Embalmer, the God of Mummification and Death. Had he been invited to our little gallabiyya party as a consultant for the mummy game, we would have ended up with proper mummies instead of the unruly, breathing wads of wet toilet paper, staggering about like clumsy, saturated sponges. 

Another god, Thoth, is often depicted as an Ibis-headed man, although he may sometimes take the shape of a baboon; major personality disorder at work here! When he’s not busy flip-flopping between being a bird and a monkey, Thoth spends his free time being the God of Wisdom and the inventor of writing. So, where was he when I was struggling with my hieroglyphic verb tenses? No doubt he was monkeying around with the grammar rules, thinking of ways to frustrate the lowly student into fits of conjugating folly or visions of suicide by syntax.

Moving on, there is Hathor, a lovely lady really, but she can be a real cow at times. Literally. She’s always represented with a solar disk and cow horns on her head. Depending on her moooood—you just knew that was coming—she may appear sporting cow ears, or even the whole head of a cow. Of course, she bears no relation to the despised airport COW.  Hathor is the Goddess of Joy, Music, and Love. Or is it the Goddess of Joy, Moosic, and Love? Please, stop groaning.

Maat, on the other hand, is cool. The Goddess of Truth and Justice, she looks somewhat like an Egyptian Pocahontas. She wears a feather on her head: the Feather of Truth against which the hearts of the newly departed are weighed to determine their worth. It goes like this. If the dead guy’s heart weighed favourably against Maat-Pocahontas’s feather, he was allowed into the Afterlife. Otherwise, Ammut, the Devourer, would gobble everything up, the dead guy, his heart, and therefore, his hope of eternal life. 

Ammut, with the head of a crocodile, the front half of a lion or sometimes a leopard, and the back end of a hippopotamus, was considered a most terrifying and monstrous creature to the ancient Egyptians. He looks more like an evil clown to me. Actually, this croco-lio-potamus critter reminds me of the children’s books that have cartoon animals pictured on split pages where you can mix and match tops, middles, and bottoms to make weird new creatures. 

Maybe that’s how the Ancient Egyptians came up with Ammut. Maybe they had a party, got a bit drunk, started playing with their create-a-monster book, and bingo, Ammut was born.

Devouring clown monsters aside, there are of course many more gods and goddesses, each with different jobs, duties, and heads. Some were major gods and were worshiped everywhere. Others were more local deities while some were merely household pals, handy to have around for good luck. If you ask me, there are way too many gods, and some of them are downright creepy, like Khepra. On tomb paintings, he’s got the body of a man, but his face is a scarab—a dung beetle—with legs and everything!

The Greeks were up to their old tricks of renaming stuff and that included the gods. Actually, some of the Greek names have become so commonplace that the Egyptian name is very seldom, if at all, used. Although everyone knows Isis, Osiris, Anubis, Thoth and Nephthys, (at least, you do now) not many have heard of Aset, Usir, Inpu, Djehuti and Nebhet, their original Egyptian names.

Leaving the gods alone for awhile, my thoughts migrate to dinner which is scheduled at 8 P.M., after the group has come back from their expedition to Kom Ombo temple. My original plan was to skip the meal since I couldn’t fathom into what nook or cranny I was meant to stuff more food. Indeed, my leg is merely broken, not hollow. As dinner time arrives, however, I find an empty alcove somewhere between my pancreas and the left kidney and enjoy a light dinner. Life is good. Pants are tight. I plan to do a few extra flights of stairs the next day to work this off. 

With Hapy, the God of the Nile, looking over us, the rest of the cruise back to Luxor is spent leisurely watching the landscape go by, eating, and doing stairs. I can’t help but wonder: if Hapy is the Nile god, which gods were Sneezy, Dopey, and Grumpy? As though Fate were listening to my very thoughts, I soon get to meet Sneezy. 

Cruising down the Nile. We're not exactly alone.