Abstract
The paper examines the semantics of trees described in the ancient Egyptian fairy tales “Tale of Two Brothers” and in the “Story of Sinuhe”. The purpose of the study is to identify the semantics of trees in these fairy tales, their relationship with the religious ideas of the Egyptians and specifies of ideas about the calendar cycle displayed in these texts. The author traces literary parallels between the images of fairy-tale trees and the motifs of the “Book of the Dead”, which tells about the posthumous life of the soul of the deceased in the Netherworld. The study reveals that in the “Tale of Two Brothers”, the cedar and two persea trees are correlated with the Osiris and solar cults. The persea trees represent the rays of the sun, Osiris and the deceased as the blessed spirit Akh. The cedar inflorescence located at the top of the tree is also associated with the image of the sun. It was found that in this fairy tale, the description of tree life and the hero’s repeated birth reflect the change of calendar cycles from the flood season to the harvest season, from the period of visibility of celestial bodies and plants to the period of their invisibility. The sycamore, mentioned in the “Story of Sinuhe”, is the sacred tree of Hathor, Isis and Nut and appears as a symbol of the heaven with which these goddesses were associated.
Published Version
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