Fighting in the Water. On “Ordeals”, Kinship and State in “The Contendings of Horus and Seth” (Papyrus Chester Beatty I)

CAMPAGNO, MARCELO

L’Acqua nell’Antico Egitto. Proceedings of the First International Conference for Young Egyptologists (Chianciano Terme, 2003)

L´Erma di Bretschneider

Lugar: Roma; Año: 2005; p. 117 - 124

The situations related to “ordalic” episodes in The contendings of Horus and Seth provide us with a good opportunity to think about the mode of organization of the ancient Egyptian society in the times in which the tale was put in writing. In effect, both the difficulties in solving the conflict and its final resolution seem to evoke the two logics –kinship and State– whose coexistence perhaps constitutes the main characteristic of the social organization of Ancient Egypt as well as many other societies of the antiquity throughout the world.