The Island of Enchantment (Egyptian myth)
"The Island of Enchantment," also known as "The Shipwrecked Sailor," is an ancient Egyptian tale originating from the Middle Kingdom, around 2133-1600 BCE. The narrative follows a high-ranking Egyptian official who returns home after a failed mission and is comforted by a comrade sharing his own story of survival after a shipwreck near the mysterious land of Punt. This companion recounts how he was cast ashore on a strange island, where he encountered a magnificent serpent. The serpent, who has suffered a great personal loss, reveals that the sailor will be rescued and offers him valuable gifts before he leaves the island.
The tale explores themes of survival, gratitude, and the enduring value of family, emphasizing the moral that familial bonds are more precious than material wealth. It also reflects ancient Egyptian cultural practices, maritime traditions, and trade, particularly with Punt, a region rumored to be rich in exotic resources. Scholars continue to debate the exact location of Punt, with potential candidates spanning regions near the Horn of Africa to Madagascar. This story is considered a precursor to later literary works featuring similar motifs of adventure and isolation.
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Subject Terms
The Island of Enchantment (Egyptian myth)
Author: Traditional
Time Period: 5000 BCE–2500 BCE
Country or Culture: Egypt
Genre: Myth
PLOT SUMMARY
A high-ranking Egyptian returns home after an unsuccessful mission to the south. He must now report to the pharaoh and is nervous about how his failure will be received. One of his comrades exhorts him to face the monarch with confidence and avoid stuttering; to encourage his companion further, the comrade tells the story of his own earlier voyage.
The unnamed companion once went on a mission bound for the pharaoh’s mines to the south. He sailed with 120 brave crewmen aboard a ship 180 feet long and 60 feet wide. As they neared shore in the land of Punt, the vessel was overtaken by a violent storm, and waves smashed the ship against the rocks. The narrator managed to cling to a piece of wooden flotsam and was cast ashore on the island, the only survivor of the shipwreck. For three days, the castaway rested and foraged, finding abundant food. In gratitude for being spared from death, he built a fire drill, kindled a blaze, and made burnt offerings to the gods.
Suddenly, the marooned sailor heard a thunderous sound. The ground shook and the trees bent. It was not another storm, as he feared, but a gigantic serpent, with golden scales and blue eyes and a three-foot beard. Thinking himself in the presence of a god, the sailor prostrated himself. The snake spoke, asking the sailor three times what he was doing on the island. The snake threatened the sailor with destruction if he did not answer, boasting it could spit fire. But the sailor was so terrified he could barely speak. The snake gently picked up the sailor in his huge fanged mouth and took him to his lair without biting him. The serpent again asked three times who brought him to the island.
Gathering his wits, the sailor told the serpent he was sole survivor of a shipwreck. The snake, mollified, predicted the castaway would remain on the island for four months before he was rescued. The serpent then told his own tragic tale: his whole family, seventy-five children and other relatives in all, were wiped out, burned up when a star fell on the island. The bearded serpent alone survived.
The sailor—sorrowed by the fate of his benefactor’s relatives, but relieved to learn his own destiny—promised to praise the serpent when he again reached civilization. He would have gifts brought and make burnt offerings to the serpent, as he would to any respected god. The serpent laughed, because he already had everything he needed. The snake told the man that, once he is rescued, he will never see the island again, saying that “it will become water” (Erman 34).
The unnamed companion tells the Egyptian missionary that everything the serpent foretold has come to pass. From a treetop, the marooned sailor spied a rescue ship. The serpent gave the man a wealth of parting gifts, including myrrh, kohl eye cosmetic, giraffes’ tails, elephant tusks, greyhounds, monkeys, apes, and other valuables. The sailor boarded the ship and, after two months, reached the palace of the pharaoh to present the treasures the serpent had given him. The monarch rewarded him in kind, making him a royal assistant. After finishing his tale, the royal assistant reminds the anxious missionary that he can still succeed despite bad luck. The assistant gives the nobleman a final piece of advice: be humble.
SIGNIFICANCE
“The Island of Enchantment,” variously known as “The Shipwrecked Sailor” and “The Sailor and the Serpent,” among other similar names, is drawn from a Middle Kingdom (ca. 2133 BCE–1600 BCE) papyrus dating from the early twentieth century BCE. The first known example of the exotic adventure motifs involving a sole survivor cast away on an island—the progenitor of such stories as the Odyssey, Robinson Crusoe, and Moby-Dick—the tale probably originated much earlier. The scribe mentioned at the end of the papyrus, Ameny, son of Amenyaa, was likely commissioned during the reign of Twelfth Dynasty founder Amenemhet I (1991 BCE–1962 BCE) to adapt the tale as in allusion to that pharaoh’s many profitable southern excursions. The scribe is said to have invented the literary framing device—an introduction and conclusion—bracketing the story’s main events.
Rumors about the mysterious land of Punt referred to in the papyrus had begun to circulate in Egypt by 3500 BCE. Egyptian expeditions to Punt were initiated by 2500 BCE and continued at least into the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1550 BCE–ca. 1292 BCE). More than five thousand years after its first mention, scholars still debate the location of Punt. Because of the flora that produced fragrant oils, exotic fauna, desirable spices, and incense enumerated in the story, the most common modern candidates for Punt are the regions around the Horn of Africa or the heel of the Arabian Peninsula, though some speculate that Punt may have lain as far south as the island of Madagascar.
Besides providing a glimpse into ancient Egyptian commerce and trade, “The Island of Enchantment” also hints at courtly protocol, outlines contemporary religious rituals, and offers a few details of bygone maritime practices in its mentions of moorings and parts of ships.
Perhaps most interesting and relevant to modern readers, the tale demonstrates that, despite more than five millennia, certain aspects of human nature have not significantly changed. After the shipwrecked sailor has told his story, the fabulous serpent relates his own poignant tale of the destruction of his entire family and a human child when a star (likely a meteorite) fell and incinerated them. The serpent urges the sailor, when he returns home, to immediately “embrace thy children and kiss thy wife and see thine house—that is the best thing of all” (Erman 33). That is the moral of “The Island of Enchantment,” as valid now as then: family is more precious than any treasure.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baroud, Mahmud. The Shipwrecked Sailor in Arabic and Western Literature: Ibn Tufayl and his Influence on European Writers. New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2012. Print.
Erman, Adolf, ed. “The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor.” The Ancient Egyptians: A Sourcebook of Their Writings. New York: Harper, 1966. 29–35. Print.
Goedicke, Hans. Studies in “The Instructions of King Amenemhet I for His Son.” San Antonio: Van Siclen, 1988. Print.
Robson, Eric. In Search of Punt: Queen Hatshepsut’s Land of Marvels. Trenton: Red Sea, 2007. Print.
Shaw, Ian, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. New York: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.
Weigall, Arthur. A History of the Pharaohs Volume II: From the Accession of Amenemhet I of the Twelfth Dynasty to the Death of Thutkose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty, 211 to 1441 B.C. Boston: Dutton, 1927. Print.