Some books for you

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Some books for you

• Cyril Aldred. The Egyptians
• Sir Alan Gardiner. Egypt of the Pharoahs
• B.G. Trigger. Ancient Egypt A Social History
• Mariam Lichteim, ed. Ancient Egyptian Literature
• Ange-Pierre Leca. The Egyptian Way of Death
  Mummies and the Cult of the Immortal.
• I.E.S. Edwards. The Pyramids of Egypt.
• Manfred Lurker. The Gods and Symbols of Ancient
  Egypt
• Byron E. Shafer, ed. Religion in Ancient Egypt
• The Cambridge Ancient History\

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More Great Books

• Cyril Aldred. Akhenaten. King of Egypt.
• Donald B. Redford. Akhenaton. The Heretic King
• Miroslav Verner. The Pyramids. Their Archaeolgy
  and History
• John A. Wilson. The Culture of Ancient Egypt
• James E. Harris and Kent R. Weeks. X-raying the
  Pharoahs
• Barbara Mertz. Red Land, Black Land
• Barbara Mertz. other books
• Barry Kemp. Ancient Egypt. Anatomy of a
  Civilization
• Donald B. Redford. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in
  Ancient Times

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Ancient Egypt

• app. 10,000 sq. miles
• the same as Sumer and Akkad
• radically different in shape
• a ribbon of fertile land 600 miles long
• half a dozen miles wide for most of its length
• compared to 165 miles in Mesopotamia

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Egypt, cont

• more arid and more fertile than Mesopotamia
• divided into two parts
• the Delta (Lower Egypt) and the Upper Nile
• south, not north is the important direction

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Earliest Villages ??

• 4500 B.C.??
• but recent studies may push it back
• one thousand years or more

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Two Kingdoms, 3,500 B.C.

• two kingdoms
• upper and lower Egypt
• same culture
• same language
• same gods

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Unification

• tradition is the only source
• Date? around 3000 (3200?) B.C., or so....
• Menes (Namar) the first pharaoh
• reigned for 62 years
• killed by a hippopotamus (ah, well...)

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The Pallette of Narmer There is a reproduction
in the McClung Museum in Knoxvilleif you want to
see it
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Reverse side of the pallette of Narmer
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Palermo Stone Listing the early dynasties,
including the so-called 0 Dynasty.
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Culture and Civilization

• Egyptian culture distinctive and peculiar
• already set prior to unification
• continued to evolve through the Old Kingdom
  period
• by the Pyramid Age (3-4th dynasties, ca. 2700
  B.C.)
• it was set and would not change for 2,000 years

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Origins of Egyptian Civilization

• sui generis ??
• diffusion from Mesopotamia ??
• and how do you tell, anyway ??
• writing ??
• cylinder seals ??

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Formative Period

• ended by 2700 B.C.
• theocratic
• highly centralized government
• Primary Phase, which will last about 1,000 years

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Approximate dates

• Archaic Period (3100-2660
• The Old Kingdom (2660-2200 B.C.)
• First Intermediate Period (2200-2000 B.C.)
• The Middle Kingdom (2000-1800 B.C.)
• Second Intermediate Period (1800-1500 B.C.)
• The New Kingdom (1500- 1100 B.C.?)

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Comparison and Contrast with Babylon

• profound differences
• because of environmental conditons
• Mesopotamia open to invasion
• Egypt isolated by geography
• invasion as culturally stimulating ????

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C. and C., cont

• effects on Egypt positive and negative
• E. culture perfectly adapted to the environment
• lines of development logical and obvious
• evolutionary manimums reached early in the
  culture
• Egyptian culture static, outwardly opposed to
  innovation

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Agriculture

• depended on irrigation
• nationally controlled
• annual flooding of the Nile (Gift of the Nile)

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Transportation

• Mesopotamia wheeled vehicles and boats
• Egypt boats (The Nile as Highway)
• sailboats still a major means of transportation
• Old and Middle Kingdom wheeled vehicles rare

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Architecture

• lacks timber
• used mud-brick
• main building STONE

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Sculpture

• early and sophisticated development
• human figures and archicectural forms
• led to great expertise in painting and other
  representational arts

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Writing

• hieroglyphic scripts
• for architectural and monumental purposes
• hieratic and demotic scripts
• papyrus paper

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Papyrus text
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Hieroglyphics On a temple
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Making papyrus
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A cursive scriptfor when you are in a hurry
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Other Features

• wheat, instead of barley
• cattle and poultry
• flax
• slavery virtually unknown
• high degree of social mobility

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Dynastic Chronology

• Egyptians divided their history into dynasties
• not always chronologically successive
• Manetho, gave the chronology to the Greeks
• the system is confusing, but maintained by
  Egyptologists

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Theocratic Government

• all Egyptian government was theocratic in form
• all power was concentrated in the Pharaoah
• the pharaoh was the head of a planned and
  organized economy
• modern comparisons ???

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The Nature of Kingship and Religion

• modern perceptions
• ancient ideas
• even politics had a religious base

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Unification

• the most important event in Egyptian history
• what role did Menes play in religion and politics
  ?
• how was unification maintained ?

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Egyptian Kingship

• Mesopotamian kings (and Hebrew)
• Semitic in their concepts
• acted as mediators between gods and the people

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Kingship, cont

• Pharaoh link between the gods and people
• Pharaoh divine
• his rule eternal and absolute
• Egypt was not just ruled for the gods
• but by a god

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Distinctions ?

• human vs. divine ??
• They could tell the difference
• in practice whoever held the throne was divine
• including women, foreigners, commoners

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The Pharaoh

• shed his impermanent and human status
• assumed the eternal and unchangeable divine
  status
• became the embodiment of the divine
• led a divinely unified Egyptian state

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Theory of the New State

• maat
• basis of justice and authority
• meaning truth, justice, order, righteousness,
  balance
• a cosmic or divine force for harmony and
  stability,
• dating from the beginning of time

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Maat Personified as a goddess
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Maat, cont

• good rule and administration embodied maat
• these confirmed, consolidated and perpetuated the
  rule of the Pharaoh
• this unified and stabilized the state

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Egyptian Religion

• each city had its patron deity
• emergence of national government caused some to
  be more important
• as dynasties changed, the primary gods changed
• why??

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Examples

• Memphis Ptah
• later, as the center of power changed, Re/Ra
• or Horus
• etc.

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Ptah
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Amun
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Atum
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Horus
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Osiris, god of resurection Also known, as the
Throne
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Isis Sister and wife of Osiris, mother of Horus
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Isis, with the child Horus Provides the
iconographic style for the later representations
of Mary and the baby Jesus
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Horns removed, the moon is dropped, behind the
head, to become the halo.
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Thoth The wisest of the gods, giver of writing,
knowing the true names of all things, including
the gods Sits with Osiris in the Hall of
Judgment.
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Udjat eye
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The Gods

• Mesopotamian gods mostly anthropomorphic
• Egyptian gods vary wildly
• animals, human, celestial bodies, etc.

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Cosmology

• Gods created Order out of Chaos
• various stories
• not mutually exclusive
• like the monotheistic religions

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Early Creation Story

• Atum
• primeval mound of mud (Annual inundation of the
  Nile?)
• godly masturbation (How do you get a date when
  there is nobody there but you?)
• generation of the gods

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Different Perspectives

• Mesopotamians pessimistic
• life is unpredictable, their gods unstable, their
  afterlife indistinct and undesirable
• Egyptian religion inspired confidence
• in the eternal, stable order of the universe

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Different Perspectives, cont

• divinely guided, rhythmic cycle of life and death
• and belief in a final, eternal bliss

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Egyptian religion

• extremely tolerant of difference
• extremely tolerant of many gods
• as opposed to, say.. Hebrew religion
• the principal deity (national/Pharoahs deity)
  allowed other gods to flourish
• the number is considerable

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Egyptian religion oddities

• overlap of functions
• syncretism
• expansion and contraction of cults
• amalgamation of cults
• worship of the Pharaoh was nationwide

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Religion as a Unifying Force

• Mesopotamia master-slave relationship
• Egypt gods conceived of as shepherd
• who cherish and care for the people

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Religion, cont

• probably the origins of the idea of
  Jehovah-as-shepherd
• especially in the Psalms
• which are pre-dated by Egyptian psalms
• Akhenatons Hymn to the Sun

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Permanence of the Cycle of Life

• everything was a cycle
• eternal, unchanging
• life and death
• continuous and rhythmic
• human life existed in a never-ending interchange
  of natural and universal elements

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The Gods

• immanent in nature
• existed in a sphere of divine activity
• consubstanital they are existent in everything

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The Temples

• controlled by temple corporations
• producing those things necessary for the god
• maintaining maat
• maintaining the very existence of the universe
  !!!!
• if they get slack, were screwed...in a major way

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The Idea of the Cosmos

• religious ideas rooted in a static and
  changeless universe
• influenced every aspect of Egyptian life
• influenced every aspect of Egyptian development
• gave very strong resilience to Egyptian culture
• survived virtually unchanged for 3,000 years

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The Pharonic State Ancient Economy

• the pyramid model
• pharaoh as capstone
• pharaoh as commander-in-chief
• pharaoh as royal administrator
• pharaoh as owner of Egypt

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The Pharonic State Corvee

• the annual inundation
• conscription for public works
• dependence on irrigation
• cooperate work essential

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Achievements of the Old Kingdom

• efficient, centralized authority
• astronomy, arithmetic, geometry
• medicine

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The Most Important

• Solar calendar
• pyramids
• belief in immortality

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Solar Calendar

• Egyptian solar calendar 3rd millennium B.C.
• Connected with the rising of Sothis
• the Dog Star (Sirius)
• companion of Orion

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Solar Calendar, cont

• length of the solar year and the rising of Sothis
  are virtually identical
• only a few minutes difference
• we get our solar calendar from the Egyptians
• by way of the Romans

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Pyramids

• Imhotep architect and developer of the calendar?
• Imhotep physician, architect, doctor, miracle
  worker, giver of wisdom
• designed the Step Pyramid of Zoser
• processor of the Pyramids of Giza

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Step pyramid of Zoser
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Djoser
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Imhotep Architect of the pyramidslater he
become a god
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The Broken Pyramid of Snefru
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The Bent Pyramid of Snefru
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The Red Pyramid of Snefru
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Pyramids, cont

• eternal home for the immortal pharaoh
• insured their divinity for all eternity

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Pyramids, cont

• Khufu, Khafre, Menkure
• Cheops, Cehphren, Mycerinus
• amazing architecture
• how?
• necropolis

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Belief in Immortality

• first to really develop the idea
• sophisticated consciousness
• another order of existence

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Map Showing Egypt, Nubia, And Kush
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Decline of the Old Kingdom

• Old Kingdom the most stable period
• the Pharaoh dominated life
• forestalled the emergence of provincial power
• but gradually lost power to royal officials
• gradual drying of the environment
• failure of the Nile to flood on time

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Decline of the Old Kingdom

• Pepi II ruled 94 years
• at his death rapid decline
• followed by Nitocris
• collapse of central power

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First Intermediate Period

• 2180-2050 B.C.
• localism, anarchy, short reigns, palace coups,
  assassinations
• seventy kings in seventy days
• reversal of established order
• dissolution of law and order
• disruption of trade and agricultual production

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The Middle Kingdom

• 2050-1800 B.C.
• united under the Eleventh Dynasty
• from Thebes, not Memphis
• followers of the god Amon
• elevated to the rank of primary god
• modern examples??

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The Middle Kingdom

• solidification of Egyptian borders
• military garrisons on the borders
• new office the vizier
• separate administrations of Upper and Lower Egypt
• suppression of the nobility rise of the middle
  class

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The Middle Kingdom

• decline with the Twelveth Dynasty
• Pharaoh Sobekeneferu
• beginning of the Second Intermediate

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Second Intermediate Period

• 1800-1570 B.C.
• Thirteenth and Fourtheenth Dynasties
• contemporaries
• invasion by the Hyksos
• Semitic peoples from Palestine
• Hyksos dynasty by 1650 B.C. (Fifteenth Dynasty)

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The New Kingdom

• rise of the Seventeenth Dynasty
• Thebes
• beginning of the imperial period
• reconquest of Egypt
• We had to destroy this village to save it.

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The New Kingdom

• 1570-1150 B.C.
• reaction to control by a foreign people
• policy of planned aggression
• create a buffer zone (cordon sanitare) in
  Palestine
• any modern examples ???

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Smenkarae Tao, who has seen better days
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The New Kingdom

• more cosmopolitian
• international trade
• large, professional army
• the usual bureaucracy

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Imperialism 18th Dynasty

• Thutmoses I
• Hatshueput I
• Thutmoses III
• conquest of an Asian Empire
• successor had problems

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Akhenation the Amarna Revolution

• worship of the Aton
• the solar disk
• elevated the worship of the Aton
• suspended the worship of other gods
• particularly Amon

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Amarna Revolution Political Terms

• struggle with the priests of Amon
• innovation vs. conservative stagnation
• monotheism ???
• henotheism / monolatry

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The Atenthe physical disk of the sun
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looking somewhat lesselongated
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Less elongated, but with a bit of gender-confusion
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The famous portrait bust of Nefertitti found
abandoned in the corner of a workshop in Amarna
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The happy couplestill with a seeming bit of
gender-confusion. And kind of homely
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Lost of Empire

• to Indo-European states
• emerging in Asia Minor and other areas

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King Tut

• Pharaoh Tutankhaten succeeded Akhenaten
• Restoration of the gods
• Probably murdered by a guy named Ay

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What he actually looked like, from a Forensic
CAT-scan reconstruction
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High Point

• Nineteenth Dynasty
• Rameses II
• pharaoh of the Exodus ??
• New Kingdom collapse
• ca. 1150 B.C.