Hassani flipped a hand. “Part of the Aztec creation myth. Likewise, the sun god of the current age, Huitzilopochtli, was conceived on Mount Coatepec, ‘Serpent Hill’, and held a scepter in the form of a snake. And in Toltec mythology, the sky is symbolized by the sun god looking out of the jaws of a snake.”
“That’s . . . very interesting,” I lied. I wanted to run across the hall, to examine a voluptuous version of the cat goddess Bastet, who was wearing a net-like dress that concealed basically nothing, but appeared to be woven out of genuine diamonds. They weren’t faceted like modern stones, but they caught the light in unmistakable ways, casting dancing prisms all around her, which I thought low-key hilarious.
It could have been a coincidence, but I liked to think that some ancient sculptor had enjoyed the idea of her chasing the lights cast by her own dress.
“It is, isn’t it?” Hassani smiled at me. “For their part, the Maya worshipped Kukulkan, a divine snake that served as a messenger between the king and the gods. He is still remembered among the modern Maya as a pet of the sun god.”
“Fascinating.”
“And we find the same sort of thing in other mythological traditions. The Babylonian god Marduk, a child of their sun deity, vanquished the great snake Tiamat and used her flesh to make the world. He also had as a companion and protector a "furious serpent" known as Mushussu. Indra, the sun god of the Hindu pantheon, likewise fought and defeated the great serpent Ahi.”
“You don’t say,” I said, wondering how I ended up in this conversation, and how I was supposed to get out. There was so much to see, but Hassani was fixated on snakes for some reason.
“Then there was Apollo—god of the sun to the ancient Greeks—who defeated the Python at Delphi, which afterward became one of his symbols. That is why the staff of Asclepius, his son, has a snake entwined around it. Likewise, Helios, the god whom the Greeks identified with the sun disk itself, had a chariot pulled by serpents instead of horses. And Sulis-Minerva, the syncretism of a Celtic sun goddess and the Roman goddess of wisdom, had a snake for an emblem.”
I decided that it was just possible that Hassani’s devious plan was to bore me to death.
“But it was here where the most references are to be found,” he continued obliviously. “There were many snake gods in Egypt, either helping or opposing Ra. However, you see a difference over the dynasties. In the earliest records, snake gods are almost always seen as helpful to Ra, and many are depicted wearing his solar disk above their heads, linking them to him and his children.”
“His children?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
Hassani didn’t look at me that time, but something changed in the air. As if the rest of this had been a prelude, and we were finally getting down to business. Whatever the hell his business was.
“Do you know how the pharaohs justified their rule?” he asked, his voice deliberately light.
“Through armies, like everybody else?”
His lips quirked. “That, too. But it helped to have some other basis as well, or else the next person with an army could come in and have just as much legitimacy as you. In Europe, that basis was normally a particular bloodline: the British royal house still claims the throne by right of descent from William the Conqueror, for instance. In China, it was the Mandate of Heaven, the idea that the ruler was divinely appointed and, as long as he ruled well, the people were required to obey. Whereas in Egypt . . .”
Hassani, usually so loquacious, suddenly trailed off.
“In Egypt?” I prompted.
He had been staring up at the huge statue of Ra, which did tend to draw the eye. But now he shook himself slightly, and glanced at me. And his gaze was strange, almost . . . searching.
“They combined the two ideas,” he said, after a moment. “In pharaonic Egypt, it was said that the queen was visited by the god Ra, who impersonated her husband. And that her child was therefore a demigod, divinely appointed to rule over the population.”
“Divine right of kings taken to the next level,” I said dryly. “Not just appointed by a god, but sired by one.”
“Exactly so. Although in Egypt’s case, it wasn’t mere propaganda. The creature who ruled these lands before me was such a man.”