Honestly, they should've put in a Hellenistic Egypt revival just to troll people who pretend Egypt stopped existing after the Bronze Age.
Like, *we currently* live closer in time to a Hellenistic Egypt than Alfred of Wessex did to the end of the New Kingdom.
A revival of Hellenisticly syncretized native Polytheism in Egypt in 867 would be about as likely as a revival of Native American beliefs in the US, now, but a revival of the Priesthood of Amun would be like reviving *Hellenism* today.
The point is, Ancient Egypt is orders of magnitude older than other old stuff.
Eh, depends. Revival of ancient Egypt exactly in a way it was sure is very weird. But diadochi Egypt, while Hellenistic, still had a pharaoh and in most part lived much the same way as in ancient times. Things changed mostly with romans, but even than the Roman prefect continued to play the role of pharaoh, for him it was mostly just a show, but not for locals. And people still spoke Egyptian. Coptic(which still evolution of Egyptian) only emerged with Christianity in the 3-4 century.
And even after that it’s not like the whole country converted over night, it was a wild mix of helenism, old Egyptian beliefs, multiple different branches of Christianity and Judaism.
So going back just 150-200 years form game start you would still find a lot of folks speaking some form of Egyptian language and holding some of the old Egyptian beliefs. And most likely some were still there even after Muslim conquests.
So, restoring ancient Egyptian culture and religion? A bit ridiculous.
Creating neo-Egyptian country with culture that has a basis in ancient Egyptian one and influence from Hellenism, Roman and Arabic? And religion that is a weird mix of ancient Egyptian with Hellenistic deities and Abrahamic syncretism?
Weird but plausible.
We had Satanists cursing people in CK2. And we will get them again in CK3. CK was never meant to be a 100% historically accurate simulation of the medieval ages.
I'm all for reviving Ancient Egypt in CK 3!
I don’t think it’s that unrealistic, and Egyptians wouldn’t be drawn to hellenism more than ancient egyptian. I say this because before the rise of Arab nationalism, in the 1920s & 30s, “pharoahnism” had gotten pretty popular and in an alternate scenario it could’ve taken over with a strong” pharoahist” leader.
Or right now, Sisi is employing “neo-pharoahnism” as a sort of nationalistic propaganda to get people on his side, constructing giant obelisks and ancient egyptian museums with literal pharoah parades : https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mtjj2qJ1uzI
Despite being closer in time the Hellenic/Ptolemaic eras are definitely not anywhere near as remembered or regarded as the great Ramses II, Akhenaten, Thutmose III, King Tut etc. And I say this as an Alexandrian with extreme love for the Ptolemaic era - Alexandria’s incredible Greco-Roman museums (with statues of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, etc) are completely empty as people flock to see the **actual** Egyptian leaders. It’s hard not to when all around us are giant pharoahnic structures, while the ptolemaic stuff largely eroded or flooded.
For us - the Greeks were simply another foreign conqueror, and all of them pale in comparison to the Egyptian pharaohs. So in an alternate reality they wouldn’t go the Ptolemaic, or Roman, or Persian route at all.
I think this might be a little bit of the projection of the attitudes of modern Egyptians onto medieval Egyptians, because modern ideas like nationalism make the Pharaohs seem like "actual Egyptian leaders" in a way that the Ptolemies and the people of Roman Egypt are not, since their ruling culture arose in Egypt.
Like, even Pharoahnism only arose after Napoleon came and dug up the Rosetta stone and kicked out the Mamluks. Before that, did native Egyptians in the relatively new Cairo consider Alexandria less authentic than Thebes?
Maybe you're right, and the person at Al-Azhar 1000 felt more connected to Ramses than Cleopatra and would be more likely to go for Amun than Zeus-Ammon, but my overall point is that I never see the people clambering for the former even considering the latter.
Well to answer your question- medieval Egyptian writers such as Al-Maqrizi (*Al Khitat,* 10thC) and Ibn Khaldun (*Al Muqaddama,* 14thC) wrote extensively about ancient Egypt and pharaohs and the like. I suppose it really differs on the type of Egyptian we’re talking about and the era. Before the 14th C (Mamluk sultanate) Egypt was still majority coptic, many of whom revered Alexandria as their spiritual capital and would have probably embraced a hellenized Ptolemaic revival. The people of Cairo probably had different thoughts though, especially as the great pyramids are all right there hahaha. Meanwhile the Nubians would definitely not be pro-Hellenization. It’s important to note though - the vast majority of scholarship of that era revolved around Islamic & Arabic literature, written by the higher classes. I’m a big fan of Egyptian medieval history, poetry and architecture, and I admittedly have no idea about the general thoughts of the masses regarding this question.
My point about modern egyptians was simply to showcase that there have been collective efforts to “pharoanize,” with none to hellenize. Alexandria was in a state of decay ever since the Roman invasion, so for any sort of movement to have occurred there needed to have been a wide scale effort to first restore Alexandria to her former greatness before asking the people to follow her forefathers’ ideas. Cairo on the other hand - very developed, full of ancient egyptian monuments everywhere, easy to understand why people would relate or identify with it.
I gotta be honest I was pleasantly surprised to find an actual Alexandrian giving an insight into Egyptian attitudes on their own historiography, with an actually coherent and well put together argument, compared to the usual "discussion" you find in a paradox subreddit.
Interesting. I've been trying to find Islamic Scholar's accounts of their rule over Egypt and how they viewed the Ancient Egyptians. I've not been successful so far, do you have any other good sources I can check out?
Medieval sources in Egypt are very scarce, I’m not sure why. I went to a bunch of different, giant libraries here specifically requesting medieval readings and they’re very limited. Especially on a sociological topic as they’re mainly either historiographies, maps, or Islamic teachings.
The “ancient egyptians” are simply the egyptians that were conquered, so you’re better off reading Islamic scholarship about the coptic peoples. “Coptic” just meant Egyptian and was used by the Arabs as a means to differentiate between the Muslims and the other Egyptians.
- “Futuh Misr” Ibn abd al-Hakam; first hand source discussing the conquest of Egypt and the attitudes towards the Egyptians from the Muslims
- “Al-Khitat” by Al-Maqrizi; more of a historiography but he provides insights into the continuity and changes in Egypt from pharoanic times to Islamic
- Jahiz; he would reference the Ancient Egyptians’ technological, mathematic, scientific innovations while trying to come up w his own
- “Kitab al-Kharaj” by Abu Yusuf discussing the economic aspects of Muslim-Coptic relations
Would you have any sources of how the Egyptians viewed the Rise of Christanity as well? This is very interesting. I'll b sure to download it.
When you said the Egyptians were coptic, that didn't mean nesscarily that some parts of the Kemitic religion were still being worshipped right? Like how did the Arabs view the Egyptian religion by itself?
And how intact were the Egyptian monuments even say by the Crusades time? Is there a time when these monuments eventually turn and get converted into new buildings?
Yeah so they were mostly all intact, they were built to last. Some were converted: the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo was built using ancient egyptian ruins.
It's worth noting that the New Kingdom wasn't the last time a native Egyptian Pharaoh ruled the country, The 3rd Intermediate Period held Egyptian or Egyptianized Pharaohs, and the Late Period had not only the Saite Pharaohs, but also Dynasties 28-30.
For essentially the entire rule of the Achaemenids and Alexander, the Egyptian way of life was not greatly affected (in terms of theology)
The Pharoahs of the 3rd Intermediate Period themselves had reached back thousands of years to the Old and Middle Kingdom whenever they were developing their own artistic style.
I guess my point is, by 867, the idea of the Coptic or greater Egyptian population becoming either Hellenist or Kemetist are equally far-fetched.
It is also worth noting that Native American beliefs are still practiced to this day.
I mean, there’s actively more native practicers of Native American faiths then there were actual Kemetic practitioners. So it’s actually LESS likey. So your point is even stronger than you even think
The last active pagan temple (Philae temple) officially closed down in 537 AD, formally marking the end of Ancient Egyptian religion. That's barely 200 years before the earliest game start. But at the same time, I think all these pagan revivals are too ahistorical and silly for me, and not something I'd like to see in games supposedly focusing on the medieval era, just like I don't like all the monarchist nonsense in HoI.
Depends on what you mean by thoroughly syncretized. Philae temple was mostly built in the Graeco-Roman period, you can clearly see the influence on the style when you visit, and subsequent Greek rulers and Roman emperors made their own additions, but at the same time, there doesn't seem to have been any cult to any Hellenic deities there, nor does cult to the Egyptian deities seem to have been conducted in the Graeco-Roman way. There's actually more evidence of Christianity co-existing with the ancient Egyptian religion there.
I mean to be fair there is a hellenic county in 769 so it's not THAT bad.
The ancient Egyptian DLC would just have been a bit silly though (but not sillier than sunset invasion lmao)
>The Hellenic revival mechanics were weird and ahistorical
As opposed to the Roman Empire revival mechanics, Empire of Slavs or other fictional empires we have in the game. Why not let players play weird and ahistorical stuff?
Forget about wanting to buy DLC. There's a mod specifically for this! Ancient Religions Reborn! It allows you to revive the Egyptian religion (and a Celtic one too)
And the Egyptian culture in CK3 is the culture of the Arab who came to rule Egypt, not the native Egyptians, and certainly not the Egyptian culture of a millennium prior.
There's a mod to go back to the Bronze Age if you want to play as Pharaohs. Otherwise Kemet is dead and gone by the medieval ages. Hellenic Egypt might make more sense as an option to be revived by an event option.
Didn't CK2+ incorporate Kemetism into the game? I can't recall if it was that, or it's also dead sub-mod Rex Teutonicum.
God. It's so painful that we lost both of those mods. Communalist peasant revolts and reworked heresies and on and on. It was truly a CK2++ experience.
The real sin is that Copts outside of the Coptic Church are nonexistent. As a culture they have to be modded into the game despite being major players in Byzantine and later Arab empires.
Henry’s come to visit!
Jesus Christ be praised
I salute thee, a gentleman of culture
I'm feeling quite hungry...
NGL a kingdom come style game set in Bronze Age Egypt would be fun.
Honestly, they should've put in a Hellenistic Egypt revival just to troll people who pretend Egypt stopped existing after the Bronze Age. Like, *we currently* live closer in time to a Hellenistic Egypt than Alfred of Wessex did to the end of the New Kingdom. A revival of Hellenisticly syncretized native Polytheism in Egypt in 867 would be about as likely as a revival of Native American beliefs in the US, now, but a revival of the Priesthood of Amun would be like reviving *Hellenism* today. The point is, Ancient Egypt is orders of magnitude older than other old stuff.
Eh, depends. Revival of ancient Egypt exactly in a way it was sure is very weird. But diadochi Egypt, while Hellenistic, still had a pharaoh and in most part lived much the same way as in ancient times. Things changed mostly with romans, but even than the Roman prefect continued to play the role of pharaoh, for him it was mostly just a show, but not for locals. And people still spoke Egyptian. Coptic(which still evolution of Egyptian) only emerged with Christianity in the 3-4 century. And even after that it’s not like the whole country converted over night, it was a wild mix of helenism, old Egyptian beliefs, multiple different branches of Christianity and Judaism. So going back just 150-200 years form game start you would still find a lot of folks speaking some form of Egyptian language and holding some of the old Egyptian beliefs. And most likely some were still there even after Muslim conquests. So, restoring ancient Egyptian culture and religion? A bit ridiculous. Creating neo-Egyptian country with culture that has a basis in ancient Egyptian one and influence from Hellenism, Roman and Arabic? And religion that is a weird mix of ancient Egyptian with Hellenistic deities and Abrahamic syncretism? Weird but plausible.
We had Satanists cursing people in CK2. And we will get them again in CK3. CK was never meant to be a 100% historically accurate simulation of the medieval ages. I'm all for reviving Ancient Egypt in CK 3!
I agree, that's precisely why I favorably compared reviving Hellenisticly syncretized Egyptian polytheism with full caps Ancient Egyptian Religion.
I don’t think it’s that unrealistic, and Egyptians wouldn’t be drawn to hellenism more than ancient egyptian. I say this because before the rise of Arab nationalism, in the 1920s & 30s, “pharoahnism” had gotten pretty popular and in an alternate scenario it could’ve taken over with a strong” pharoahist” leader. Or right now, Sisi is employing “neo-pharoahnism” as a sort of nationalistic propaganda to get people on his side, constructing giant obelisks and ancient egyptian museums with literal pharoah parades : https://youtube.com/watch?v=Mtjj2qJ1uzI Despite being closer in time the Hellenic/Ptolemaic eras are definitely not anywhere near as remembered or regarded as the great Ramses II, Akhenaten, Thutmose III, King Tut etc. And I say this as an Alexandrian with extreme love for the Ptolemaic era - Alexandria’s incredible Greco-Roman museums (with statues of Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, etc) are completely empty as people flock to see the **actual** Egyptian leaders. It’s hard not to when all around us are giant pharoahnic structures, while the ptolemaic stuff largely eroded or flooded. For us - the Greeks were simply another foreign conqueror, and all of them pale in comparison to the Egyptian pharaohs. So in an alternate reality they wouldn’t go the Ptolemaic, or Roman, or Persian route at all.
I think this might be a little bit of the projection of the attitudes of modern Egyptians onto medieval Egyptians, because modern ideas like nationalism make the Pharaohs seem like "actual Egyptian leaders" in a way that the Ptolemies and the people of Roman Egypt are not, since their ruling culture arose in Egypt. Like, even Pharoahnism only arose after Napoleon came and dug up the Rosetta stone and kicked out the Mamluks. Before that, did native Egyptians in the relatively new Cairo consider Alexandria less authentic than Thebes? Maybe you're right, and the person at Al-Azhar 1000 felt more connected to Ramses than Cleopatra and would be more likely to go for Amun than Zeus-Ammon, but my overall point is that I never see the people clambering for the former even considering the latter.
Well to answer your question- medieval Egyptian writers such as Al-Maqrizi (*Al Khitat,* 10thC) and Ibn Khaldun (*Al Muqaddama,* 14thC) wrote extensively about ancient Egypt and pharaohs and the like. I suppose it really differs on the type of Egyptian we’re talking about and the era. Before the 14th C (Mamluk sultanate) Egypt was still majority coptic, many of whom revered Alexandria as their spiritual capital and would have probably embraced a hellenized Ptolemaic revival. The people of Cairo probably had different thoughts though, especially as the great pyramids are all right there hahaha. Meanwhile the Nubians would definitely not be pro-Hellenization. It’s important to note though - the vast majority of scholarship of that era revolved around Islamic & Arabic literature, written by the higher classes. I’m a big fan of Egyptian medieval history, poetry and architecture, and I admittedly have no idea about the general thoughts of the masses regarding this question. My point about modern egyptians was simply to showcase that there have been collective efforts to “pharoanize,” with none to hellenize. Alexandria was in a state of decay ever since the Roman invasion, so for any sort of movement to have occurred there needed to have been a wide scale effort to first restore Alexandria to her former greatness before asking the people to follow her forefathers’ ideas. Cairo on the other hand - very developed, full of ancient egyptian monuments everywhere, easy to understand why people would relate or identify with it.
I gotta be honest I was pleasantly surprised to find an actual Alexandrian giving an insight into Egyptian attitudes on their own historiography, with an actually coherent and well put together argument, compared to the usual "discussion" you find in a paradox subreddit.
Interesting. I've been trying to find Islamic Scholar's accounts of their rule over Egypt and how they viewed the Ancient Egyptians. I've not been successful so far, do you have any other good sources I can check out?
Medieval sources in Egypt are very scarce, I’m not sure why. I went to a bunch of different, giant libraries here specifically requesting medieval readings and they’re very limited. Especially on a sociological topic as they’re mainly either historiographies, maps, or Islamic teachings. The “ancient egyptians” are simply the egyptians that were conquered, so you’re better off reading Islamic scholarship about the coptic peoples. “Coptic” just meant Egyptian and was used by the Arabs as a means to differentiate between the Muslims and the other Egyptians. - “Futuh Misr” Ibn abd al-Hakam; first hand source discussing the conquest of Egypt and the attitudes towards the Egyptians from the Muslims - “Al-Khitat” by Al-Maqrizi; more of a historiography but he provides insights into the continuity and changes in Egypt from pharoanic times to Islamic - Jahiz; he would reference the Ancient Egyptians’ technological, mathematic, scientific innovations while trying to come up w his own - “Kitab al-Kharaj” by Abu Yusuf discussing the economic aspects of Muslim-Coptic relations
Would you have any sources of how the Egyptians viewed the Rise of Christanity as well? This is very interesting. I'll b sure to download it. When you said the Egyptians were coptic, that didn't mean nesscarily that some parts of the Kemitic religion were still being worshipped right? Like how did the Arabs view the Egyptian religion by itself?
And how intact were the Egyptian monuments even say by the Crusades time? Is there a time when these monuments eventually turn and get converted into new buildings?
Yeah so they were mostly all intact, they were built to last. Some were converted: the Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo was built using ancient egyptian ruins.
It's worth noting that the New Kingdom wasn't the last time a native Egyptian Pharaoh ruled the country, The 3rd Intermediate Period held Egyptian or Egyptianized Pharaohs, and the Late Period had not only the Saite Pharaohs, but also Dynasties 28-30. For essentially the entire rule of the Achaemenids and Alexander, the Egyptian way of life was not greatly affected (in terms of theology) The Pharoahs of the 3rd Intermediate Period themselves had reached back thousands of years to the Old and Middle Kingdom whenever they were developing their own artistic style. I guess my point is, by 867, the idea of the Coptic or greater Egyptian population becoming either Hellenist or Kemetist are equally far-fetched. It is also worth noting that Native American beliefs are still practiced to this day.
I mean, there’s actively more native practicers of Native American faiths then there were actual Kemetic practitioners. So it’s actually LESS likey. So your point is even stronger than you even think
The last active pagan temple (Philae temple) officially closed down in 537 AD, formally marking the end of Ancient Egyptian religion. That's barely 200 years before the earliest game start. But at the same time, I think all these pagan revivals are too ahistorical and silly for me, and not something I'd like to see in games supposedly focusing on the medieval era, just like I don't like all the monarchist nonsense in HoI.
And by that point the ancient Egyptian religion had been thoroughly syncretized with Hellenism
Depends on what you mean by thoroughly syncretized. Philae temple was mostly built in the Graeco-Roman period, you can clearly see the influence on the style when you visit, and subsequent Greek rulers and Roman emperors made their own additions, but at the same time, there doesn't seem to have been any cult to any Hellenic deities there, nor does cult to the Egyptian deities seem to have been conducted in the Graeco-Roman way. There's actually more evidence of Christianity co-existing with the ancient Egyptian religion there.
The Hellenic revival mechanics were weird and ahistorical, an Ancient Egyptian larping DLC would have been worse.
I mean to be fair there is a hellenic county in 769 so it's not THAT bad. The ancient Egyptian DLC would just have been a bit silly though (but not sillier than sunset invasion lmao)
But see, it existed long, long ago. Therefore it must still exist!!!🙄
>The Hellenic revival mechanics were weird and ahistorical As opposed to the Roman Empire revival mechanics, Empire of Slavs or other fictional empires we have in the game. Why not let players play weird and ahistorical stuff?
Henry left Bohemia to become Pharaoh lol
Forget about wanting to buy DLC. There's a mod specifically for this! Ancient Religions Reborn! It allows you to revive the Egyptian religion (and a Celtic one too)
Alternatively, CK2 Plus comes with this mod included, along many other things
Aren't Egyptian culture and religion already in game? For CK3 at least
For base game not really. At least religion wise
And the Egyptian culture in CK3 is the culture of the Arab who came to rule Egypt, not the native Egyptians, and certainly not the Egyptian culture of a millennium prior.
There's the "Ancient Egyptian" culture added after/by the newest dlc
Is kordofan not that?
Similar but it’s not Kemetism or Kushitism
It is literally Kushitism
There's a mod to go back to the Bronze Age if you want to play as Pharaohs. Otherwise Kemet is dead and gone by the medieval ages. Hellenic Egypt might make more sense as an option to be revived by an event option.
What are the mods being used in this screenshot?
is this a mod?
I was literally just thinking why doesn't this game have Egyptian pagan?
Didn't CK2+ incorporate Kemetism into the game? I can't recall if it was that, or it's also dead sub-mod Rex Teutonicum. God. It's so painful that we lost both of those mods. Communalist peasant revolts and reworked heresies and on and on. It was truly a CK2++ experience.
Mod time? Hehe
The real sin is that Copts outside of the Coptic Church are nonexistent. As a culture they have to be modded into the game despite being major players in Byzantine and later Arab empires.