Oedipus Tyrannus: The Entrapment of an Unescapable Destiny .

            

             In this paper I will present the similarities between Greek and Egyptian culture in their ways of religion and burial rites. Then I will attempt to illustrate the importance of religion, death and fate in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus.

             The Greek peninsula has been culturally linked with the Aegean Islands, and the west coast of Asia Minor since the Neolithic Age. Prehistoric Period Archeological evidence shows that a primitive Mediterranean people, closely related to races of northern Africa, lived in the souther Aegean area during that time. In The Histories of Herodotus , by E.H. Blankeney it is said that Herodotus believed that many Greek rituals and customs were inherited from the Egyptians as the Greek civilization developed. He recorded the wide range of religious practices he encountered in his travel, comparing the religious observances of various cultures, such as sacrifice and worship, with their Greek equivalent. He followed the cult practices of Serapis, which is the Greek name for the Egyptian god Osiris who ruled the underworld. He identified Isis with Demeter, the Greek goddess of earth, agriculture and fertility. In mythology many cultures believe that death is a journey. In Egyptian and Greek mythologies the dead are said to journey to another realm, which in Egyptian mythology is Osiris and in Greek mythology is Hades. .

             From Greek and Egyptian Mythologies by Yves Bonnefor it is said that the Greek view of death according to Homeric belief, when a person died, his of her vital breath or psyche left the body to enter the palace of Hades, king of the dead. The psyche once it had fled the body existed merely as a phantom image, perceptible but untouchable. The wall separating the living from the dead was virtually impenetrable. A concept of punishments for the wicked and rewards for the virtuous did not at first play a dominant role in what people believe awaited them beyond the grave.