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Les dieux du Nil

Year:

2012

Nationality:

Beligium

Language:

French

Writer:

Crisse

Artist:

Crisse, Frédéric Besson

Publisher:

Le Lombard

Genre:

Adventure, Mythology

Other websites:

Summary
C'est la fête à Perbast. Toute la ville s'apprête à célébrer le culte de la déesse Bastet. Même la famille du Pharaon rejoint le palais. Ce qui veut dire, pour les animaux, qu'il leur faudra s'abriter ailleurs ! Néfertiti, la jolie chatte, la préférée des courtisanes et du cuisinier du Palais, va devoir découcher, tout comme Apoua, le singe malicieux... Tous deux rejoignent l'assemblée générale des chats, convoquée suite au décès de leur grande prêtresse. Un digne successeur doit être nommé, et Apoua a remarqué qu'une portée de nouveaux-nés comptait parmi eux un albinos. Un chat blanc aux yeux rouges, c'est la garantie que les hommes le reconnaissent comme le grand prêtre de la communauté des félins sacrés ! Mais le chaton est à l'autre bout de la ville... Néfertiti et Apoua devront donc entamer un voyage des plus périlleux... (Planète BD)
The royal cat Nefertiti, the comic’s protagonist (Source: https://assets.lastdodo.com/image/ld_medium/plain/assets/catalog/assets/2012/7/1/8/5/c/pdf_85cd90b0-a5d0-012f-55de-005056945a4e.jpg)
Goddess Bastet with a lyre and a temple behind her (Source: https://www.bandedessinee.info/Dieux-du-Nil-Les-bd)
A sample of a “narrative” page, with text and an illustration done with a pencil-like technique, featuring the courtesans and the palace. (Source: https://assets.bubblebd.com/img/xcrn03x9qo/rwt4latxro.jpg)
Egyptomania narratives or motifs
Les dieux du Nil is an illustrated tale set in the festival of Bastet at Bubastis. The story begins with the protagonist, a royal cat called Nefertiti. After hearing that the sacred cat who acted as an intermediary between the cats and the goddess Bastet has passed away, Nefertiti decides to join the cat city council to look for a successor. Rumor has it that a new beautiful cat has been born at the temple of Hathor, and Nefertiti, with her baboon friend Apoua and other cats she meets along the way, must travel throughout the entire festive city and the different temples in Bubastis to find the new chosen kitten before the end of the festival, when Sekhmet will descend to wreak havoc. Along the way, Nefertiti faces many obstacles and encounters with humans and Egyptian animals, such as crocodiles, baboons, ibis, cobras, etc…. Until she manages to find the kitten and her family and present her to the priests, who accept her as the new divine intermediary between cats, humans, and the gods.

The illustrated tale combines two different types of depictions. On the one hand, there are the sketches of the adventures of Nefertiti travelling through all the Bubastis temples and making friends. These sketches normally come with a short narrative text of dialogues. Bubastis is described as a festive and jubilant city where its inhabitants get drunk to celebrate the festival with joy and mayhem, which recalls Herodotus’ account on the topic. To recreate and Ancient Egyptian setting, the city is depicted with small houses, pylons, obelisks, columns with lotus and papyri motifs, as well as colossal statues of pharaohs. The city is also surrounded by the Nile. All the characters in the story are either talking animals or humans, and some of them share Egyptian royal names, such as Nefertiti herself or another cat named Ramesses.

On the other hand, full-coloured illustrations of different Egyptian gods are inserted at various points in the tale. To guide the reader through the different illustrations, the gods’ names are included in a serekh cartouche (both in its Greek version and in hieroglyphic) and these are accompanied with a short description of the gods. Many of the gods are designed like anthropomorphic animals with some of their original attributes (such as Hathor with the cow’s horns and the solar disk or Amon with the double feather crown), but many gods are designed with Egyptianising elements, such as an ankh-scepter, the uraeus, the atef-crown, etc. Many of the goddesses are also depicted with an exotic, erotic, and sexualized view, alluding to orientalist portrayals of ancient Egypt.

Author: Esperanza Macarena Ródenas Perea

Other information
Fernández Pichel, A.I. and Orriols-Llonch, M. 2024. Sex, Gender and Sexualisation: Ancient Egypt in Contemporary Popular Culture, in A.I. Fernández Pichel (ed.) How Pharaohs Became Media Stars: Ancient Egypt and Popular Culture: 179-180. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Open access
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Project Manager

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel

Researchers

Abraham I. Fernández Pichel - Rogério Sousa - Eleanor Dobson - Filip Taterka - Guillermo Juberías Gracia - José das Candeias Sales
Nuno Simões Rodrigues - Samuel Fernández-Pichel - Sara Woodward - Tara Sewell-Lasater - Thomas Gamelin – Leire Olabarría
Alfonso Álvarez-Ossorio - Jean-Guillaume Olette-Pelletier - Marc Orriols-Llonch


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