Film

A Quick Round-up of Ancient Egypt in Marvel’s Moon Knight

Posted by Thomas H. Greiner on

Time and time again, Egyptian elements appear in the Marvel universe. In the Moon Knight series currently on Disney + (premiered on March 30, 2022), Egyptian mythology and their gods play a prominent role. Based on the comic of the same name, this series revolves around the multiple personalities associated with the Moon Knight.

Warning: Spoilers below, so watch the first episode, then scroll down!

Moon Knight and its Connections to the Comic

To connect the background of this series with the comic books, I highly recommend you watch the episode breakdown by Erik Voss and The New Rockstars on YouTube. This video gives you detailed insights into the connections to the comic, whereas here in this blog I will discuss specifically how the episode deals with the Ancient Egyptian elements.

Egyptian Representation Matters

Egyptian director, Mohamed Diab, directs four of the six episodes of Moon Knight. He is well-known for his 2011 film Cairo 678. Additionally starring are more Egyptians, including Palestinian-Egyptian actress May Calamawy as Leyla el-Faouly (and more to feature in upcoming episodes).

Egyptian director Mohamed Diab directs four of the six episodes of the series (photo: WikiMedia).
Egyptian director Mohamed Diab directs four of the six episodes of the series (photo: WikiMedia).

The series may play on what we know about ancient Egyptian mythology, but the inclusion and representation of modern Egyptians is just as important. Hollywood, after all, is notorious for many questionable tropes about Egypt, so it is refreshing to hear Diab striving to work against this. Speaking to SFX Magazine, Diab noted:

“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history. It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top” (2).

– Mohamed Diab

We are looking forward to more scenes that take place in Egypt. Now, what did the first episode reveal about Ancient Egypt?

Steven Grant: Insomnia and Reading Books

The protagonist Steven Grant (played by Guatemalan-American actor, Oscar Isaac) experiences several psychological challenges as he eventually learns he “shares” his body with Marc Spector. He also grapples with insomnia and nightmarish dreams/hallucinations. In one scene, we see Grant in his flat reading a range of books. Some deal with Ancient Egypt from a book about the Valley of the Kings to another on Explorers of the Nile by Tim Jeal.

  • Battling insomnia, Grant reads many books on mythology and antiquity including this excerpt dealing with the Ennead (photo: Disney+). The excerpt here derives from the book “Ancient Egypt” by Richard Mayde published in 1876 (3).

The book which Steven Grant is reading shows a family tree of Egyptian gods (see also below) with an emphasis on the Ennead. Here’s the catch: the text on the page derives from the book, Ancient Egypt by Richard Mayde published in 1876. The book was published nearly 150 years ago, so the film makers could certainly have used a more recent work dealing with Egyptian myth!

Arthur Harrow as a Devotee of Ammut

Ethan Hawke plays Arthur Harrow, a devotee of the divine figure Ammit (photo: DisneyPlus).
Ethan Hawke plays Arthur Harrow, a devotee of the divine figure Ammit (photo: Disney+).

We meet Arthur Harrow (played by Ethan Hawke) at the beginning of the episode. His forearm tattoo is visible, showing a balance. If you look close enough, you can make out two symmetrical snouts of a crocodile. The same motif also appears on the top of his walking stick. Harrow is in the service of the divine figure Ammit (Egyptian divine figure: Ammut), who appears to be the central villain. The scale on his arm depicts the well-known Weighing of the Heart scene from Egyptian funerary texts of the New Kingdom and later.

In this vignette from the Papyrus of Ani, we see the act of weighing of the heart. (Nineteenth Dynasty - © British Museum, London, EA10470/3).
In this vignette from the Papyrus of Ani, we see the act of weighing of the heart. (Nineteenth Dynasty – © British Museum, London, EA10470/3).

The Weighing of the Heart in the Hall of Justice

After waking up in a European town, Grant witnesses a strange scene: a man appears to be “judged” by Harrow. Harrow’s scale tattoo moves as it decides the man’s fate. In Egyptian funerary texts such as Ani’s in the image above, the deceased’s heart (which the Egyptians believed to be the seat of the mind) is weighed against the feather of ma’at. This moment reflects a fundamental moment in one’s journey to the afterlife: weigh less than the feather and you become an akh. However, should your heart weigh more than the feather, you’re judged not to be worthy to enter the afterlife, and you are devoured by Ammut. Ammut, after all, has several names from “devourer of the dead” to “eater of hearts”.

Harrow holds the hands of the man during the judgment. Note the tattoo on Harrow's right arm that turns the colour green when someone passes the judgment (red, if not) (photo: DisneyPlus).
Harrow holds the hands of the man during the judgment. Note the tattoo on Harrow’s right arm that turns the colour green when someone passes the judgment (red, if not) (photo: Disney+).

Judging the life of a man

After judging the life of a man to be good, Harrow proceeds to judge an older woman. That scene sent cold showers down my spine. The woman pleaded with Harrow that she has led a good life and done nothing wrong. However, Harrow says Ammit knows what transgressions the woman will commit in the future and then proceeds to drain her life energy, killing her. In similar fashion, in the Papyrus of Ani, Ani has to confront the 42 deities in the Hall of Justice and swear to them that he has done nothing wrong. You did not want to be judged as “not worthy” because you would be devoured by Ammut. The result: you would die a second, and final death.

  • The episode identifies Khonsu with a long beak and holding a staff with a moon-sickle on top (photo: Disney+).
  • This figurine of Khonsu shows him with a falcon-head and the sun-disk. Note the lunar symbol of the moon sickle (Late Period – Musée du Louvre, Paris, E 3720).

Khonshu and the Moon

Grant and his alternate personality Marc Spector are closely associated as Moon Knight with the god Khonshu (Egyptian deity: Khonsu). The god appears several times in short glimpses, carrying a moon-sickle staff as well as featuring a long beak. Egyptian iconography frequently depicts the god as a young man with the side lock of a child. Khonsu here wears mummy bandages, something we find attested in Egyptian sources. The god’s long beak reflects him as illustrated in the comic. In like manner, this elongated, over-emphasised beak may derive from the falcon-head form of Khonsu. The Louvre Museum has an example of Khonsu in his falcon form (see the photo above).

Ancient Egypt and Museums

Grant works as a gift shop attendant in the National Gallery of Art in London selling Egypt-inspired replicas and souvenirs. Taking place in London, the scenes in the museum, however, were filmed in Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts. That museum does in fact have a sizeable Ancient Egypt collection! Wouldn’t it be nice to see it in this episode?

Standing in for the National Gallery of Art in London, Budapest's Museum of Fine Arts was actually the filming location (photo: WikiMedia).
Standing in for the National Gallery of Art in London, Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts was actually the filming location (photo: WikiMedia).

Nevertheless, viewers can enjoy a range of Egyptian artefacts drawn together from several museum collections. The exhibit’s emphasis, of course, rests on artefacts many associate with Egypt: pyramids, grand statuary, coffins, and diverse afterlife offerings.

Ancient Egypt within the exhibition space

Pillars in the exhibition also enlarge motifs found in funerary texts. A representation of Ammut appears in the Papyrus of Hunefer and another of the goddess Opet in the Papyrus of Ani. Other pillars have the decorative feel from the Tomb of Nefertari in the Valley of the Queens.

  • Harrow is in the service of the divine figure of Ammut shown to his left (photo: DisneyPlus). The depiction comes from a vignette in the Papyrus of Hunefer (swipe left). On the pillar to the right of Ammut, there is a depiction of the goddess Opet in hippopotamus form illustrated in the Papyrus of Ani (both Nineteenth Dynasty; Hunefer – EA9901/3; Ani – EA10470/37; ©British Museum, London).
  • The Weighing of the Heart appears in a vignette in the Papyrus of Hunefer. Anubis leads the deceased toward the balance, where their heart is weighed against the feather of ma’at. Should their heart be heavier, Ammut, shown on the right, would devour it (Nineteenth Dynasty – © British Museum, London, EA 9901/3).
  • The hippopotamus goddess Opet stands before two altars with food offerings. Behind her, Hathor in cow-form steps out from the Western Mountains of Thebes (Papyrus of Ani, Nineteenth Dynasty, EA10470/37; ©British Museum, London).

Visitors to the museum – as typical in many museums across the UK – may enter free, something not immediately obvious to our North American readers. In an early scene, we see Grant spotting a girl squishing her gum into a model pyramid. When Grant confronts her, she earnestly replies: “it’s not like there’s anything in there”. He then walks her through the Egypt exhibition showing her some objects on display.

While Grant shows the girl around the exhibit area, we see a model of the Giza Plateau with the Khufu's pyramid on the left and Khafre's on the right (photo: DisneyPlus).
While Grant shows the girl around the exhibit area, we see a model of the Giza Plateau with the Khufu’s pyramid on the left and Khafre’s on the right (photo: Disney+).

The Nine Gods of the Egyptian Ennead

Later, Grant helps his supervisor, Donna, in the museum, organising and sorting through the inventory. The back shows various souvenirs typically for sale in museum gift shops and Grant draws attention to a poster he holds. It shows several deities which constitute the Ennead. Grant points out – rightfully so – that the poster shows only seven gods, when we would expect nine.

  • Grant points out a mistake in the use of the Ennead to his superior, Donna (photo: DisneyPlus). Behind him on the door is a family tree of Egyptian gods that higlights the complex relationships between the gods (swipe right; photo: © Korwin Briggs).

The Ennead, as Grant puts nicely, is a “supergroup of Egyptian gods” composed of those deities associated with the creation story of Heliopolis. There, the god Atum gives birth to the world and through Atum are born his children Shu and Tefnut, who then give birth to Geb and Nut, and then finally their offspring Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys. These gods and many more are then also shown in a family tree of deities on the door behind Grant and this comes from an informative infographic that present the multi-nature and vast generations of Egyptian deities.

Upon waking up, Grant finds a golden scarab with a hieroglyphic inscription in his pocket (photo: DisneyPlus).
Upon waking up, Grant finds a golden scarab with a hieroglyphic inscription in his pocket (photo: Disney+).

The Golden Scarab with Hieroglyphic Signs

Waking up outside a castle in a village in the Alps, Grant finds a golden scarab in his pocket. Dazzling of gold, several vertical lines of a hieroglyphic inscriptions stand out. A shoutout here to my colleagues Dan Potter (@DanPotterEgypt) and Ken Griffin (@DrKenGriffin) who transcribed and translated the hieroglyphic text on Twitter. The signs on the scarab are indeed genuine hieroglyphs and are an excerpt from utterance 17 in the Book of Coming Forth by Day (also known as the Book of the Dead). The text reads:

“O Khepri who is in the midst of his boat, primeval one, whose corporeality is infinity, may you rescue Osiris Amenhotep, true of voice.”

A vignette in the Papyrus of Ani shows the deceased on the left. Ani praises the god Khepri, who traverses the sky in the solar bark. The god Khepri is a form of the sun god, Re, and stands for the sun disk of the eastern horizon (Nineteenth Dynasty - © British Museum, London, EA 10470/10).
A vignette in the Papyrus of Ani shows the deceased on the left. Ani praises the god Khepri, who traverses the sky in the solar bark. The god Khepri is a form of the sun god, Re, and stands for the sun disk of the eastern horizon (Nineteenth Dynasty – © British Museum, London, EA 10470/10).

A vignette associated with the same utterance in the Papyrus of Ani shows the deceased (Ani) before a solar bark. He kneels and praises the god Khepri, who traverses the sky in his solar bark. The scene shows Khepri with a beetle as his head.

Throughout Moon Knight, Egypt featured well in this episode and I am excited to see where they will take this series moving forward.

Did you also notice these scenes with Egyptianising elements?

  • Grant’s aquarium has some typical souvenirs you can buy in gift shops and vendors in Egypt. We see a pyramid, a papyrus boat, an obelisk, and what appears to be the front of a temple.
  • When Grant is in the back of the museum, various cute stuffed Egyptian-inspired plush toys become noticeable. Wouldn’t you just want to have one of them?
  • Catching a glimpse of Grant, Harrow shouts in Ancient Egyptian at his followers: Dua Am-mut (which translates similarly to “Praise to Ammut”) and they, in turn, kneel to him.
  • In the final scene, Grant/Spector transforms into the Moon Knight as he battles a supernatural jackal. This takes place in an ornate museum bathroom. Figures of Thoth and Horus begin to reveal themselves on the walls next to the door.

Notes

  1. Isaac previously played the antagonist, En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse, in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. The film features several scenes shot in Egypt, especially the Giza Plateau, and incorporates some Egyptian mythology.
  2. Sharf, Z. 2022. ‘“Moon Knight” Director Slams “Wonder Woman 1984” Over Egypt Scenes: “It Was a Disgrace”’. Variety, 23 March 2022. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/moon-knight-director-slams-wonder-woman-1984-egypt-1235212812/.
  3. Mayde, R. 1876. Ancient Egypt. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company – page 51.