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Welcome to Voices of Ancient Egypt, the podcast for people who don't just want to learn about ancient Egypt, but want to understand it on a deeper, more meaningful level. I'm Melinda Nelsonhurst, an Egyptologist with a PhD in the field and years of experience teaching at the university level, working in Egypt, and training students around the world to read real ancient Egyptian texts. I've spent decades studying the civilization in a traditional academic setting, so you don't have to. And so you can access knowledge that's usually locked behind academic walls. This podcast brings ancient Egyptian history, beliefs, and language to life and shows you that learning hieroglyphs is possible no matter your age, background, or schedule. So whether you want to read hieroglyphs in museums, on social media, or on your next trip to Egypt, you'll find the tools, stories, and encouragement to make it real right here. Let's hear the voices of the ancient world together. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Voices of Ancient Egypt podcast. Super excited to bring you this today because this is definitely a topic we haven't talked about. And this is actually just a tiny sample, great example of what we do in my next level hieroglyphs program, Master Scribes, this text I'm going to tell you about today. In that program, we get into reading higher-level texts like historical accounts, stories, like the one I'm going to talk about today, the Book of the Dead, Heart Scarabs, Letters, Statues, and like so many more things. This is my six-month group program that will take you from reading some of the most common texts to reading next level text with confidence through its innovative curriculum and tons of support from me. It's like having an Egyptologist in your back pocket. We have all kinds of conversations in there all the time, not just about like what's this hieroglyph, but lots of topics. We're talking about portraiture right now, for example. And a small number of special bonus hieroglyph a day planners will be available to those who enroll first. So you'll want to jump on the wait list now at masterscribes.com to be ready when applications open. So what happens in your life when maybe something doesn't go according to plan, or maybe it just didn't uh go really how you'd like, right? How do people in your life maybe try to cheer you up after that situation? I'm betting it's probably not like how this guy does it. So in the ancient Egyptian story of the shipwrecked sailor, our so-called protagonist, who is a shipwrecked sailor, is trying to cheer up his boss. They have just gotten back from some kind of expedition by ship, and apparently the mission was a failure. Whatever it was they were supposed to do didn't work out. And his superior is really pretty down, upset, thinks he's gonna be in big trouble for this. So the sailor tries to cheer him up by telling him, look, we have arrived home safely. Everything's okay. Yeah, sure, this didn't go exactly as planned, but in the end it turned out all right. It will be fine. The superior does not believe him. He figures he's in a lot of trouble with the Pharaoh, probably. And so the sailor goes on and says, Look, let me tell you this story of a time when I had a mission completely fail, and even worse than this, and how it turned out for me. And he then launches into this story that is really the majority of this that what we call the shipwrecked sailor. It's a story within a story. He's telling his own story within the larger story. And actually, a little later on in the story, we have yet another story nested inside it. It's a very interesting story overall in terms of it's not just the content in the story itself, but the structure of it as well. So the sailor launches into his tales talking about how they were headed south to go visit lands and collect trade goods and so forth, and a terrible storm came up and destroyed their ship, and everybody on the ship died, except for him. Somehow he survived and he washed up on an island. He found himself on this island the only one there, totally alone. He didn't know what to do at first. He just laid there in the shade. And then eventually, after a couple of days, he decided to go ahead and get up and explore the island and see what he could find. And then he found it was growing all these wonderful fruits and vegetables, actually, like as if somebody had been purposefully growing them there, even though there seemed to be nobody around. And as he's exploring and he's discovering there's all these wonderful melons and figs and fish and everything else here that he can eat, he suddenly hears what sounds like thunder booming, coming closer, getting louder. And then he sees it. It's a giant serpent. The sailor is absolutely terrified. He can't speak, he can't move, he's so terrified. And then the serpent does what might seem like the most unlikely thing. He talks to the sailor and he says, Who brought you here? Basically, he just wants to know how'd the sailor get there. But the sailor is like shaking in his boots, absolutely terrified. He cannot get a word out to answer the serpent. The serpent gets a bit testy with him and tells him, You better tell me, or I'm gonna turn you into a pile of ash. But that doesn't do the trick. The sailor's just even more terrified. So the serpent decides to take him home with him, picks him up in his mouth, and brings him back to his home, sets the sailor down and asks him again. Now the sailor is finally able to tell his story. He tells the serpent his story of his shipwreck. So, really, this is like our first story, again, nested within the story that's already nested in the main story of the failed mission at the beginning. The serpent sympathizes and tells him that he had a tragedy as well, where he lost his loved ones. And he then recounts the true story within a story, within a story, when he tells his own story about how his family was killed from a shooting star or meteor. And he says he was away at the moment, he wasn't with them, and he came back to find them burned. And he says that in that moment when he saw it, he died for them. But it turns to a little bit cheerier tone when the serpent then predicts that the sailor will be rescued. This is not his fate forever to stay on this island. He will be rescued, he will go home, he will see his wife, he will hug his children. So the sailor spends some more time on the island with the serpent, who seems to be some kind of godlike figure. It's never fully explained exactly who he is. One of the interesting things about this story is that nobody has any names. The sailor doesn't have a name, the sailor's superior at the beginning doesn't have a name, the serpent doesn't have a name. The island doesn't have a name. It's referred to as the island of the Ka, but that seems to be more of a description rather than a name. So the sailor stays with the serpent for a couple of months before a ship finally comes to rescue him. And he's so thankful to the serpent and wants to do something for the serpent. He wants to show his gratitude by bringing him all kinds of riches from lands all around, not just from Egypt, but from all the places that Egypt trades with and so forth. So he says he'll bring him, for example, myrrh and all kinds of oils and incense and different things. And the serpent just laughs at him, just absolutely busts out laughing. Basically, he says, You are gonna give me myrrh. Don't you realize I'm the lord of myrrh? I rule this island where there is everything you could possibly want. Just like what the sailor saw when he first explored the island, right? It has all kinds of amazing natural riches there. The serpent says, I need nothing from you. I have everything. I have more than anybody else. The only thing I ask of you is that you spread my good name back home. So the sailor agrees. And then he runs off to flag down the ship that's coming by the island. The sailors in it, he sees them, he recognizes them, he knows that they are Egyptians, and flags them down. The sailors come to shore and rescue the sailor. His multiple month ordeal seems to be almost over, although he still has to make the trip home, of course, which was not fast back in those days when you were sailing by sea or by river. When he arrives home, he does indeed see his family. He sees his wife, he hugs his children. He's overjoyed to be home. And not only this, but the king, the pharaoh, rewards him. He gets all kinds of riches that he couldn't have imagined getting, particularly since he actually didn't even complete the mission that he was supposed to, right? But it all works out for him in the end, and everything turns out wonderfully, and it's great. And so he's telling his superior, see, you have nothing to worry about. Things will turn out fine. You're gonna be just fine, just like I was in this situation. And then we have one of the most enigmatic endings to a story from ancient Egypt. The superior basically turns to him and says, Why would you tell me something like that when I'm about to be punished or I'm about to be killed? He uses a metaphor. He says, Does one give water to a goose right before it is to be slaughtered? And this metaphor seems to be indicating what I had just said a moment ago that basically he's saying, Why would you try to cheer me up and do this for me when I'm about to go to slaughter, essentially. And then the story ends. There's just a little scribal note at the end, noting that this story was copied down just to how it was found in the original, and it's over. It's a really unusual ending. It's an unusual story all around, actually. And it is one of the more fun ones to read once you get to a level that you can read stories. I don't recommend reading them at the very beginning of your journey, although that is often the method used in academic circles. That's what happened to me in my very first year of Egyptian. We read The Shipwreck Sailor. I did not understand a lot of it at that point. I understand a whole lot more now, and so do my students in Master Scribes. So this is one story that we've gotten into in depth and read just about the entirety of. And once you get to a level where that makes sense, it can be such a rewarding thing to see this whole story and really get through just about every piece of it and feel like, wow, I can really read stuff like this now and not only enjoy the story itself, enjoy it in translation, but enjoy it in the original Egyptian. So if you've enjoyed this episode, this is just a little taste of the things that we do in Master Scribes. We're reading texts like this, like The Shipwreck Sailor, and so many other types as well, as you've been hearing about in this podcast series. And Masterscribes applications are opening really soon. So you'll want to get on the wait list at Masterscribes.com. You can sign up there so that you will be one of the first to hear when applications open and get a shot at the special bonus hieroglyph a day planner. There's very limited numbers of those. So you'll want to get that spot on the wait list at masterscribes.com. Until next time, stay curious.