Riot Games took the idea of ancient Egyptian civilization to create the Shurima empire?
We all know that Shurima is a land inspired by legends of ancient Egypt. Through a series of events and updates, the plot system of Shurima lands more and more detailed, and also reveals more mysteries and the connection between this mysterious land and ancient Egypt – original its real life …
Shurima is a land on the continent of Valoran, in the southern part of the Great Partition. Contrary to the northern region, which concentrates many countries and cities with prosperous development, the land in the south makes people remember by the wild, ruined looks of the heavy destruction of the ancient war. In it, Shurima is the name of a vast desert with extremely harsh climate. There is almost no life here and there are only a few nomadic tribes living long ago, adventurers or grave hunters who specialize in finding and exploring ancient ruins, relics, or monsters hide in sand.
But no one knows that inside the ruins is a long story about a civilization, the most powerful empire that ever existed in the history of this land, even before the ancient war begin. A great empire protected by powerful entities called Sublimation, with the infinite power of magic. Over thousands of years, when mundane people dare to violate ancient ruins, that Empire once again becomes awake, bringing with it aura from the past, and even an omen some peace to the future. People often know it, and will have to mention it, with the name: Shurima Empire.
There are three characters of Shurima that are the most obvious representation of this fictional analogy with ancient Egypt: Azir, Nasus and Renekton:
Azir
The last emperor of the ancient Shurima Empire, with of many similarities with the god Ra – the sun god in beliefs of Egypt with the Sun Disk icon. Besides, the story of this general bears a lot of similarities with the most famous Pharaoh in Egyptian history: Tutankhamun.
Both were crowned when they were very young, both outstanding Pharaohs but they all had great ambitions. While Tutankhamun goes against an ancestral tradition by changing the worship of worship of Amun, instead of Aten like previous Pharaohs, Azir also has an unprecedented intention in Shurima history: to erase complete slavery.
And most especially, while Azir died of being harmed by Xerath, Tutankhamun was also a king who died at a very young age (19 years), and so far, the cause of death is still attributed to Assassinated. Now can you imagine the similarities of these two kings? Through these data, it can be concluded that Azir is a inspired by the life of Emperor Tutankhamun and god Ra in Egyptian mythology.
Nasus
Not only that, both Nasus and Renekton are also two characters that were inspired a lot from Egyptian gods. Experiencing a series of changes both in appearance and plot, there is a detail that has never been changed in the story of these two champions Nasus wisdom, hatred and bloodthirsty of Renekton.
Nasus’ appearance is inspired by the god Anubis (the god of the afterlife and the guardian of the mummy – or the god of death in the ancient Egyptian faith), but the title (Desert Wisdom House) as well as the character of this general has many similarities with the god Thoth – God of wisdom, the god who governs the source of knowledge and types of documents.
Renekton
Meanwhile, Renekton has shaped the inspiration from the god Sobek – God of the Nile River, the god of protection for the Corps, and the name of the butcher and plot plot is the same god Seth – The god of the desert, storms, chaos and war. In the newly updated storyline, Renekton is an immortal legend in the Shurima army with the responsibility of the army’s commander. And this detail is quite similar to the gods Sobek and Seth, which were originally related to the military and the war.
Taliyah
Lastly, Taliyah, she got more attention because of her relationship with Yasuo – 15GG, but there were some points to keep in mind about Taliyah’s information: First, she was a magician who could control rock. Second, she was born in a nomadic tribe that was once a slave to the ancient Shurima Empire.
This also explains why Taliyah was not very sympathetic to Azir and worried about Shurima’s return: it was because when Azir carried out the sublimation ritual, his declaration of freeing all slaves at Shurima was buried with the doomed disaster caused by Xerath, and the following generations of Shurima peoples remained unaware of the abolition of slavery, and they were concerned that the Azir’s return also means that the ancestor’s slave status will once again be imposed on people.
Taliyah was frightened by Azir’s return because she thought it meant that her people would once again become the Emperor’s slave.
Not knowing whether it was intentional or unintentional, but Riot created Taliyah with a set of skills and plot that are quite similar, as well as suggesting a lot of links to Egyptian civilization. Perhaps we all know that the ancient Egyptian structures still exist today such as the Great Pyramids or the Sphinx – all built by sweat and even the blood of those slave.
It is worth mentioning that the construction technique of the slaves of this period has reached the level that science cannot explain today, when they can put heavy stones from a few tons to a few dozens of tons up to hundreds of meters high to build giant pyramids. And speaking of this, many of you have already realized the problem, the Egyptian slaves are praised as “The best engineers, who have the ability to ‘control the rock’ to create long-lasting work with time “. (Some current theories suggest that those who built the Pyramid are not slaves, but this issue is still quite controversial.)
Besides Azir, Nasus, Renekton or Taliyah, the other characters are closely related to Shurima like Rammus, Ezreal, Sivir, Cassiopeia or Amumu, Skarner also brings stories related to Shurima.