| 1 | [[WMG:[[center:[-'''TheOldestOnesInTheBook'''\ |
| 2 | OlderThanTheNES | Before 1985\ |
| 3 | OlderThanCableTV | 1939 -- 1980\ |
| 4 | OlderThanTelevision | 1890 -- 1939\ |
| 5 | OlderThanRadio | 1698 -- 1890\ |
| 6 | OlderThanSteam | 1439 -- 1698\ |
| 7 | OlderThanPrint | 476 -- 1439\ |
| 8 | OlderThanFeudalism | ~800 BC -- 476 AD\ |
| 9 | '''Older Than Dirt''' | Before ~800 BC-]]]]] |
| 10 | |
| 11 | [[quoteright:230:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lascaux_2.jpg]] |
| 12 | [-[[caption-width-right:230:Magdalenian painting in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux Lascaux Cave]], c. 17,000 BC]]-] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | ->''"...machinery claims are made to the so called ideas in almost every film, and not infrequently they are backed up by suits for heavy damages. Inasmuch as these ideas, in the main, descend to us from Neanderthal man, it is often quite impossible for a given movie author to prove that he invented what he is accused of having stolen. So he must hunt for it in the literature of the past, and thus prove that, if he lifted it himself, so also did the man claiming it. Defending such suits has familiarized the solicitors of the movie folk with all the popular literature back to the earliest written records."'' |
| 15 | -->-- '''Creator/HLMencken''', "Blackmail Made Easy" |
| 16 | |
| 17 | TheOldestOnesInTheBook recorded before the Greek alphabet was invented, around 800 BC. Mostly from mythology, and generally [[OralTradition orally transmitted]] before being written down. If the work you're thinking of has a known author, and it's not ancient Egyptian, it's probably not from this era. |
| 18 | ---- |
| 19 | |
| 20 | !!Specific works from this period: |
| 21 | * Most Myth/MesopotamianMythology, including Literature/EnumaElish, ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld, and Literature/CourtshipOfInannaAndDumuzi. |
| 22 | * {{Myth/Hittite|Mythology}} and Hurrian myths, such as the ''Literature/KumarbiCycle''. |
| 23 | * All but the latest ancient Myth/EgyptianMythology, literature and monuments. [[note]]Before the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Period_of_ancient_Egypt Late Period.]][[/note]] Art/TheSphinx might even predate the pyramids. |
| 24 | * The ancient Indian (Sanskrit) Vedas (Literature/RigVeda, Literature/YajurVeda, Literature/SamaVeda, and Literature/AtharvaVeda) are thought to date from this time. (All other Myth/HinduMythology [[OlderThanFeudalism comes]] [[OlderThanPrint later.]]) |
| 25 | * The oldest examples of ancient Chinese writing[[note]]Before the Spring and Autumn period[[/note]], though little survives from this period. |
| 26 | * Visual art from pre-literate cultures that predates 800 BC can be included here, though it's important to be very careful interpreting just what tropes it represents. |
| 27 | * Many oral tales of Myth/AboriginalAustralianMyths, [[TimeAbyss some of which are so old]], that they're believed to depict Australia back when it was still mostly vegetated and there was a land bridge between it and the island of New Guinea, which was more than 10,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.[[note]]For the purposes of this trope, only examples with geographical/archaeological evidence qualify.[[/note]] |
| 28 | %% Do not add anything only known from modern oral tradition; while it's conceivable that it could preserve memories of events from this far in the past, there's no way to know for sure. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | |
| 31 | '''Note''': Tropes originating in mythologies/religions that aren't Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Anatolian, Vedic, or Chinese are never indexed here, as we have no idea whether those stories even existed in 800 BC, or what form they had, centuries or millennia before they were first written down. Even Literature/TheBible and Myth/ClassicalMythology are only OlderThanFeudalism.[[note]]Technically, some very old parts of the Books of [[Literature/BookOfGenesis Genesis]], [[Literature/BookOfExodus Exodus]], and Numbers are ''probably'' this old. However, we aren't sure which parts exactly, and in any case, it's easier to treat the whole Bible as younger. Likewise, evidence from Mycenaean Greek [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_B Linear B]] tablets indicate that a few of the later Greek deities were worshipped in some form by 1200 BC, but we have no narratives about them until the classical era. [[/note]] Early folklorists often started with the assumption that folktales and myths were primordial; [[ScienceMarchesOn more research has shown that]] people can and do modify all sorts of tales for any purpose. |
| 32 | %% |
| 33 | %% |
| 34 | %% That means DON'T add Greek, Roman, or Biblical examples to this page. They're only OlderThanFeudalism. |
| 35 | %% Nor Celtic or Norse examples. They're largely only OlderThanPrint. |
| 36 | %% |
| 37 | |
| 38 | ---- |
| 39 | !! Older Than Dirt Tropes: |
| 40 | [[index]] |
| 41 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 42 | |
| 43 | [[folder: A-C]] |
| 44 | * AbstractApotheosis: Imhotep, vizier to the Ancient Egyptian king Netjerikhet Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty, was worshipped centuries after his death as the god of medicine and wisdom. Centuries later, another royal advisor, Amenhotep son of Hapu, royal tutor and then ''de facto'' chief minister to Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty, got a similar treatment, being venerated around Memphis as first a demigod and then a god of healing. |
| 45 | * ActionGirl: |
| 46 | ** Myth/EgyptianMythology includes war goddesses such as Sekhmet, Menhit, Neith, and Pakhet. |
| 47 | ** Myth/MesopotamianMythology has the war goddess Ishtar/Inanna. |
| 48 | * AdaptationalHeroism: Osiris, originally an ambiguous figure in Egyptian religion (he oversaw the weighing of the heart and lets souls enter the afterlife if they pass the test), gradually became [[TheGoodKing the benevolent ruler]] after he was resurrected thanks to the efforts of Isis and Anubis. |
| 49 | * AdaptationalVillainy: Set, originally an ambiguous figure in Egyptian religion (he was responsible for the death of Osiris but was also the defender of Re, and was worshipped like the other gods), gradually became a GodOfEvil after his worship fell out of favor near the end of the New Kingdom. |
| 50 | * AdiposeRex: |
| 51 | ** On the wall of UsefulNotes/{{Hatshepsut}}'s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari depicting the expedition she sent to the Land of Punt (somewhere vaguely around modern Eritrea and Somalia), one of the scenes shows a very large woman stated to be "Queen Ati of Punt" bringing gifts to Egypt. (The wall depicts her giving tribute to Hatshepsut herself, but this probably isn't meant to be taken literally--more probably, she gave gifts to Hatshepsut's deputy sent to lead the Egyptian expedition.) The Egyptian artists found her appearance so remarkable they [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Pa-rehu%2C_the_Prince_of_Punt%2C_his_wife_and_his_two_sons%2C_and_a_daughter._%281902%29_-_TIMEA.jpg deviated from the usual stylized Egyptian portrayal to capture it]]. |
| 52 | ** It is also possible that several Egyptian monarchs were themselves overweight, but the art does not reflect this; ancient Egyptian depictions of the ruler always emphasized physical fitness, so we can only guess based on the archaeological evidence which if any pharaohs were more rotund than the art lets on. Ironically, one of the pharaohs most likely to have been fat was Hatshepsut herself; a mummy believed to be hers (though there are some doubts) shows notable signs associated with ailments of obesity in old age. As Hatshepsut took especial pains to ensure she was always shown as very fit, the contrast with the mummy is interesting. |
| 53 | * AfterlifeTour: Like many others, this trope appears as an Unbuilt Trope. Enkidu goes into the netherworld, almost gets stuck there but is rescued, and afterwards gives Gilgamesh a detailed description of the different fates of the people he has seen. The picture is extremely bleak even compared to what Aeneas sees: unless one has at least four sons left, one is quite miserable. |
| 54 | * TheAlmightyDollar: Egyptian, Hindu, and Mesopotamian mythology all feature deities associated with wealth and fortune, or inversions, being deities of misfortune or poverty. |
| 55 | * AltarDiplomacy: As with ArrangedMarriage, marrying for politics was more the rule than the exception for ancient royals. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarna_Letters Amarna Letters]] of the 14th century BC show that the Egyptian pharaohs married foreign princesses from Mitanni (a kingdom in northern Mesopotamia) and Babylon as an assurance of the powers' mutual good intentions in Canaan, and it is undisputed that UsefulNotes/RamsesII (of the Nineteenth Dynasty, during the 13th century BC) married a Hittite princess to cement/shore up a peace treaty/alliance with Hatti. |
| 56 | ** The earliest clear example--coming directly from the Amarna Letters--involve brides from Mitanni coming to the court of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Mitanni had historically been a rival/enemy of Egypt in the Great Power struggle over the Levant; Thutmose III in particular had made much of his campaigns against them, as they had been backing Syrian city-states like Kadesh in their efforts to resist Egyptian suzerainty. But by the time of Amenhotep III (Thutmose III's great-grandson), the geopolitical situation had changed, and Mitanni was now an ally of Egypt. To shore up this alliance, Amenhotep married the Mitanni princess Gilukhipa, daughter of Mitanni King Shuttarna II, in c. 1378 BCE. This is mostly interesting because in c. 1352 BCE--yes, ''26 years'' later--Shuttarna's son Tushratta sent his own daughter Tadukhipa to join Amenhotep III's harem (yeah, Amenhotep III reigned that long). What's more, she may have married his son UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}} after he died. |
| 57 | ** Also a bit of an UnbuiltTrope: The Egyptians seem to have studiously kept these foreign wives well away from the succession; they always made sure that the seniormost members of the pharaoh's harem were Egyptian royals and nobles. (While some Egyptologists in the 20th century suggested for various reasons that one or both of Akhenaten's most famous wives--Nefertiti and Kiya--might have been foreign,[[note]]And in particular that one or the other was Tadukhipa under a different name[[/note]] modern consensus is that both were of thoroughly Egyptian stock.) The closest any foreigner ever came to inheriting the Egyptian throne[[note]]Setting aside dynasties of foreigners who seized the throne by force, of course.[[/note]] was with Amenhotep III himself, whose mother ''seems'' to have been of at least partial Nubian ancestry, but then by that point Nubia had been annexed to Egypt for generations and the Nubian elite almost completely Egyptianized culturally. And it seems to have been widely known in the Ancient Near East that the Egyptians did this. So what we usually think of as the reason for royal marriage alliances--that the heir to the throne will have a blood tie to the allied state--goes out the window, and it seems that, when dealing with the Egyptians, the ancient powers of the Egyptians saw sending a bride to the land of the Nile as more of a friendly hostage situation than trying to forge permanent family ties to the Egyptian royals. |
| 58 | ** As an interesting corollary, for several centuries the Egyptians studiously refused to send their own princesses to foreign powers--the flow of royal ladies was always strictly one-way from the barbarian lands to Egypt. This was apparently a matter of prestige--''they'' come to ''us'', not the other way around. (The aforementioned Tushratta, either not understanding this or understanding it but miffed about it, sent Amenhotep III several missives begging to be sent an Egyptian royal bride--or heck, even an Egyptian non-royal bride--as part of the Tadukhipa deal, arguing it was only fair; he eventually relented after several rounds of getting nowhere with this tack.) |
| 59 | * AlwaysChaoticEvil: Mesopotamian examples include the Allu, Asakku, Gallu, Rabisu. |
| 60 | * AnatomyOfTheSoul: Ancient Egyptian religion did not have the Western concept of souls. Instead, a whole person was believed to consist of the body, the ren (name), the ib ("heart"), the sheut (shadow), the ka (life force), the ba (a sort of manifestation or spiritual force), and the akh (the ba and ka combined). An afterlife required all of these. |
| 61 | * AncestorVeneration: Was part of Ancient Egyptian religious practices and evidence suggests it was part of the earliest religious practices dating back to prehistory. |
| 62 | * AnimalStereotypes: To the Ancient Egyptians vultures, cows, and female hippos were seen as nurturing and motherly, hawks and lions as warlike, bulls and rams as symbols of male virility, and a whole slew of animals (antelope, donkeys, male hippos, pigs, tortoises) as evil. These symbolic meanings were part of the associations between gods and animals, and of depicting gods in animal or animal-headed forms. |
| 63 | * AnimalisticAbomination: Apophis, the ultimate evil of Myth/EgyptianMythology and the embodiment of primal chaos is a giant snake. |
| 64 | * AnotherDimension: Hindu cosmology contains several universes and planets. |
| 65 | * AnthropomorphicPersonification: Myth/EgyptianMythology included deifications of concepts such as joy, plenty, order (Ma'at) and the king/Pharaoh's false beard. |
| 66 | * ApocalypseHow ApocalypseHow/ClassX4: The Egyptian Literature/CoffinTexts and Literature/BookOfGoingForthByDay (a.k.a. Book of the Dead) tell that eventually, the PrimordialChaos of Nun will re-absorb the ordered cosmos, and of all life only the gods Atum and Osiris will remain in the eternal dark. |
| 67 | * ArchEnemy: With the Egyptian gods Set and Horus, it's personal. Set murdered Horus' dad, Horus hacked off Set's balls, Set gouged out Horus' eye, and on and on... |
| 68 | * ArcNumber: 70 in Babylonian myth. |
| 69 | * ArtifactOfDeath: ''[[Literature/PrincessAhuraTheMagicBook Princess Ahura: The Magic Book]]'' is a New Kingdom Egyptian story about a prince who covets the magical Book of Thoth, buried in the river in six nested boxes and guarded by snakes and scorpions. He digs it out, kills the guardians, and obtains vast magical power, but the offended gods promptly kill him, his sister/wife, and their son. |
| 70 | * ArtificialHuman: In Literature/EnumaElish, the first humans were made from Qingu's blood. |
| 71 | * ArtificialLimbs: Queen Vishpla from the Literature/RigVeda was fitted with an iron prosthesis after losing her leg in battle, and returned to battle. |
| 72 | * ArtisticLicense: One possible reason why myths change over time, even when written down. Different writers tell different versions of the same myths all the time (see DependingOnTheWriter), and even if these go back to oral traditions of entire towns, somewhere somebody changed it from the common origin. |
| 73 | * AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: Every Egyptian king got to do this upon their death, where they joined Re, Osiris, and/or the Imperishable Stars in heaven. |
| 74 | * AssassinationAttempt: As you might expect. Examples probably predate history, but the first ''documented'' assassination is that of the [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Twelfth Dynasty King Amenemhat I]] (r. 20th century BCE), who was [[BodyguardBetrayal killed in his bed by his own guards]]. This also counts as a literary example, as the assassination is a key event in both the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Amenemhat Instructions of Amenemhat]]'' and the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Sinuhe Story of Sinuhe]]'', two famous Middle Kingdom-era literary texts. Actually, because of an apparent Egyptian taboo on mentioning causes of death in many kinds of texts--including, weirdly, funerary ones--and the loss of his mummy, these stories are the ''only'' sources we have to confirm Amenemhat's assassination. |
| 75 | ** About 900 years after Amenemhat, the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Papyrus_of_Turin Judicial Papyrus of Turin]] confirms the assassination of another Egyptian monarch, Ramesses III, in much less ambiguous terms (and supported by close modern analysis of his mummy). |
| 76 | ** There is also archaeological evidence to suggest that the Old Kingdom (Sixth Dynasty) monarch Teti was also assassinated by his guards, about 400 years before Amenemhat I met the same fate. However, the evidence, while compelling, is circumstantial, so Amenemhat "wins" for being the victim of the first documented regicide. |
| 77 | * AutoErotica: Of all things! In the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turin_Erotic_Papyrus Turin Erotic Papyrus,]] painted in ~1150 B.C, there is featured a beautiful woman having sex with an ugly, fat, balding old man on a chariot with his [[GagPenis massive dong]]. |
| 78 | * AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: The [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory ancient Egyptians]] again! While records are not perfectly clear on the details, it is clear that Egyptian monarchs marked the formal beginnings of their reigns with a ceremony, and that no later than the New Kingdom this involved placing a CoolCrown on the new pharaoh's head. Actually, ''two'' cool crowns; the surviving texts from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties suggest that the ceremony involved two clerics, the high priest of Ra and the high priest of Amun, respectively carrying the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deshret Deshret]]'' (the hollow, crested Red Crown of Lower Egypt) and the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedjet Hedjet]]'' (the ninepin-shaped White Crown of Upper Egypt) into the hall. The priest of Ra would place the ''Deshret'' on the king's head first, and the priest of Amun would follow by placing the ''Hedjet'' inside the hollow of the ''Deshret'', creating the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pschent Pschent]]'', the Double Crown of united Egypt. Significantly, Ra's cult was based in the Lower Egyptian city of Iunu (Heliopolis to the Greeks, because, er, it was the center of the cult of Ra), while the cult of Amun was based in the Upper Egyptian city of Waset (Thebes to the Greeks). The ceremony thus symbolized both the political and the religious unity of the Two Lands that made up Egypt in the person of the pharaoh. (Note: The Egyptian kings had always had crowns--the Narmer Pallette, dated to c. 3100 BCE, shows King Narmer, the founder of the First Dynasty (so far as we can tell), wearing both crowns (separately, in different images on different sides of the carved stone), and carvings from the First Dynasty show the ''Pschent''. However, records of an actual coronation ceremony are hard to find before the Eighteenth Dynasty.) |
| 79 | * BackFromTheDead: Inanna/Ishtar, Dumuzi/Tammuz, Osiris... |
| 80 | * BackgroundMusic: Many ancient peoples set their rituals and ritual theatre to music. The Egyptians in particular are believed to have had music playing during the festival plays reenacting the murder and rebirth of Osiris. |
| 81 | * BadassFamily: Any family of related gods: i.e. the Egyptian Great Ennead and the Mesopotamian Annunaki. |
| 82 | * BalancingDeathsBooks: In Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld, Inanna must give Ereshkigal another's life to enable her own resurrection. She sends her husband Dumuzi. |
| 83 | * BeastFable: The oldest known beast fables are Sumerian, dating from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. We also have Egyptian ones from the Middle Kingdom (early 2nd millennium BC). |
| 84 | * BeCarefulWhatYouSay: See WordsCanBreakMyBones on this page. |
| 85 | * BedTrick: The conception of Hatshepsut and other Egyptian kings, according to royal propaganda. |
| 86 | * BelligerentSexualTension: The courtship of Ereshkigal, queen of the Mesopotamian underworld, and Nergal, god of plagues and fire. |
| 87 | * {{BFS}}: Gilgamesh and Enkidu each wield a sword that weighs 120 pounds. |
| 88 | * BigBeautifulWoman: The Art/VenusOfWillendorf, an early paleolithic sculpture of a full-figured woman. |
| 89 | * BigGood: Ra in Myth/EgyptianMythology was the ruler of Heaven and defender of the celestial order, opposing Apep. |
| 90 | * BigScrewedUpFamily: The Mesopotamian gods and the Hittite gods. There is a pattern here, considering their creation myths are suspiciously similar. |
| 91 | * BirdVsSerpent: Myth/EgyptianMythology: Although Egyptian myths had a number of benign serpentine figures, the [[DragonsAreDemonic demonic serpent]] GodOfEvil Apep was not one of them. Every night, he would do battle with the sun god Ra, who was traditionally depicted with the head of an eagle. |
| 92 | * BlingOfWar: Egyptians were very fond of painting their pharaohs as highly decorated war heroes. |
| 93 | * BloodyMurder: In Literature/EnumaElish, Tiamat gives birth to dragons that, among other awesome features, have "venom for blood". |
| 94 | * BlowYouAway: Mesopotamian wind and storm deities include Enlil and Ishkur. |
| 95 | * BodyguardBetrayal: King Amenemhat I, founder of the [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Twelfth Dynasty of ancient Egypt]], is generally accepted to have been assassinated in his bed by members of his royal guard. "Generally accepted", because Amenemhat ruled during the 20th century BCE, and our only sources for the assassination story are literary.[[note]]For whatever reason, the ancient Egyptians generally did not mention causes of death in their "historical" records like annals of kings or funerary inscriptions. Amenemhat I is actually one of the few Egyptian monarchs from whom we can determine a cause of death from written records; for most other Egyptian monarchs whose cause of death is known, we have only discovered that through analysis of their mummies.[[/note]] These are the ''Instructions of Amenemhat'' (a guide to rule in Amenemhat's voice but obviously written by someone else, advising the king to trust no one) and the ''Story of Sinuhe'' (a bit of a strange adventure story centering on a courtier and military officer who ran away from Egypt fearing that he'd be connected with the assassins). Why exactly Amenemhat's guards would have wanted him dead is especially murky. That said, the sources are very clear about how this went down; in the words of the ''Instructions of Amenemhat'': |
| 96 | --> I was asleep upon my bed, having become weary, and my heart had begun to follow sleep. When weapons of my counsel were wielded, I had become like a snake of the necropolis. As I came to, I awoke to fighting, and found that it was an attack of the bodyguard. If I had quickly taken weapons in my hand, I would have made the wretches retreat with a charge! But there is none mighty in the night, none who can fight alone; no success will come without a helper. Look, my injury happened while I was without you, when the entourage had not yet heard that I would hand over to you when I had not yet sat with you, that I might make counsels for you; for I did not plan it, I did not foresee it, and my heart had not taken thought of the negligence of servants. |
| 97 | * BodyToJewel: Several myths claim gemstones coming from people or animals, and not limited to shellfish. |
| 98 | * BoldExplorer: A few: |
| 99 | ** The Epic of Gilgamesh portrays its titular demigod hero as an explorer of strange new lands while on his quests. |
| 100 | ** The historical Egyptian official Harkhuf (fl. 23rd century BCE) portrays himself as this in his "autobiography" on the walls of his tomb, intrepidly exploring new lands up the Nile deep in the heart of Africa (and finding a pygmy, much to the delight of his eight-year-old sovereign Pepi II). |
| 101 | * BornAgainImmortality: [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian gods]] can be killed (as Osiris was), and all of them age and die (especially Re). But they are always reborn as good as new. The sun god in particular, is often shown resurrecting as a child. Some of the other Egyptian gods might actually have ResurrectiveImmortality instead, though it's not clear. |
| 102 | * BreathWeapon: In Myth/EgyptianMythology the sacred uraei and serpents of the Duat breathe fire to protect the king and gods. |
| 103 | * BrotherSisterIncest: Notably the Egyptian Great Ennead, and some of the Igigi gods in Literature/EnumaElish. RealLife Egyptian kings also did this to conserve their RoyalBlood. |
| 104 | * CainAndAbel: The Egyptian god Set killed his brother Osiris. |
| 105 | * CannibalTribe: The Knovíz culture of central Europe in the late 2nd millennium BC and early 1st partook in ritual cannibalism, archeologists have determined. |
| 106 | * CartoonCreature: Myth/EgyptianMythology has the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_animal Set animal]]," which doesn't look like any specific creature in RealLife. |
| 107 | * CessationOfExistence: The Egyptians were most terrified of this. According to Myth/EgyptianMythology, a person on the way to the afterlife passed by the Hall of Two Truths, where its heart was weighed against the Feather of Ma'at (Truth and Justice, personified as a goddess). If judged to be impure, the heart would be eaten by Ammit, a demon, and the person would cease to exist. See also UnPerson, below. |
| 108 | * CharacterDevelopment: [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] becomes a sadder, but wiser and more considerate person by the end of his quest. |
| 109 | * ChestBurster: In the Egyptian Literature/PyramidTexts the newborn Set, god of deserts and violence and chaos, tears his way out of his mother Nut's womb. |
| 110 | * {{Chickification}}: There is evidence that, in some cases, as pantheons evolved, important goddesses in Myth/MesopotamianMythology were prone to being reduced to SatelliteLoveInterest status. Notably, the Greeks may have imported the Mesopotamian Astarte, a goddess of both love and war, into [[Myth/ClassicalMythology their myths]] — and transformed her into the single-focus LoveGoddess Aphrodite. |
| 111 | * ChildEater: Sumerian and Akkadian texts mention the malevolent goddess (or she-demon) Dimme/Lamashtu who kidnapped and ate babies. Amulets warding against her were widespread. Dimme-kur/Akhkhazu and maybe Lilitu are other Mesopotamian Child Eaters. |
| 112 | * AChildShallLeadThem: Child monarchs are probably as old as monarchy itself. The earliest confirmed example is Pepi II Neferkare of the Egyptian Sixth Dynasty, who took the throne at age six sometime in the late 23rd century BCE, but a few other earlier Egyptian kings of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties (about 200-300 years before Pepi) may have been minors on taking the throne. |
| 113 | * ChildSupplantsParent: In ''Literature/EnumaElish'', the gods overthrow their ancestors, Apsu and Tiamat, so Apsu can't kill them all. |
| 114 | * ChoiceOfTwoWeapons: Common in real life and myths alike. Gilgamesh used an ax, [[{{BFS}} a great sword]], and a bow. |
| 115 | * ClassicalHunter: Hunts were already the subject of cave paintings before civilization even got off the ground. |
| 116 | * ClothesMakeTheSuperman: In the [[Myth/MesopotamianMythology Sumerian myth]] of Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld, the goddess Inanna girds herself with clothes and artifacts before her descent, making herself powerful. She passes through seven infernal gates, and at each one, part of her clothing is taken from her. When she reaches the throne room, she is naked and therefore powerless, and she is carried off to be tormented. |
| 117 | * CometOfDoom: Mentioned on ancient Chinese oracle bones from the late [[UsefulNotes/DynastiesFromShangToQing Shang Dynasty]]. A comet was also among the omens thought to have foreboded the fall of the Shang dynasty by the victory of King Wu of Zhou over King Zhou of Shang, c. 1050 BC. |
| 118 | * CompleteMonster: The most heinous characters played seriously with no redeeming or altruistic traits. Villainous figures who are pure evil is one of the oldest tropes out there. The oldest listed example is the GodOfEvil Apep/Apophis from Myth/EgyptianMythology, who was worshiped ''against'' since the days of the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BC – c. 1077 BC). |
| 119 | * {{Conflict}}: ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' features conflicts between Enkidu and Gilgamesh. And Gilgamesh vs cosmic forces. |
| 120 | * ContinuitySnarl: Egyptian Mythology was always a complete mess, even in the earliest writings from when Egypt was united and the priests of the newly unified kingdom realized that the myths of Upper Egypt lined up not at all with those of Lower Egypt.[[note]]For instance, in some parts of Upper Egypt Set was a benevolent chief god, whereas in Lower Egypt he was a bit of a JerkAss and rather more ambiguous--although still not ''evil''.[[/note]] Every now and then the Pharaoh would commission some priests to try and straighten things out a bit (usually in a way that made his dynasty look better), so it's clear they understood this was a thing; the most famous form of Egyptian myth--the Heliopolitan myths of the Great Ennead--are probably the result of attempts to combine Upper and Lower Egyptian myths (Heliopolis is near where the two meet) and various rival cults claiming their deity was chief god (particularly Atum v. Ra v. Osiris v. Horus).[[note]]They merged the first two and made the resulting three deities a dynasty. Very useful if you're trying to legitimize a hereditary monarchy...[[/note]] |
| 121 | * TheConqueror: The first prominent conqueror of recorded history is Sargon of Akkad. Other famous conquerors of this period are Thutmose of Egypt and Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria. |
| 122 | * CoolBoat: For the Ancient Egyptians one way to depict the sun god was to show Re sailing through the sky in a boat. At night, he sailed a different boat through either TheUnderworld, the inside of the sky goddess Nut, or the waterway behind the sky. The daytime sky could also be considered a waterway. |
| 123 | * CosmicEgg: The creation myth in the Sanskrit Literature/RigVeda. |
| 124 | * TheCoup: Ignoring real life examples, which are likely as old as politics: |
| 125 | ** In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, the younger gods, led by Marduk, defeated and killed Tiamat and Apsu and took over the universe. |
| 126 | ** In Myth/HittiteMythology, Anu overthrew Alalu and took over the kingship of heaven, then Kumarbi overthrew Anu, then Teshup overthrew Kumarbi. |
| 127 | ** In Myth/EgyptianMythology, Isis seized the sun god Re's throne, although she did it with trickery instead of violence. |
| 128 | * CourtMage: The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westcar_Papyrus Westcar Papyrus]], dating from the [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory late Middle Kingdom or Second Intermediate Period]] of ancient Egyptian history (c. 1650-1550 BCE), tells of the lector priest and magician [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djadjaemankh Djadjaemankh]], court magician to King Sneferu of the Old Kingdom Fourth Dynasty (from the 26th century BCE). Djadjaemankh was allusively associated with several wonders, but the only one that survives (from the story in the Westcar Papyrus) involves him parting the Nile to pick up a piece of jewelry a beautiful lady in Sneferu's service had dropped in the river during a pleasure cruise. |
| 129 | * CrazyPrepared: In Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld the goddess anticipates problems, and instructs her priestess exactly what to do. |
| 130 | * CreationMyth: The Mesopotamian Literature/EnumaElish and the Hittite Literature/KumarbiCycle both date to this period. The Ancient Egyptians had several, starring creator gods such as Re, Ptah, Atum, and the Eight Gods of Hermopolis Magna. |
| 131 | * CreepyUncle: A variant appears in Myth/EgyptianMythology when Set sexually abuses his nephew Horus. Along with highlighting Set's depravity,[[note]]Mind you, the {{ancient Egypt}}ians weren't too squeamish about incest: many deities [[BrotherSisterIncest married their siblings]], as did [[RoyalInbreeding many pharaohs]]. The rape angle ''was'' considered depraved, though.[[/note]] this incident also serves to degrade Horus. See, Horus was Set's ArchEnemy at the time because Set had killed Osiris, who was his own brother [[YouKilledMyFather and Horus's father]]. Ultimately, Horus gets the last laugh when his mother Isis (Set's sister) [[RevengeIsADishBestServed mixes some of Horus's semen into Set's food]]. |
| 132 | * CruelAndUnusualDeath: Certain Ancient Egyptian punishments involved cutting off a person's arm first, then their head. |
| 133 | * {{Cuckold}}: The fear of a man's wife/sexual partner sleeping with another man has likely been around longer than human speech. |
| 134 | * {{Curse}}: Mesopotamian kings inscribed very elaborate curses on their stelae, threatening the hatred of the gods and long lists of nasty misfortunes upon any future king who overturned their decrees. Some Ancient Egyptian tombs threaten curses of misfortune and divine retribution upon would-be desecrators. |
| 135 | [[/folder]] |
| 136 | |
| 137 | [[folder: D-I]] |
| 138 | * DarkestHour: The death of TheHero's [[DeadSidekick best friend, Enkidu,]] in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' triggers the first HeroicBSOD. |
| 139 | * DarkIsNotEvil: Kek and Kauket, god and goddess of darkness, are two of the eight gods who create the sun, dry land, and the entire universe in one of the Egyptian creation myths. Like the other six gods of the Ogdoad, their role was entirely positive. |
| 140 | * DeadSidekick: [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] kinda lost it after Enkidu died. |
| 141 | * DealWithTheDevil: there are Sanskrit and Sumerian tales of craftsmen forming deals with what are essentially demons for superlative skill in their craft. |
| 142 | * DeathGlare: Literally, in ''Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld''. |
| 143 | * DecapitatedArmy: Tiamat's army, after Marduk killed her in ''Literature/EnumaElish''. |
| 144 | * DefeatMeansFriendship: Gilgamesh and Enkidu meet this way in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 145 | * DeityOfHumanOrigin: The kings of Ancient Egypt were considered fully divine after death. A few non-royals, like Imhotep and Amunhotep son of Hapu, were also deified. In the late dynastic periods, anyone who drowned in the Nile was deified. |
| 146 | * DependingOnTheWriter: There are contradictory tales concerning gods and heroes in several ancient texts. Some Egyptian funerary texts have the god Set battle the EldritchAbomination Apophis, and in others Set and Apophis are clearly identified with each other. The Mesopotamian [[Literature/EpicOfAtraHasis Epic of Atra-Hasis]] (18th century BC) tells details of the Deluge which contradict ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. Etc. |
| 147 | * DiabolusExMachina: ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 148 | * DiligentDraftAnimal -- Before the rise of technology, animals were tamed and used as transportation and field work, with oxen being among the first. |
| 149 | * DishingOutDirt: Geb from Myth/EgyptianMythology can cause earthquakes and allow crops to grow. |
| 150 | * DismemberingTheBody: In Myth/EgyptianMythology, after killing Osiris, Set cut his corpse into pieces and spread them around Egypt. |
| 151 | * DisproportionateRetribution: When King Gilgamesh declined to sleep with Inanna/Ishtar, the goddess sent the Bull of Heaven to terrorize a whole city of his innocent subjects. |
| 152 | * DistaffCounterpart: Myth/EgyptianMythology included deities who seemed little more than female counterparts added to a much older god, such as Input (counterpart of Anubis, whose Egyptian name was closer to Inepu), Sobeket (counterpart of Sobek), and Sokaret (counterpart of Sokar). The four goddesses of the Ogdoad (Naunet, Amaunet, Hehet, and Keket) are Distaff Counterparts to Nun, Amun, Heh, and Kek. |
| 153 | * DistressedDude: In what may be the first recorded example of this trope, a central point of Ancient Egyptian religion is the rescue of Osiris by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis#Sister-wife_to_Osiris Isis]], after he's killed by Set. |
| 154 | * DivineDate: The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna did it a lot. |
| 155 | * DivineIncest: This originated in the earliest mythologies, such as the Egyptian and Mesopotamian ones. It probably dates back even further to primitive oral religions, but those were the first to be written down in {{Canon}}. |
| 156 | * DivineParentage: Imhotep, supposedly son of the god Ptah; the Egyptian kings who claimed that gods fathered them; and whatever god(s) was/were responsible for Gilgamesh being 2/3 divine. |
| 157 | * DoNotTauntCthulhu: Gilgamesh has a habit of insulting Inanna, refusing her advances, throwing animal body parts at her face, etc. It doesn't do him any good. |
| 158 | * {{Dominatrix}}: Possibly dates back to Mesopotamia, involving rituals of the goddess Inanna (or Ishtar as she was known in Akkadian). Ancient cuneiform texts consisting of "Hymns to Inanna" suggest that these rituals involved powerful females displaying dominating behaviors and forcing men into submission to them. The same text suggests myths where Inanna did the same to her fellow gods. |
| 159 | * DoubleStandardRapeDivineOnMortal: [[/index]] |
| 160 | ** As King, [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] (who was ''two thirds'' divine) made a law that all new brides in his city had to have sex with him first. This ''did'' piss his subjects off, and the gods sent Enkidu to wrestle Gilgamesh and give him an outlet for his pent up energy. |
| 161 | ** The Egyptian kings started claiming the "benevolent" variation of this as a form of royal propaganda during the New Kingdom. It started with Hatshepsut, who needed some kind of justification for taking the royal titles and power for herself (effectively a self-coup/usurpation from her nephew/stepson Thutmose III, just a toddler at the time, for whom she was acting as regent). She declared that she was ''actually'' supposed to have been monarch all along because the chief state god Amun was her real father, having slept with Hatshepsut's mother Ahmose [[BedTrick in the guise of Ahmose's husband, King Thutmose I]]. (For all that, she never denied Thutmose III the royal titles--she just set herself up as senior co-ruler.) She had the story carved in great detail in both text and pictures into the walls of her famous mortuary temple (making this an artistic example as well as a historical one). When Hatshepsut died and her nephew took power for himself, he found the story was such good propaganda that he took it on himself, just replacing Thutmose I with Thutmose II and Ahmose with his own mother, Iset. Eventually, this became the "standard" story of royal conception (though sometimes with a different god like Ra switched out for Amun), and in theory it was this--being impregnated by a great god--was the "official" theory of how the succession worked. (Of course, the reality was that the succession almost always went to the oldest surviving son of the king's highest-ranking wife, with occasional deviations due to politics, but this wasn't transparent and so you needed a story.)[[index]] |
| 162 | * DraconicAbomination: Primordial chaos deities like Tiamat and Apep are often depicted as being dragons. The Asura known as Vritra or Ahi from the Literature/RigVeda is also described as being a dragon-like creature. |
| 163 | * DragonsAreDemonic: Vritra from Myth/HinduMythology is a serpentine dragon and a personification of drought, who was slain by Indra in the ''Rig Veda''. |
| 164 | * DragonsAreDivine: The Chinese have revered dragons for millennia, with the oldest known dragon statue dating back to the 5th millennium BC, during the time of the Neolithic [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangshao_culture Yangshao culture.]] |
| 165 | * DreamSequence: In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 166 | * DroitDuSeigneur: It was a DeadUnicornTrope as far back as ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', with Gilgamesh making it a practice to deflower his subjects' wives. When Enkidu finds out he immediately travels to the city to beat it out of him. |
| 167 | * DualityMotif: The ancient Egyptians depicted their gods with animal heads as a purely symbolic gesture to represent their dual natures, as they could take on either a fully human or fully animal form as needed, but not both as is often depicted in popular culture. |
| 168 | * DueToTheDead: Known among the Neanderthals, who buried their dead. |
| 169 | * EldritchAbomination: Tiamat, the primordial goddess in Literature/EnumaElish, was huge enough for the gods to create heaven and earth from her corpse, while making TheUnderworld from her husband Apsu's body. Apep/Apophis of Egyptian myth was a living embodiment of the formless primordial chaos and darkness outside of the shaped universe, typically painted as a giant snake/serpent. Hittite myth had the dragon-like Illuynka, enemy of Teshub. |
| 170 | * ElementalPowers: Several gods have them: Teshub commands the lightning; Enlil and Marduk command the winds; Ishkur and Set control storms; and Sekhmet, Wadjet, and Nergal wield fire. |
| 171 | * ElementalRivalry: Horus the sun god vs. Set, god of storms and murderer of Horus' father Osiris. |
| 172 | * EmissaryFromTheDivine: Myth/EgyptianMythology might have seen their pharaohs as a divine emissary, with a mission to rule. |
| 173 | * EngagementChallenge: In the [[Myth/EgyptianMythology New Kingdom Egyptian]] "Literature/TaleOfTheDoomedPrince", the chief of Naharin makes suitors for his daughter climb a tall cliff to her window. |
| 174 | * EmperorScientist: The [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory New Kingdom Pharaoh]] Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, in addition to being history's first undisputed YoungConqueror, was history's first monarch with a clear personal interest in the natural sciences--or at least what passed for them in the ''15th century BCE''. One of his greatest monuments is his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botanical_garden_of_Thutmosis_III "botanical garden"]], a chamber in the innermost part of his addition to the Karnak temple complex, in which he has depicted a catalogue of the flora and fauna of the lands he ruled (most especially the ones he had conquered himself) in the kind of painstaking technical detail and accuracy (for the time) that can only come from a sincere fascination with all these strange new plants and animals in themselves. He even applies some early suggestions of method, being careful to group the depictions geographically by the region in which they are found. His descriptions of his border-expanding campaigns towards the Euphrates suggest he was motivated almost as much by curiosity about these strange new lands as by a desire to control or exploit them,[[note]]And to keep the Mitanni from interfering with Canaan...{{Realpolitik}} is ancient and never ceases[[/note]] and his final "campaign" to Nubia was really a discovery-expedition-cum-pleasure-cruise up the Nile aimed mostly at seeing how far upriver he could go, where the Nile flood came from, and what kind of cool stuff was up in Nubia (he found a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jebel_Barkal cool mountain]] and after investigating it as best as he could he ordered the construction of a city there). His great-grandson Amunhotep III did something similar about 40 years later, going on a geographic exploratory expedition in the far south of Nubia after putting down a revolt there; he discovered an oasis in the desert he identified as the "Pools of Horus", a place sacred to the royal god, before going home. |
| 175 | * EquivalentExchange: The First Law of Thermodynamics. This is old as ''reality itself''. |
| 176 | * EverybodysDeadDave: In the Old Kingdom [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian]] "Literature/TaleOfTheShipwreckedSailor", the protagonist was the only survivor of his ship after a storm on the Red Sea. |
| 177 | * EverybodyHatesHades: In the earliest myths, Set was ''not'' the GodOfEvil he is portrayed as today, defending Ra from Apophis every night. However, modern stories are not what made him as a villain. Following the Second Intermediate Period he became demonized for his jealous murder of his brother Osiris, his intense rivalry with Oriris' son Horus, and being regarded as the god of foreign invaders, the harsh desert, storms, and chaos. (And even later stories [[EldritchAbomination turned him into something]] that would make Hollywood's view seem tame.) |
| 178 | * EverybodyWantsTheHermaphrodite: The Priestesses of Ishtar were transexuals/crossdressers representing the Goddess. Having sex with "her" was a sacred duty and people jumped at the idea. |
| 179 | * EvilChancellor: An evil vizier or two show up in Egyptian stories. |
| 180 | * EvilUncle: After murdering his brother Osiris, the Egyptian chaos god Set tried to kill his nephew Horus as a boy, and later fought him over Osiris' throne. In the New Kingdom fable "Literature/TruthAndFalsehood", Falsehood acts much like Set towards his nephew Truth. |
| 181 | * EvilVersusEvil: To ward off the ChildEater Dimmu, some Mesopotamians turned to the evil demon Pazuzu. |
| 182 | * EvilVersusOblivion: One [[Myth/EgyptianMythology ancient Egyptian]] explanation for Apophis/Apep's repeated attempts to eat the sun god was that Apep was an OmnicidalManiac who wanted to disrupt the cycle of time to kill Ma'et (the goddess and cosmic principle of LawfulGood, translated as justice or truth) and allow the universe to be destroyed by the ensuing entropy. Set, one of the nastiest and most demonised of all Egyptian deities, was the guy whose job it was to protect the sun from Apep. He was also one of the sun god's favorites. |
| 183 | * ExcessiveMourning: When Enkidu dies from a sickness sent by the gods, Gilgamesh refuses to let him be buried for seven days, hoping he can call him back to life by his mourning. Only when maggots appear in Enkidu's face does Gilgamesh allow the corpse to be buried (''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''). |
| 184 | * ExtraEyes: The four-eyed Babylonian god Marduk. |
| 185 | * EyeScream: In Myth/EgyptianMythology Set ripped out or blinded Horus' eye with his bare hands, and Apophis sometimes wounded the sun god Re's eye during the night. |
| 186 | * FailedState: ''[[https://www.ancient.eu/article/981/the-admonitions-of-ipuwer/ The Admonitions of Ipuwer]]'' are a long litany of the ills befalling [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Ancient Egypt]] during the First Intermediate Period, a time when "chaos reigns and order has been forgotten". Grievances of the time included widespread looting, lack of maintenance of vital infrastructure, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking female slaves freely talking to their mistresses]]. |
| 187 | * FairyTale: The oldest extant fairy tales are written on Egyptian papyri from c. 1200 BC. A January 2016 linguistic study suggested some of the tales may be even older than that, dating as far back as 4500 B.C.E. in the Indo-European Language. |
| 188 | * FateWorseThanDeath: In some Egyptian books of the netherworld (New Kingdom), EldritchAbomination Apep/Apophis is said to have swallowed some gods or human souls whole. They're still aware in there, and about once a night someone beats up Apophis enough that they can stick their heads out for a short time... before he recovers and swallows them again. They never actually escape. |
| 189 | * FemmeFatale: Inanna/Ishtar tended to lead her lovers to their deaths, according to ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' - indicating that it was already a trope by the time the Epic was written down. |
| 190 | * FeatheredSerpent: The [[UsefulNotes/PreColumbianCivilizations Olmecs]] started this and they predate the Greek alphabet. |
| 191 | * FireAndBrimstoneHell: Although {{Hell}} as a location entirely separate from TheUnderworld is a Christian innovation, the fire and brimstone come from the Egyptian Books of the Netherworld. Among the caverns of the Duat are several where sinners are burned in lakes of flame, tended by fire-breathing goddesses and dragons. |
| 192 | * FireIsMasculine: In Myth/EgyptianMythology, Ra is god of the sun, sky, and kings, and is also considered a fire deity because of this. He is depicted as a man with a falcon head. |
| 193 | * FireStolenFromTheGods: The myths of Australia's [[Myth/AustralianAboriginalMyths Kulin Nation]] state that Waah stole fire from the gods to give to humanity. |
| 194 | * FisherKing: A variation appears in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld. The fertility goddess Inanna mourned her husband Dumuzi each year when he died. Her grief (and guilt for killing him) transformed the earth into a parched wasteland where nothing could grow. Only the annual return of Dumuzi could cheer her up. |
| 195 | * {{Flanderization}}: There is evidence that the Ancient Egyptian god Set started out as a rival to various other gods, but also an accepted part of the pantheon who helped preserve the cosmic order. But those other gods increased in importance while Set was identified with a bunch of foreign invaders, so he ended up flanderized into GodOfEvil status. Likewise, a little later, the Greeks may have taken the complex Myth/{{Mesopotamian|Mythology}} goddess of love and war Ishtar and flanderized her into Aphrodite, who can be a bit of a one-note LoveGoddess. |
| 196 | * FloatingContinent: The Literature/RigVeda has one. |
| 197 | * FloweryInsults: From Myth/MesopotamianMythology: For a guy who allegedly lived most of his life in the wilderness, Enkidu has quite a way with words. |
| 198 | * ForeignRulingClass: Several of the ancient Egyptian dynasties were ruled by foreigners, including the 15th Dynasty (Hyksos), the 22nd and 23rd dynasties (Libyan), the 25th dynasty (Nubian), and the 27th and 31st dynasties (Persian). |
| 199 | * TheFourGods: While the modern configuration was settled much later, the earliest known depiction of any of the four gods was found in a tomb dating back to 5300 BC. Inside to the east and west of the human remains were clam shell and bone mosaics depicting figures resembling the Azure Dragon and White Tiger, the cardinal gods of the east and west respectively. |
| 200 | * FramingDevice: The [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian]] "Literature/TaleOfTheShipwreckedSailor", from the Old Kingdom, and the Middle Kingdom Literature/WestcarPapyrus both use framing devices of the narrators and their audiences. |
| 201 | * FrivolousLawsuit: Under the Code of Hammurabi, someone bringing a lawsuit without evidence, or using false witness, could be executed. |
| 202 | * FunnyAnimal: Some Ancient Egyptian and Sumerian art features animals that are only anthropomorphized just enough to stand on their hind legs and use opposable thumbs. They play music, serve drinks, ride chariots, herd livestock, play board games, and do other human activities, but don't bother with clothes. |
| 203 | * GainaxEnding: The twelfth and final tablet of ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' is a borderline incoherent poem where Enkidu is inexplicably alive again and gets trapped in the Underworld rather than dying of disease as happens in the main story. |
| 204 | * TheGamblingAddict: Was a thing as far back as Vedic India. [[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_10/Hymn_34 Mandala 10, Hymn 34]] (sometimes titled "Invocation of the Dice") of the Literature/RigVeda is the lament of a gambling addict who has lost all his property, including his wife, in games of dice. Dated c. 1,100 BC or earlier. |
| 205 | * GardenOfLove: The Mesopotamian god Nabu and his divine consort Tašmetu, whose garden-set ritual lovemaking is celebrated in poetry. |
| 206 | * GemstoneAssault: crystals have long been used as weaponry and tools. Like Obsidian blades. |
| 207 | * GenesisEffect: Every religion has its own creation myth, and the religions on this page are no different. |
| 208 | * GeniusLoci: In the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian religions the earth, sky, sun, moon, and stars are gods and/or have a life of their own. |
| 209 | * TheGloriousWarOfSisterlyRivalry: Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld depicts the divine sisters Ereshkigal and Inanna as this. |
| 210 | * GodCouple: Marriages and love stories of the gods appear in many myths. Myth/EgyptianMythology has Geb and Nut, Osiris and Isis, Shu and Tefnut, etc. Myth/MesopotamianMythology has Anshar and Kishar, Anu and Ki, Apsu and Tiamat, Negal and Ereshkigal, etc. |
| 211 | * GodEmperor: To some extent, the kings of AncientEgypt were viewed as living gods. However, they were likely not ''fully'' deified until they died. |
| 212 | * TheGodsMustBeLazy: Re in Myth/EgyptianMythology preferred to withdraw from the squabbles of the other gods, except when it came to Apophis. His reaction to the contest of Set and Horus was sometimes depicted as "Leave me alone." |
| 213 | * GodOfOrder: Ma'at, the very ''embodiment'' of order. |
| 214 | * GodOfLight: Arguably the oldest kind of god there is, showing up in Myth/EgyptianMythology (Rah, Aten, Nut, Nefertum), Myth/MesopotamianMythology (Girra, Shulsaga, Serida), and in Proto-Indo-European Mythology (Sehul and Hewsos) |
| 215 | * GodOfTheMoon: Moon gods and other lunar deities are some of the oldest in the book and can be found in Myth/EgyptianMythology (Iah, Thoth, Khonsu, Horus), Myth/MesopotamianMythology (Sin/Nanna), and in Proto-Indo-European Mythology (Sehul and Hewsos). |
| 216 | * TheGoodChancellor: Apparently Imhotep, Chancellor to the Egyptian king Netjerikhet Djoser (founder of the Old Kingdom Third Dynasty), was one of the best. |
| 217 | * TheGoodKing: From Ancient Egypt (of course), specifically relating to King Sneferu of the Old Kingdom Fourth Dynasty (reigned c. 2613-2589 BCE, give or take). Starting no later than the Middle Kingdom's Twelfth Dynasty (1991-1802 BCE), Egyptian texts ascribe to Sneferu many of the classic characteristics of this trope. Middle Kingdom texts trying to link the current monarch to a prior golden age of splendor, prosperity, and justice tended to try to link the king to Sneferu, who was always portrayed as a wise king willing to take the counsel of his priests and advisors and who made Egypt beautiful. As the Middle Kingdom was characterized by a flowering of Egyptian literature, with texts composed during this era copied continuously for the next 2,000 years, the court of Sneferu became a default setting for any Egyptian trying to present a didactic story presided over by a great and just king. Interestingly, Sneferu's reputation is pretty well deserved: Sneferu built the first true pyramid (the Red Pyramid at Dahshur), and what records exist from his incredibly ancient reign suggest that he really did reign well and prosperously. |
| 218 | * TheGreatFlood: Ziudsura/Utnapishtim/Atrahasis (his name depends on the writer) survives the Deluge in Myth/MesopotamianMythology. |
| 219 | * TheGreatSerpent: Apep of Myth/EgyptianMythology was a giant snake said to be the physical embodiment of chaos, whom the sun god Ra would do battle with during his journeys across the underworld every night. Depending on the story, it was said he lurked beneath the horizon, forbidden to enter the mortal kingdoms, and somewhere in a western mountain called Bakhu, where he lay in wait for Ra before the dawn, or after the sun set. Because of the many possibilities of his location, he eventually earned the epithet World-Encircler, and as a perpetual resident of the underworld (since Ra trapped him there), his roars would shake the underworld, while his movements caused earthquakes. |
| 220 | * GreenAesop: Fragments of ''The Epic of Gilgamesh'' discovered in the mid-2010s have this moral, with Gilgamesh's killing of Humbaba and the subsequent cutting of the cedar forest being treated as wicked and unnecessary. |
| 221 | * GreenGators: Ancient Egyptian art often depicted crocodiles as being green. |
| 222 | * GroinAttack: The Egyptian Set and the Hittite Anu both got castrated, violently. |
| 223 | * {{Guyliner}}: All Ancient Egyptians wore lipstick and black eyeliner if they could afford it. Possible reasons include protection from eye parasites, blocking glare from sunlight, and a protective magical charm. |
| 224 | * HalfHumanHybrid: |
| 225 | ** Many Egyptian gods are frequently depicted with animal heads on human bodies, such as Horus, Re, Set, Sakhmet, Bast, Anubis, Khnum, and Thoth. Imhotep's father was said to have been the god Ptah, as well. However, these were probably understood to be purely symbolic depictions, not their actual appearances, and most deities had a varied iconography. Visual artworks going back to the Ice Age depict what look like animal-headed humanoids, though it's impossible to know what those from non-literate cultures represent. |
| 226 | ** Gilgamesh is two-thirds divine and one-third human. He had two fathers, [[ScienceMarchesOn apparently]]. |
| 227 | ** The RealLife example is that most people from Europe can trace up to 4% of their DNA to Neanderthals. It is now believed that interbreeding was pretty common in the past. So technically, an entire population of HalfHumanHybrid people did actually exist in the past, crossing back into the human population to dilute the genes. |
| 228 | * HappilyMarried: Osiris and Isis, despite his being murdered and mummified. |
| 229 | * HateSink: Apep/Apophis in Myth/EgyptianMythology stands out for being one of the few gods the ancient Egyptians ''never'' worshiped - which makes sense as Apep was a GodOfEvil, an OmnicidalManiac, an EldritchAbomination, and pretty much the BigBad of Egyptian religion. The closest thing to 'worship' he received is priests burning effigies of him and spitting or stepping on figurines of him. It was common for Egyptians to pray for Apep's destruction at the hands of Ra. |
| 230 | * {{Heaven}}: The Ancient Egyptians believed in several afterlife concepts. One of these, the Duat, included at least in New Kingdom times a region called the Fields of Contentment/Offerings, and the Field of Reeds, which were heavenly landscapes with exclusive entry requirements. Another belief was that the virtuous dead, or at least kings, could join the stars and sun in the sky after they died. |
| 231 | * HealerGod: The Egyptians and Babylonians had gods and goddesses who were known as ultimate healers, such Isis when she reassembled and cured Osiris. |
| 232 | * HeavenlyConcentricCircles: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology the sky is made of three (occasionally seven) concentric domes made of fluid precious stones encasing Earth. The jasper (green) lowest dome contains the constellations, the saggilmut (blue) middle dome houses the Igigi (DependingOnTheWriter, Anunnaki deities or the precursors of humans), and the luludānītu (red) highest dome is TopGod (and god of the sky) An's physical form. |
| 233 | * {{Hellhound}}: The Babylonian Savage Dog in Literature/EnumaElish. |
| 234 | * HellishHorse: Marduk's chariot is drawn by these in Literature/EnumaElish. |
| 235 | * HeroicBSOD: In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', the eponymous protagonist mourns his [[DeadSidekick best buddy, Enkidu.]] |
| 236 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', Gilgamesh and Enkidu. |
| 237 | * HistoricalBadassUpgrade: The title character of ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' gets a big one. Gilgamesh is believed to have been an actual Sumerian king, but he probably wasn't 2/3 god, among other things. |
| 238 | * HomeSweetHome: In the Egyptian legend of Literature/{{Sinuhe}}, the protagonist flees political instability but never stops wishing to return, and eventually does get back to Egypt. |
| 239 | * HomoeroticSubtext: Gilgamesh and Enkidu in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. The Sumerian goddesses Inanna and Ninshubur could be as well. |
| 240 | * HonestJohnsDealership: A cuneiform tablet from about 1750 BC has been found, addressed to one [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complaint_tablet_to_Ea-nasir Ea-Nasir]], which [[StronglyWordedLetter accuses him of selling substandard copper]]. |
| 241 | * HonorThyParent: A traditional value in virtually every ancient culture, often extending to ancestor worship. As just one example, the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak Instructions of Šuruppak son of Ubara-tutu]]'' (Sumerian wisdom literature dated to c. 2600 BCE) advises, "The instructions of an old man are precious, may you submit to them" and tells sons to treat their father's words like the words of a god. |
| 242 | * HookerWithAHeartOfGold: ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' has Shamhat, a temple prostitute who introduces Enkidu into human civilization by sleeping with him. |
| 243 | * HornedHumanoid: In Egyptian artwork, the goddesses Hathor and Bat were often depicted as women with the horns of a cow. |
| 244 | * HotBlooded: Mesopotamian goddess Inanna. Aside from her devastating prowess in battle as a war goddess, and her habit of riding into town on the back of a lion, she was also known for physically dragging men out of taverns to sate her, erm, appetites. |
| 245 | * HumanSacrifice: In RealLife the Egyptians did this in the first two dynasties, and possibly later as a form of execution. |
| 246 | * HumongousMecha: Parts of the Sanskrit Literature/RigVeda appear to describe air-to-air missiles traded between flying mecha and floating cities. |
| 247 | * ImAHumanitarian: In the Literature/PyramidTexts, the Egyptian god Shezmu butchers people and other gods for the deceased king to eat. |
| 248 | * IHaveManyNames: The Egyptian gods Re and Amun both have tons. Osiris has 100 in the [[Literature/BookOfGoingForthByDay Book of the Dead]]. Marduk has 50 in Literature/EnumaElish. Each Egyptian king had several throne names. Also, all Hindu gods have multiple names, while several (such as Krishna and Ganesha) are known have thousands. |
| 249 | * IKnowYourTrueName: The Egyptian goddess Isis tricked the sun god Re into revealing his true name to her, thus gaining power over him. |
| 250 | * ImmortalitySeeker: A major plot thread in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' is the hero's attempt to achieve immortality. |
| 251 | * ImprovisedWeapon: Older than non-improvised weapons in the archaeological record. Heck, older than our species. The earliest weapons known are the Schöningen spears, c. 400-375 millennia old. They were simply sharpened wooden poles, without any hafted points. |
| 252 | * ItsBeenDone: From a 19th Century BC Egyptian poem: "What has been said has been said." |
| 253 | [[/folder]] |
| 254 | |
| 255 | [[folder: J-P]] |
| 256 | * JavelinThrower: Javelins certainly go back to the Stone Age, and in fact prehistoric cave paintings have been discovered which appear to depict humans or hunted animals which have been wounded by thrown spears. |
| 257 | * JerkassGods: [[ValuesDissonance Very frequently]], and sometimes called out by the mortals (such as Gilgamesh), [[DoNotTauntCthulhu though doing so was a very bad idea]]. |
| 258 | * JudgementOfTheDead: In the [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian]] Book of the Dead, deceased people's hearts (representing their soul) would be weighed against a feather representing truth. If their heart was lighter than the feather, they would be allowed into the realm of Osiris and have a happy eternal life. If not, and they were found to have a heavy conscience, they would be fed to jackals and destroyed forever. |
| 259 | * JumpedAtTheCall: Gilgamesh was bored and oh-so-happy for something better to do than steal women from their husbands. |
| 260 | * JustSoStory: The recurrent death of Dumuzi creating the seasons in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld; and Horus' eye injury making the moon dimmer than the sun; and the castration of Set turning the deserts sterile. |
| 261 | * KavorkaMan: Or at least the DistaffCounterpart is this old. The Egyptian goddess Tawaret takes the form of a hippopotamus woman with saggy breasts, but she's been involved with numerous gods (including Sobek) and she always appears pregnant. |
| 262 | * KidnappingBirdOfPrey: The misconception that large birds will kidnap your babies goes back to this time period. And to enforce everyone's horror, it may have been TruthInTelevision: the [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taung_Child Taung Child]], the fossilized skull of a young early hominid, was discovered to have been killed by an eagle. |
| 263 | * KillHimAlready: After Gilgamesh defeats the Humbaba and has him at knife-point, Humbaba begs for mercy. Gilgamesh seems ready to grant it, but his friend Enkidu persuades him to get on with it. |
| 264 | * KillTheGod: God-on-god only. In Myth/EgyptianMythology, Set killed his brother Osiris by chopping him up and scattering the pieces to the four winds (or dumping them in the Nile, depending on the version). Isis put him back together, but he was stuck in TheUnderworld, where he became king. |
| 265 | * LadyOfBlackMagic: Isis is the goddess of magic, as well as healing and motherhood, and is portrayed as elegant, wise, and the representation of the pharaoh's power. She is also known as [[IKnowYourTrueName "She Who Knows All Names"]], a fearsome title because using names for casting Egyptian magic spells was believed to give one great power, and for being the only one who knows Ra's true name. |
| 266 | * LandOfOneCity: Most ancient Mesopotamian civilizations were city-states, before the Akkadian Empire started. |
| 267 | * LargeAndInCharge: Egyptian artwork already depicted kings much larger than other folks before the First Dynasty. Gilgamesh is also an example. |
| 268 | * LeaveBehindAPistol: Per the 12th-century BCE [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Papyrus_of_Turin Judicial Papyrus of Turin]], certain royal personages of the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem_conspiracy harem conspiracy]]" to assassinate the Twentieth Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses III were "left where they were" after being found guilty of high treason but pointedly not (yet) explicitly sentenced to death. These conspirators are then noted to have taken their own lives. |
| 269 | * LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: In Literature/EnumaElish, when the other gods beg Marduk (Ashur in some versions) to save them from Tiamat, he agrees... provided they make him king of the gods and ruler of the universe. The desperate gods agree. |
| 270 | * LGBTFanbase: Fan celebration of gay love since at least ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 271 | * LibationForTheDead: The {{Ancient Egypt}}ians poured libations to the dead, particularly to dead kings, at least since Old Kingdom times. |
| 272 | * LightDarknessJuxtaposition: "Light emerging from primordial darkness" is an idea from the oldest creation myths. Interestingly, this is TruthInTelevision since at one point, the universe was dark, then light came out once stars and gases began forming. Also, water did cover all or most all of the Earth around 3 billion years ago. It can also represent the collective subconscious recalling birth. |
| 273 | * LightIsNotGood: The Egyptian Eyes of Re, such as Sekhmet and Hathor, were solar goddesses, but [[DependingOnTheWriter one of them]] once almost destroyed humanity in a bloody rampage. |
| 274 | * LiminalBeing: Egyptian art is full of part-human/part-animal beings. |
| 275 | * LiminalTime: The five last days of the year were created to be not properly in any year, so that Nut can give birth despite the curse on her. They are the Demon Days and unlucky. |
| 276 | * LittlePeopleAreSurreal: AncientEgypt is the first civilisation known to have employed court dwarfs. In early periods of Egyptian history, dwarfism was seen as an otherworldly, divine trait. The tomb of Harkhuf, an Egyptian court official and explorer of the latter part of the Old Kingdom's Sixth Dynasty, records with fascination his encounter with a pygmy while venturing in to Africa up the Nile, and his sovereign--the child king Pepi II Neferkare--excitedly directing his servant to bring this strange and divinely-touched being to his court. After the Old Kingdom, depictions of little people started veering into the more mocking versions of this trope. |
| 277 | * LongList: The Literature/LitanyOfRe is an Egyptian work listing 75 different names and manifestations of the sun god. |
| 278 | * LoopholeAbuse: The Mesopotamian flood myth has the god who wants to save humanity talk to a wall (which just so happened to have a human next to it) about the gods' genocide plan... apparently, there was an oath not to tell it to people. |
| 279 | * LordOfTheOcean: Nearly every polytheistic religion has at least one god associated with water-sources large and small. |
| 280 | * LostHimInACardGame: [[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_10/Hymn_34 Mandala 10, Hymn 34]] (1,100 BC or older) of the Literature/RigVeda is the lament of a gambler who has lost not only all his property, but also his wife in games of dice. |
| 281 | * LoveGoddess: Inanna/Ishtar was the Mesopotamian goddess of love and fertility. Hathor held that role in Egyptian religion. |
| 282 | * MagicalEye: This trope goes back to at least the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, when the EldritchAbomination serpent Apep/Apophis was believed to have a harmful or hypnotizing gaze. People wore and recited charms and spells to protect themselves from him. On certain occasions the Pharaoh also ritually whacked at a ball that symbolized Apep's eyeball. |
| 283 | * MagicalQueer: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, the underworld goddess Ereshkigal cursed intersex and nonbinary people to be shunned by society, so Ishtar gifted them with healing and prophecy to make up for it. As Red from WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions put it: "So the lesson of this particular legend is if you're gender non-binary, you're magic, Ishtar loves you, and even the queen of hell thinks you're hot." |
| 284 | * MagicalWeapon: The Mesopotamian god Ninurta had a mace named Sharur that could fly and talk. |
| 285 | * MagnificentBastard: Or rather, [[GenderInvertedTrope Magnificent Bitch]]. The goddess [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Isis]], in one story, desires [[IKnowYourTrueName the true name of Ra]] to gain power over him and enhance her authority. Knowing only Ra's essence can harm him, she slowly collects his sweat and mixes it with a snake she creates, arranging for it to bite Ra and nearly kill him. Isis then tries to heal Ra, tricking him into giving his true name so she may heal him entirely, allowing her to hold ultimate authority over the other gods. |
| 286 | * MakingASplash: Sobek from Myth/EgyptianMythology. |
| 287 | %%* MaleGaze: Male artists have been paying tribute to the female nude ever since the paleolithic "Art/VenusOfWillendorf." |
| 288 | * MaliciousSlander: In the Egyptian New Kingdom "Literature/TaleOfTwoBrothers", Anubis' wife tried to seduce her brother-in-law Bata. When Bata angrily spurned her, she accused him of trying to seduce her and of beating her when she refused. Anubis tried to kill his brother, which started Bata's fantastic adventures. |
| 289 | * MamaBear: Tiamat in Literature/EnumaElish initially reacts this way when Apsu wants to kill their children, but later tries to kill them herself. |
| 290 | * MeaningfulName: Many Egyptian names had clear meanings; i.e. gods like Amun ("hidden" or "hiddenness") and Meretseger ("she who loves silence"), and kings such as Merikare ("beloved of the ka of Re"), Tutankhamun ("living image of Amun"), Sobekhotep ("Sobek is satisfied"), and Scorpion. |
| 291 | * MesopotamianMonstrosity: Any monster in Myth/MesopotamianMythology (and there are a fair few) is by definition a Mesopotamian monstrosity. Given that some successor cultures carefully preserved these old myths, the idea of going back to old Mesopotamian myths for cool monsters may itself be old enough to qualify here. |
| 292 | * MissionFromGod: The preface to the Code of Hammurabi declares that Hammurabi wrote down his code at the command of Anu and Bel. |
| 293 | * MisterSeahorse: In Hittite myth, Kumarbi gave birth to Teshub, Tigris, and Tasmisus after biting off Anu's genitals. The Sumerian water god Enki somehow impregnated ''himself''. |
| 294 | * MixAndMatchCritters: Many mythological animals and people, especially in southwest Asia. The girtablullu (scorpion men) of Myth/MesopotamianMythology, appearing in Literature/EnumaElish and ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', were part man, part scorpion. Other examples from this period include griffins, leogryphs, sphinxes, urmalullu, lamassu, shedu, serpopards, sirrush, Anzu, gud-alim, and various dragons. The Egyptian Gods were also sometimes depicted in art as human beings with animal heads, though this wasn't necessarily meant to be taken literally. |
| 295 | * MoodSwinger: The Mesopotamian Inanna/Ishtar was goddess of love by night, but goddess of war by day. Romantic relations with her were... perilous. |
| 296 | * MortalityPhobia: ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' is possibly the oldest example of this trope. It chronicles the life of Gilgamesh as a seeks a way to avert death following an act that angered the Sumerian gods. The title character goes to great lengths to gain immortality, including trying to stay awake for seven days, and swimming to the bottom of the ocean to get a magical weed. His quest for immortality ultimately ends in him having to accept that death cannot be subverted. |
| 297 | * MotherOfAThousandYoung: Tiamat in Literature/EnumaElish. |
| 298 | * MsFanservice: Ishtar from Myth/MesopotamianMythology. |
| 299 | * MultipleChoicePast: Egyptian sources frequently differ about the parentage of individual deities. |
| 300 | * MummiesAtTheDinnerTable: Gilgamesh refused to accept Enkidu's death for seven days, until finally a maggot fell out of his nose. |
| 301 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The title goddess in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld, right after siccing demons on her husband. |
| 302 | * MysticalPregnancy: Weird pregnancies have been around for a very long time: |
| 303 | ** Enki impregnates himself by consuming his own semen. |
| 304 | ** Egyptian god Horus was conceived by Isis hovering in the air over Osiris and beating her wings. At the time, Osiris was A: dead, and B: neutered, his penis being the one piece of his body Isis couldn't recover due to its being eaten by a fish. |
| 305 | * NamedWeapons: In a fictional Egyptian tale of the conquest of Joppa, the Pharaoh Men-kheper-Re has a named staff/cane. He hides it in the luggage of the protagonist sent to put down a revolt, who kills the rebel leader with it. Unfortunately the text is damaged, so its name and powers are unknown. |
| 306 | * NamelessNarrative: Surprisingly for a culture that put such emphasis on names, ancient Egypt has a few such tales: "The Wax Crocodile" (from the Literature/WestcarPapyrus), the "Literature/TaleOfTheShipwreckedSailor", and the "Literature/TaleOfTheDoomedPrince". |
| 307 | * NarrativePoem: The Mesopotamians had them. |
| 308 | * NatureHero: Enkidu in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 309 | * NatureSpirit: There are many, many gods of earth, sun, moon, stars, rivers, trees, fertility, animals, plants, disease, life, death, storms, wind, the sea, the sky, etc. in Myth/MesopotamianMythology and Myth/EgyptianMythology. |
| 310 | * NeverSayDie: The ancient Egyptians believed that to record something in writing made it more real. Scribes usually did not speak of death, only of euphemisms such as passing west (towards the setting sun and TheUnderworld) or joining the sun god's barque in the sky. Set was never said to have killed or murdered his brother Osiris; instead he knocked him down. |
| 311 | * NeverSmileAtACrocodile: Sobek the crocodile-headed Egyptian god was not entirely bad, but was unpredictable, representing the power the Nile itself held over Egyptians' lives. Another example comes from a folktale where a prince is prophesied to die by "a snake, a crocodile or a dog". Despite efforts to avoid all of those things, [[YouCantFightFate he still dies.]] |
| 312 | * NiceToTheWaiter: The complaint letter to Ea-Nasir accuses him of not only swindling the writer, Nanni, in a purchase of copper, but mistreating the servant who handled the transaction. (Given the values of the time, this was probably seen as more of an insult to Nanni than to his servant.) |
| 313 | * NightAndDayDuo: Vedic goddesses Usha (goddess of the dawn) and Ratri (goddess of the stars and night), sisters who protect humanity from demons. |
| 314 | * NobleBirdOfPrey: The falcon was the symbol and sacred bird of two major Egyptian gods, Horus and Re, and many minor deities. |
| 315 | * NoManOfWomanBorn: In Myth/EgyptianMythology, the Sun god Re decreed that Geb and Nut could have no children on any day of the year, for fear that their offspring could usurp his crown. The god Thoth created five extra days by gambling with either the moon god or the sun god, and on those five days Nut bore Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder. |
| 316 | * NominalHero: Gilgamesh is [[VillainProtagonist a tyrant and serial rapist]] at the start of ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. Even after his HeelFaceTurn, his heroic deeds are motivated less by a desire to help people and more by his desire to be remembered. |
| 317 | * NonHumanHead: Depictions of these types of creatures go back at least to Myth/EgyptianMythology, where many deities were depicted with animal heads and human bodies to show their divine natures. |
| 318 | * UsefulNotes/NonNaziSwastika: The oldest known swastika dates back to 10,000 BCE. |
| 319 | * TheNothingAfterDeath: The Mesopotamian underworld, Irkalla, was like this. |
| 320 | * ObnoxiousInLaws: The current page quote is a Sumerian proverb. |
| 321 | * OfferingsToTheGods: A religious practice that features in cultures all over the world and in recorded history all the way back to Mesopotamia. |
| 322 | * OffingTheOffspring: Apsu tries it in Literature/EnumaElish. Tiamat picks up where he left off. Both fail. |
| 323 | * TheOldestProfession: While the concept of having sex for goods or services has likely existed for around as long as people have, the oldest known specific example is Shamhat's profession, which was being a temple prostitute. |
| 324 | * OnlySmartPeopleMayPass: In the Egyptian [[Literature/BookOfGoingForthByDay Book of the Dead]], many gates in TheUnderworld are guarded by fierce minor deities who will only step aside for one who has learned their secret names. The funerary texts of course provided this information. |
| 325 | * OnlyTheWorthyMayPass: The Egyptian god Anubis tested the worth of dead people before letting them into paradise, by weighing their hearts on a scale against the Feather of Justice. Any heart that didn't pass got eaten by the monster Ammut, denying that person any afterlife at all. |
| 326 | * OrificeEvacuation: In ''Literature/KumarbiCycle'', after the Hittite god Kumarbi became pregnant from eating Anu's genitals, the storm god Teshub had to emerge from his body. It was a multiple birth, and one was born through a crack in the head, one through the mouth, and one through an orifice euphemistically identified only as "the good place." |
| 327 | * OurCentaursAreDifferent: Urmahlullu are Mesopotamian lion-centaurs, with lion bodies and human torsos. There aren't any surviving stories of them, just carvings. |
| 328 | * OurMinotaursAreDifferent: The Sumerian Gud-alim are similar to the Greek Minotaur, but much older. |
| 329 | * OurWerebeastsAreDifferent: There have been cave paintings over ''14,000 years old'' that depict men with bestial faces, so yeah, it's an old concept. |
| 330 | * OutlivingOnesOffspring: UsefulNotes/RamsesII the Great made it to at least ninety years old (no small feat, especially in AncientEgypt) and outlived over a dozen of his children. The eventual heir, Merneptah, started out ''fourteenth'' in line for the throne. |
| 331 | * OutOfClothesExperience: Inanna winds up naked in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld. |
| 332 | * OutrunTheFireball: Yes, really. At one point, Gilgamesh ended up in a tunnel with the exit on one side and the sun coming at him from the other, and if the sun doesn't count as a fireball... |
| 333 | * TheOutsiderBefriendsTheBest: Quite possibly the UrExample from ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'': Enkidu the wild man is created by the gods to balance out king Gilgamesh, who otherwise spends his days drinking, feasting and exercising DroitDuSeigneur. After a wrestling match ends in a draw, they become best friends and Gilgamesh a better king. |
| 334 | * PaleFemalesDarkMales: This goes way back to the ancient, old, simple caveman paintings and the like, where the way to discern gender was most often by the skin tone. |
| 335 | * ParentalIncest: Technically, Kumarbi and ''his'' father Anu were the parents of the Hittite thunder god Teshub. Literature/EnumaElish implies that Tiamat did this too: her second husband Qingu was one of the Igigi, her own children and descendants. Her descendant Ea/Enki sometimes seduced his own daughters. |
| 336 | * ParentalMarriageVeto: The Egyptian air god Shu tried to prevent his son and daughter, Geb and Nut (earth and sky), from marrying and having kids. It didn't work, but he still holds them apart. |
| 337 | * PartingTheSea: In the Egyptian tale "King Cheops and the Magicians," Tchatchamānkh says certain spells, the effect of which is to cause the water of the lake first to divide into two parts, and then the water on one side to rise up and place itself on the water on the other side. |
| 338 | * PlagueMaster: The god Nergal in Myth/MesopotamianMythology and the goddess Sekhmet in Myth/EgyptianMythology. |
| 339 | * {{Planimal}}: Mexican rock art depicting deer/peyote cactus mixes have been dated to circa 2000 BCE. |
| 340 | * PlayingWithFire: Myth/EgyptianMythology features fire-breathing goddesses (Sakhmet, Wadjet, etc.) and dragons. |
| 341 | * {{Pirate}}: The earliest known example of pirates were the Sea Peoples, a seafaring confederation of raiders from Europe and the Middle East, who frequently attacked Egypt during the Late Bronze Age. |
| 342 | * PowersThatBe: While most gods had several names, more mysterious forces [refuse to] show their faces now and again. |
| 343 | * PowerTrio: The ancient Egyptians liked their divine trios. By the end of the New Kingdom, many temples were dedicated to groups of three gods, who were often depicted as father, mother, and son. |
| 344 | * PrimordialChaos: Myth/EgyptianMythology had Nun, a creator god but also the vast, chaotic waters that preceded the creation of land and sun, and would swallow the world again if kings did not maintain the social and cosmic order. |
| 345 | * ProductDeliveryOrdeal: There are ancient drawings despicting Egyptian workers transporting enormous bricks for the construction of pyramids. |
| 346 | * PsychicDreamsForEveryone: In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', both Gilgamesh and Enkidu have recurring prophetic dreams. About one another, about the challenges to come, about the afterlife... |
| 347 | * {{Psychopomp}}: The Celestial Ferrymen were a group of Egyptian gods who would carry deceased kings across a heavenly waterway to an afterlife in the sky. |
| 348 | [[/folder]] |
| 349 | |
| 350 | [[folder: Q-Z]] |
| 351 | * TheQuest: [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] searching for the secret of immortality. |
| 352 | * RankScalesWithAsskicking: RealLife Sumerian king Shulgi, c. 2000 BC. [[UnreliableNarrator At least if you believe]] the poems he wrote about how very good he was at beating the crap out of lions and elephants. |
| 353 | * ReallyGetsAround: Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, demanded to sleep with every bride in the city on her wedding day. |
| 354 | * RecruitersAlwaysLie: The ancient Egyptian text [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100310060741/http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/timelines/topics/rewards_for_military_service.htm Instructions of the Scribe Wenemdiamun]] (ca. 1878-1839 BCE) describes in detail how lousy the soldier's life was as a pushback against the trope. It finishes with "Be a scribe, and be spared from soldiering!" |
| 355 | * {{Revenge}}: Several examples, i.e. Ishtar/Inanna to Enkidu, and those below. Some of these stories can be ValuesDissonance for modern readers. |
| 356 | * RevengeByProxy: Quite frequently, i.e. the Inanna example of DisproportionateRetribution. The Code of Hammurabi required Revenge by Proxy for some crimes. For some crimes, Ancient Egyptian law heavily punished both the criminal and their family. |
| 357 | * RevengeIsADishBestServed: In Myth/EgyptianMythology, the goddess Isis mixes her son Horus's semen into her hostile brother Set's food. |
| 358 | * RevengeMyopia: In ''Literature/EnumaElish'', Tiamat does her best to avenge Apsu's death at the hands of the Annunaki, completely ignoring the two small facts that Apsu was actively planning to kill them all and that ''she herself ratted him out to them'', allowing a preventive strike. |
| 359 | * RightfulKingReturns: Horus in Myth/EgyptianMythology, when he regains his father's kingdom (or sometimes half of it) from his murderous uncle Set. |
| 360 | * RightMakesMight: This is a constant theme in Myth/EgyptianMythology, resulting in nearly universally happy endings. The good guys ([[LawfulGood champions of order]], justice, goodness, the gods, and Egypt) [[TheGoodGuysAlwaysWin always triumph over the bad guys]] ([[ChaoticEvil fighting for rebellion, chaos, injustice, and anarchy]]) every time. |
| 361 | * RitualMagic: The ancient Egyptian concept of magic involved sacred words and ritual actions that had effects ranging from mundane to cosmic. Many religious rituals consisted of such actions, but the same knowledge applied outside the temple could be used for non-religious purposes. |
| 362 | * RockPaperScissors: A color-coded variant in the mating habits of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_side-blotched_lizard common side-blotched lizard]]. Orange-throated males outcompete blue-throated males, blue-throated males outcompete yellow-throated males, and yellow-throated males sneak past orange-throated males and mate with their females. |
| 363 | * RollAndMove: The Egyptian game of senet, which was played before 3000 BC, used flat two-sided throwsticks which indicated the number of squares a player could move. |
| 364 | * RoyalBlood: The ancient Egyptian kings depicted themselves as descended from the gods and inherently separate from mere mortals. To preserve their bloodline, they preferred to marry very close relatives, even their own sisters, or else foreign royalty. |
| 365 | * RoyalBrat: Gilgamesh. |
| 366 | * RoyalHarem: Interestingly, [[UnbuiltTrope subverted before it was played straight]]: |
| 367 | ** The kings of [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Ancient Egypt]] had numerous wives and concubines. UsefulNotes/RamsesII, for one example, is known to have fathered at least a hundred children by his harem. However, while they had a dedicated space (the Eighteenth Dynasty dedicated a ''whole gigantic palace'' in the Faiyum called Merwer to the royal harem), they weren't actually secluded in the sense of being required to be apart from the world. The senior royal wives tended to have important public roles both in the royal court and in the priesthood, and the royal ladies tended to be integrated into local high society. Indeed, products made by the ladies of the royal household--especially harem-made linen, which was the preferred material with which to clothe the statues of the gods in temples across Egypt--were a significant source of income for the Crown, and it seems the royal ladies were largely responsible for getting their wares to market themselves. The harem palace was a ''retreat'' for the royal family to escape their public duties, but its inhabitants could and did leave when they liked/needed. (In other words, think [[UsefulNotes/TheBritishRoyalFamily Sandringham]], not the Seraglio.) |
| 368 | ** The trope is seen played much straighter in ancient Assyria. The king's consorts lived in seclusion and they could only travel together in the company of their husband with a series of edicts kept in place to prevent court intrigue among them. Since Assyria is ''almost'' as ancient as Egypt, it still counts. |
| 369 | * RoyalInbreeding: In ancient Egypt pharaohs would frequently marry siblings and/or half-siblings. This gets the blame for dramatic rates of birth defects in their dynasties: Among others, Tutankhamen had a very severe cleft palate. |
| 370 | * RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] did lots of things after the gods answered his subjects' prayers to get him the heck out of their city and away from their wives. |
| 371 | * RuleOfThree: Pops up all the time in stories that were originally handed down verbally, likely to make them easier to remember. |
| 372 | * RuleThirtyFour: Depictions of sex have been around since early humans developed any semblance of abstract or symbolic thought concerning sex. |
| 373 | * SacredFlames: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, sacred flames dedicated to Nuska, the god of fire and light and vizier to Enlil, were used to transport sacrificial offerings into the presence of the gods. |
| 374 | * TheSandman: Mythical character in Western and Northern European folklore that represents the Lord of Dreams. |
| 375 | * ScalesOfJustice: Scales have been affiliated with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Semitic_religion ancient Semitic religion]] with their god of justice [[Myth/MesopotamianMythology Shamash]] and the Egyptian gods [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Osiris, Anubis, Maat, Isis]] |
| 376 | * TheScottishTrope: In the ancient Egyptian religion, written words were considered magic in and of themselves. Therefore, the true name of the principle opposing Ma'et was never to be written. Even its alias (isfet) was risky. |
| 377 | * ScarabPower: Scarabs were the symbol of the Sun God Khepri (an aspect of Ra/Ra's brother), and were very popular as warding amulets for centuries. |
| 378 | * SeeksAnothersResurrection: After Osiris got chopped up into bits and scattered all over the world by Set, Isis tracked down all the missing pieces and put them back together again. |
| 379 | * SemiDivine: Gilgamesh is two-thirds god. |
| 380 | * SerpentOfImmortality: This appears in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', where the magical plant which grants eternal life and youth is stolen by a snake, making it immortal. Gilgamesh didn't get a chance to eat the plant and had to go home mortal. |
| 381 | * ServantRace: This is what the gods made humanity for, according to Literature/EnumaElish. |
| 382 | * SexAsRiteOfPassage: Shamhat, for Enkidu, in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 383 | * SexIsViolence: Several prehistoric cave paintings in France and Spain show hunters killing their prey while sporting erections. |
| 384 | * SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: At least as far back as ancient Egypt. |
| 385 | * SexForServices: This is why prostitution is believed to be TheOldestProfession, possibly literally. Many historians believe that, indeed, there were situations like this in primitive times, where humans - men and woman - had to hunt for food or starve, and most were unwilling to share. It may not have been unfeasible for a woman who had a string of bad luck on such on any given day to offer sex to a man who had brought down some game in order to convince him to share with her. It was a matter of survival. In fact, this behavior has been observed in monkeys, suggesting that it predates ''humanity''. |
| 386 | * SexyCatPerson: Bastet, an Myth/{{Egyptian|Mythology}} goddess associated with love and fertility, is usually depicted with the head of a cat (a lioness in earlier depictions, a housecat starting around the Late Period). |
| 387 | * SexySoakedShirt: An [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgypt Ancient Egyptian]] love song/poem dating from [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory the 19th Dynasty]] (around 1250 BCE), "Love, how I'd love to slip down to the pond," addressed by a woman to her lover, has these lines, which make this point rather, erm, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything suggestively]]: |
| 388 | -->''Love, how I'd love to slip down to the pond, bathe with you close by on the bank.'' |
| 389 | -->''Just for you I'd wear my new Memphis dress, made of sheer linen, fit for a queen--Come see how it looks in the water!'' |
| 390 | -->''Couldn't I coax you to wade in with me? Let the cool creep slowly around us?'' |
| 391 | -->''Then I'd dive deep down and come up for you dripping,'' |
| 392 | -->''Let you fill your eyes with the little red fish that I'd catch.'' |
| 393 | -->''And I'd say, standing there tall in the shallows:'' |
| 394 | -->''"Look at my fish, love, how it lies in my hand,'' |
| 395 | -->''How my fingers caress it, slip down its sides...''" |
| 396 | -->''But then I'd say softer, eyes bright with your seeing:'' |
| 397 | -->''"A gift, love. No words.'' |
| 398 | -->''Come close and look, it's all me."'' |
| 399 | * SheIsTheKing: A RealLife example, no less: ''His'' Majesty UsefulNotes/{{Hatshepsut}}, King of Egypt's New Kingdom (18th Dynasty, 15th century BCE). Statues portray her with a male's body and she wore a ceremonial beard, as she was the King. She seems to have gone to this trouble because of some people's subtle but apparent resentment of and discomfort with the idea of a female monarch. (This resentment may be the origin of calling the King of Egypt the "Pharaoh"; the relevant Egyptian word existed before her reign, but it referred to the royal palace, not its occupant.) She also seems to have come up with the BedTrick story about her conception as part of her propaganda to improve her standing. |
| 400 | ** And Hatshepsut is not the UrExample; that's Sobekneferu of the Middle Kingdom 12th Dynasty (18th century BCE). She didn't seem to have Hatshepsut's problems with acceptance as monarch, though. (Whether this is because of different political circumstances, different cultural circumstances, or simply that her reign lasted 3 years and Hatshepsut's over 20 is unclear.) |
| 401 | ** Also note that "UrExample" merely means "oldest ''known''." Even ancient Egypt gives us possible older answers from the Old Kingdom. This includes the probably-nonexistent 6th-Dynasty Nitocris[[note]]Whom Creator/{{Herodotus}} reports as the last monarch of that dynasty, and which at least some Egyptians contemporaneous with Herodotus probably believed existed, but who appears to actually be a misinterpretation of king lists[[/note]] and three royal ladies of the 4th and 5th Dynasties named Khentkaus (who all definitely existed and were definitely powerful in their time but whose status as queens regnant is questionable at best--they may have instead been regents for child monarchs or general powers behind the throne). |
| 402 | * SiblingYinYang: The Sumerian sun god Utu and his brother Nergal, god of plague and fire. |
| 403 | * SinisterSentientSun: Sekhmet from Egyptian mythology is a sun goddess who almost committed genocide on mankind and could only be stopped by making her drunk on beer. |
| 404 | * SlapSlapKiss: The Sumerian Literature/CourtshipOfInannaAndDumuzi. Inanna spends most of the story berating the shepherd Dumuzi for not being a farmer, until they have a good argument and Inanna becomes smitten. They spend the rest of the story having awesome sex. |
| 405 | * SmashTheSymbol: After establishing a monotheism centered on the sun god Aten, {{UsefulNotes/Akhenaten}} carried out an iconoclasm against all other Egyptian gods. |
| 406 | * SnakesAreSinister: Apep/Apophis in Myth/EgyptianMythology is the GodOfEvil known as the snake of chaos, with the resident good god Ra constantly battling him and making sure he doesn't win because if he does, he ''will'' consume the whole world. At the same time, snakes were also associated with protection, such as the goddess Wadjet, whose symbols were worn by the Pharaoh. |
| 407 | * SoleSurvivor: In the Old Kingdom [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Egyptian]] story "Literature/TaleOfTheShipwreckedSailor", the protagonist was the only survivor of his ship after a storm on the Red Sea. |
| 408 | * SoulEating: In Myth/EgyptianMythology, those whose hearts (Believed to contain the soul) proved heavier than the feather of Ma'at at judgement would have their hearts eaten by Ammit. |
| 409 | * SoulJar: The Egyptian [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Two_Brothers "Tale of Two Brothers"]] c. 1200 BC features the god Bata removing his heart and hiding it in a tree. After Baal is killed, his brother Anubis finds the heart and places it in cold water, resurrecting him. |
| 410 | * SpareToTheThrone: The surprise succession of a younger son after the death of the heir apparent is probably as old as the institution of monarchy, which is to say it’s probably prehistoric (literally). That said, a very early and prominent historical example is that of Amenhotep IV, King of [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Egypt]], better known by the name he chose for himself, UsefulNotes/{{Akhenaten}}. Young Prince Amenhotep was the second of King Amenhotep III's two sons by his Great Royal Wife Tiye, and as such he was trained for the priesthood. Meanwhile, his much older brother, the Crown Prince Thutmose, appears to have received a more comprehensive education for the throne. However, Thutmose died young, possibly in a plague that appears to have struck Egypt in the middle to late years of Amenhotep III's reign. As a result, Prince Amenhotep became the new heir…and many historians wonder if his shortcomings as monarch and his unusual devotion to religious affairs was influenced by his education. |
| 411 | * SpeakOfTheDevil: Some Egyptian gods were apparently feared enough that they were called only by odd euphemisms, such as "That [[AnatomyOfTheSoul Ba]]." |
| 412 | * SpeaksFluentAnimal: In the Egyptian story "[[Literature/PrincessAhuraTheMagicBook Princess Ahura: The Magic Book]]", the eponymous ArtifactOfDeath grants the reader the ability to understand birds and beasts, among other fantastic powers. |
| 413 | * SpearCounterpart: While {{Distaff Counterpart}}s seem to be more common in the Egyptian pantheon, they also have a few of these. I.e. Sesha (counterpart of Seshat) and Tefen (counterpart of Tefnut, or maybe another name for Shu). |
| 414 | * SpellBook: Examples from AncientEgypt date as far back as the Middle Kingdom, although many of the longer and more famous spellbooks (of those intended for use by the ''living'') date to Greco-Roman times. |
| 415 | * SpontaneousGeneration: Whichever god comes first in a CreationMyth usually either appears from nowhere, or creates him/herself. Explicitly spontaneously-generated Egyptian gods include Ptah, Atum, and the eight gods of the Ogdoad. Tiamat and Apsu in Literature/EnumaElish apparently also came from nowhere. |
| 416 | * StaffOfAuthority: Used by Egyptian and Mesopotamian rulers. |
| 417 | * StairwayToHeaven: The Egyptian Literature/PyramidTexts describe both a ladder and a stairway for the deceased king to use when he AscendsToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, and the Step Pyramid was probably a literal Stairway to Heaven for King Djoser. |
| 418 | * StarCrossedLovers: The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar is bereaved every year when her love Dumuzi spends several months in TheUnderworld. The Egyptian gods Nut and Geb are kept apart by their father Shu, who wanted to prevent their marriage. |
| 419 | * StrategyGame: Senat, and possibly TabletopGame/{{Go}}. A board resembling [[TabletopGame/{{Checkers}} a draughts board]] was found in Ur dating from 3000 BC. |
| 420 | * {{Stripperific}}: |
| 421 | ** Ancient Minoan dresses were topless by default. To be more descriptive, the most common costumes for Minoan females consisted of two types: an every-day dress that consisted of a full, ankle-length skirt, and a loose, short-sleeved blouse which was fully open in the front; and a ceremonial dress consisting of a long, mulch-layered skirt, and a tight bodice cut to fully expose the breasts. Minoan women apparently didn't believe in hiding their assets. |
| 422 | ** Minoan men hardly fared better. The common male garment consisted of a short white woolen kilt, often worn with a prominent codpiece. And that's pretty much it, except for an optional woolen cloak in inclement weather. |
| 423 | * SuccubiAndIncubi: In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, on top of being {{Child Eater}}s Lilitu, Dimme and Dimme-kur are sometimes this as well, DependingOnTheWriter. |
| 424 | * SuperStrength: Gilgamesh had it. |
| 425 | * SwallowedWhole: The various Egyptian books of the netherworld (New Kingdom) include a few vignettes showing deceased people, or maybe gods, swallowed whole by Apep/Apophis. |
| 426 | * SwirlingDust: Myth/TuaregMythology presents us the tale of Adelasegh and his sister. Needing a diversion to rescue her from bandits, he makes the two fastest horses run around in circles while one of them has its eyes irritated and the other a bone stuck on its hoof. He makes the bandits believe it's an equestrian dance. It's something of an UnbuiltTrope. |
| 427 | * TakeMeInstead: Dumuzi's sister, attempting to save her brother in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld. |
| 428 | * TakeOverTheWorld: Inanna's reason for going to the underworld in Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld. She wants to be [[TopGod supreme over the heavens, the earth, and the underworld]]. |
| 429 | * TakenForGranite: Ngurunderi, an ancestral character of the Jaralde people of southern Australia, turned his wives to stone by raising the seas around Kangaroo Island and drowning them. |
| 430 | * TalkingAnimal: Ancient Egyptian {{Fairy Tale}}s. |
| 431 | * TalkingToTheDead: Some Ancient Egyptians wrote letters to the dead -- occasionally along the lines of threatening a lawsuit if they didn't stop sending phantoms to torment the living. |
| 432 | * ATasteOfTheLash: The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi mandates this for some crimes, c. 1780 BC. |
| 433 | * TheresNoPlaceLikeHome: This is the theme of the Egyptian story of Literature/{{Sinuhe}}, who lives in exile in Palestine but forever longs for Egypt. |
| 434 | * ThresholdGuardians: The Girtablullu ("scorpion-men") in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', who guard the gates of the sun. |
| 435 | * ThunderboltIron: UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}} was buried with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger a dagger made from the stuff]]. |
| 436 | * TinyGuyHugeGirl: The {{Ancient Egypt}}ian courtier [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneb Seneb]] had dwarfism and was depicted with a wife of more typical height. |
| 437 | * ToHellAndBack: This is the plot of Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld. |
| 438 | * ToServeMan: Babi, a god of baboons in Myth/EgyptianMythology, is said to have lived off of human entrails. |
| 439 | * ToiletHumour: [[http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/07/31/uk-britain-joke-life-idUKL129052420080731 The oldest recorded joke in the world]] is recorded on a Sumerian tablet from c. 1900 BCE. It's a fart joke: |
| 440 | --> "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap." |
| 441 | * TookALevelInKindness: [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh King Gilgamesh]] ends up sadder, but more considerate and restrained at the end of his quest. |
| 442 | * TopGod: Several ancient religions have a singular supreme deity at the top of their pantheon: i.e. Egyptian Re, Amun, Atum, and Isis; Mesopotamian Apsu, Tiamat, Enlil/El, Ashur, and Marduk. Notably, people of this period didn't generally agree ''which'' god that was, and beliefs also changed over the millennia. |
| 443 | * TragicBromance: Gilgamesh and Enkidu are very close friends, perhaps more than friends. Enkidu dies, and Gilgamesh really can't get over it. |
| 444 | * TragicHero: The eponymous Gilgamesh from ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', who for all his accomplishments could not save his friend's life but learns the lesson that it is through deeds that one gains true immortality. |
| 445 | * TrulySingleParent: Several Egyptian creation gods did this: Atum created the deities Shu and Tefnut from his semen or spit, Re created humanity from his tears, and Ptah created Atum and the other gods with his voice and heart (mind). |
| 446 | * {{Tsundere}}: The Sumerian goddess Ereshkigal and her sister Inanna. |
| 447 | * TwistingTheProphecy: In the legend of Sumerian king Enlil-bani, the former king appoints Enlil-bani as his successor to avoid the wrath of the gods. Enlil-bani then poisons the former king to fulfill the gods' will ''and'' get to stay king. |
| 448 | * TheUnderworld: The Mesopotamian Irkalla and the Egyptian Duat are both the afterlife where everybody, one way or another, goes when they die, unless somehow they cease to exist (see UnPerson). While the Duat has sections corresponding to {{Heaven}} and {{Hell}}, and some damned in the Duat even suffer in lakes of fire that probably inspired the Christian FireAndBrimstoneHell, these regions are connected to each other and a dead person or living visitor could potentially take a tour of both. Unlike the Duat, Irkalla is generally gloomy and unpleasant. |
| 449 | * TwinsAreSpecial: Based on some versions, Inanna & Utu from Ancient Mesopotamian mythology; Nut & Geb and Osiris & Isis from Ancient Egyptian mythology. In all cases, they are fraternal male/female pairs whose bonds are considered so deep that they become husband and wife. Nut & Geb are also considered special as twins as they are considered the embodiment of duality and complementary natures (Nut is the goddess of the sky, Geb is the god of the earth), forming a single whole. |
| 450 | * {{Twincest}}: In most polytheistic religions and mythologies, gods are incestuous; Justified as there are literally no other options besides each other. Some examples of incestuous twins are the fraternal male/female pairs Inanna & Utu from Ancient Mesopotamian mythology; Nut & Geb and Osiris & Isis from Ancient Egyptian mythology. |
| 451 | * UnPerson: In RealLife, one of the punishments for traitors in Ancient Egypt was to chisel away every written or carved instance of their name. Egyptians believed that they could only have an afterlife if their name, and either their body or a good portrait, was preserved for eternity. So this was considered a most permanent punishment. Sometimes they cremated criminals' bodies too, to really prevent an afterlife. |
| 452 | * UnevenHybrid: King Gilgamesh from ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'' was said to be 2/3 god and 1/3 human. |
| 453 | * UnstoppableRage: In the Egyptian Literature/BookOfTheHeavenlyCow (14th century BC), several mortals rebelled against the god Re when he grew old. He sent the fierce goddess Sekhmet to punish the rebels, but could not stop her from gleefully trying to exterminate all humanity. He finally tricked her into drinking an entire lake of beer, and she passed out. |
| 454 | * TheVamp: Myth/MesopotamianMythology has the goddess Ishtar/Innana and the ChildEater Lilitu. |
| 455 | * VerticalPowerPlay: This behavior can be seen in other animals besides humans. |
| 456 | * VestigialEmpire: Ancient Egyptian history provides two examples; the second was noted in Greek histories. |
| 457 | ** The early Egyptian First Intermediate Period (2181-2055 BC) had one within Egypt: records show that the Pharaohs at Memphis were still given respect and may have a religious role across the land, but in reality he had no power outside Memphis and the country was run by squabbling local lords. |
| 458 | ** The Twentieth Dynasty and much of the Third Intermediate Period (around 1200-1000 BC, give or take a century) were characterized by splendid isolation, the loss of the New Kingdom's empire in Nubia, the Levant, and Libya, along with interminable squabbling among heirs to the throne, several coups, barbarian raids (including the "Sea Peoples"), and occasional temporary conquest by outside powers. |
| 459 | * WallOfText: Pyramid texts in Ancient Egypt written on walls, dating back to 2400BC, were unformatted, making them hard to follow. |
| 460 | * WarriorPrince: Egyptian kings (according to royal propaganda found on temple inscriptions); also [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh King Gilgamesh]]. |
| 461 | * WaterIsWomanly: Tiamat from Mesopotamian Mythology is the primordial goddess of the salt sea and a MotherGoddess who birthed countless deities. |
| 462 | * WealthyEverAfter: The Egyptian tale "Literature/TheEloquentPeasant" apparently ends with the protagonist Hunanup richly compensated for his troubles and rewarded for his eloquence with numerous goods confiscated from the household of Djehuty-nekht, the man who had wronged him. |
| 463 | * WhatTheHellHero: Dumuzi gets this for ''not'' saliently mourning his wife Inanna [[Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld when she died.]] |
| 464 | * WildHair: Enkidu in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''. |
| 465 | * WingedHumanoid: Winged-humanoid Egyptian gods usually have the wings attached to their arms, but occasionally on their backs. Mesopotamian art has the winged genii called Apkallu. |
| 466 | * WiseSerpent: The ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_the_Shipwrecked_Sailor Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor]] from the [[UsefulNotes/AncientEgyptianHistory Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt]] (c. 2055 BCE–c.1650 BCE). The titular shipwrecked sailor, whose ship is lost on a trading mission in the Red Sea, washes ashore on a mysterious island inhabited by a giant talking snake. The snake consoles the sailor and counsels patience, advising he would be rescued and returned to Egypt in a season (which for the Egyptians was four months). He also tells the sailor about some personal tragedies of his own and how he overcame them. Four months later, the snake is proved right, and the sailor is rescued. (At this point the serpent officially reveals he's actually a god, and also the Lord of Punt, and also that the island is magic and will disappear as soon as the sailor's ship slips over the horizon, because ancient Egyptian stories are weird like that.) |
| 467 | * WomanlinessAsPathos: Dates back to ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', which uses a wide variety of variants, such as the wild Enkidu being magically tamed after sleeping with a prostitute. |
| 468 | * WomanScorned: Inanna/Ishtar, in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', takes it ''very'' badly when Gilgamesh turns down her proposition, and calls her out for killing her past lovers. |
| 469 | * WordsCanBreakMyBones: One of the ideas behind Ancient Egyptian magic was the very real potency of words and especially names. Their religious rituals also made extensive use of this principle. |
| 470 | * WorldsStrongestMan: Gilgamesh of Myth/MesopotamianMythology. |
| 471 | * WorthyOpponent: Gilgamesh and Enkidu, to each other. |
| 472 | * WoundedGazelleGambit: From the Egyptian "Literature/TaleOfTwoBrothers", New Kingdom: Anubis' wife tried to seduce her brother-in-law Bata. When he refused, she created fake bruises from makeup, and told Anubis that Bata tried to seduce her and beat her for refusing. |
| 473 | * {{Yandere}}: The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar. |
| 474 | * YouCantFightFate: In the Egyptian story "[[Literature/PrincessAhuraTheMagicBook Princess Ahura: The Magic Book]]", the prince and his family cannot escape the punishment the gods decree for their sacrilege. Gilgamesh fails to escape the mortality of humanity. |
| 475 | * YouKilledMyFather: Horus in Myth/EgyptianMythology, after his uncle Set killed his father Osiris. |
| 476 | * YoungConqueror: |
| 477 | ** The earliest one we know about for sure is Thutmose III of Egypt. He took control of the Egyptian Army as a teenager during his joint rule with his aunt Hatshepsut. A few years later--in 1479 BCE, when he was 22 or 23--Hatshepsut died, and Thutmose became the sole ruler of Egypt. The Canaanite city-state of Kadesh took advantage of the transition to march on Egyptian territory, but Thutmose fought them off and promptly began conquering much of the rest of Syria. In this and subsequent campaigns in Syria and Nubia, Thutmose proved to be a very skilled general--modern historians compare him to Napoleon for his grasp of strategy and tactics and his ability to leverage his country's colossal human and economic resources into military advantage--and had conquered most of his substantial empire by age 30. |
| 478 | ** It is possible that Sargon of Akkad about 900 years earlier also fit the trope, but we don't know how old he was when his reign began and he started forging an empire. |
| 479 | * YourMom: A "Your Mother" joke was found on a [[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2092775/Tablet-crude-jokes-riddles-beer--dating-time-biblical-Exodus.html cuneiform tablet from ca. 1,500 BC.]] |
| 480 | * ZombieApocalypse: The Sumerian goddess Inanna twice threatened to make the dead rise from TheUnderworld to devour the living if she didn't get her way. |
| 481 | [[/folder]] |
| 482 | |
| 483 | [[/index]] |
| 484 |
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