Forgotten Deity: Wepwawet

 

Wepwawet/ Upuaut/ Wep-wawet was a deity of war whose centre of the cult was Asyut in Upper Egypt. Translated, his name means opener of the ways and he is depicted as a man with the head of a wolf. His task was to clear the routes for the army so that they could proceed forward easily, which caused his name to be the opener of the ways. Later, he was called Ra and has gone up from the horizon, perhaps as the opener of the sky. In the later Egyptian funerary context, Wepwawet assists at the Opening of the mouth ceremony and guides the deceased into the netherworld. The difference between Wepwawet and Anubis is that Wepwawet has a grey or white head.

 

The Egyptians started believing in Wepwawet during the time of the Old Kingdom (2686 BC-2181 BC) but after some time, he became less and less popular and his tasks changed from being the opener of the ways to the opener of the mouth during funerals who ensured that the person would have the use of all his faculties in the afterlife. More recently, the name Wepwawet was given to a robot the investigates the “air shafts” in the Great Pyramid.

There are many differences between the Christian religion and the ancient Egypt religion but there were also many differences that made it easier for the Egyptian people to accept Christianity when it was brought to them in the first century A.D. Both for example believe that children are a blessing of God and that death is a transitional stage leading from the earth to another world where the afterlife lasts forever. The biggest difference between Christianity and the ancient Egyptian religion is that Christians believe in monotheism whereas the Egyptians were polytheistic. Another difference is that Ancient Egyptians spent their entire life and most of their wealth to prepare for the afterlife.  They constructed elaborate tombs and gathered all their worldly possessions to be buried with them.  They believed that they could literally take it with them into the next world, but Christians believe their reward will be in heaven.

 

In conclusion, it is obvious to see that the religion practised by ancient Egyptians and modern Christianity share some basic beliefs and practices but that there are also many big differences between them.

 

 

A day in the life of an Ottoman in 1478

Today was one of the worst days in our war against Albania. This morning, the 2ndcompany consisted of 180 men and we all were surprised when we heard that we would have to get into our uniforms as usually, Thursday is our free day. The Albanians had used the night to come closer to our camp. We were now only about 350 meters apart. When I left my tent in my uniform with my sabre to go and get my horse, I could see them all lined up, prepared to attack. The cavalry today consisted of Atan, Özdemir, Dokugan, Mirata and Çelik. We lined up next to the cavalry of the 3rdand the 7thcompany which had a lot more horse riders left than we had, and I became a bit sad when I thought about all the good men that once rode next to me on their horses. About ten minutes later, Mehmed II, the Ottoman sultan gave us the order to attack and so we did. I do not exactly remember what happened in the next few hours as I was driven by the adrenaline that was pumping through my veins, but eventually, we took over their camp. Slowly, everything went back to normal. I had a shower, washed my uniform in the closest river and looked after my horse. As the sun went down, I went to the cook of my company and only realised then, how many people my company had lost today although we conquered the Albanians. We were 180 men this morning and came back with 76. From the six people that built the cavalry, only two were left. Özdemir and me. But the many losses also had a good side. Every man that was left from the 2ndcompany, became a double portion. Later this evening, I wrote a letter to my mother in which I did not tell her about the horrible losses but instead only focussed on the fact that we had successfully conquered the Albanians. Then, I fell asleep and hoped that the next day would be a better one.

Christs Hospital failed at encouraging creative thinking

I do not completely agree with this statement, but before I explain, to what extent Christ’s Hospital failed at encouraging creative thinking, I want to explain what creative thinking is. I think that creative thinking means to look at something in a different kind of way and even from another perspective. Very often it is referred to as thinking outside of the box and to step out of someone’s comfort zone to experience these other ways of thinking.

On the one side, Christ’s Hospital helped to encourage creative thinking through various ways. First of all, there are the subjects that require you to be creative such as Art, Theory of Knowledge and languages where it is obvious. Beside the obvious subjects, in which creativity is required, I think that you need to be creative in all subjects, no matter whether it is a science, a humanity or a language. I think that thinking creative is a part of our every day lives in Christ’s Hospital although the teachers might not tell us when we are thinking in a creative way. As an example, I think that everyone is looking at everything in a different way and that we therefore are thinking creatively when we have discussions in class and talk about our different points of view when we exchange our different perspectives. IB students are especially required to think creatively as it is part of their learners profile and as it makes a part of the CAS-Program that is an essential part of the IB.

On the other hand, Christ`s Hospital is also failing to encourage creative thinking. Before you go to school, you had a much wider range of imagination and you were constantly questioning the world that surrounds you. In school, the teachers tell you that creativity is a good characteristic to have but that you should also stop living in your “dream world” and arrive in the reality and then you stopped to question the world and instead just go with the flow. At school, everyone is taught how to do something perfectly and properly but this is exactly the opposite of creative thinking.

To sum up, this means that Christ’s Hospital is doing both, encouraging creative thinking and discouraging it. I think that Christ’s Hospital should make it more clear, how important “thinking outside of the box is” so that the students pay more attention to it and are more motivated to do this.

 

The number 13 and why people believe that it is an unlucky number

Some people are scared of the number 13. As an example, many people ty to avoid having 13 guests at a dinner party or getting married at the 13thand many buildings do not have a 13thfloor.

 

But for what reason is the number 13 considered as being unlucky? Ans is there any proof for this?

 

Scientists say that “No data exists, and will never exist, to confirm that the number is an unlucky number” and that there is “Absolutely no reason to believe that any number can be considered as being lucky or unlucky. The scientists might be correct, but you also have to consider that only few bits of scientific research have been done on this.

 

In 1993, a British Medical Journal shows that the number 13 could be considered as being unlucky. The researchers behind the study analysed the traffic flow and the number of injuries or deaths from accidents on the London’s M25 motorway I the south. They conducted their analysis during the five months that the 13thfell on a Friday between 1990 and 1992. Their results were compared to the results of the Friday the 6thof the same months and found out that the risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent on the 13th.

 

Before the people who are afraid of the number 13 now say “I told you so” you have to bear in mind that the researchers did not mean their conclusion to be taken seriously.

 

In addition to this, the number 13 can also be an unlucky number because of its probability to be a winning lottery ball. Since 1994, the number 13 has only been drawn 120 times and therefore the unluckiest ball. The luckiest ball is the number 38, which has been drawn 182 times since 1994.

 

Another reason for the belief is that the betrayer of Jesus Christ, Judas Iscariot, was the 13thperson to sit at the table and therefore some people consider the 13 as being unlucky.

 

I personally think that there are no lucky or unlucky numbers and that they only exist in our heads. They might also only become lucky or unlucky if we make them as such.

My first Impressions of Theory of Knowledge

Before I had my first TOK lesson, I thought that it would just be a boring subject in which you don’t really have to listen just like in PSHE. But this turned out to be just the opposite. The first question that I had in my head was: “What is TOK all about?”. The answer to this question is that TOK is all about the procedure of gaining knowledge. But instead of asking you how much you know, it is all about when you are certain that you know something and why you know something.

 

In the last lessons we talked about the ways in which we can be certain to know something and how our senses can trick us into thinking that we know something although we clearly don’t. From my point of view, this is very interesting especially because it is something that we face in our everyday lives.

 

What I also found very interesting about this is the question why you should know something. Of course, you could argue that you need to know something to get good grades and to get an offer at a good university, but yet I think that there is so much more.

 

To sum up, I really look forward to finding more and more answers to this question on my journey through the Theory of Knowledge.