Where do the thoughts of a Writer come from?

A writer writes what she thinks, but where do the thoughts come from?

From her past and present…

From the world around her…

From what she sees, hears, smells, reads, does…

From what happens to her and hers…

A storyteller weaves a story, but where does the yarn come from?

From what happened and what didn’t…

From what should’ve have happened but didn’t…

From events and from people…

From what should be but isn’t...

“The Price of Nofret’s Nose” is a work of fiction. It’s story is about what happened and what didn’t, what must have happened but didn’t, and what should have been but wasn’t; and yet it’s also a story that has characters and reflections from the writer’s past and present and of what happened to her and hers.

The Price of Nofret’s Nose.

 

 

 

Charmed.

Another 5 star review. I’m charmed. Actually, I’m inspired. Thank you, dear unknown reviewer. I’m glad you stopped by to share your thoughts.

I’ll return to share my thoughts on “Strange Weather in Tokyo” and a couple of other books that I’ve read recently.

Thanks 🙂

 

Hatshepsut – in Life and in Death

Hatshepsut is one of the first symbols of feminism that we see buried deep in the sands of time. Three thousand and five hundred years ago, she ruled Egypt more successfully than many other Pharaohs, and yet her monuments were defaced, and attempts were made to obliterate her from history.

Who was this woman Pharaoh who defied tradition and strapped a false beard to her chin? 

Imagine a young girl, about fourteen or fifteen, married to an aging Pharaoh, who finds herself widowed at the age of thirty and finds herself at the helm of the affairs of state – co-ruling Egypt with her two-year-old stepson. The infant pharaoh, still in his swaddling clothes would contribute little more than ear-splitting shrieks to the administration of Egypt. We see here, a capable woman, possibly ruling in the stead of a child, who is not her son.

She obviously was in a position to control the destiny of Egypt and also steer the career of the young Pharaoh, who, upon attaining majority, was promptly sent off to the Egypt-Syrian border to defend it.

Djeser Djeseru, the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut tells us a lot about this woman Pharaoh, and also introduces us to a possible paramour. Senenmut.

The Morality of Sibling Marriages in Ancient Egypt

Immoral is…”conflicting with generally or traditionally held moral principles.”

– Merriam-webster.

As the “generally/traditionally held moral principles” are dependent upon time and place, we might say that what may actually be considered immoral in one place at a given time, may have been or could be moral in another place or at a different time.

Automatically then, we begin to understand and appreciate a lot of ancient mores that flummox us. For instance, the Ancient Egyptian practice of marriages within the family. We call these marriages incestuous today, but two thousand years ago, in Ancient Egypt, this word didn’t exist. They used the terms brother and husband, and sister and wife, interchangeably.

While laws, moral standards, and traditions are temporary and change with time and place, human nature has by and far remained unchanged, which is why it helps us understand the practices of other cultures. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that humans are motivated by need, desire, even greed.

Morality is Temporal.

Imagine the Ancient Egyptian Royalty trying to keep the crown in the family. Imagine a pharaoh reflecting upon keeping it all.

Feminism in History: Enheduanna – The First Woman Poet.

Four thousand years ago, when the Akkadians (one of the ancient Mesopotamian races) invaded Sumeria (the southern part of Mesopotamia, also known the Fertile Crescent or  the cradle of civilization,) they realized that if they didn’t meld their religion with the existing Sumerian religion, they would never win the hearts of the local populace. The Akkad king Sargon the Great placed the burden of this difficult task upon the shoulders of his daughter Enhedduana, by making her the high priestess of Nanna, the Moon god, and bestowing upon her the coveted title of En or the priest.

My imagination shows me a young Enhedduana entrusted with the responsibility of combining the Sumerian gods with the Akkadian gods in a subliminal way. I see her researching, holding conferences, determining the key religious symbols of the new (Sumerian religion) and synthesizing them with the Akkadian ones. I see her as an organizer, manager, visualizer, writer, and poet.

And I see many cynical faces around her. These faces belong to people who wanted her to fail, and who, away from the prying eyes, come together to plan her fall. For over the last four thousand years, things haven’t changed all that much.

Recently, in a program that I conducted for some senior managers of an organization, a woman participant told me that a woman has to work three times more than a man to prove that she is equal to a man. I couldn’t disagree with her.

I see Enhedduana as a similar woman manager, who despite her privileged position as the eldest princess of the conquering people, would have to work doubly hard than a man, to prove that her father’s confidence in her capability wasn’t misplaced.

I see her reflecting upon her strengths and realizing that the matters of belief can only be worked through the hearts of the people, and only by evoking their feelings would she be able to bring about a lasting change in their religious beliefs. Her father Sargon knew that for the task of bringing the Sumerians onboard, his daughter was the right person for she had the empathy of an artist and the gumption of a princess.

In addition to discharging her other duties as the priestess, Enhedduana can historically claim to be the first poetess ever. She wrote forty-two poems, and three hymns to be sung in the praise of goddess Inanna, the powerful Sumerian goddess of love, sensuality, fertility, and war.

Image shows Goddess Inanna. Image Source: By Ramblings of the Claury [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons