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Nile

Places · Nature

The river of the Egyptian valley. Inundation, kingship, and later travelers’ Nile are different meetings with the same course of water.

Also known as Iteru

Egyptian religion

  • Nile appears in Egyptian religion.

    Egyptian life and kingship are bound to the Nile’s inundation in temple and later description. The river is Egyptian geography, not a generic sacred water.

    from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

    appears in · partially sourced · documented

  • Nile is associated with Flood.

    The Nile’s inundation is a yearly rise, not Utnapishtim’s world-covering flood. Keep the two waters distinct even when English uses one word.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Nile is associated with Osiris.

    Later Egyptian religion can join Osiris to the river’s life. The pairing is an Egyptian agricultural-funerary meeting, not a Greek river-god.

    from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

    associated with · partially sourced · culturally specific

  • Nile is historically related to Osiris.

    Plutarch’s On Isis and Osiris identifies the Nile with Osiris’s efflux — river moisture as Osiris against Typhon’s sea in that essay’s elemental allegory. A named Nile–Osiris figure under this source, not green→nile-valley alone and not a flood-report dump.

    from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE

    historically related to · sourced · culturally specific

  • River is connected to Nile.

    The Nile is one named river. Connecting the category to the instance keeps the Nile from standing in for every stream.

    connected to · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Blue is associated with Nile.

    Later description paints the Nile as a blue course. The river’s work in Egyptian religion is inundation and kingship, not a color-theology.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Water is associated with Nile.

    The Nile is water as a named inundation. It is not Utnapishtim’s flood and not Daoist softness.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

Roman religion

  • Nile appears in Roman religion.

    Pliny’s Natural History seats the Nile among Book 5 Egyptian geography, flood, and wonder speech. A named Nile in that encyclopedia, not river as the generic stream already under Virgil and not Book of the Dead nile alone.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Egyptian religion · Nile valley

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