Ancient Civilisations and Languages Week; Friday Language, Dialects and Academia
Firstly, this is extremely late. I have been working all the end of this week and I got lazy and slept. I am now playing the catch-up game, sorry.
Secondly I did an Ancient Egyptian Literature class in my degree last year so I thought I would share my presentation on one piece of Egyptian Literature!! You guys get to learn about not only the story and the literature side of things but the text as an artefact!! ENJOY!!
Welcome to the tale of Prince Pedrokhons and Queen Serpot seriously Hollywood, adapt this already!!
Yes this was the opening page of my presentation, yes everyone loved it!!
There is only one known copy of the Papyrus; The Vienna Demotic Papyrus 6165 which is extremely damaged and fragmentary making the story very difficult to read as there is no consistent flow due to missing words
The text has been further published in a series of German Publications which deconstruct the text in a more detailed manner
It also appears in Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume III where she gives an English Translation of the text
There has been a less Academic Publication of the story in Tamara Bower's Children's Picture Book "How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt" which use most of the original text with beautiful illustrations to tell a feminist tale
The story of Prince Pedrokhons and Queen Serpot begins when Prince Pedrokhons arrives in Khor or Syria, a region ruled by Amazons, Pedrokhons invades the area and camps near the principle fortress of the Amazons, Queen Serpot is worried and wants to know how to plan her battle strategy, so she sends her sister, disguised as a man into the Egyptian Army to gain intelligence, upon finding everything out about them she decides to take the offensive and attack them first, when they do attack the Egyptians, Pedrokhons just watches and doesn’t take part in the battle, so the next day Serpot and Pedrokhons partake in a one on one battle, both are such skilled warriors that it continues for the whole day, by the end of the day, both are understandably tired and call an armistice, leading them to begin talking which follows in them falling in love.
The story was written and recorded in the Greco-Roman Period, however the events occurred in the Post-Imperial Epoch when numerous petty princes, who fought each other for power and prestige, ruled Egypt.
The setting of the story is in Khor or Syria even though one of the main characters is Egyptian
The main characters are very clear, I would categorize Queen Serpot as the Protagonist as a lot of the story begins from her point of view “Serpot, Queen of the land of women sat, of her tent…”
Pedrokhons is the Antagonist because he invades the Amazons land without any provocation and the Amazons have to actively seek out the “purpose for which the troops had come”.
Echo's the Greek Epics, especially the story of Achilles and Penthesilea; Penthesilea and her Amazons are fighting on the side of the Trojans in the Trojan war, Achilles hears of how bravely Penthesilea is fighting and wishes to battle her and upon defeating her, was so overcome with her beauty that he couldn’t kill her
