Napoleon leading me through History
With the lead up to the Napoleon movie, I am endeavouring to read the book, Napoleon the Great.
It wasn't the only motivating factor, though.
I have been trawling through old Australian newspapers, investigating the opinions of people from 100+ years ago.
Fortunately, through https://trove.nla.gov.au/ there are many digitised publications, since the beginning of the Colony.
In one of my readings, I came across the, Australian government, sending monies to the UK in assistance against Napoleon.
Oh, I didn't realise that this was in the 1800s when this occurred.
It then inspired me to research Napoleon, which, has also spilled into many other areas of History - French Revolution, Egypt, Africa, Italy ... a deep dive of sorts.
A name cropped up in communications regarding, Herodotus.
Herodotus, the 'Father of History', was travelling around the known world documenting his travels, and the stories, therein.
He would have been a prolific Hive Blogger in 500 BC.
In his writings, An Account of Egypt, he covered information regarding the Egyptian reverence towards Crocodiles.
City Of Crocodiles
those however who dwell about Thebes and about the lake of Moiris hold them to be most sacred, ... keeps one crocodile selected from the whole number, which has been trained to tameness, and they put hanging ornaments of molten stone and of gold into the ears of these and anklets round the front feet, and they give them food appointed and victims of sacrifices and treat them as well as possible while they live, (An Account of Egypt)
Embalming
and after they are dead they bury them in sacred tombs, embalming them
(An Account of Egypt)
Humans were not the only things that were mummified.
There are examples of all types of animals being embalmed.
Great skill and care was taken to embalm the crocodiles.
As with most human endeavours, once it became a popular trend for worship and luck, an industry was created.
Crocodiles were hunted and farmed to cater to the demand.
Sobek the Crocodile God
The protector of the Nile.
In some of the Egyptian creation myths, sweat from Sobek’s body formed the Nile.
"As the Nile’s guardian, he personified the river’s treacherous waters, which could bring both life and death."source
Delving in the Past to understand the Present
I find many common themes run throughout human history.
Human ability to process their environment ranges from logical, well thought out, ideas to the crazy, violent, and illogical.
I understand that history is many times warped, and manipulated, to construct a desired narrative, however, that is what we have to work with.
Having competing interests might actually unveil more truth than we realise.
Each side providing their biased point of view, added together, might give us a glimpse of humanity then, and how we interpret, the Now.
Egypt through the eyes of its traditions, customs, architecture, gods, writings and monuments provides us various snapshots.
The introduction of the Hellenic, Roman, French, British, Ottoman, Persian, and every other Civilisation interaction, provides more insight.
I had not heard of Herodotus, just reading his, "Account of Egypt", has been a wonderful journey that I have not yet completed.
I still have to finish my Napolean book.
It just blows my mind the amount of detail available to us in the internet age.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cache-of-mummified-crocodiles-discovered-in-egypt-
https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/02/crocodile-mummies
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/herodotus
https://anthropologyreview.org/history/ancient-egypt/sobek-egypt-crocodile-god/