The Doomed Prince

The History of Egypt Podcast

Dominic Perry

Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2020

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ancient Fairytales (Part 2). Sometime in the 18th Dynasty, perhaps around the time of Akhenaten, a fairy-tale became popular in Egypt. The story spoke of a prince, forced to flee his home after a prophecy foretold that he would die from one of three fates - a dog, a snake, or a crocodile. Leaving Egypt, the prince went on many adventures - some quite familiar from our own fairy tales. Inevitably, though, the young man had to face his destiny, and confront the three fates which came for him... Website: www.egyptianhistorypodcast.com. Support the show via Patreon www.patreon.com/egyptpodcast. Make a one-time donation via PayPal payments. Music by Keith Zizza www.keithzizza.com. Select Bibliography: Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II: The New Kingdom, 1976. George Posener, “On the Tale of the Doomed Prince,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 39 (1953). JSTOR. William Kelly Simpson (ed.), The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 2003. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Ra Egyptian, a clean skincare line blending ancient ingredients with modern techniques.
0:08.4	Stick around at the end of the show to learn how you can get 10% off any order and enjoy the beauties of the Nile Valley.
0:20.4	Hello everyone and welcome back to the History of Egypt podcast.
0:25.2	This is a mini episode, a short break from our regular narrative to explore a side topic
0:31.1	that is interesting or curious from Egyptian history.
0:34.8	Today we are exploring an ancient Egyptian fairy tale, commonly called
0:39.9	the story of the doomed prince. This was a story composed at some point during the New Kingdom.
0:47.8	It is most likely of the 18th dynasty, but the surviving papyrus, which is the only copy,
0:56.0	comes from a later date.
1:02.6	It's possible it was composed some time around the reign of Akanatin or slightly later.
1:08.8	This is because it is written in the late Egyptian style, which became popular or prominent around this period. So the story may have been composed, or at least
1:13.5	written down, around 1350 BCE, approximately. The story of the doomed prince is similar in some
1:22.4	respects to the famous tale of sinewy, particularly in the fact that it involves an Egyptian traveling abroad
1:30.0	to the Near East, in order to escape some doom or threat of which he is afraid. Where it differs
1:36.6	is in its motivations. While Sinuei flees from Egypt, afraid of punishment in the wake of a pharaoh's assassination, the doomed prince
1:46.9	leaves Egypt voluntarily, exploring the world, trying to enjoy his life before the doom that has
1:54.0	promised falls upon him. The story wrestles with concepts of fate, and the extent to which a person's life is preordained from their
2:03.3	birth. The prince himself is supposedly fated to death by one of three means, and the story is built
2:11.0	around his attempts to, A, escape those fates, B, enjoy his life as best he can, and C, the means by which he can find
2:20.9	accommodation with the supernatural beings who are determining the end of his life. It is not a long
2:27.4	tale, and as you will see, it ends rather abruptly, but it is an interesting meditation on Egyptian conceptions of predestination
2:37.3	and how they perceived the role of destiny or fate within their own lives.
	...

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