Over all this was a really cool unit to read! The Ancient Egyptian Myths have quite a bit of legends and hidden secret, which is the reason why
this unit is enjoyable! My favorite story from the latter half (The Secret Name of Ra is my favorite
overall) was The Book of Thoth. This
story was about a prince who desired the knowledge of power, and an ancient
priest told him that the god Thoth wrote a book with all life mysteries. The
priest said if he read this book, he would know power. Long story short the
prince finds the book, but Thoth (with power from Ra) kills his family and him.
The cool part was how whoever reads the book gains Thoth’s power. I wish the
textbooks I am required to read would do that. The idea that one can gain power
through reading and understanding is a cool way to look at it. Most of the
power stories do involve very wise people, but never instantly clever like the
prince became when he read. It was like Thoth’s powers come from simply seeing
the words written. I obviously don’t know if that is how it works, but I only
assume that because the prince was able to drink the pages and understand them
(yes I said drink, read the story). Other stories about power don’t contain a
shortcut like that. Most stories the people read ancient text and study them
for lifetimes to understand it, but Thoth’s was just about the words themselves
and not the meaning behind them. I feel like that added a very exciting spin to
the myth for sure. If someone decides to do another reading diary this week,
Egyptian Myths should be the unit.
(Image is from SMU Library)
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