In the primordial age when the gods walked the black earth of Egypt, there lived two brothers, Anubis the elder and Bata the younger. They lived in a house in the countryside where the Nile’s inundation brought life to the fields. Bata was a youth of extraordinary strength and virtue, possessing a spirit that seemed touched by the divine. He was a master of the fields, capable of tilling the land with such speed that it seemed the soil itself moved for him. He lived in harmony with his brother and his brother’s wife, serving as a pillar of their household. However, the peace of their home was shattered by the deceit of Anubis’s wife, who, after being rejected by the virtuous Bata, falsely accused him of a terrible crime to hide her own shame. This betrayal forced Bata to flee into the harsh wilderness, pursued by his brother who was blinded by anger. At the edge of the desert, Bata called upon the sun god Re-Horakhty to judge between them. The god, seeing the truth, created a river filled with crocodiles between the two brothers, allowing Bata to explain the truth of his innocence. To prove his purity and his devotion to his brother, Bata performed a symbolic act of self-sacrifice and declared his intention to go to the distant Valley of the Cedar, leaving his heart upon the highest flower of a cedar tree.
In the Valley of the Cedar, Bata lived a solitary existence as a hermit, far from the civilization of Memphis and the lush banks of the Nile. During this time, the Ennead, the great assembly of gods, looked down upon him with pity. Khnum, the potter god who fashions the bodies of humans from the clay of the Nile, decided that Bata should not be alone. Under the direction of Re-Horakhty, Khnum fashioned a woman of such staggering beauty that every goddess's grace resided within her. She was a being of perfection, yet her heart was fickle and shadowed. Bata took her as his wife, and for a time, they lived in the valley. However, the gods had warned Bata that the sea might steal her away. One day, a lock of her hair was indeed swept into the Mediterranean and carried by the currents to the laundry of the Pharaoh in Egypt. The scent of the hair was so divine that it permeated the King’s garments, leading the royal scribes and magicians to realize that it belonged to a daughter of the gods. The Pharaoh, consumed by curiosity and desire, sent his armies to find the owner of the hair. Eventually, through bribery and the promise of wealth, Bata's wife was convinced to leave the valley and join the Pharaoh in the capital city of Memphis. Fearing Bata’s strength and the magic of his heart, she revealed the secret of his survival to the King: that his life was bound to the cedar tree. At her request, the Pharaoh’s men cut down the great cedar, and when the flower fell to the ground, Bata’s heart grew cold, and he collapsed as if dead.
Back in Egypt, Anubis discovered that his beer had turned to foam and his wine was sour—the signs Bata had promised would signal his distress. Realizing his brother was in danger, Anubis traveled to the Valley of the Cedar. For three years, he searched for his brother’s heart among the debris of the fallen tree, finding only a seed-pod that seemed lifeless. In the fourth year, his persistence was rewarded when he discovered the heart of Bata. He placed it in a bowl of cool water, and as the parched organ soaked up the moisture, Bata’s spirit stirred. He returned to life, and the brothers embraced. But Bata was no longer content to live in exile. He devised a plan to return to Egypt and seek justice against those who had betrayed him. He told Anubis, 'Behold, I shall transform myself into a great sacred bull, one that bears all the holy marks of the Apis. You shall sit upon my back, and we shall go to the place where the King is, for I shall be the herald of Ptah and the pride of the nation.'