Anpu

About Anpu

Anpu is the elder brother in the Tale of Two Brothers, a New Kingdom Egyptian narrative preserved on a single manuscript, Papyrus d'Orbiney (BM EA 10183, c. 1185 BCE), written during the reign of Seti II by the scribe Ennana. Anpu is a married farmer who raises his younger brother Bata like a father; when his wife falsely accuses Bata of attempting to seduce her after Bata has in fact rejected her advances, Anpu is enraged and seeks to kill his brother, but on learning the truth he kills his wife instead, mourns, and later searches three years for Bata's hidden heart to restore his transformed brother to life. Anpu bears the Egyptian name of the jackal-god Anubis (Egyptian Inpu or Anpu), but in the tale he is presented as a human farmer, not the god; the relationship between the human Anpu and the divine Anubis is one of the questions the tale raises.

The Tale of Two Brothers is among the most analyzed narratives in the Egyptian literary corpus, combining motifs from folklore (the false accusation by the rejected woman, the Potiphar's-wife type), mythology (the external soul, the serial transformation of the hero), and royal ideology (the legitimation of kingship). Anpu is the secondary protagonist alongside his younger brother Bata, and his role traces an arc from the deceived and murderous elder brother to the faithful restorer of the dead and finally to Bata's successor on the throne of Egypt. His name, that of the jackal-god Anubis, and his function as the restorer of Bata's dead body — searching for the heart, placing it in water, reviving his brother — parallel the mortuary role of Anubis, the god of embalming who tends the body of Osiris.

Whether the tale is a humanized retelling of divine mythology, a literary fiction using divine names for resonance, or a combination of both remains debated. Both brothers bear the names of deities: Bata is associated with a bull-god of the 17th Upper Egyptian nome, and Anpu with the jackal-god Anubis. The presentation of the brothers as human farmers living in a recognizable Egyptian rural landscape, plowing fields and tending cattle, argues for a literary rather than a purely mythological reading, though the supernatural elements of the tale — the speaking cattle, the external heart, the serial transformations — place it within the realm of mythic imagination.

The single Ramesside manuscript, Papyrus d'Orbiney, was acquired by the British Museum in 1857 from the collection of the Countess d'Orbiney, and it survives in nearly complete condition. Susan Tower Hollis's The Ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers (1990, revised 2008) is the principal scholarly monograph, and Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume II (1976) provides the standard English translation. Anpu, the elder brother who is deceived, kills his wife, and faithfully restores his dead brother, is one of the two central figures of the most complete narrative fiction to survive from pharaonic Egypt. His arc through the tale, from the deceived and murderous elder brother to the faithful restorer of the dead and finally to Bata's successor on the throne of Egypt, gives him a place alongside his younger brother at the center of a narrative that combines folklore, mythology, and royal ideology in a single sustained story.

The Story

Anpu's part in the Tale of Two Brothers traces an arc from the deceived and murderous elder brother to the faithful restorer of the dead and finally to Bata's successor on the throne of Egypt, woven through the larger story of his younger brother's death and rebirth.

The narrative opens in a recognizable Egyptian agricultural setting. Anpu, the elder brother, is married and lives on a farm; his younger brother Bata, unmarried, lives with him and works as his laborer, tending the cattle, plowing the fields, and performing the daily tasks of the household. Anpu has raised Bata like a father, and the two brothers live in harmony, Bata's strength and skill sustaining the farm.

The crisis begins during the plowing season, when Bata returns to the house to fetch seed-grain and finds Anpu's wife alone. She propositions him, praising his strength and beauty; Bata refuses her with horror, declaring that Anpu has raised him like a father and that she is like a mother to him, and he promises never to speak of the encounter. But the wife, fearing exposure, tears her own clothes, feigns having been beaten, and tells Anpu when he returns that Bata assaulted her and that she resisted. The accusation reverses the truth: the accuser is the actual transgressor, in the widespread narrative motif whose closest parallel in ancient literature is the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis.

Anpu, enraged and believing his wife, sharpens a spear and hides behind the stable door, intending to kill Bata when he brings the cattle home. But the cattle, endowed with speech in the tale, warn Bata as he approaches that his brother waits to kill him. Bata sees Anpu's feet beneath the door and flees; Anpu pursues him. At this point the sun-god Ra intervenes, creating a body of water full of crocodiles between the two brothers. From the far bank, Bata calls out to Anpu and swears his innocence, describing what truly happened. To prove his sincerity, Bata performs an extraordinary act of self-mutilation, and he tells Anpu that he will go to the Valley of the Cedar and place his heart in the top of a cedar tree; if the tree is cut down, Bata will die, and Anpu must then search for the heart, place it in water, and restore him. A sign — the fermenting and overflowing of Anpu's beer — will announce Bata's death.

Anpu, now convinced of his brother's innocence and his wife's treachery, returns home, kills his wife, and casts her body to the dogs. He mourns for his brother, and Bata departs for the Valley of the Cedar. This is the turning of Anpu's role: the deceived and murderous elder brother, having learned the truth, executes the guilty wife and becomes the faithful brother who will one day restore the dead Bata.

The narrative then follows Bata's fortunes in the Valley of the Cedar — the gods' creation of a wife for him, her abduction by the pharaoh, her betrayal of the secret of the cedar-heart, and Bata's death when the tree is cut down. Far away in Egypt, Anpu receives the sign: his jar of beer ferments and overflows. Recognizing that his brother has died, Anpu sets out for the Valley of the Cedar. He finds Bata's lifeless body and begins the search for the heart, as Bata had instructed. For three years Anpu searches, and in the fourth year he finds the heart in the form of a berry. He places the berry in a vessel of water; it absorbs the water overnight; and Bata's body revives. Anpu gives his brother the water containing the heart to drink, and Bata lives again. The faithful brother has restored the dead, fulfilling the role Bata had assigned him and paralleling the mortuary function of the god whose name he bears.

Bata then undergoes a series of transformations — into a magnificent bull, into two persea trees, and finally into a child born to his treacherous wife — and Anpu accompanies and aids him through the earlier of these, riding the bull-Bata back to Egypt to present him to the pharaoh. When Bata at last ascends to the throne of Egypt as the reborn child, he summons the treacherous woman before the court for judgment, and he appoints Anpu as his crown prince. Bata rules Egypt for thirty years, and when he dies, Anpu succeeds him on the throne. The elder brother, who began as the deceived and murderous farmer, ends as the king of Egypt, having faithfully restored his brother and inherited the throne in his turn. Anpu's arc — from deception and rage through the discovery of the truth and the execution of the guilty wife to the faithful restoration of the dead and the final succession — completes the tale's pattern of injustice, restoration, and the triumph of the faithful.

Symbolism

Anpu carries the symbolism of the faithful brother, the restorer of the dead, and the mortuary function embodied in the name he bears, the jackal-god Anubis.

Anpu's name, that of the jackal-god Anubis (Egyptian Inpu or Anpu), is the primary symbolic feature of his character. Anubis is the god of embalming and the necropolis, who tends the body of Osiris and oversees the preservation and resurrection of the dead. Anpu's role in the tale as the restorer of Bata's dead body — searching for the heart, placing it in water, reviving his brother — parallels the mortuary function of Anubis, who restores and preserves the dead. The naming connects the human Anpu to the divine restorer, and his actions in the tale echo the god's mortuary role, whether as theological allegory, literary resonance, or both.

Anpu's restoration of Bata symbolizes the Egyptian mortuary ideal of the reunion of the heart with the body and the resurrection of the dead. The heart, the seat of identity in Egyptian thought, is the organ Bata removes and hides; Anpu's search for the heart, his placing of it in water, and his reviving of his brother recapitulate the mortuary ideal of restoring the heart to the body, the precondition of resurrection. The faithful brother who recovers the heart and revives the dead enacts the central Egyptian hope of resurrection through the restoration of the body and its components.

The parallel between Anpu's restoration of Bata and the restoration of Osiris by Isis connects the tale to the Osirian myth. Bata's death and restoration by his faithful brother echo the death of Osiris and his restoration by his devoted kin; the serial transformations of Bata echo the Egyptian concept of kheperu, the transformations through which divine and mortal beings pass without losing their essential identity. Anpu, as the faithful restorer, plays a role analogous to that of the Osirian restorers, and his name, that of Anubis who tends the body of Osiris, reinforces the parallel.

Anpu's killing of his treacherous wife symbolizes the punishment of the false accuser and the restoration of justice. The wife's false accusation is the act of injustice that drives Bata into exile and death; Anpu's execution of the guilty wife, after he learns the truth, restores the moral order disrupted by her treachery. The killing is presented without moral commentary, reflecting the narrative conventions of the tale rather than modern ethical sensibilities, and it symbolizes the punishment of the false accuser and the vindication of the wronged brother.

Anpu's final succession to the throne symbolizes the reward of the faithful and the completion of the tale's pattern of justice. The elder brother who faithfully restored the dead and aided his brother's rise is rewarded with the throne, succeeding Bata as king of Egypt. The succession of the faithful brother completes the tale's movement from injustice through restoration to the triumph of the faithful, and it symbolizes the reward of loyalty and devotion in the moral economy of the narrative.

The relationship of the two brothers, Anpu and Bata, symbolizes the fraternal bond and its testing. The bond between the brothers, disrupted by the false accusation and Anpu's murderous rage, is restored by the discovery of the truth and confirmed by Anpu's faithful restoration of the dead Bata and his final succession. The tale's exploration of the fraternal bond — its disruption by female treachery, its testing by deception and death, and its ultimate vindication — gives Anpu's role its emotional and symbolic weight, the faithful brother whose loyalty is tested and proven through the trials of the narrative.

Cultural Context

Anpu belongs to the Ramesside literary culture that flourished at Thebes and the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina during the 19th and 20th Dynasties (c. 1295-1070 BCE), a period that produced an extraordinary body of literary, religious, and administrative texts preserved on papyrus and ostraca.

The Tale of Two Brothers, in which Anpu is the elder brother, was written on Papyrus d'Orbiney by the scribe Ennana, who identifies himself in the colophon as writing for the prince Seti Merenptah, the future Seti II. This dedication places the tale in the late Ramesside court, where literary entertainment and instruction intersected. Whether Ennana composed the tale or copied it from an earlier source is unknown, but the manuscript is the only surviving copy, giving the tale a precarious textual history.

The tale combines realistic rural detail with supernatural narrative, a characteristic of Ramesside literature. The agricultural opening — Anpu and Bata plowing, tending cattle, storing seed-grain — depicts the daily life of Upper Egyptian farming communities with ethnographic precision, while the speaking cattle, the external heart, and the serial transformations introduce mythic dimensions that transform a domestic drama into a cosmogonic narrative. Anpu, the married elder brother and farmer, belongs to the realistic frame of the tale, but his role as the restorer of the dead draws him into its mythological dimension.

The names of the two brothers, those of deities, raise the question of the tale's relationship to divine mythology. Anpu bears the name of the jackal-god Anubis, and Bata the name of a bull-god of the 17th Upper Egyptian nome (the region around Saka, modern Qau el-Kebir). Some scholars have read the tale as a humanized retelling of the mythology of these gods, others as a literary fiction using divine names for resonance, and others as a combination of both. Anpu's role as the restorer of Bata's dead body, paralleling the mortuary function of Anubis, supports the connection between the human brother and the divine, though the presentation of the brothers as human farmers argues for a literary reading.

The tale's parallels with the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife (Genesis 39) have generated extensive scholarly discussion. The false accusation by Anpu's wife, after Bata has rejected her advances, parallels the false accusation of Joseph by Potiphar's wife. The Egyptian tale predates the composition of Genesis by at least a century, leading some scholars to propose Egyptian influence on the Hebrew narrative, though the wide distribution of the motif across cultures makes direct influence difficult to demonstrate. Anpu's role as the deceived husband, parallel to Potiphar, is part of this comparative discussion.

The political dimension of the tale has been discussed in relation to the legitimation ideology of the 19th Dynasty, which arose from a non-royal military family. The narrative arc — from peasant farmer to pharaoh through divine favor and personal virtue — may reflect the dynasty's need to establish legitimacy without traditional royal bloodlines. Anpu's final succession to the throne, after Bata's reign, extends the pattern of humble origins rewarded with kingship to the elder brother as well.

The restoration of Bata by Anpu, and the parallel to the Osirian myth, connects the tale to the central mortuary theology of Egyptian religion. Bata's death and restoration by his faithful brother echo the death of Osiris and his restoration by his devoted kin, and the serial transformations of Bata echo the concept of kheperu. Anpu, as the faithful restorer bearing the name of Anubis, the god who tends the body of Osiris, plays a role analogous to that of the Osirian restorers, integrating the tale into the deep structures of Egyptian mortuary theology. Susan Tower Hollis's monograph (1990, revised 2008) examines the tale's relationship to Osirian mythology, its political-dynastic dimensions, the Potiphar's-wife parallel, and the external-soul motif.

Cross-Tradition Parallels

The Tale of Two Brothers addresses two structural questions simultaneously: what does the false accusation of rejected desire do to those caught in it, and what does it mean to be the brother who faithfully restores the dead? Anpu's arc — from deceived husband to faithful restorer to king — is one answer to both. Cross-tradition comparison reveals how differently cultures have distributed the roles of accuser, accused, restorer, and heir.

Persian — Siyavash and Sudabeh (Ferdowsi, Shahnameh, completed c. 1010 CE)

In the Shahnameh, the queen Sudabeh desires her stepson Siyavash; when he refuses, she falsely accuses him of assault. Siyavash proves his innocence by riding through a mountain of fire, emerging unscathed — the ordeal confirming what verbal assertion could not. Yet despite the proof, Siyavash is eventually exiled and killed through political maneuvering. The parallel with the Anpu story is structural: a woman in a position of power within the household desires a younger male kinsman; he refuses; she weaponizes the rejection into a false accusation of assault. The Egyptian tale resolves the crisis rapidly — Anpu learns the truth and kills his wife — while the Persian tradition makes the crisis irreversible. Bata survives but only by dismembering himself and departing forever. Both traditions understand that false accusation from within the household generates damage no proof can fully undo, but the Egyptian tale allows the faithful brother to restore and return; the Persian tradition allows no such resolution.

Slavic — Koschei the Deathless and the External Heart (Russian folktales, collected Afanasyev, 1855–1867)

In Russian folktales, the sorcerer Koschei the Deathless cannot be killed because his death is hidden outside his body — in a needle, inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a hare, locked in an iron chest buried under an oak tree on the island of Buyan. The hero must find and break the needle to kill Koschei. The parallel with Bata's external heart — placed in the top of a cedar tree, which Anpu must find and restore — is precise: a life stored outside the body, the vulnerability of the living being located in a removable external object. But the valence inverts. Bata removes his own heart voluntarily, and the external soul makes him both vulnerable (to his wife's betrayal) and identifiable to his faithful brother. Koschei's external soul is the tyrant's defense against his enemies. One tradition uses the external soul as a mechanism of trust between brothers; the other uses it as a weapon of power against the world.

Biblical — Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (Genesis 39, c. 7th–6th century BCE)

Genesis 39 records that Potiphar's wife propositioned Joseph; when he refused, she seized his garment and accused him of assault. Joseph was imprisoned. The Egyptian tale (c. 1185 BCE) predates the biblical text by several centuries, and the structural similarity is close: rejected desire weaponized into false accusation, the innocent man punished, the accuser retaining the evidence. The divergence is in the resolution. Anpu's wife is executed when the truth is discovered. Joseph's accuser is never punished and never confronted; his vindication comes through divine favor and dream interpretation, not through the exposure of Potiphar's wife. The Egyptian narrative demands justice for the betrayal of the fraternal bond; the biblical narrative moves toward providential purpose and leaves the injustice unresolved.

Mesopotamian — Enkidu's Death and the Faithful Companion (Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VII, c. 1200 BCE)

When Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh keeps vigil for seven days until a worm emerges from the corpse. He cannot restore his companion; the finality of death is the lesson he must accept. The contrast with Anpu's restoration of Bata is structurally clear: both are stories of a companion's death triggering grief and search in the survivor. But Anpu succeeds where Gilgamesh fails. Anpu searches for three years and finds the heart; Gilgamesh searches for immortality and fails. The Egyptian tradition imagines restoration as achievable through faithful effort and correct knowledge. The Mesopotamian tradition uses the same structure to establish the limit of human capacity: some losses are permanent. Anpu is the story of a restoration that works; Gilgamesh is the story of one that cannot.

Modern Influence

Anpu has influenced the modern world chiefly through the Tale of Two Brothers, in which he is the elder brother, and through the tale's contributions to comparative folklore, literary studies, and the debate about the relationship between Egyptian and biblical narrative.

In folklore studies, the Tale of Two Brothers is a key text for the 'Potiphar's wife' motif — the false accusation of sexual assault by a rejected woman — and Anpu, as the deceived husband whose wife falsely accuses his brother, is part of this widely studied narrative pattern. The Egyptian version, predating the biblical Joseph story, has been cited as potential evidence of Egyptian influence on Hebrew narrative, though the universality of the motif makes direct influence difficult to demonstrate. Anpu's role as the husband deceived by his treacherous wife parallels the role of Potiphar in the biblical story.

In Egyptology, the tale has been central to discussions of Ramesside literary culture, the relationship between narrative and theology in Egyptian texts, and the political functions of literary production. Susan Tower Hollis's monograph (1990, revised 2008) established the tale as a text operating simultaneously at folkloric, mythological, religious, and political levels, and Anpu's role — as the deceived brother, the restorer of the dead bearing the name of Anubis, and the final successor to the throne — has been analyzed in this multilayered context. The parallel between Anpu's restoration of Bata and the mortuary function of Anubis has been discussed in studies of the tale's relationship to divine mythology.

The debate about the relationship between the human brothers and the gods whose names they bear has given Anpu a place in the scholarly discussion of the tale's nature. Whether the tale is a humanized retelling of the mythology of Anubis and the bull-god Bata, a literary fiction using divine names for resonance, or a combination of both, remains debated, and Anpu's role as the restorer of the dead, paralleling Anubis's mortuary function, is central to this discussion. The naming of the human Anpu after the divine Anubis has been read as theological allegory, literary resonance, or both.

In popular culture, the Tale of Two Brothers has been retold in children's literature, adapted for educational materials on ancient Egypt, and referenced in fiction set in the ancient world, and Anpu, as the elder brother, figures in these retellings. The tale's narrative clarity — its compelling plot, vivid characters, and arc from injustice to vindication — makes it accessible to modern audiences, and Anpu's role as the deceived brother who restores the dead and finally succeeds to the throne is part of the tale's appeal.

The distinction between the human Anpu of the tale and the divine Anubis, who share the same Egyptian name, has been a point of attention in the study of the tale and in the broader discussion of the relationship between Egyptian literature and mythology. The human elder brother, presented as a farmer in a recognizable Egyptian landscape, is to be distinguished from the jackal-god of embalming, even as his role as the restorer of the dead echoes the god's mortuary function. The tale's use of divine names for human characters illustrates the complex relationship between literary fiction and mythological resonance in Egyptian narrative.

Though Anpu has not entered popular culture as an individually named figure as widely as the major gods or as his brother Bata, his role in the Tale of Two Brothers — among the most complete and most analyzed narratives to survive from pharaonic Egypt — has given him a place in the study of Egyptian literature, folklore, and the relationship between Egyptian and biblical narrative. Anpu, the elder brother who is deceived, kills his wife, faithfully restores his dead brother, and finally succeeds to the throne, endures as one of the two central figures of the most complete narrative fiction of ancient Egypt.

Primary Sources

Anpu is the elder brother in the Tale of Two Brothers, a New Kingdom prose narrative preserved on a single manuscript: Papyrus d'Orbiney (British Museum EA 10183), a Ramesside hieratic papyrus dated to the reign of Seti II (c. 1185 BCE) and written by the scribe Inena (Ennana). The papyrus was acquired by the British Museum in 1857 from the collection of the Countess d'Orbiney and survives in nearly complete condition. It is the only copy of the tale known to survive from antiquity.

The principal modern English translations appear in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. II: The New Kingdom (University of California Press, 1976), pp. 203–211, which provides a complete translation with notes on the names and motifs, including the identification of Anpu with the Egyptian name Inpu (Anubis) and Bata with the bull-god of the 17th nome. William Kelly Simpson (ed.), The Literature of Ancient Egypt (Yale University Press, 3rd ed., 2003), pp. 80–90, provides an alternative translation. R.B. Parkinson, The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940–1640 BC (Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 1997), provides a literary comparative context for Ramesside narrative fiction; the Tale of Two Brothers falls outside Parkinson's 1940–1640 BCE scope but is discussed in the introduction in relation to the broader Egyptian narrative tradition.

For the relation of Anpu's restoration of Bata to the Osirian myth and to the mortuary role of Anubis (the god whose name Anpu bears), the relevant primary context is Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 12–19 (Moralia V; Loeb Classical Library, trans. F.C. Babbitt, 1936), which narrates the recovery of Osiris's scattered body by Isis and the role of Anubis in its preservation — the divine model that Anpu's search for Bata's hidden heart re-enacts at the human level. J.F. Borghouts, Ancient Egyptian Magical Texts (Brill, 1978), provides the parallel magical texts, including those involving the recovery and revival of the dead, that illuminate the ritual background of the tale's restoration episode.

The tale's Potiphar's-wife narrative parallel is the subject of extensive comparative discussion. The biblical parallel (Genesis 39, Joseph and Potiphar's wife) is examined in Susan Tower Hollis, The Ancient Egyptian Tale of Two Brothers: A Mythological, Religious, Literary and Historico-Political Study (University of Oklahoma Press, 1st ed., 1990; 2nd ed., Bannerstone Press, 2008), the standard monograph on the tale, which also examines the Osirian-mythological dimensions, the political-dynastic context, the external-soul motif, and the comparative folklore. The relationship of the two brothers to the deities whose names they bear is a central question of Hollis's analysis.

Significance

Anpu is one of the two central figures of the Tale of Two Brothers, the most complete narrative fiction to survive from pharaonic Egypt, and his significance lies in his role in this remarkable text, in the relationship between his name and the jackal-god Anubis, and in the tale's contributions to comparative folklore and the study of Egyptian literature.

The significance of Anpu lies first in his place in the Tale of Two Brothers, a complete, self-contained narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — not a fragmentary allusion or a ritual spell but a story told for the combined purposes of entertainment, instruction, and ideological legitimation. As the elder brother whose arc moves from deception and murderous rage through the discovery of the truth and the execution of the guilty wife to the faithful restoration of the dead Bata and the final succession to the throne, Anpu is essential to the tale's structure and its exploration of betrayal, fraternal loyalty, death, and restoration.

Anpu's name, that of the jackal-god Anubis, and his function as the restorer of Bata's dead body, connect the tale to the mortuary theology of Egyptian religion. Anpu's search for the heart, his placing of it in water, and his reviving of his brother parallel the mortuary function of Anubis, the god of embalming who tends the body of Osiris, and the restoration of the heart to the body recapitulates the Egyptian mortuary ideal of resurrection. The naming of the human Anpu after the divine Anubis, and the parallel between his actions and the god's mortuary role, illuminate the relationship between literary fiction and mythological resonance in Egyptian narrative.

The parallel between Anpu's restoration of Bata and the restoration of Osiris by his devoted kin connects the tale to the Osirian myth, the central myth of Egyptian religion. Bata's death and restoration by his faithful brother echo the death of Osiris and his restoration, and the serial transformations of Bata echo the concept of kheperu. Anpu, as the faithful restorer bearing the name of Anubis, plays a role analogous to that of the Osirian restorers, integrating the tale into the deep structures of Egyptian mortuary theology.

The tale's parallels with the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, in which Anpu's role as the deceived husband parallels that of Potiphar, have made the tale a key text in the debate about the relationship between Egyptian and biblical narrative. The false accusation by Anpu's wife, predating the biblical story by at least a century, has been cited in the discussion of Egyptian influence on Hebrew narrative, and Anpu's role as the deceived husband is part of this comparative study.

For the study of Egyptian literature, Anpu's role in the tale demonstrates the sophistication of Ramesside prose fiction, which combined realistic social observation with mythological imagination. The elder brother, a farmer in a recognizable Egyptian landscape who becomes the restorer of the dead and finally the king, exemplifies the tale's movement from domestic realism to mythic wonder and royal ideology. Anpu, the faithful brother whose loyalty is tested and proven through the trials of the narrative, endures as one of the two central figures of the most complete and most analyzed narrative fiction of ancient Egypt.

Connections

Bata in the mythology section covers the younger brother and central protagonist of the Tale of Two Brothers, whose death and restoration, serial transformations, and final accession to the throne form the heart of the narrative in which Anpu is the elder brother. The two entries are companion treatments of the two central figures of the tale.

Anubis in the deities section covers the jackal-god of embalming and the necropolis whose Egyptian name (Inpu or Anpu) the elder brother bears. Anpu's role as the restorer of Bata's dead body parallels the mortuary function of Anubis, who tends the body of Osiris, and the relationship between the human Anpu and the divine Anubis is one of the questions the tale raises.

Osiris in the deities section covers the god of the dead whose death and restoration provide the model for Bata's death and restoration by Anpu. The parallel between Anpu restoring Bata and the Osirian restorers reviving Osiris connects the tale to the central mortuary myth of Egyptian religion.

Isis in the deities section covers the goddess who restores the murdered Osiris, the figure to whom Anpu's restoration of Bata has been compared. The faithful restoration of the dead, performed by Isis for Osiris and by Anpu for Bata, is a recurring pattern in Egyptian myth and literature.

Ra in the deities section covers the sun-god who intervenes at the tale's first crisis, creating the crocodile-infested water that separates the fleeing Bata from the pursuing Anpu, marking the transition from the tale's realistic opening to its supernatural development.

The Murder and Resurrection of Osiris in the mythology section covers the Osirian myth whose pattern of death and restoration the tale echoes, the death of Osiris and his restoration paralleling the death of Bata and his restoration by Anpu.

The Weighing of the Heart in the mythology section covers the Egyptian conception of the heart as the seat of identity, the organ that Bata removes and hides and that Anpu recovers to restore his brother. The mortuary ideal of restoring the heart to the body, recapitulated in Anpu's restoration of Bata, connects the tale to the central theology of the Egyptian afterlife. The Mummification in the mythology section covers the preservation and restoration of the dead body that Anubis, whose name Anpu bears, presides over. The recovery of the heart and the reviving of the body, performed by Anpu for Bata, recapitulate the mortuary ideal of restoring the dead to life that underlies the practice of mummification.

The Contendings of Horus and Set in the mythology section covers another Ramesside narrative of conflict, betrayal, and the eventual triumph of the wronged party, a theme that the Tale of Two Brothers shares in its movement from injustice through restoration to the vindication of the faithful brother.

Further Reading