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'Egyptologists' like to paint the picture that Kemetic High Culture sprang up suddenly with the 1st Dynasty of Menes/Aha around 3100 BCE (some say 4240 BCE). However, Kemetic accounts of their history date back around 33,000 to 52,000 years before the First Dynasty was founded.
One source is referred to as The Royal Papyrus of Turin, which lists all of the Kings who ruled Kemet from Menes through the New Kingdom of the 18th Dynasty. However, before this royal list, they have recorded the rule of Ten 'Neter' - Ptah, Ra, Shu, Geb, Asar, Set, Heru, Tehuti, Maat, and Heru who reigned on the planet. These Neter were said to have collectively ruled for 23,200 years.
Diodorus of Sicily, in his Library of History, says that Kemetic sources he spoke to chronicled a rule of Gods and Heroes that lasted 18,000 years. Divine Humans then ruled for a span of 15,000 years, for a span of 33,000 years of culture before the reign of Menes.
Herodotus chronicles a reign of 340 Dynasties of Kings and High Priests who ruled Kemet before Hellenistic occupation. He says that the Kemetic Priests he spoke to said, "...On four separate occasions, the Sun moved from its wonted course, twice rising where it now sets, and twice setting where it now rises...." This is reference to the Precession of the Equinoxes, a phenomena caused by the Earth's wobbly rotation. The wobble in the Earth's rotation causes the zodiacal constellations that are on the Eastern Horizon at Sunrise on the Equinox to change over time. It takes about 2,160 years for the Equinox sunrise to process through one sign, and about 25,690 years to move 360 degrees through all 12 signs of the Zodiac. This means that the Kemites have a chronology that dates back about 52,000 years (two full Precessions of the Equinox).
There is more: Manetho chronicles 15,150 years of 'Divine Dynasties and 9,777 years of mortal Kings before Menes. This totals 24,927 years of History. Another Kemetic chronologer of antiquity - George the Syncellus, recounts that the Kemites possessed a tablet that chronicled thirty dynasties preceded by a reign of Neter - all of which occurred during twenty-five "Sothic Cycles". Sothic Cycles are also known as the "Long Year", which records the movement of the helical rising of Sirius through the dates of the civil calendar. Every four years, the helical rising of Sirius (the day Sirius is on the Eastern horizon as the Sun rises) occurs one calendar day later. This occurs because a civil calendar year is 365 days; but a solar year is actually 365 ¼ days long. Therefore, if a 'leap year' were not incorporated into the civil calendar, solar events (Equinoxes/solstices/ helical risings of stars) would occur one day later every four years.
The Kemites tracked Sirius' helical rising as it moved through the civil calendar. They noted that if the helical rising occurred on July 23rd for example, it would take 1,461 years for the helical rising to occur on that date again. This 1,461-year period is the "Sothic Long Year".
25 times 1,461 years is approximately 36,525 years of chronicled History.
25 times 1,461 years is approximately 36,525 years of chronicled History.
However, within all of these chronicles, there is no mention of 'Atlantis'. From where does the Kemetic root origin of this word spring? Gerald Massey in Ancient Egypt: Light of the World explores the language of the Nile Valley for a root of the Greek term Atlantis. He says that Atlantis is a compound word composed of two Kemetic terms: Atl-Antu. Atl is associated with water, and implies a limit or boundary marked by water. Massey says that Antu denotes a measure of land, nome, or mound. Therefore, the seven islands of Atlantis were the seven nomes of Kemet; canals and/or rivers defined the boundaries of these city-states. Massey continues:
And among the nomes of Egypt we find the nome of the Prince of Annu; the nome of the Prince of Lower Egypt; the nome of Supti (Sut); the nome of Sanhutit (Heru); the nome of Sebek; the nome of Shu; the nome of Hapi. Here then, if anywhere on earth, we find a geographical prototype for the Atlantis that was lost in seven islands, according to the records kept by the astronomers, which are preserved in the mythography…
So, in this sense, the Antediluvian Land is the Nile Valley topography from its origins in the Great Lakes South all the way North to the Delta; and Atlantis refers to a time before the Flood Waters in Kemet.
Reaffirming this perspective is an account of a 'Great Deluge' in Kemetic tradition that clearly identifies the antediluvian geography. In the Book of Coming Forth By Day (Egyptian Book of the Dead), Chapter CLXXV recounts the Destruction of Mankind by Ra-Temu. Ra-Temu is dismayed at humanity because some rebels were plotting to overthrow his supremacy. He ascends above the Earth's surface in his 'Ark of a Million Years', and commanded Sekhet the heavenly lioness to unleash the waters of heaven and flood the planet. Sekhet does so, and the waters flood the seven nomes of mankind from Henensu in Upper Kemet (Edfu, the Greek Herakleopolis) all the way north to the nome of Lower Egypt.
There is archeological evidence that supports that the Nile Valley has been completely inundated. For example, seashells have been unearthed in the sands right by the Great Pyramid of Giza. Moreover, the Sphinx of Giza shows definite signs of water erosion, even though it never rains in the Nile Valley. The pattern and position of the erosion indicates that the lower portion of the Sphinx - from the base of the neck down - was under water.
If Upper and Lower Kemet were flooded out, the remnants of an antediluvian civilization would logically settle further South. The topography of the Nile Valley is such that the southern origins of the Nile are in highlands. The Nile descends - particularly abruptly at three cataracts/water falls - and travels through the high-plains of the Sudan north through the low-plains of Egypt to the Mediterranean. Throughout the many deluges that were mentioned by the priests of Sais to Solon, the Ethiopian highlands have been the safe harbor place where a seed of hue-manity could survive and replenish the earth. These Ethiopian highlands and Sudanese plains were also the home of the Antediluvian kings, or the Atlanteans. More than likely, the ancient city-states of Kerma, Napata and Meroe were the centers of Atlantean high culture.
MEROE
PYRAMID RUINS OF NAPATA
TESTAMENTS OF AN ATLANTEAN CULTURE IN THE HEART OF AFRICA!
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Plato's recounting of his encounter with the Kemetic Priests reaffirms this perspective:
O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is never an old man who is a Hellene. Solon, hearing this said, 'What do you mean?' 'I mean to say that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you the reason of this: there have been, and there will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes.... Great conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the sea-shore; and from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing saviour, saves and delivers us. (Emphasis added) When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country neither at that time nor at any other does the water come from above [rain] the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below [well up from within the Earth - Amen-ta], for which reason the things preserved here are said to be the oldest.....
Ta-Neter: The Kemetic Lemuria
Kemetic cosmology - the chronicling of creation and divine origins of humans - reveals more about Antediluvian High Culture. According to Kemetic tradition, their earliest ancestors were a people called the Anu. The Anu originated in the highlands of the Upper Nile region where the Blue and White Nile begin. The Anu, 'The Fish People', also known as "The Black-Headed", founded a nation in this Edenic region named Ta-Neter: Land of the Gods. The Kemites also called these regions Apta: 'The Summit of the Earth'. Apta is the Original Mountain of the Gods, the Kemetic Mount 'Hetep', the Hindu Mount Meru (Meroe), and the Greek Mount Olympus. This region is a vast plateau in modern Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Malawi, and Eastern Zaire. The average altitude of these regions is 5000 feet above sea level. The runoff of the Great Lakes in these regions is the source of the White Nile.
In Kemetic cosmology, Ta Neter is depicted as an Earthly paradise where the Hue-man Gods who lived there were immortal. This original Garden of Eden was a place where water and vegetation were in continual abundance. In this Kush oasis, fresh water perpetually wells up from Amen-ta - the Underworld.
According to the Kemetic Star Clock that measures the Precession of the Equinoxes, the Anu had to found Ta-Neter either 26,000 years ago or 52,000 years ago (Since the Anu are referred to as the 'Fish People', they probably founded their culture in the Age of Pisces, which last occurred from circa 26,000-24,000 years ago. The one prior was about 52,000 BCE).
Ta-Neter is more than likely the actual Lemuria - the very first antediluvian nation. Modern archeological and anthropological research into the origins of humanity all point to highland plateaus of Eastern Africa as the birthplace of humanity, verifying Kemetic chronicles and reaffirming the consistency of Lemuria being this land.
Ta-Seti: The Kemetic Atlantis
Kemetic cosmology chronicles that around 19,000 years ago, in the Age of Sagittarius according to the Precession of the Equinoxes, a nation called Ta-Seti was founded. Ta Seti literally means 'Land of Set'. It was also known as the 'Land of the Bow' and its icon symbol was the arched bow.
The land of the Bow was in Eastern-Central Africa north of Ta-Neter, but still south of Kemet Proper. This region of the White Nile begins when the 'Mountain Nile' of Ta Neter runs down to the plains of the Sudan. This begins abruptly at the sixth cataract, near modern-day Khartoum, Sudan. Ta-Seti extended north to around the 1st-2nd cataract, this northern extension ending at the southern frontier of Kemet.
More than likely, the nation of Ta-Seti is the mythical Atlantis. Several classical sources lend credence to this. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, says that the Ethiopians were originally known as the Atlantae.
As stated, much of what is known about Atlantis in the West comes from the accounts of Aristotle and Solon, the well-known Greek philosophers. Solon learned of Atlantis while studying with the priests of Sais - the school of priests within lower Kemet. The Priests relate to Solon that about 9000 years prior to Hellenistic times, a mighty nation arose which practically conquered the whole world. Its territory stretched throughout the entire African continent (Libya from the Straits of Hercules in the West to Kemet in the East). This nation also consumed "the whole of Europe and Asia".
According to Solon, the progenitor of Atlantis was a God: Poseidon. He mated with a mortal human and begot ten children. The last of the ten was named Atlas, whom became an immortal king over Atlantis. Solon said that for a long time, the Atlanteans were righteous. However, over time, they grew vain, weak, and greedy. It is said that Poseidon created a large island over the Atlantic Ocean for the rulers of Atlantis to reign from. They built elaborate palaces and temples that were covered in gold, silver, tin, and brass. The Atlanteans dug all manner of metal and stone from the Earth, including a special stone named orichalum. They were aggressive warriors with advanced technologies, and exploited the entire planet.
The God Zeus grew vex with Atlantean exploits, and in one day destroyed its world supremacy: "...Afterward there occurred violent earthquakes and floods, and in a single day and night of rain...the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared, and was sunk beneath the sea..."
Comparing Greek mythoforms to their original cosmological characters in Kemet, Poseidon corresponds to Nun: The male ruler of celestial and terrestrial waters. Nun was the national deity of the Nile Valley in distant antiquity, around 21,730-19,570 BCE during the Age of Capricorn according to the Precession of the Equinoxes. The Age of Capricorn is the Age prior to the Age of Sagittarius, (the Precession of the Equinoxes travels retrograde - backward through the zodiac) the age in which Ta-Seti (Land of the Bow) emerged. Therefore, Nun (Poseidon), being ruler of the previous age, is considered the Father of Atlas (Atlantis/Ta-Seti).
Therefore, it can be deduced from Solon's account of Atlantis that Ta-Seti was founded in the Age of Sagittarius, around 19,500 BCE. The nation was righteous for close to 10,000 years, at which time it grew corrupt, culminating in the catastrophic events Solon says occurred around 9000 years prior to Grecian times.
9000 years prior to Solon's age is about 9500 BCE. According to the Precession of the Equinoxes, this time frame would fall within the Age of Leo.
Placing a cataclysmic flooding in this Age would shed light on one of the great mysteries about Kemet: The Sphinx. The Sphinx is a Lion-Headed monolithic (one stone) monument found near the Great Pyramid complex in Giza, Lower Kemet. It is a known fact that the Sphinx was not constructed during Pharaohnic Kemet. It would be anachronistic (out of synch with time) to create a Lion-Headed edifice in the Age of Taurus, when Pharaohnic Kemet was founded. All edifices of this age were made in the image of a Bull, calf or cow. Moreover, there are no references to the Sphinx at all during the Early and Middle Kingdom Periods. It is not until the 18th Dynasty that Tutmosis IV had a dream in which the 'Khar' revealed himself and asked him to unearth him. Tutmosis did so and excavated the buried temple. He recorded the deed on a stone tablet around 1400 BCE, and this if the 1st reference to the Khar since Menes founded Kemet around 4240BCE.
Furthermore, it was stated that the erosion visible on the Khar is clearly caused by water, not sand or wind. Sand and wind erosion would cause randomly placed spots of erosion that would be most prevalent at the top of the structure. However, the sphinx has striated (lined) patterns of erosion that starts from the bottom and rises to the top. Only continual submersion in waves of water causes this type of erosion. Add to this that sea shells are found in the sand around this temple, it is almost conclusive that about 11,000 years ago - in the Age of Leo according to the Precession of the Equinoxes - there was a highly advanced culture in the Nile Valley that was submerged in a flood and subsequently buried in seas of sand.
Ancient Kemet
Egypt was without question the first great civilization in Africa. Surrounded by the hostile desert, Egypt arose as a populous settlement as a "gift of the Nile River," which flooded surrounding plains and thus supported game and wild plants. Straddling the strategic land crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe, Egypt also became a point for interchange between the Mediterranean and Red seas and the Persian Gulf. Many developments affecting the rest of Africa took place in or near the Nile Valley, such as the cultivation of plants and the development of metal smelting. Thus, Egypt's major role in forming early African civilizations has been well established.
In modern times, scholars often underestimated the contributions of ancient Egypt to European civilization. More than two millennia ago, when the Ptolemaic Greeks came to rule Egypt, they extensively adopted and interpreted Egyptian spiritual, material, political, aesthetic, and intellectual systems. Although later Greek authorities freely acknowledged their cultural debt to Egypt, during the nineteenth century many European writers, limited by their ethnocentrism and racism, decided that black Africa could have had nothing to do with Europe's rise to greatness. Some treated Egypt as Middle Eastern and divorced it from the rest of Africa, whereas others went further, asserting the preeminence of northern Aryan sources of Greek civilization to the virtual exclusion of Semitic, African, and Egyptian influences.
Beginning in ancient times, Egypt was a genuine crossroads of peoples and cultures, and its peoples were multiethnic and multiracial, as depicted in dynastic drawings of their rulers. They came from as far way as Asia Minor and Nubia, in the upper Nile Valley. As a prosperous, advanced society with an enviable commercial and strategic location, Egypt attracted many conquerors who would come with their booty and advance technology. In the past three millennia, for example, Egypt has been ruled by the Kushites, Libyans, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Christians, Arabs, Turks, French, and English. as a prime cradle of human development, in some sense Egypt indeed belongs to all peoples.
The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization. Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120 thousand years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the region.
Predynastic period
In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated.
By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Northern) Egypt, the Badari which probably originated in the Western Desert, was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper.
In Northern Egypt, the Badari was followed by Amratian and Gerzean cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements. In Gerzian times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast.
In southern Egypt, the Naqada culture, similar to the Badari, began to expand along the Nile by about4000 BC. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. Over a period of about 1,000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. Establishing a power center atHierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the white crown of Egypt and falcon.
The Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory. They also developed a ceramic glaze known asfaience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually evolved into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language.
Early Dynastic Period (c. 3050 –2686 BC)
The 3rd century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. He chose to begin his official history with the king named "Meni" (or Menes in Greek) who was then believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt(around 3100 BC). The transition to a unified state actually happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers would have us believe, and there is no contemporary record of Menes. Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have actually been the pharaoh Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial Narmer Palette in a symbolic act of unification. In the Early Dynastic Period about 3150 BC, the first of the Dynastic pharaohs solidified their control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which they could control the labor force and agriculture of the fertile delta region as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the pharaohs during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified pharaoh after his death. The strong institution of kingship developed by the pharaohs served to legitimize state control over the land, labor, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization.
Writing Egyptian hieroglyphs and Hieratic
Hieroglyphic writing dates from c. 3000 BC, and is composed of hundreds of symbols. A hieroglyph can represent a word, a sound, or a silent determinative; and the same symbol can serve different purposes in different contexts. Hieroglyphs were a formal script, used on stone monuments and in tombs, that could be as detailed as individual works of art. In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, calledhieratic, which was quicker and easier. While formal hieroglyphs may be read in rows or columns in either direction (though typically written from right to left), hieratic was always written from right to left, usually in horizontal rows. A new form of writing, Demotic, became the prevalent writing style, and it is this form of writing—along with formal hieroglyphs—that accompany the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone.
Around the 1st century AD, the Coptic alphabet started to be used alongside the Demotic script. Coptic is a modified Greek alphabet with the addition of some Demotic signs. Although formal hieroglyphs were used in a ceremonial role until the 4th century, towards the end only a small handful of priests could still read them. As the traditional religious establishments were disbanded, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was mostly lost. Attempts to decipher them date to the Byzantine and Islamic periods in Egypt, but only in 1822, after the discovery of the Rosetta stone and years of research by Thomas Young andJean-François Champollion, were hieroglyphs almost fully deciphered.
Ancient Egyptian literature
Writing first appeared in association with kingship on labels and tags for items found in royal tombs. It was primarily an occupation of the scribes, who worked out of the Per Ankh institution or the House of Life. The latter comprised offices, libraries (called House of Books), laboratories and observatories. Some of the best-known pieces of ancient Egyptian literature, such as the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, were written in Classical Egyptian, which continued to be the language of writing until about 1300 BC. Later Egyptian was spoken from the New Kingdom onward and is represented in Ramesside administrative documents, love poetry and tales, as well as in Demotic and Coptic texts. During this period, the tradition of writing had evolved into the tomb autobiography, such as those of Harkhuf and Weni. The genre known as Sebayt(Instructions) was developed to communicate teachings and guidance from famous nobles; the Ipuwer papyrus, a poem of lamentations describing natural disasters and social upheaval, is a famous example.
The Story of Sinuhe, written in Middle Egyptian, might be the classic of Egyptian literature. Also written at this time was the Westcar Papyrus, a set of stories told to Khufu by his sons relating the marvels performed by priests. The Instruction of Amenemope is considered a masterpiece of near-eastern literature. Towards the end of the New Kingdom, the vernacular language was more often employed to write popular pieces like the Story of Wenamun and the Instruction of Any. The former tells the story of a noble who is robbed on his way to buy cedar from Lebanon and of his struggle to return to Egypt. From about 700 BC, narrative stories and instructions, such as the popular Instructions of Onchsheshonqy, as well as personal and business documents were written in the demotic script and phase of Egyptian. Many stories written in demotic during the Graeco-Roman period were set in previous historical eras, when Egypt was an independent nation ruled by great pharaohs such as Ramesses II.
Culture
Daily life
Most ancient Egyptians were farmers tied to the land. Their dwellings were restricted to immediate family members, and were constructed of mud-brick designed to remain cool in the heat of the day. Each home had a kitchen with an open roof, which contained a grindstone for milling flour and a small oven for baking the bread. Walls were painted white and could be covered with dyed linen wall hangings. Floors were covered with reed mats, while wooden stools, beds raised from the floor and individual tables comprised the furniture.
The ancient Egyptians placed a great value on hygiene and appearance. Most bathed in the Nile and used a pasty soap made from animal fat and chalk. Men shaved their entire bodies for cleanliness; perfumes and aromatic ointments covered bad odors and soothed skin. Clothing was made from simple linen sheets that were bleached white, and both men and women of the upper classes wore wigs, jewelry, and cosmetics. Children went without clothing until maturity, at about age 12, and at this age males were circumcised and had their heads shaved. Mothers were responsible for taking care of the children, while the father provided the family's income.
Music and dance were popular entertainments for those who could afford them. Early instruments included flutes and harps, while instruments similar to trumpets, oboes, and pipes developed later and became popular. In the New Kingdom, the Egyptians played on bells, cymbals, tambourines, drums, and imported lutes andlyres from Asia. The sistrum was a rattle-likemusical instrument that was especially important in religious ceremonies.
The ancient Egyptians enjoyed a variety of leisure activities, including games and music. Senet, a board game where pieces moved according to random chance, was particularly popular from the earliest times; another similar game wasmehen, which had a circular gaming board. Juggling and ball games were popular with children, and wrestling is also documented in a tomb at Beni Hasan. The wealthy members of ancient Egyptian society enjoyed hunting and boating as well.
The excavation of the workers' village of Deir el-Madinah has resulted in one of the most thoroughly documented accounts of community life in the ancient world that spans almost four hundred years. There is no comparable site in which the organisation, social interactions, working and living conditions of a community were studied in such detail.cient Egyptian cuisine
Egyptian cuisine remained remarkably stable over time; indeed, the cuisine of modern Egypt retains some striking similarities to the cuisine of the ancients. The staple diet consisted of bread and beer, supplemented with vegetables such as onions and garlic, and fruit such as dates and figs. Wine and meat were enjoyed by all on feast days while the upper classes indulged on a more regular basis. Fish, meat, and fowl could be salted or dried, and could be cooked in stews or roasted on a grill.
Ancient Egyptian architecture
The architecture of ancient Egypt includes some of the most famous structures in the world: the Great Pyramids of Giza and the temples at Thebes. Building projects were organized and funded by the state for religious and commemorative purposes, but also to reinforce the power of the pharaoh. The ancient Egyptians were skilled builders; using simple but effective tools and sighting instruments, architects could build large stone structures with accuracy and precision.
The domestic dwellings of elite and ordinary Egyptians alike were constructed from perishable materials such as mud bricks and wood, and have not survived. Peasants lived in simple homes, while the palaces of the elite were more elaborate structures. A few surviving New Kingdom palaces, such as those in Malkata and Amarna, show richly decorated walls and floors with scenes of people, birds, water pools, deities and geometric designs. Important structures such as temples and tombs that were intended to last forever were constructed of stone instead of bricks. The architectural elements used in the world's first large-scale stone building, Djoser's mortuary complex, include post and lintel supports in the papyrus and lotus motif.
The earliest preserved ancient Egyptian temples, such as those at Giza, consist of single, enclosed halls with roof slabs supported by columns. In the New Kingdom, architects added the pylon, the open courtyard, and the enclosed hypostyle hall to the front of the temple's sanctuary, a style that was standard until the Graeco-Roman period. The earliest and most popular tomb architecture in the Old Kingdom was the mastaba, a flat-roofed rectangular structure of mudbrick or stone built over an underground burial chamber. The step pyramid of Djoser is a series of stone mastabas stacked on top of each other. Pyramids were built during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, but most later rulers abandoned them in favor of less conspicuous rock-cut tombs. The 25th dynasty was a notable exception, as all 25th dynasty pharaohs constructed pyramids.
The ancient Egyptians produced art to serve functional purposes. For over 3500 years, artists adhered to artistic forms and iconography that were developed during the Old Kingdom, following a strict set of principles that resisted foreign influence and internal change. These artistic standards—simple lines, shapes, and flat areas of color combined with the characteristic flat projection of figures with no indication of spatial depth—created a sense of order and balance within a composition. Images and text were intimately interwoven on tomb and temple walls, coffins, stelae, and even statues. The Narmer Palette, for example, displays figures that can also be read as hieroglyphs. Because of the rigid rules that governed its highly stylized and symbolic appearance, ancient Egyptian art served its political and religious purposes with precision and clarity.
Ancient Egyptian artisans used stone to carve statues and fine reliefs, but used wood as a cheap and easily carved substitute. Paints were obtained from minerals such as iron ores (red and yellow ochres), copper ores (blue and green), soot or charcoal (black), and limestone (white). Paints could be mixed withgum arabic as a binder and pressed into cakes, which could be moistened with water when needed. Pharaohs used reliefs to record victories in battle, royal decrees, and religious scenes. Common citizens had access to pieces of funerary art, such as shabti statues and books of the dead, which they believed would protect them in the afterlife. During the Middle Kingdom, wooden or clay models depicting scenes from everyday life became popular additions to the tomb. In an attempt to duplicate the activities of the living in the afterlife, these models show laborers, houses, boats, and even military formations that are scale representations of the ideal ancient Egyptian afterlife.
Despite the homogeneity of ancient Egyptian art, the styles of particular times and places sometimes reflected changing cultural or political attitudes. After the invasion of the Hyksos in the Second Intermediate Period, Minoan-style frescoes were found in Avaris. The most striking example of a politically driven change in artistic forms comes from the Amarna period, where figures were radically altered to conform to Akhenaten's revolutionary religious ideas. This style, known as Amarna art, was quickly and thoroughly erased after Akhenaten's death and replaced by the traditional forms.
Religious beliefs Ancient Egyptian religion
Beliefs in the divine and in the afterlife were ingrained in ancient Egyptian civilization from its inception; pharaonic rule was based on the divine right of kings. The Egyptian pantheon was populated by gods who had supernatural powers and were called on for help or protection. However, the gods were not always viewed as benevolent, and Egyptians believed they had to be appeased with offerings and prayers. The structure of this pantheon changed continually as new deities were promoted in the hierarchy, but priests made no effort to organize the diverse and sometimes conflicting myths and stories into a coherent system. These various conceptions of divinity were not considered contradictory but rather layers in the multiple facets of reality.
Gods were worshiped in cult temples administered by priests acting on the king's behalf. At the center of the temple was the cult statue in a shrine. Temples were not places of public worship or congregation, and only on select feast days and celebrations was a shrine carrying the statue of the god brought out for public worship. Normally, the god's domain was sealed off from the outside world and was only accessible to temple officials. Common citizens could worship private statues in their homes, and amulets offered protection against the forces of chaos. After the New Kingdom, the pharaoh's role as a spiritual intermediary was de-emphasized as religious customs shifted to direct worship of the gods. As a result, priests developed a system of oracles to communicate the will of the gods directly to the people. Egyptians believed that every human being was composed of physical and spiritual parts or aspects. In addition to the body, each person had a Å¡wt (shadow), a ba (personality or soul), a ka (life-force), and aname. The heart, rather than the brain, was considered the seat of thoughts and emotions. After death, the spiritual aspects were released from the body and could move at will, but they required the physical remains (or a substitute, such as a statue) as a permanent home. The ultimate goal of the deceased was to rejoin his ka and ba and become one of the "blessed dead", living on as an akh, or "effective one". For this to happen, the deceased had to be judged worthy in a trial, in which the heart was weighed against a "feather of truth". If deemed worthy, the deceased could continue their existence on earth in spiritual form.
Ancient Egyptian burial customs
The ancient Egyptians maintained an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure immortality after death. These customs involved preserving the body by mummification, performing burial ceremonies, and interring with the body goods the deceased would use in the afterlife. Before the Old Kingdom, bodies buried in desert pits were naturally preserved by desiccation. The arid, desert conditions were a boon throughout the history of ancient Egypt for burials of the poor, who could not afford the elaborate burial preparations available to the elite. Wealthier Egyptians began to bury their dead in stone tombs and use artificial mummification, which involved removing the internal organs, wrapping the body in linen, and burying it in a rectangular stone sarcophagus or wooden coffin. Beginning in the Fourth Dynasty, some parts were preserved separately in canopic jars.
By the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had perfected the art of mummification; the best technique took 70 days and involved removing the internal organs, removing the brain through the nose, and desiccating the body in a mixture of salts callednatron. The body was then wrapped in linen with protective amulets inserted between layers and placed in a decorated anthropoid coffin. Mummies of the Late Period were also placed in painted cartonnage mummy cases. Actual preservation practices declined during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras, while greater emphasis was placed on the outer appearance of the mummy, which was decorated.
Wealthy Egyptians were buried with larger quantities of luxury items, but all burials, regardless of social status, included goods for the deceased. Beginning in the New Kingdom, books of the deadwere included in the grave, along with shabti statues that were believed to perform manual labor for them in the afterlife. Rituals in which the deceased was magically re-animated accompanied burials. After burial, living relatives were expected to occasionally bring food to the tomb and recite prayers on behalf of the deceased.
Military
Main article: Military history of Ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptian military was responsible for defending Egypt against foreign invasion, and for maintaining Egypt's domination in the ancient Near East. The military protected mining expeditions to the Sinai during the Old Kingdom and fought civil wars during the First and Second Intermediate Periods. The military was responsible for maintaining fortifications along important trade routes, such as those found at the city of Buhen on the way to Nubia. Forts also were constructed to serve as military bases, such as the fortress at Sile, which was a base of operations for expeditions to the Levant. In the New Kingdom, a series of pharaohs used the standing Egyptian army to attack and conquer Kush and parts of the Levant.
Typical military equipment included bows and arrows, spears, and round-topped shields made by stretching animal skin over a wooden frame. In the New Kingdom, the military began usingchariots that had earlier been introduced by the Hyksos invaders. Weapons and armor continued to improve after the adoption of bronze: shields were now made from solid wood with a bronze buckle, spears were tipped with a bronze point, and the Khopesh was adopted from Asiatic soldiers. The pharaoh was usually depicted in art and literature riding at the head of the army, it has been suggested that at least a few pharaohs, such as Seqenenre Tao II and his sons, did do so. although it has also been argued that "kings of this period did not personally act as frontline war leaders, fighting alongside their troops." Soldiers were recruited from the general population, but during, and especially after, the New Kingdom, mercenaries from Nubia, Kush, and Libya were hired to fight for Egypt.
Technology, medicine, and mathematics
Technology Ancient Egyptian technology
In technology, medicine and mathematics, ancient Egypt achieved a relatively high standard of productivity and sophistication. Traditionalempiricism, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri (c. 1600 BC), is first credited to Egypt. The Egyptians created their own alphabet and decimal system.
Faience and glass
Even before the Old Kingdom, the ancient Egyptians had developed a glassy material known as faience, which they treated as a type of artificial semi-precious stone. Faience is a non-clay ceramic made of silica, small amounts of lime and soda, and a colorant, typically copper. The material was used to make beads, tiles, figurines, and small wares. Several methods can be used to create faience, but typically production involved application of the powdered materials in the form of a paste over a clay core, which was then fired. By a related technique, the ancient Egyptians produced a pigment known as Egyptian Blue, also called blue frit, which is produced by fusing (or sintering) silica, copper, lime, and an alkali such as natron. The product can be ground up and used as a pigment.
The ancient Egyptians could fabricate a wide variety of objects from glass with great skill, but it is not clear whether they developed the process independently. It is also unclear whether they made their own raw glass or merely imported pre-made ingots, which they melted and finished. However, they did have technical expertise in making objects, as well as adding trace elements to control the color of the finished glass. A range of colors could be produced, including yellow, red, green, blue, purple, and white, and the glass could be made either transparent or opaque.
Medicine Ancient Egyptian medicine
The medical problems of the ancient Egyptians stemmed directly from their environment. Living and working close to the Nile brought hazards from malaria and debilitating schistosomiasis parasites, which caused liver and intestinal damage. Dangerous wildlife such as crocodiles and hippos were also a common threat. The life-long labors of farming and building put stress on the spine and joints, and traumatic injuries from construction and warfare all took a significant toll on the body. The grit and sand from stone-ground flour abraded teeth, leaving them susceptible to abscesses (though caries were rare).
The diets of the wealthy were rich in sugars, which promoted periodontal disease. Despite the flattering physiques portrayed on tomb walls, the overweight mummies of many of the upper class show the effects of a life of overindulgence. Adult life expectancy was about 35 for men and 30 for women, but reaching adulthood was difficult as about one-third of the population died in infancy.
Ancient Egyptian physicians were renowned in the ancient Near East for their healing skills, and some, likeImhotep, remained famous long after their deaths. Herodotus remarked that there was a high degree of specialization among Egyptian physicians, with some treating only the head or the stomach, while others were eye-doctors and dentists. Training of physicians took place at the Per Ankh or "House of Life" institution, most notably those headquartered in Per-Bastet during the New Kingdom and at Abydos andSaïs in the Late period. Medical papyri show empirical knowledge of anatomy, injuries, and practical treatments.
Wounds were treated by bandaging with raw meat, white linen, sutures, nets, pads and swabs soaked with honey to prevent infection, while opium was used to relieve pain. Garlic and onions were used regularly to promote good health and were thought to relieve asthma symptoms. Ancient Egyptian surgeons stitched wounds, set broken bones, and amputated diseased limbs, but they recognized that some injuries were so serious that they could only make the patient comfortable until he died.
Shipbuilding
Early Egyptians knew how to assemble planks of wood into a ship hull as early as 3000 BC. The Archaeological Institute of Americareports that some of the oldest ships yet unearthed are known as the Abydos boats. These are a group of 14 discovered ships in Abydosthat were constructed of wooden planks "sewn" together. Discovered by Egyptologist David O'Connor of New York University, wovenstraps were found to have been used to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Because the ships are all buried together and near a mortuary belonging to Pharaoh Khasekhemwy, originally they were all thought to have belonged to him, but one of the 14 ships dates to 3000 BC, and the associated pottery jars buried with the vessels also suggest earlier dating. The ship dating to 3000 BC was 75 feet (23 m) long and is now thought to perhaps have belonged to an earlier pharaoh. According to professor O'Connor, the 5,000-year-old ship may have even belonged to Pharaoh Aha.
Early Egyptians also knew how to assemble planks of wood with treenails to fasten them together, using pitch for caulking the seams. The "Khufu ship", a 43.6-meter vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2500 BC, is a full-size surviving example that may have filled the symbolic function of a solar barque. Early Egyptians also knew how to fasten the planks of this ship together with mortise and tenon joints. Despite the ancient Egyptian's ability to construct very large boats to sail along the easily navigable Nile, they were not known as good sailors and did not engage in widespread sailing or shipping in the Mediterranean or Red Seas.
Mathematics
The earliest attested examples of mathematical calculations date to the predynastic Naqada period, and show a fully developed numeral system. The importance of mathematics to an educated Egyptian is suggested by a New Kingdom fictional letter in which the writer proposes a scholarly competition between himself and another scribe regarding everyday calculation tasks such as accounting of land, labor and grain. Texts such as the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus and the Moscow Mathematical Papyrus show that the ancient Egyptians could perform the four basic mathematical operations—addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division—use fractions, compute the volumes of boxes and pyramids, and calculate the surface areas of rectangles, triangles, and circles. They understood basic concepts of algebra andgeometry, and could solve simple sets of simultaneous equations.
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| 2⁄3 in hieroglyphs |
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Mathematical notation was decimal, and based on hieroglyphic signs for each power of ten up to one million. Each of these could be written as many times as necessary to add up to the desired number; so to write the number eighty or eight hundred, the symbol for ten or one hundred was written eight times respectively. Because their methods of calculation could not handle most fractions with a numerator greater than one, they had to write fractions as the sum of several fractions. For example, they resolved the fraction two-fifths into the sum of one-third + one-fifteenth. Standard tables of values facilitated this. Some common fractions, however, were written with a special glyph—the equivalent of the modern two-thirds is shown on the right.
Ancient Egyptian mathematicians had a grasp of the principles underlying the Pythagorean theorem, knowing, for example, that a triangle had a right angle opposite the hypotenuse when its sides were in a 3–4–5 ratio. They were able to estimate the area of a circle by subtracting one-ninth from its diameter and squaring the result:
- Area ≈ [(8⁄9)D]2 = (256⁄81)r 2 ≈ 3.16r 2,
a reasonable approximation of the formula πr 2
The golden ratio seems to be reflected in many Egyptian constructions, including the pyramids, but its use may have been an unintended consequence of the ancient Egyptian practice of combining the use of knotted ropes with an intuitive sense of proportion and harmony.
Legacy
The culture and monuments of ancient Egypt have left a lasting legacy on the world. The cult of the goddessIsis, for example, became popular in the Roman Empire, as obelisks and other relics were transported back to Rome.[194] The Romans also imported building materials from Egypt to erect Egyptian style structures. Early historians such as Herodotus, Strabo, and Diodorus Siculus studied and wrote about the land, which Romans came to view as a place of mystery.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Egyptian pagan culture was in decline after the rise of Christianity and later Islam, but interest in Egyptian antiquity continued in the writings of medieval scholars such as Dhul-Nun al-Misri and al-Maqrizi. In the 17th and 18th centuries, European travelers and tourists brought back antiquities and wrote stories of their journeys, leading to a wave of Egyptomania across Europe. This renewed interest sent collectors to Egypt, who took, purchased, or were given many important antiquities.
Although the European colonial occupation of Egypt destroyed a significant portion of the country's historical legacy, some foreigners had more positive results. Napoleon, for example, arranged the first studies inEgyptology when he brought some 150 scientists and artists to study and document Egypt's natural history, which was published in the Description de l'Ä–gypte.
In the 20th century, the Egyptian Government and archaeologists alike recognized the importance of cultural respect and integrity in excavations. The Supreme Council of Antiquities now approves and oversees all excavations, which are aimed at finding information rather than treasure. The council also supervises museums and monument reconstruction programs designed to preserve the historical legacy of Egypt.
