Social and cultural history

Social and Cultural

Herodotus in Egypt -- Question 1: Read Herodotus' account of Egypt in the Xerox reader. Consider the problems faced by a Greek visitor trying to make sense of Egyptian history and culture. Is his presentation of Egypt consistent with what we read in the native-Egyptian texts in Bailkey? What are his sources of knowledge, and how reliable are they? In what ways might he be misled? What cultural biases, if any, does he have regarding the Egyptians?

Travelogues as sources of accurate history are problematic. By definition, they are written by outsiders rather than insiders to a particular land, culture and time. Travel writing even in our historical present, has a notorious unreliability as sources of data. They are filtered through the point-of-view of someone who, even if he or she is conversant in the language of the region, is not always equally fluent in the culture, and must rely upon the point-of-view of those selected by the ruling regime. For instance, the voices of the "Work Songs from Ancient Egypt: Voices of Ordinary Men and Women," as chronicled in Chapter 12 of Bailkey are entirely absent, as these voices of the hands, backs, and sweat that the great pyramids were constructed by were not part of the exposure of the historian. Perhaps they might not have been as interesting, to Herodotus, as the great visions of the pyramids themselves, given that the Greek Herodotus himself was part of a culture that accepted slavery as a necessity.

Herodotus is freed of the constraints of a modern historian, moreover, ethical constraints that might encourage him to be politically correct or diplomatic -- or at least not to assume that his own Greek country's and culture's customs are correct, in comparison to the fascinating but 'backward' Egyptians. "The people also, in most of their manners and customs, exactly reverse the common practice of mankind. The women attend the markets and trade, while the men sit at home at the loom; and here, while the rest of the world works the woof up the warp, the Egyptians work it down; the women likewise carry burdens upon their shoulders, while the men carry them upon their heads." (Herodotus, "Histories," Chapter II) This is not to say that Herodotus judged Egypt harshly. "Concerning Egypt itself I shall extend my remarks to a great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders, nor any that has such a number of works which defy description." (Chapter II)

His Histories contains valuable information about the ancient kingdom of Egypt that would be lost to modern readers, otherwise. Still, he assumes what is Greek is right -- for instance, the "Father of History" does not merely record that the Egyptians wrote from right to left, instead of left to right like the Greeks, but that this schema of writing was backward. The fact that Egyptians ate outside and used toilet facilities indoors was seen as wrong, not as a difference of architecture and climate. "They eat their food out of doors in the streets, but retire for private purposes to their houses, giving as a reason that what is unseemly, but necessary, ought to be done in secret, but what has nothing unseemly about it, should be done openly. (Chapter II)

The Greek author is certainly capable of admiring the Egyptians, but his attitude even when approving, is from a position of wonder, rather than of interest. He expresses admiration at the religiosity of the Egyptians, which at times he regards as excessive, at other times, remarkable. He notes that priests shaved their heads, kept huge monuments, and infused even the agricultural use of the Nile River as an object of sanctity. But this religiosity is most evident, he notes, in the fact that a "woman cannot serve the priestly office, either for god or goddess, but men are priests to both; sons need not support their parents unless they choose, but daughters must, whether they choose or no," unlike Greece where girls are often farmed off to serve in religious temples, while sons are allocated the more manly and important task of financially supporting their family. (Chapter II)

Herodotus admires the practical as well as the religious achievements of Egypt, however. "Now if the Nile should choose to divert his waters from their present bed into this Arabian Gulf, what is there to hinder it from being filled up by the stream within, at the utmost, twenty thousand years... Thus I give credit to those from whom I received this account of Egypt, and am myself, moreover, strongly of the same opinion, since I remarked that the country projects into the sea further than the neighboring shores," (Chapter II) He even gives Egypt this final credit, in comparison to Greek "The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into use the names of the twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and first erected altars, images, and temples to the gods; and also first engraved upon stone the figures of animals. (Chapter II)

But always Herodotus is anxious to act as a guide of morals, values, and judgment as a historian rather than simply laying out the facts. Also, although his eyewitness accounts might be accurate, many of the stories he relates were merely told to him. The memories of these people could have been faulty, and probably they had a similarly flexible attitude to the facts, to the difference (or lack thereof) between myth and history and faith. The notable religiosity of the Egyptians might mean that Herodotus' sources had an even more flexible attitude.