Amidst all the madness of war, King George, the elections and such, perhaps we should have our own "festival of drunkenness". The ancient Egyptians had one, and it "celebrated nothing less than the salvation of humanity." We could use a little humanity right now. Fer sher.
In any event, the festival was, more or less, the earliest version of "sex, drugs and rock-n-roll". During the excavation of the Temple of Mut, archaeologists found numerous inscriptions referencing the festival. "We are talking about a festival in which people come together in a community to get drunk," [Johns Hopkins researcher Betsy Bryan] said. "Not high, not socially fun, but drunk — knee-walking, absolutely passed-out drunk." The Egyptians even had the ancient equivalent of designated drivers. Moreover, some of the inscriptions uncovered at the temple link the drunkenness festival with "traveling the marshes" , which is a polite way in ancient Egyptian of saying "doing the nasty". "The sexual connection is reinforced by graffiti depicting men and women in positions that might draw some tut-tutting today."
What the hell? It's almost Halloween, we can all dress up like Egyptians. Who's up for a par-tay?
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