Djelibeybi
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Djelibeybi is a fictional country on Terry Pratchett's Discworld. It resembles Ancient Egypt.
Also called the Kingdom of the Sun and the Old Kingdom. Principal crops: melons, garlic and, since they are increasingly encroaching on the fertile agricultural land, pyramids.
The name "Djelibeybi" is a pun lost on most people outside the UK, playing on "Jelly baby", a popular British gummi sweet. The joke is compounded when Pratchett says that "Djelibeybi" means "Child of the Djel" (its main river; the line is a parody of Herodotus's famous claim that Egypt was the "gift of the Nile").
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[edit] Geography
Djelibeybi is two miles wide and 150 miles long and is on the Circle Sea coast of Klatch. Almost entirely underwater during the flood season and both threatened and protected on either side by stronger neighbours (Tsort and Ephebe). It was once great, but all that now remains is an expensive palace, a few dusty ruins in the desert, and the pyramids. The entire economic life of the country is, until after the events of Pyramids, devoted to building them. As a result, Djelibeybi is permanently bankrupt.
[edit] History
The kingdom is 7000 years old. In the Pyramid era, even the heat was old. The air was musty and lifeless, pressing like a vice. Time moved slowly in Djelibeybi, and even then only in circles. This was, once again, because of the pyramids. Pyramids slow down time and prevent decay, a fact known to ancient Egyptians and modern Southern Californians. So many had been built in the Old Kingdom, however, that their cumulative effect was to act as a temporal brake of major proportions. In fact (again until events chronicled in Pyramids) the thousands of pyramids in the necropolis, a city of the dead occupying some of the kingdom's best land and second only to Ankh-Morpork as the biggest city on the Disc, were actually preventing time from moving at all. The pyramids were acting as time accumulators, sucking in fresh time as it occurred and, around the sunset, flaring it off from their tips. As a result the kingdom spent thousands of years reusing the same day.
[edit] Religion
The country has an enormous number of local gods, unknown to the world outside. Its ruler, the Pharaoh, is also a god, although in human form. He wears a gold mask (the Face of the Sun) and during his official functions carries the Flail of Mercy, the obsidian Reaping Hook of Justice, the Honeycomb of Increase, the Asp of Wisdom, the Sheaf of Plenty, the Gourd of the Water of the Heavens, the Three-Pronged Spear of the Waters of the Earth, the Cabbage of the Vegetative Increase and the Scapula of Hygiene. He may well lose points for dropping any of these (a reference to the game "Double or Drop" in the BBC children's show Crackerjack). Under the current ruler, Queen Ptraci I, it is quite likely that the mask has been sold and the money spent on plumbing.
[edit] Gods
- See also: Discworld gods
Most of Djelibeybi's gods were likely to have been invented by the High Priest Dios. Paradoxically, many of them exclusively perform the same godly duties. They include:
- Bast - The cat-headed God of Things Left on the Doorstep or Half-digested Under the Bed. The name is shared with the historical Egyptian cat-goddess more typically known as Bast, but Discworld's Bast is a male while real-world Egyptian Bast is a female. Terry Pratchett has also mentioned Bast with regard to his theory of cat-naming in The Unadulterated Cat; that a cat's name is for shouting, and should be short, sharp and sound somewhat like invective. He is mentioned in Pyramids and appears in The Last Hero.
- Bin - The Supreme God.
- Bunu - The goat-headed God of Goats.
- Cephnet
- Chefet - The dog-headed God of Metalwork. He carries a hammer and is known as the maker of rings and the weaver of metal.
- Cephut - The God of Cutlery. At the wedding of Peloria and Theta, Cephut started an argument with Patina over the Golden Falchion. Mentioned in Pyramids and Discworld Noir.
- Dhek - The Supreme God.
- Fon - The Supreme God.
- Fhez - The crocodile-headed God of the Lower Djel. An animosity is shared between him and Tzut.
- Gil - The Sun God.
- Hast - The Supreme God.
- Hat - The vulture-headed God of Unexpected Guests.
- Herpetine Triskeles - The sole ruler of the world of the dead, possibly based on Hermes Trismegistus.
- Jeht - The Boatman of the Solar Orb.
- Juf - The cobra-headed God of Papyrus.
- Ket - The ibis-headed God of Justice, probably based on Thoth.
- Khefin - The Two-Faced God of Gateways, perhaps inspired by Janus. The last known High Priest of Khefin was the bald-headed Hoot Koomi, who served during the Year of the Cobra.
- Nept - The Night Sky Goddess whose blue naked body stretches over the heavens.
- Nesh - The Goddess of the Sun and blower of the spinning blue soap bubble which is the sky. The secret rituals of the Smoking Mirror hold that the sun was in fact merely a round hole in the soap bubble which opened into the fiery real world beyond, and that the stars were the holes that the rain came through.
- Net - The Supreme God.
- Orexis-Nupt - The sole ruler of the world of the dead.
- Ptooie - The Supreme God.
- Put - The lion-headed God of Justice. He is often depicted holding a pair of scales.
- Sarduk - The Goddess of Caves. One of the older goddesses, whose female worshippers are known to "get up to no good" in sacred groves.
- Sessifet - The naked blue Goddess of the Afternoon, also appears in The Last Hero and Discworld Noir.
- Set - The Supreme God.
- Silar - The catfish-headed God who alone rules the world of the dead.
- Sot - The Supreme God.
- Syncope - The sole ruler of the world of the dead.
- Scrab - A giant dung beetle known as the Pusher of the Ball of the Sun.
- Teg - The easily amused horse-headed God of Agriculture.
- Thrrp - The Charioteer of the Sun.
- Tzut - The snake-headed God of the Upper Djel. An animosity is shared between him and Fhez.
- What - This Sky Goddess was believed to eat the sun every evening, but save and plant one pip in time to grow a fresh sun for the next day.
- Vut - The bad smelling, 70 foot tall, dog-headed God of the Evening.
- Yay - Whose eye is the sun, toiling across the sky in his endless search for his toenails.
- The Djelibeybians also recognize Blind Io as the Supreme God.
