I was first introduced to Egypt by my sister. She went through an Egyptian phase when I was very young and I learned through osmosis that there was a culture called the Egyptians, they had a lot of gold, multiple gods and their language was crazy looking. Being the odd kid I was, I watched a lot of educational TV, but there was this cartoon based upon Egypt that I would watch that came from the Discovery channel, and in different episodes of other shows there would be at least one episode or short movie dedicated to the location and mystery of Ancient Egypt. Some of what I learned from these shows were bits of lore behind some of the gods, the fall of Egypt to Rome, the supposed “King Tut’s Curse”, the mummification process, the Rosetta Stone is a boring government document, and that the pyramids were actually tombs. I recall having an aversion to Egypt because of the tale of Exodus and how they treated the Jews, but when I heard they fell to Rome too, sympathy found its way in. It was only much later that I learned it was not the Jews who built the pyramids but regular Egyptians. In fact, there is little evidence that the Jews ever resided in Egypt in large numbers and that the story of Exodus is more mythical/allegorical than fact.

I knew of Hatshepsut beforehand, I had actually watched the exact same video on her we viewed in class. Beer being the main form of payment to workers was not lost on me, nor was the importance of the Nile River in making Egypt the breadbasket of the ancient world. The whole fiasco with Akhenaten was fun to re-explore, as was his son’s rediscovery and immortalized legacy as one of the most famous pharaohs of all time, King Tutankhamen.