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Shelf entry · Egyptian

Book of the Heavenly Cow ('The Destruction of Mankind'), tomb of Seti I (Budge trans.)

Standing
traditionEgyptian
cited by 1 connection
public domain yes
passages awaiting digitization
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flood · flood-5

Same skeleton with no shared geography: humanity's crime is an affront to the senior god's comfort or dignity, a council formalizes extermination, the killing is halted mid-course by subversion within the pantheon itself, a remnant survives, and the wearied god afterward binds or removes himself. Egypt's instrument is a literal flood · of liquid disguised as blood · poured over the fields.

The indictment is dignity: mankind blasphemes the aged Ra · 'his majesty... has grown old, his bones are like silver.' A divine council decrees extermination via the Eye (Hathor). The destruction is aborted mid-course by a trick inside the pantheon: 7,000 vessels of beer dyed with red ochre to resemble human blood are poured out to flood the fields; Hathor drinks the counterfeit blood-flood, forgets her mission, a remnant survives, and the weary Ra ('my heart hath become exceedingly weary') withdraws to the sky.

set against Atrahasis, Tablets I–III

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