Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt as a general historical term broadly refers to the civilization of the Lower Nile Valley, between the First Cataract and the mouths of the Nile Delta, from circa 3300 B.C.E. until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E. As a civilization based on irrigation, it is the quintessential example of a hydraulic empire. Egypt has been a great source of inspiration and of interest for Europeans especially, who regard it as of almost mysterious significance. Egypt served as a conduit between Africa, which in the ancient world represented 'wisdom' and not as for later Europeans, 'darkness', and Europe. Through the Alexandria Library and such scholars as Claudius Ptolemaeus, the Mathematician and the Hellenistic-Jewish scholar, Philo, this reputation continued. Many see deep significance in Jesus' , according to tradition, having spent time in Egypt. Indeed, early Christianity in Egypt saw much theological thought and several alternatives to what emerged as mainstream Christianity emerged, some stressing the feminine role while the Nag Hammadi collection of formerly lost texts, including the Gospel of Thomas has hugeley supplemented modern Bible scholarship. The Coptic church of Egypt is one of the world's oldest. Through the Ptolemies, Hellenistic and Egyptian ideas came together and Egyptian religion, especially the cult of Isis, became popular. The Roman Emperors, after Cleopatra the last Ptolemy, claimed the ancient title and honor of the Pharoahs.

File:Sphinx at Giza.jpg

The head of the Great Sphinx of Giza, thought to be the likeness of the pharaoh Khufu. The Great Sphinx is the largest and most recognized monumental sculpture in the world, and commonly is thought to have been constructed around 4,500 years ago.

Geography

Map of Ancient Egypt

Most of the geography of Egypt is in North Africa, although the Sinai Peninsula is in Southwest Asia. The country has shorelines on the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea; it borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Gaza Strip, Palestine and Israel to the east. Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as Upper and Lower Egypt. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Upper Egypt was in the south and Lower Egypt in the north, named according to the flow of the Nile. The Nile river flows northward from a southerly point to the Mediterranean rather than southward from a northerly point. The Nile river, around which much of the population of the country clusters, has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since the Stone Age and Naqada cultures.

Two Kingdoms formed Kemet ("the black"), the name for the dark soil deposited by the Nile floodwaters. The desert was called Deshret ("the red"), c.f. Herodotus: "Egypt is a land of black soil.... We know that Libya is a redder earth." (Histories, 2:12). However Champollion the Younger (who deciphered the Rossetta stone) in Expressions et Termes Particuliers (Expression of Particular Terms) wrote that Kmt did not actually refer to the soil but to a negroid population in the sense of a "Black Nation" (see Ancient Egyptian peoples below).

History

Main article: History of ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptians themselves traced their origin to a land they called Punt, or "Ta Nteru" ("Land of the Gods"). Once commonly thought to be located on what is today the Somali coast, Punt now is thought to have been in either southern Sudan or Eritrea. The history of ancient Egypt proper starts with Egypt as a unified state, which occurred sometime around 3000 B.C.E., though archaeological evidence indicates a developed Egyptian society may have existed for a much longer period.

Along the Nile, in 10th millennium B.C.E., a grain-grinding culture using the earliest type of sickle blades had been replaced by another culture of hunters, fishers, and gathering peoples using stone tools. Evidence also indicates human habitation in the southwestern corner of Egypt, near the Sudan border, before 8000 B.C.E. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 B.C.E. began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, eventually forming the Sahara (c.2500 B.C.E.), and early tribes naturally migrated to the Nile river where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society (see Nile: History). There is evidence of pastoralism and cultivation of cereals in the East Sahara in the 7th millennium B.C.E. By 6000 B.C.E. ancient Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Mortar (masonry) was in use by 4000 B.C.E. The Predynastic Period continues through this time, variously held to begin with the Naqada culture. Some authorities however begin the Predynastic Period earlier, in the Lower Paleolithic (see Predynastic Egypt).

Egypt unified as a single state circa 3000 B.C.E. Egyptian chronology involves assigning beginnings and endings to various dynasties beginning around this time. The conventional Egyptian chronology is the accepted developments during the 20th century, but do not include any of the major revision proposals that have also been made in that time. Even within a single work, often archeologists will offer several possible dates or even several whole chronologies as possibilities. Consequently, there may be discrepancies between dates shown here and in articles on particular rulers. Often there are also several possible spellings of the names.

• List of Pharaohs — The Pharaohs stretch from before 3000 B.C.E. to around 30 B.C.E.
• Dynasties (see also: List of Egyptian dynasties):
  • Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (1st - 2nd Dynasties; until ca. 27th century B.C.E.)
  • Old Kingdom (3rd - 6th Dynasties; 27th - 22nd centuries B.C.E.)
  • First Intermediate Period (7th - 11th Dynasties)
  • Middle Kingdom of Egypt (11th - 14th Dynasties; 20th - 17th centuries B.C.E.)
  • Second Intermediate Period (14th - 17th Dynasties)
    • Hyksos (15th - 16th Dynasties)
  • New Kingdom of Egypt (18th - 20th Dynasties; 16th - 11th centuries B.C.E.)
  • Third Intermediate Period (21st - 25th Dynasties; 11th - 7th centuries B.C.E.)
  • Late Period of Ancient Egypt (26th - 31 Dynasties; 7th century B.C.E. - 332 B.C.E.)
    • Achaemenid Dynasty
  • Graeco-Roman Egypt (332 B.C.E. - AD 639)
    • Ptolemaic Dynasty
    • Roman Empire

Government

Nomes were the subnational administrative divisions of Upper and Lower Egypt. The pharaoh was the ruler of these two kingdoms and headed the ancient Egyptian state structure. The pharaoh served as monarch, spiritual leader and commander-in-chief of both the army and navy. The pharaoh was supposed to be divine, a connection between men and gods. Below him in the government, were the viziers (one for Upper Egypt and one for Lower Egypt) and various officials. Under him on the religious side were the high priest and various other priests. Generally, the position was handed down from father to eldest son. Sometimes this rule was broken, and occasionally a woman assumed power. [1]

Language

The ancient Egyptians spoke an Afro-Asiatic language related to Chadic, Berber and Semitic languages. Records of the ancient Egyptian language have been dated to about 3200 B.C.E. Scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions:

• Archaic Egyptian (before 2600 B.C.E.)
• Old Egyptian (2600–2000 B.C.E.)
• Middle Egyptian (2000–1300 B.C.E.)
• Late Egyptian (1300–700 B.C.E.)
• Demotic Egyptian (7th century B.C.E.–4th century AD)
• Coptic (3rd–12th century AD)

Writing

Egyptologists refer to Egyptian writing as hieroglyphs, together with the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia ranking as the world's oldest writing system. The hieroglyphic script was partly syllabic, partly ideographic. Hieratic is a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs first used during the First Dynasty (c. 2925 B.C.E. - c. 2775 B.C.E.). The term Demotic in the context of Egypt, That is, "indigenous" from a Hellenistic point of view, came to refer to both the script and the language that followed the Late Ancient Egyptian stage from the Nubian 25th dynasty until its marginalization by the Greek Koine in the early centuries AD. After the conquest of Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Coptic language survived into the Middle Ages as the liturgical language of the Christian minority.

The hieroplyphic script finally fell out of use around the 4th century, and began to be rediscovered from the 15th century (see Hieroglyphica).

The oldest known alphabet (abjad) was also created in ancient Egypt, as a derivation from syllabic hieroglyphs, see Middle Bronze Age alphabets.

Literature

• c.2500 B.C.E. - Westcar Papyrus
• c.1800 B.C.E. Story of Sinuhe
• c. 1800 B.C.E. - Ipuwer papyrus
• c. 1800 B.C.E. - Papyrus Harris I
• c. 1000 B.C.E. Story of Wenamun

Culture

Colossus of Memnon

The Egyptian religions, embodied in Egyptian mythology, were the succession of beliefs held by the people of Egypt, until the coming of Christianity and Islam. These were conducted by Egyptian priests or magicians, but the use of magic and spells is questioned. The religious nature of ancient Egyptian civilization influenced its contribution to the arts of the ancient world. Many of the great works of ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and pharaohs, who were also considered divine. Ancient Egyptian art in general is characterized by the idea of order.

Evidence of mummies and pyramids outside ancient Egypt indicate reflections of ancient Egyptian belief values on other prehistoric cultures, transmitted in one way over the Silk Road.

Some scholars have speculated that Egypt's art pieces are sexually symbolic.

Ancient Egyptian peoples

Neolithic Egypt was probably inhabited by black African (Nilotic) peoples (as demonstrated by Saharan petroglyphs throughout the region). Following the desiccation of the Sahara, most black Africans migrated south into East and West Africa. The Aterian culture that developed here was one of the most advanced Paleolithic societies. In the Mesolithic the Capsian culture dominated the region with Neolithic farmers becoming predominant by 6000 B.C.E. (see Predynastic Egypt). The ancient Egyptians spoke an Afro-Asiatic language, related to Chadic, Berber and Semitic languages, and recorded their origin as the Land of Punt (see Early Dynastic Period of Egypt).

Herodotus once wrote, "the Colchians are Egyptians ... on the fact that they are black-skinned and have wooly hair" (Histories Book 2:104), and Champollion the Younger (who deciphered the Rossetta stone) in Expressions et Termes Particuliers (Expression of Particular Terms) claimed that Kmt never actually referred to the soil but to a negroid population in the sense of "Black Nation". A recent genetic study links the maternal lineage of a traditional population from Upper Egypt to Eastern Africa [2]. A separate study further narrows the genetic lineage to Northeast Africa ([3]; reveals also that modern day Egyptians "reflect a mixture of European, Middle Eastern, and African"). The racial classification of Ancient Egypt has come to play a role in the Afrocentrism debate in the USA (see Egypt and Black Identity for a discussion).

Although analyzing the hair of ancient Egyptian mummies from the Late Middle Kingdom has revealed evidence of a stable diet [4], mummies from circa 3200 B.C.E. show signs of severe anemia and hemolitic disorders [5]. Traces of cocaine, hashish and nicotine have also been found in the skin and hair of Egyptian mummies [6]. Interestingly, as a footnote, the coca plant is indigenous to the South American Andes and could not have survived naturally in the arid Sahara (see Coca). Animals were valued in the Egyptian culture, specifically dogs and cats. Many mummified remains have been found.

Ancient achievements

Louvre Museum antiquity

See Predynastic Egypt for inventions and other significant achievements in the Sahara region before the Protodynastic Period. For example the world's earliest known writing system dates to the predynastic era [7].

The art and science of engineering was present in Egypt, such as accurately determining the position of points and the distances between them (known as surveying). These skills were used to outline pyramid bases. The Egyptian pyramids took the geometric shape formed from a polygonal base and a point, called the apex, by triangular faces. Hydraulic Cement was first invented by the Egyptians. The Al Fayyum Irrigation (water works) was one of the main agricultural breadbaskets of the ancient world. There is evidence of ancient Egyptian pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty using the natural lake of the Fayyum as a reservoir to store surpluses of water for use during the dry seasons. From the time of the First dynasty or before, the Egyptians mined turquoise in Sinai Peninsula.

The earliest evidence (circa 1600 B.C.E.) of traditional empiricism is credited to Egypt, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri. The roots of the Scientific method may be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians are also credited with devising the world's earliest known alphabet, decimal system [8] and complex mathematical formularizations, in the form of the Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri. An awareness of the Golden ratio seems to be reflected in many constructions, such as the Egyptian pyramids.

Predynastic

See main article and timeline: Predynastic Egypt.

• 3500 B.C.E. - Faience, world's earliest known

Dynastic

• 3300 B.C.E. - Bronze works (see Bronze Age)
• 3200 B.C.E. - Egyptian hieroglyphs fully developed (see First dynasty of Egypt)
• 3200 B.C.E. - Narmer Palette, world's earliest known historical document
• 3100 B.C.E. - Decimal system, [9], world's earliest (confirmed) use
• 3100 B.C.E. - Mining, Sinai Peninsula
• 3050 B.C.E. - Shipbuilding in Abydos, [10]
• 3000 B.C.E. - Exports from Nile to Israel: wine (see Narmer)
• 3000 B.C.E. - Copper plumbing (see Copper: History)
• 3000 B.C.E. - Medical Institutions
• 3000 B.C.E. - Papyrus, world's earliest known paper
• 2900 B.C.E. - Senet, world's oldest (confirmed) board game
• 2700 B.C.E. - Surgery, world's earliest known
• 2700 B.C.E. - precision Surveying
• 2600 B.C.E. - Sphinx, still today the world's largest single-stone statue
• 2600s-2500 B.C.E. - Shipping expeditions: King Sneferu and Pharaoh Sahure. See also [11], [12].
• 2600 B.C.E. - Barge transportation, stone blocks (see Egyptian pyramids: Construction)
• 2600 B.C.E. - Pyramid of Djoser, world's earliest known large-scale stone building
• 2600 B.C.E. - Menkaure's Pyramid & Red Pyramid, world's earliest known works of carved granite
• 2600 B.C.E. - Red Pyramid, world's earliest known "true" smooth-sided pyramid; solid granite work
• 2580 B.C.E. - Great Pyramid of Giza, the world's tallest structure until AD 1300
• 2400 B.C.E. - Astronomical Calendar, used even in the Middle Ages for its mathematical regularity
• 1860 B.C.E. - possible Nile-Red Sea Canal (Twelfth dynasty of Egypt)
• 1800 B.C.E. - Alphabet, world's oldest known
• 1800 B.C.E. - Berlin Mathematical Papyrus, [13], 2nd order algebraic equations
• 1800 B.C.E. - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, generalized formula for volume of frustum
• 1650 B.C.E. - Rhind Mathematical Papyrus: geometry, cotangent analogue, algebraic equations, arithmetic series, geometric series
• 1600 B.C.E. - Edwin Smith papyrus, medical tradition traces as far back as c. 3000 B.C.E.
• 1550 B.C.E. - Ebers Medical Papyrus, traditional empiricism; world's earliest known documented tumors (see History of medicine)
• 1500 B.C.E. - Glass-making, world's earliest known
• 1160 B.C.E. - Turin papyrus, world's earliest known geologic and topographic map
• Other:
  • c.2500 B.C.E. - Westcar Papyrus
  • c.1800 B.C.E. - Ipuwer papyrus
  • c.1800 B.C.E. - Papyrus Harris I
  • c.1400 B.C.E. - Tulli Papyrus
  • c.1300 B.C.E. - Brugsch Papyrus
  • Unknown date - Rollin Papyrus

Open problems

There is a question as to the sophistication of ancient Egyptian technology, and there are several open problems concerning real and alleged ancient Egyptian achievements. Certain artifacts and records do not fit with conventional technological development systems. It is not known why there is no neat progression to an Egyptian Iron Age nor why the historical record shows the Egyptians taking so long to begin using iron. It is unknown how the Egyptians shaped and worked granite. The exact date the Egyptians started producing glass is debated.

Some question whether the Egyptians were capable of long distance navigation in their boats and when they become knowledgeable seamen. It is contentiously disputed as to whether or not the Egyptians had some understanding of electricity and if the Egyptians used engines or batteries. The relief at Dendera is interpreted in various ways by scholars. The topic of the Saqqara Bird is controversial, as is the extent of the Egyptians' understanding of aerodynamics. It is unknown for certain if the Egyptians had kites or gliders.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Ancient Egypt

• History of Egypt
• Egyptology
• Egyptian Museum
• List of Ancient Egyptians
• List of Ancient Egyptian sites
• List of ancient Egypt mysteries
• Mummies
• Pyramid sites
• Afrocentrism

Further reading

• Manley, Bill (Ed.), "The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt". Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0500051232
• "Mysteries of Egypt" National Geographic Society, 1999, ISBN 0792297520
• Knapp, Ron, "Tutankhamun and the mysteries of ancient Egypt". Messner, 1979, ISBN 0671330365
• Jacq, Christian, "Magic and mystery in ancient Egypt". Souvenir Press, 1998, ISBN 0285634623
• Sitchin, Zecharia, "The earth chronicles expeditions : journeys to the mythical past". Bear & Co., 2004, ISBN 1591430364
• "Archibald's guide to the mysteries of ancient Egypt". Swfte International, Ltd., 1994. ISBN 1563059223
• Childress, David Hatcher, "Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients". Adventures Unlimited Pre, 2000, ISBN 0932813739
• Putnam, James "Mummy" Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides, 1993, ISBN 0751360074

External links

• The Ancient Egypt Site: [14]
• "Egyptian Mythology". Information on Ancient Egyptian life, culture, and mythology
• "The Quick Guide to Ancient Egypt". Attic Designs, 2005.
• "Mysteries of Egypt". Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, 2001.
• Bayuk, Andrew, "Official Website for Dr. Zahi Hawass". Guardian, 2005.
• "Egyptian Mysteries". Can't Think of a Name Media, 2003.
• Orcutt, Larry, "Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt". Catchpenny.org.
• Literature of Ancient Egypt.
• Gray, Martin, "The Great Pyramid, Egypt". 2005.
• Dörnenburg, Frank, "Mysteries of the Past". 2004.
• Lee, Charles, and Frank Ling, "Egyptology ". Berkeley Groks Science Radio, Show June 30th, 2004.
• "Theban Mapping Project". 2005.
• Heinrich, Paul, et. al., "The Hall of Ma'at".
• Mike "The Antiquity of Man - Exploring human evolution and the dawn of civilisation". Antiquityofman.com
• "History of Ancient Egypt". Pages translated from the Arabic Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt.

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