1.
Watchmen
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Watchmen is an American comic-book limited series published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987, and collected in 1987. The series was created by a British collaboration consisting of writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, Watchmen originated from a story proposal Moore submitted to DC featuring superhero characters that the company had acquired from Charlton Comics. As Moores proposed story would have many of the characters unusable for future stories. Moore used the story as a means to reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct, the story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an investigation into the murder of a government-sponsored superhero pulls them out of retirement. Creatively, the focus of Watchmen is on its structure, Gibbons used a nine-panel grid layout throughout the series and added recurring symbols such as a blood-stained smiley face. Structured, at times, as a narrative, the story skips through space, time. In the same manner, entire scenes and dialogue have parallels with others through synchronicity, coincidence, the BBC described it as The moment comic books grew up. After a number of attempts to adapt the series into a feature film, a video game series, Watchmen, The End Is Nigh, was released in the same year to coincide with the films release. In 2012, DC Comics published Before Watchmen, a comic-book series acting as a prequel to the original Watchmen series, without Moore and Gibbons involvement. Watchmen, created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, was first published as a 12-issue maxiseries from DC Comics, cover-dated September 1986 to October 1987. In February 1988, DC published a limited-edition, slipcased hardcover volume, produced by Graphitti Design, in 2005, DC released Absolute Watchmen, an oversized slipcased hardcover edition of the series in DCs Absolute Edition format. Assembled under the supervision of Dave Gibbons, Absolute Watchmen included the Graphitti materials and that December DC published a new printing of Watchmen issue #1 at the original 1986 cover price of $1.50 as part of its Millennium Edition line. In 2012, DC launched a line, with various creative teams producing the characters early adventures before the events of the graphic novel. In 1985, DC Comics acquired a line of characters from Charlton Comics, during that period, writer Alan Moore contemplated writing a story that featured an unused line of superheroes that he could revamp, as he had done in his Miracleman series in the early 1980s. Moore reasoned that MLJ Comics Mighty Crusaders might be available for such a project, Moore used this premise and crafted a proposal featuring the Charlton characters titled Who Killed the Peacemaker, and submitted the unsolicited proposal to DC managing editor Dick Giordano. Giordano was receptive to the proposal, but opposed the idea of using the Charlton characters for the story, Moore said, DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional. Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to continue with new characters, Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for the readers, but later changed his mind. Artist Dave Gibbons, who had collaborated with Moore on previous projects, I rang Alan up, saying I’d like to be involved with what he was doing
Watchmen
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Cover of Watchmen No.1 (Sept. 1986)
Watchmen
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Alan Moore, writer of Watchmen
Watchmen
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Dave Gibbons, artist of Watchmen.
Watchmen
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The main characters of Watchmen (from left to right): Ozymandias, the second Silk Spectre, Doctor Manhattan, The Comedian (kneeling), the second Nite Owl, and Rorschach.
2.
Characters of Watchmen
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Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins, published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Watchmen focuses on six characters, the Comedian, Doctor Manhattan, the Nite Owl, Ozymandias, Rorschach. These characters were based on the Mighty Crusaders and then reworked in an unsolicited proposal to fit superhero properties DC had acquired from Charlton Comics in the early 1980s. The Comedian is a vigilante from the comic miniseries Watchmen and his real name is Edward Morgan Blake. The Comedian was initially based on the Shield and then on the Charlton Comics character Peacemaker, Moore and Gibbons saw The Comedian as a kind of Gordon Liddy character, only a much bigger, tougher guy. Gibbons went with a Groucho Marx-style appearance for the Comedian in his design and he believes that humans are savage in nature, and that civilization can never be more than an idea. He therefore chooses to become a mockery of society, fighting and killing without reservation, Blakes murder, which takes place shortly before the story begins in 1985, sets the plot of Watchmen in motion. The character appears throughout the story in flashbacks and aspects of his personality are revealed by other characters, Richard Reynolds described The Comedian as ruthless, cynical, and nihilistic, and yet capable of deeper insights than the others into the role of the costumed hero. Nicholas Michael Grant said the Comedian is the character in the Watchmen universe who is almost totally unlikeable. In Before Watchmen, The Minutemen #1, additional details are revealed about Comedian and it is revealed that the Comedian got his start as a costumed adventurer at the young age of 16 and had a prior criminal record for assault. Unlike the rest of the heroes of the Minutemen, he is shown to be driven by greed. In particular, he assaults a bartender after breaking up a bar fight and steals liquor, the issue also implies Blake may have been a victim of severe child abuse as he claims that a caseworker told him that the abuse he suffered was the cause of his violent outbursts. Before Watchmen, Comedian #1 rewrites the characters back-story further and it is revealed that Blake was close personal friends with Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy as well as Jackie Kennedy. This contradicts the main Watchmen series, which cast Edward Blake as a personal friend of Richard Nixon. The Comedian wears a yellow smiley-face button, which becomes stained with a drop of his blood when he is murdered, Rorschach later finds the button on the ground outside the Comedians apartment building as he investigates the crime scene. In the Watchmen film, he is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the film also places him as John F. Kennedys assassin, as shown in the opening montage. Dr. Jonathan Jon Osterman is a vigilante and the character with superpowers, with the arguable exception of Ozymandias. He was originally a physicist who was transformed into a blue and he had returned to the chamber to retrieve his girlfriends watch, and was accidentally locked inside when the Subtractor started automatically
Characters of Watchmen
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The six main characters of the 1986
comic book limited series Watchmen (from left to right): Ozymandias, the second Silk Spectre, Doctor Manhattan, the Comedian (kneeling), the second Nite Owl and Rorschach
3.
Sharqia Governorate
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Sharqia Governorate is the 3rd most populous of the governorates of Egypt. Located in the part of the country, its capital is the city of Zagazig. According to population estimates from 2015 the majority of residents in the live in rural areas. Out of an estimated 6,485,412 people residing in the governorate,4,987,707 people live in areas as opposed to only 1,497,705 in urban areas. According to the Governing Authority for Investment and Free Zones the governorate is home to five industrial zones, sharqia is divided into 13 administrative divisions and 15 cities,2 districts,105 rural local units, and 3885 minor villages
Sharqia Governorate
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Flag
4.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
Egypt
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The
Giza Necropolis is the oldest of the
ancient Wonders and the only one still in existence.
Egypt
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Flag
Egypt
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The Greek Ptolemaic queen
Cleopatra VII and her son by Julius Caesar,
Caesarion at the
Temple of Dendera.
Egypt
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The 1803
Cedid Atlas, showing
Ottoman Egypt.
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
6.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Egyptian hieroglyphs were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt. It combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with a total of some 1,000 distinct characters, cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts are derived from hieroglyphic writing, the writing system continued to be used throughout the Late Period, as well as the Persian and Ptolemaic periods. Late survivals of hieroglyphic use are found well into the Roman period, with the closing of pagan temples in the 5th century, knowledge of hieroglyphic writing was lost, and the script remained undeciphered throughout the medieval and early modern period. The decipherment of hieroglyphs would only be solved in the 1820s by Jean-François Champollion, the word hieroglyph comes from the Greek adjective ἱερογλυφικός, a compound of ἱερός and γλύφω, supposedly a calque of an Egyptian phrase mdw·w-nṯr gods words. The glyphs themselves were called τὰ ἱερογλυφικὰ γράμματα the sacred engraved letters, the word hieroglyph has become a noun in English, standing for an individual hieroglyphic character. As used in the sentence, the word hieroglyphic is an adjective. Hieroglyphs emerged from the artistic traditions of Egypt. For example, symbols on Gerzean pottery from c.4000 BC have been argued to resemble hieroglyphic writing, proto-hieroglyphic symbol systems develop in the second half of the 4th millennium BC, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called Scorpion I recovered at Abydos in 1998. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qaab. There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, by the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. However, given the lack of evidence, no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt. Since the 1990s, and discoveries such as the Abydos glyphs, as writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic and demotic scripts. These variants were more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental, the Rosetta Stone contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule, and after Alexander the Greats conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Ptolemaic and Roman periods. It appears that the quality of comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part. Some believed that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish true Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors, another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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A section of the
Papyrus of Ani showing cursive hieroglyphs.
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Hieroglyphs on a funerary stela in
Manchester Museum
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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The
Rosetta Stone in the
British Museum
Egyptian hieroglyphs
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Hieroglyphs typical of the Graeco-Roman period
7.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
Ancient Greek
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Inscription about the construction of the statue of
Athena Parthenos in the
Parthenon, 440/439 BC
Ancient Greek
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Ostracon bearing the name of
Cimon,
Stoa of Attalos
Ancient Greek
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The words ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ as they are inscribed on the marble of the 1955
Leonidas Monument at
Thermopylae
8.
Arabic language
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
Arabic language
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The Galland Manuscript of
One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century
Arabic language
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al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (
Naskh script)
Arabic language
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Bilingual traffic sign in
Qatar.
Arabic language
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Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.
9.
Egyptian language
–
The language spoken in ancient Egypt was a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. The earliest known complete sentence in the Egyptian language has been dated to about 2690 BCE, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the seventeenth century in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern Egypt is Egyptian Arabic, which gradually replaced Coptic as the language of life in the centuries after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Coptic is still used as the language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It has several hundred fluent speakers today, the Egyptian language belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. Of the other Afroasiatic branches, Egyptian shows its greatest affinities with Semitic, in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/, e. g. Eg. Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨ꜣ⟩, and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the language was based. Original */k g ḳ/ palatalize to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others, Egyptian has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian probably is more archaic in this regard, whereas Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern, scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions, Archaic Egyptian language Old Egyptian language Middle Egyptian language, characterizing Middle Kingdom. Demotic Coptic The earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to around 3300 BC and these early texts are generally lumped together under the general term Archaic Egyptian. They record names, titles and labels, but a few of them show morphological and syntactic features familiar from later, more complete, Old Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen and dated to around 2690 BCE. It reads, dmḏ. n. f t3wj n z3. f nswt-bjt pr-jb. snj He has united the Two Lands for his son, extensive texts appear from about 2600 BCE. Demotic first appears about 650 BCE and survived as a written language until the fifth century CE and it probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Bohairic Coptic is still used by the Coptic Churches, Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using hieroglyphs and hieratic. Demotic was written using a script derived from hieratic, its appearance is similar to modern Arabic script and is also written from right to left. Coptic is written using the Coptic alphabet, a form of the Greek alphabet with a number of symbols borrowed from Demotic for sounds that did not occur in ancient Greek. Arabic became the language of Egypts political administration soon after the early Muslim conquests in the seventh century, today, Coptic survives as the sacred language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church
Egyptian language
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Seal impression from the tomb of
Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in Egyptian
Egyptian language
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Ebers Papyrus detailing treatment of
asthma
Egyptian language
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3rd-century Coptic inscription
10.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was 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. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, 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 desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, 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 were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-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
Ancient Egypt
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The
Great Sphinx and the
pyramids of Giza are among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egypt
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A typical Naqada II jar decorated with gazelles. (Predynastic Period)
Ancient Egypt
–
The
Narmer Palette depicts the unification of the Two Lands.
11.
Nome (Egypt)
–
A nome was a subnational administrative division of Ancient Egypt. Todays use of the Greek νομή, nomé rather than the Egyptian term sepat came about during the Ptolemaic period, the availability of Greek records on Egypt influenced the adoption of Greek terms by later historians. The division of ancient Egypt into nomes can be traced back to the Predynastic Period and these nomes originally existed as autonomous city-states, but later began to unify. According to ancient tradition, the ruler Menes completed the final unification, not only did the division into nomes remain in place for more than three millennia, the areas of the individual nomes and their ordering remained remarkably stable. Some, like Xois in the Delta or Khent in Upper Egypt, were first mentioned on the Palermo stone, the names of a few, like the nome of Bubastis, appeared no earlier than the New Kingdom. Under the system that prevailed for most of pharaonic Egypts history, lower Egypt, from the Old Kingdom capital Memphis to the Mediterranean Sea, comprised 20 nomes. The first was based around Memphis, Saqqara, and Giza, the nomes were numbered in a more or less orderly fashion south to north through the Nile delta, first covering the territory on the west before continuing with the higher numbers to the east. Thus, Alexandria was in the Third Nome, Bubastis was in the Eighteenth, Upper Egypt was divided into 22 nomes. The first of these was centered on Elephantine close to Egypts border with Nubia at the First Cataract – the area of modern-day Aswan, from there the numbering progressed downriver in an orderly fashion along the narrow fertile strip of land that was the Nile valley. Waset was in the Fourth Nome, Amarna in the Fourteenth, some nomes were added or renamed during the Graeco-Roman occupation of Egypt. For example, the Ptolemies renamed the Crocodilopolitan nome to Arsinoe, hadrian created a new nome, Antinoopolites, for which Antinoopolis was the capital. The nomes survived into Roman times, under Roman rule, individual nomes minted their own coinage, the so-called nome coins, which still reflect individual local associations and traditions. The nomes of Egypt retained their importance as administrative units until the fundamental rearrangement of the bureaucracy during the reigns of Diocletian. From AD 307/8, their place was taken by units called pagi. Eventually powerful local officials arose who were called pagarchs, through whom all patronage flowed, the pagarchs essential role was as an organizer of tax-collection. Later the pagarch assumed some military functions as well, the pagarchs were often wealthy landowners who reigned over the pagi from which they originated. For most of the history, each nome was headed by a nomarch, the position of the nomarch was at times hereditary, while at others they were appointed by the pharaoh. Generally, when the government was stronger, nomarchs were the kings appointed governors
Nome (Egypt)
–
Map of the nomes of lower Egypt
12.
Nile Delta
–
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the worlds largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, from north to south the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo, from north to south, the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. From west-to-east, it covers some 240 kilometres of coastline, the delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control, one such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal runs to the east of the delta, entering the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta, to the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons, Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Maryut. The Nile is considered to be a delta, as it resembles a triangle or flower when seen from above. The outer edges of the delta are eroding, and some coastal lagoons have seen increasing salinity levels as their connection to the Mediterranean Sea increases, topsoil in the delta can be as much as 70 feet in depth. People have lived in the Delta region for thousands of years, the Delta River used to flood on an annual basis, but this ended with the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Rosetta Stone was found in the Nile Delta in 1799 in the city of Rosetta. The delta was a constituent of Lower Egypt. The Biblical Land of Goshen was located in an area on the west bank of the Pelusiac distributary. There are many sites in and around the Nile Delta. About 39 million people live in the Delta region, outside of major cities, population density in the delta averages 1,000 persons/km² or more. Alexandria is the largest city in the delta with a population of more than 4.5 million. Other large cities in the delta include Shubra al Khaymah, Port Said, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, El Mansura, Tanta, during autumn, parts of the Nile River are red with lotus flowers. The Lower Nile and the Upper Nile have plants that grow in abundance, the Upper Nile plant is the Egyptian lotus, and the Lower Nile plant is the Papyrus Sedge, although it is not nearly as plentiful as it once was, and is becoming quite rare. Several hundred thousand birds winter in the delta, including the world’s largest concentrations of little gulls
Nile Delta
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NASA satellite photograph of the Nile Delta (shown in false color)
Nile Delta
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The Nile Delta at night
Nile Delta
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Nile River and Delta
Nile Delta
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Ancient branches of the Nile, showing Wadi Tumilat, and the lakes east of the Delta
13.
Bible
–
The Bible is a collection of sacred texts or scriptures that Jews and Christians consider to be a product of divine inspiration and a record of the relationship between God and humans. Many different authors contributed to the Bible, what is regarded as canonical text differs depending on traditions and groups, a number of Bible canons have evolved, with overlapping and diverging contents. The Christian Old Testament overlaps with the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Septuagint, the New Testament is a collection of writings by early Christians, believed to be mostly Jewish disciples of Christ, written in first-century Koine Greek. These early Christian Greek writings consist of narratives, letters, among Christian denominations there is some disagreement about the contents of the canon, primarily the Apocrypha, a list of works that are regarded with varying levels of respect. Attitudes towards the Bible also differ amongst Christian groups and this concept arose during the Protestant Reformation, and many denominations today support the use of the Bible as the only source of Christian teaching. With estimated total sales of over 5 billion copies, the Bible is widely considered to be the book of all time. It has estimated sales of 100 million copies, and has been a major influence on literature and history, especially in the West. The English word Bible is from the Latin biblia, from the word in Medieval Latin and Late Latin. Medieval Latin biblia is short for biblia sacra holy book, while biblia in Greek and it gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun in medieval Latin, and so the word was loaned as a singular into the vernaculars of Western Europe. Latin biblia sacra holy books translates Greek τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια ta biblia ta hagia, the word βιβλίον itself had the literal meaning of paper or scroll and came to be used as the ordinary word for book. It is the diminutive of βύβλος byblos, Egyptian papyrus, possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician sea port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece, the Greek ta biblia was an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books. Christian use of the term can be traced to c.223 CE, bruce notes that Chrysostom appears to be the first writer to use the Greek phrase ta biblia to describe both the Old and New Testaments together. The division of the Hebrew Bible into verses is based on the sof passuk cantillation mark used by the 10th-century Masoretes to record the verse divisions used in oral traditions. The oldest extant copy of a complete Bible is an early 4th-century parchment book preserved in the Vatican Library, the oldest copy of the Tanakh in Hebrew and Aramaic dates from the 10th century CE. The oldest copy of a complete Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus and he states that it is not a magical book, nor was it literally written by God and passed to mankind. In Christian Bibles, the New Testament Gospels were derived from traditions in the second half of the first century CE. Riches says that, Scholars have attempted to reconstruct something of the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels, the period of transmission is short, less than 40 years passed between the death of Jesus and the writing of Marks Gospel. This means that there was time for oral traditions to assume fixed form
Bible
–
The
Gutenberg Bible, the first printed Bible
Bible
–
The Kennicott Bible, by
Benjamin Kennicott, with illustration, Jonah being swallowed by the fish, 1476
Bible
–
Tanakh
14.
Hebrew language
–
Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
Hebrew language
–
Hebrew street sign, above in
Hebrew alphabet, below in
Latin transliteration. Aluf Batslut veAluf Shum (he) ("The Onion Champion and the Garlic Champion") is a
play by
Hayim Nahman Bialik.
Hebrew language
–
Portion of the
Temple Scroll, one of the longest of the
Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at
Qumran
Hebrew language
–
The
Shebna Inscription, from the tomb of a royal steward found in
Siloam, dates to the 7th century BCE.
Hebrew language
–
Hebrew script used in writing a Torah scroll. Note ornamental "crowns" on tops of certain letters.
15.
Book of Ezekiel
–
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books in the Old Testament, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. The visions, and the book, are structured around three themes, Judgment on Israel, Judgment on the nations, and Future blessings for Israel. Its themes include the concepts of the presence of God, purity, Israel as a divine community and its later influence has included the development of mystical and apocalyptic traditions in Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Inaugural vision, God approaches Ezekiel as the warrior, riding in his battle chariot. The chariot is drawn by four living creatures, each having four faces, beside each living creature is a wheel within a wheel, with tall and awesome rims full of eyes all around. God commissions Ezekiel as a prophet and as a watchman in Israel, Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites. Building a new city, The Jewish exile will come to an end, a new city and new Temple will be built, and the Israelites will be gathered and blessed as never before. Most scholars today accept the authenticity of the book. According to the book that bears his name, Ezekiel ben-Buzi was born into a family of Jerusalem c.623 BCE. Josiah was killed in 609 and Judah became a vassal of the new regional power, in 597, following a rebellion against Babylon, Ezekiel was among the large group of Judeans taken into captivity by the Babylonians. He appears to have spent the rest of his life in Mesopotamia, the various dates given in the book suggest that Ezekiel was 25 when he went into exile,30 when he received his prophetic call, and 52 at the time of the last vision c.571. The Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek in the two immediately before the birth of Christ. The Greek version of books is called the Septuagint. The Jewish Bible in Hebrew is called the Masoretic text, ecclesiasticus 49,8 refers to it, so does Josephus. It is mentioned as part of the canon in Melitos catalogue, cited by Eusebius, also in Origen, Jerome, the first half of the 20th century saw several attempts to deny the authorship and authenticity of the book, with scholars such as C. C. Torrey and Morton Smith placing it variously in the 3rd century BCE, the pendulum swung back in the post-war period, with an increasing acceptance of the books essential unity and historical placement in the Exile. The most influential modern work on Ezekiel, Walther Zimmerlis two-volume commentary, appeared in German in 1969. Ezekiel depicts the destruction of Jerusalem as a sacrifice upon the altar
Book of Ezekiel
–
Tanakh (Judaism)
Book of Ezekiel
–
A mid-12th century
Flemish piece of copperwork depicting Ezekiel's Vision of the Sign "Tau" from Ezekiel IX:2–7. The item is currently held by the
Walters Museum.
Book of Ezekiel
–
Monument to
Holocaust survivors at
Yad Vashem in
Jerusalem; the quote is Ezekiel 37:14
Book of Ezekiel
–
The Visionary Ezekiel Temple plan drawn by the 19th-century French architect and Bible scholar
Charles Chipiez.
16.
Bastet
–
Bastet was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the 2nd Dynasty. As Bast, she was the goddess of warfare in Lower Egypt and her name is also translated as Baast, Ubaste, and Baset. In Greek mythology, she is known as Ailuros. The uniting Egyptian cultures had deities that shared similar roles and usually the same imagery, in Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was the parallel warrior lioness deity. Often similar deities merged into one with the unification, but that did not occur with these deities having such strong roots in their cultures, instead, these goddesses began to diverge. During the 22nd Dynasty, Bast had transformed from a lioness deity into a major protector deity represented as a cat. Bastet, the associated with this later identity, is the name commonly used by scholars today to refer to this deity. Bastet, the form of the name which is most commonly adopted by Egyptologists today because of its use in later dynasties, is a modern convention offering one possible reconstruction, in early Egyptian, her name appears to have been bꜣstt. In Egyptian writing, the second t marks a feminine ending, but was not usually pronounced, by the first millennium, then, bꜣstt would have been something like *Ubaste in Egyptian speech, later becoming Coptic Oubaste. During later dynasties, the deity remained, but was assigned a role in the pantheon by bearing the name Bastet. This happened after Thebes became the capital of Ancient Egypt during the 18th Dynasty, diminishing her status, they began referring to the deity with the added suffix, as Bastet, and their use of the new name was well-documented, becoming very familiar to researchers. By the 22nd Dynasty the transition had occurred in all regions, what the name of the goddess means remains uncertain. One recent suggestion by Stephen Quirke explains it as meaning She of the ointment jar and this ties in with the observation that her name was written with the hieroglyph for ointment jar and that she was associated with protective ointments, among other things. The name of the known as alabaster might, through Greek. Bastet was originally a warrior goddess of the sun throughout most of ancient Egyptian history. Greeks occupying ancient Egypt toward the end of its civilization changed her into a goddess of the moon, as protector of Lower Egypt, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the later chief male deity, Ra. Along with the lioness goddesses, she would occasionally be depicted as the embodiment of the Eye of Ra. She has been depicted as fighting the evil snake named Apep, images of Bastet were often created from alabaster
Bastet
–
Photograph of an alabaster cosmetic jar topped with a lioness, representing Bast, an 18th dynasty burial artifact from the tomb of
Tutankhamun circa 1323 BC - Cairo Museum
Bastet
–
Wadjet-Bast, with a lioness head of Bast, the solar disk, and the cobra that represents Wadjet
Bastet
–
Ancient Egyptian statue of Bastet after becoming represented as a domestic cat
Bastet
–
The
Gayer-Anderson cat, believed to be a representation of Bastet
17.
Hathor
–
Hathor is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of joy, feminine love, and motherhood. She was one of the most important and popular throughout the history of Ancient Egypt. Hathor was worshipped by royalty and common people alike, in tomb paintings, she is often depicted as Mistress of the West, welcoming the dead into the next life. In other roles, she was a goddess of music, dance, foreign lands and she was believed to assist women in childbirth. She was also believed to be the goddess of miners. Hathor is commonly depicted as a cow goddess with horns in which is set a sun disk with Uraeus, twin feathers are also sometimes shown in later periods as well as a menat necklace. The Ancient Egyptians viewed reality as multi-layered in which deities who merge for various reasons, while retaining divergent attributes and myths, were not seen as contradictory but complementary. In a complicated relationship Hathor is at times the mother, daughter and wife of Ra and, like Isis, is at times described as the mother of Horus, the cult of Osiris promised eternal life to those deemed morally worthy. Originally the justified dead, male or female, became an Osiris but by early Roman times females became identified with Hathor, the Ancient Greeks sometimes identified Hathor with the goddess Aphrodite. Hathor is ambiguously depicted until the fourth dynasty, in the historical era Hathor is shown using the imagery of a cow deity. At times they are regarded as one and the goddess, though likely having separate origins. The evidence pointing to the deity being Hathor in particular is based on a passage from the Pyramid texts which states that the Kings apron comes from Hathor, from the Old Kingdom she was also called Lady of the Sycamore in her capacity as a tree deity. Hathor had a relationship with Ra. At times she is the eye of Ra and considered his daughter and she absorbed this role from another cow goddess Mehet-Weret who was the mother of Ra in a creation myth and carried him between her horns. As a mother she gave birth to Ra each morning on the eastern horizon, the Milky Way was seen as a waterway in the heavens, sailed upon by both the sun deity and the moon, leading the ancient Egyptians to describe it as The Nile in the Sky. Hathor also was favoured as a protector in desert regions, as Serabit el-Khadim was where turquoise was mined, Hathors titles included Lady of Turquoise, Mistress of Turquoise, and Lady of Turquoise Country. Hathors identity as a cow, perhaps depicted as such on the Narmer Palette, meant that she identified with another ancient cow-goddess of fertility. The assimilation of Bat, who was associated with the sistrum, in this later form, Hathors cult became centred in Dendera in Upper Egypt and it was led by priestesses and priests who also were dancers, singers and other entertainers
Hathor
–
Cow deities appear on the Kings belt and the top of the
Narmer Palette
Hathor
–
Hathor as a cow, wearing her necklace and showing her sacred eye –
Papyrus of Ani.
Hathor
–
The Milky Way seen as it may have appeared to Ancient Egyptians
Hathor
–
Sculpture of Hathor as a cow, with all of her symbols, the sun disk, the cobra, as well as her necklace and crown.
18.
Nicholson Museum
–
The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney is home to the largest collection of antiquities in both Australia and the southern Hemisphere. Founded in 1860, the collection spans the ancient world with primary collection areas including ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, the Nicholson Museum is named after its founder, Sir Charles Nicholson. In 1856-57, Nicholson traveled throughout Egypt and then Italy where he acquired the first thousand or so primarily ancient Egyptian, Greek and these he donated to the University in 1860. The museum’s collection has grown exponentially since this founding donation, individual benefaction, donations, sponsored archaeological projects and curatorial acquisition have all contributed to the wealth of material now housed by the Nicholson Museum. The museum currently has a mixture of permanent and temporary exhibition areas within its gallery, temporary exhibitions include, LEGO Pompeii, featuring a large scale model of the site of Pompeii in LEGO and 50 Objects,50 Stories – scheduled to close July 2015. In 2005, Michael Turner was appointed Senior Curator, the Museum also possesses a significant historic photograph collection of over 1350 glass negatives taken by former curator William J Woodhouse. Egyptian material formed a part of Sir Charles Nicholsons founding donation. In total over seventy significant Greek artefacts were included in the donation of the Nicholson Museum. Further material, representative of the Greek mainland and islands, was bought during the curatorship of A. D. Trendall, the collection was then expanded following a donation of hundreds of pottery fragments and small votive objects by the family of former curator William J Woodhouse in 1948. The majority of material is thought to have been collected during Woodhouse’s 1890s and 1930s trips to Greece. From the museum’s foundation the cultures of ancient Italy have been represented in the collection. Sir Charles Nicholson spent considerable time in Rome collecting Latin inscriptions, Etruscan funerary urns and bronzes, South Italian vases and Roman lamps, figurines, additional large sculptural works were also acquired by Sir Charles including two life-sized togatus statues along with several fragmentary figures. The Italian collection was developed with the acquisition of a significant corpus of South Italian vases by A. D. Trendall during his curatorial tenure. Many of the significant pieces from the South Italian collection have been published in the first Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum of an Australian collection. The Near Eastern collection began with just a handful of artefacts from Ur and this was greatly expanded upon in the mid 20th century by the acquisition program of the curators A. D. Trendall and his successor James Stewart. The University of Sydney also contributed financially to archaeological excavations and projects in the Near East, most notably Dame Kathleen Kenyon’s excavations at Jericho. LEGO Pompeii A modern brilliant creation of LEGO Pompeii can be found in Nicholson museum, LEGO Professional Builder Ryan McNaught presented the city of ancient Pompeii by using LEGO. However, the LEGO does not only present the city at its one particular time, it displays Pompeii as it was the moment of destruction, as it was when rediscovered
Nicholson Museum
–
Hathor capital from the Temple of Bubastis on display in the Nicholson Museum
Nicholson Museum
–
Entrance to the Nicholson Museum in the University of Sydney's historic quadrangle
Nicholson Museum
–
Faculties and Schools
19.
Tanis
–
Tanis is a city in the north-eastern Nile Delta of Egypt. It is located on the Tanitic branch of the Nile which has long since silted up, Tanis was a city in ancient Egypt and served as a parallel religious center to Thebes in the Third Intermediate Period. No archaeological evidence from it pre-dates the reign of Psusennes I, taniss creation was most likely due to the silting up of the Nile branch that ran by Pi-Ramesses, which forced people to seek another area with access to water. Later on, Tanis would become known as Thebes of Lower Egypt, the kings at Tanis saw themselves as the legitimate successors on the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. They used traditional titles and displayed their royalty in building work, Tanis was founded in the late Twentieth Dynasty, and became the northern capital of Egypt during the following Twenty-first Dynasty. It was the city of Smendes, founder of the 21st dynasty. During the Twenty-second Dynasty, Tanis remained as Egypts political capital and it was an important commercial and strategic city until it was threatened with inundation by Lake Manzala in the 6th century AD, when it was finally abandoned. The refugees founded the city of Tennis. The Hebrew story of Moses’ being found in the marshes of the Nile River as told in Exodus 2, the demise of the city may well have been caused by the relocation of Nile tributaries. Tanis was the site of archaeological digs beginning in the 19th century, involving Flinders Petrie. In 1866, Karl Richard Lepsius discovered at Tanis the Decree of Canopus—an inscription closely related to the Rosetta Stone and this discovery contributed significantly to the decipherment of hieroglyphics. There are ruins of a number of temples, including the temple dedicated to Amun. However, the burials of three Dynasty 21 and Dynasty 22 pharaohs — Psusennes I, Amenemope and Shoshenq II — survived the depredations of tomb robbers throughout antiquity. The chief deities of Tanis were Amun, his consort, Mut and this triad was, however, identical to that of Thebes, leading many scholars to speak of Tanis as the northern Thebes. In 2009, the Egyptian Culture Ministry reported archaeologists had discovered the site of a lake in a temple to the goddess Mut at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in ancient Tanis. The lake, built out of blocks, had been 15 meters long and 12 meters wide. It was discovered 12 meters below ground in good condition and this was the second sacred lake found at Tanis. The first lake at the site had been identified in 1928, a French archeological team selected a site from the imagery and confirmed mud-brick structures approximately 30 cm below the surface
Tanis
–
The ruins of Tanis today
Tanis
–
The Royal Tombs of Tanis
Tanis
–
Wendjebauendjed 's funerary mask
Tanis
–
Wendjebauendjed's cups from Tanis
20.
Pelusiac branch
–
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the worlds largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, from north to south the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo, from north to south, the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. From west-to-east, it covers some 240 kilometres of coastline, the delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control, one such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal runs to the east of the delta, entering the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta, to the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons, Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Maryut. The Nile is considered to be a delta, as it resembles a triangle or flower when seen from above. The outer edges of the delta are eroding, and some coastal lagoons have seen increasing salinity levels as their connection to the Mediterranean Sea increases, topsoil in the delta can be as much as 70 feet in depth. People have lived in the Delta region for thousands of years, the Delta River used to flood on an annual basis, but this ended with the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Rosetta Stone was found in the Nile Delta in 1799 in the city of Rosetta. The delta was a constituent of Lower Egypt. The Biblical Land of Goshen was located in an area on the west bank of the Pelusiac distributary. There are many sites in and around the Nile Delta. About 39 million people live in the Delta region, outside of major cities, population density in the delta averages 1,000 persons/km² or more. Alexandria is the largest city in the delta with a population of more than 4.5 million. Other large cities in the delta include Shubra al Khaymah, Port Said, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, El Mansura, Tanta, during autumn, parts of the Nile River are red with lotus flowers. The Lower Nile and the Upper Nile have plants that grow in abundance, the Upper Nile plant is the Egyptian lotus, and the Lower Nile plant is the Papyrus Sedge, although it is not nearly as plentiful as it once was, and is becoming quite rare. Several hundred thousand birds winter in the delta, including the world’s largest concentrations of little gulls
Pelusiac branch
–
NASA satellite photograph of the Nile Delta (shown in false color)
Pelusiac branch
–
The Nile Delta at night
Pelusiac branch
–
Nile River and Delta
Pelusiac branch
–
Ancient branches of the Nile, showing Wadi Tumilat, and the lakes east of the Delta
21.
Shoshenq I
–
Hedjkheperre Setepenre Shoshenq I, — also known as Sheshonk or Sheshonq I — was a pharaoh of ancient Egypt and the founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty. Of ancient Libyan ancestry, Shoshenq I was the son of Nimlot A, Great Chief of the Ma, and his wife Tentshepeh A and he is presumed to be the Shishaq mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and his exploits are carved on the Bubastite Portal at Karnak. Bierbrier based his opinion on Biblical evidence collated by W. Albright in a BASOR130 paper, building materials would first have had to be extracted and architectural planning performed for his great monumental projects here. Such activities usually took up to a year to complete work was even begun. This would imply that Shoshenq I likely lived for a period in excess of one year after his 925 BC campaign and this possibility would also permit his 945 BC accession date to be slightly lowered to 943 BC. The editors of the 2006 book Ancient Egyptian Chronology write, The chronology of early Dyn.22 depends on dead reckoning. The sum of the highest attested regnal dates for Osorkon II, Takelot I, Osorkon I, the large Dakhla stela provides a lunar date in the form of a wrš feast in year 5 of Shoshenq, yielding 943 BC as his year 1. However, Dr. Anthony Leahy has suggested that the identification of the wrš-festival of Seth as lunar is hypothetical, thus far, however, only Dr. Kenneth Kitchen is on record as sharing the same academic view. Sheshonk I is frequently identified with the Egyptian king Shishaq, referred to in the Hebrew Bible at 1st Kings 11,40,14,25, Shoshenq I is generally attributed with the raid on Judah. This is corroborated with a stela discovered at Megiddo, Shoshenq I was the son of Nimlot A and Tentsepeh A. His paternal grandparents were the Chief of the MA Shoshenk and his wife Mehytenweskhet A, prior to his reign, Shoshenq I had been the Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Army, and chief advisor to his predecessor Psusennes II, as well as the father-in-law of Psusennes daughter Maatkare. He also held his fathers title of Great Chief of the Ma or Meshwesh, significantly, his uncle Osorkon the Elder had already served on the throne for at least six years in the preceding 21st Dynasty, hence, Shoshenq Is rise to power was not wholly unexpected. As king, Shoshenq chose his eldest son, Osorkon I, as his successor and consolidated his authority over Egypt through marriage alliances, finally, Shoshenq I designated his third son, Nimlot B, as the Leader of the Army at Herakleopolis in Middle Egypt. He pursued a foreign policy in the adjacent territories of the Middle East. There is no mention of either an attack nor tribute from Jerusalem, the fragment of a stela bearing his cartouche from Megiddo has been interpreted as a monument Shoshenq erected there to commemorate his victory. Some of these cities include ancient Israelite fortresses such as Megiddo, Taanach. There are other problems with Shoshenq being the same as the biblical Shishak and his list focuses on places either north or south of Judah, as if he did not raid the center. The fundamental problem facing historians is establishing the aims of the two accounts and linking up the information in them, there have been some possible suggestions and proposals from scholars regarding this issue
Shoshenq I
–
Sphinx of king Shoshenq I,
Brooklyn Museum,
New York
Shoshenq I
–
The
Bubastite Portal at
Karnak, depicting Shoshenq I and his second son, the High Priest Iuput A
Shoshenq I
–
The Triumphal Relief of Shoshenq I near the
Bubastite Portal at
Karnak, depicting the god Amun-Re receiving a list of cities and villages conquered by the king in his Near Eastern military campaigns.
22.
Pharaoh
–
The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
Pharaoh
–
Den
Pharaoh
–
Narmer Palette
Pharaoh
–
Nomen and prenomen of
Ramesses III
Pharaoh
–
Royal titulary
23.
Persian Empire
–
Persian Empire refers to any of a series of imperial dynasties centered in Persia. The first of these was the Achaemenid Empire established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC with the conquest of Median, Lydian and Babylonian empires and it covered much of the Ancient world when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. Several later dynasties claimed to be heirs of the Achaemenids, Persia was then ruled by the Parthian Empire which supplanted the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, and then by the Sassanian Empire which ruled up until mid 7th century. It is important to note that many of these empires referred to themselves as Persian, they were often ethnically ruled by Medes, Babylonians. Iranian dynastic history was interrupted by the Arab Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD, establishing the even larger Islamic Caliphate, the main religion of ancient Persia was the native Zoroastrianism, but after the seventh century, it was replaced by Islam. Since 1979 and the downfall of the Pahlavi dynasty during Iranian Revolution, Persia has had a Shiah theocratic government
Persian Empire
–
Extent of the first Persian Empire, the
Achaemenid Empire.
24.
Cambyses II
–
Cambyses II son of Cyrus the Great, was emperor of the Achaemenid Empire. Cambyses grandfather was Cambyses I, king of Anshan, after the Egyptian campaign and the truce with Libya, Cambyses invaded the Kingdom of Kush but with little success. Though numerous scholars link Cambyses to the Sanskrit tribal name Kamboja there are also few scholars who suggest Elamite origin of the name, jean Przyluski had sought to find an Austric affinity for Kamboja. Friedrich von Spiegel, Sten Konow, Ernst Herzfeld, James Hope Moulton, Wojciech Skalmowski, James Hope Moulton regards Spiegels suggestions as the best of other etymological explanations of these two names. On the other hand, Arnold J, when Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BC, Cambyses was employed in leading religious ceremonies. In the cylinder which contains Cyrus proclamation to the Babylonians, Cambyses name is joined to his fathers in the prayers to Marduk, on a tablet dated from the first year of Cyrus, Cambyses is called king of Babylon, although his authority seems to have been ephemeral. Only in 530 BC, when Cyrus set out on his last expedition into the East, numerous Babylonian tablets of the time date from the accession and the first year of Cambyses, when Cyrus was king of the countries. After the death of his father in 530 BC, Cambyses became sole king, the tablets dating from his reign in Babylonia run to the end of his eighth year, in 522 BC. Herodotus, who dates his reign from the death of Cyrus, gives his reign a length of seven years five months, the traditions about Cambyses, preserved by the Greek authors, come from two different sources. The first, which forms the part of the account of Herodotus, is of Egyptian origin. Here Cambyses is made the son of Cyrus and a daughter of Apries named Nitetis. Intermingled are some stories derived from the Greek mercenaries, especially about their leader Phanes of Halicarnassus, who betrayed Egypt to the Persians. In the Persian tradition the crime of Cambyses is the murder of his brother, he is accused of drunkenness, in which he commits many crimes. These traditions are found in different passages of Herodotus, and in a later form and it is difficult to form a correct picture of Cambysess character from these inscriptions. It was quite natural that, after Cyrus had conquered the Middle East, Cambyses should undertake the conquest of Egypt, the war took place in 525 BC, when Amasis II had just been succeeded by his son Psamtik III. Cambyses had prepared for the march through the desert by forming an alliance with Arabian chieftains, King Amasis had hoped that Egypt would be able to withstand the threatened Persian attack through his alliance with the Greeks. In the decisive battle at Pelusium the Egyptian army was defeated, the captive king Psammetichus was executed, having attempted a rebellion. The Egyptian inscriptions show that Cambyses officially adopted the titles and the dress of the Pharaohs
Cambyses II
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Cambyses II
Cambyses II
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The lost army of Cambyses II according to a 19th-century engraving
25.
Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt
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The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC. The dynastys reign is called the Saite Period after the city of Sais, where its pharaohs had their capital. This dynasty traced its origins to the 24th Dynasty, Psamtik I was probably a descendant of Bakenrenef, and following the Assyrians invasions during the reigns of Taharqa and Tantamani, he was recognized as sole king over all of Egypt. With the help of Greek mercenaries, Apries was able to hold back Babylonian attempts to conquer Egypt and their king, Cambyses II, captured and later executed Psamtik III. The 26th Dynasty may be related to the 24th Dynasty, Manetho begins the dynasty with, Ammeris the Nubian,12 years Stephinates,7 years Nechepsos,6 years Necho,8 years. When the Nubian King Shabaka defeated Bakenrenef, son of Tefnakht and this may be the man named Ammeris. Stephinates may be a descendant of Bakenrenef and he is sometimes referred to as Tefnakht II in the literature. Nechepsos has been identified with a king named Nekauba. Manethos Necho is King Necho I, Manetho gives his reign as 8 years, Necho was killed during a conflict with the Nubian king Tanutamun. Psamtik I fled to Nineveh – capital of the Assyrian Empire – and returned to Egypt when Assurbanipal defeated Tanutamun, scholars now start the 26th Dynasty with the reign of Psamtik I. Sextus Julius Africanus states in his often accurate version of Manethos Epitome that the dynasty numbered 9 pharaohs, beginning with a Stephinates, Africanus also notes that Psamtik I and Necho I ruled for 54 and 8 years respectively. History of Ancient Egypt Twenty-sixth Dynasty Family Tree Twenty-sixth Dynasty Timeline Late Period of ancient Egypt Achaemenid Empire Saite Oracle Papyrus Aidan Dodson, the Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, London 2004 Kenneth Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt,1986 ISBN 978-0-85668-298-8 Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Bild und Charakter der ägyptischen 26
Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt
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Female figure,
Louvre Museum. The name of
Psammetichus I is inscribed under the feet.
26.
Achaemenid dynasty
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
Achaemenid dynasty
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Standard of Cyrus the Great
Achaemenid dynasty
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Relief of
Cyrus the Great.
Achaemenid dynasty
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Mausoleum at Halicarnassus one of the
Seven wonders of the ancient world was built by Persian satrap of
Caria,
Mausolus (Scale model.)
27.
Eusebius
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Eusebius of Caesarea, also known as Eusebius Pamphili, was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. He became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima about 314 AD, together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon and is regarded as an extremely well learned Christian of his time. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel, as Father of Church History he produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs. Little is known about the life of Eusebius and his successor at the See of Caesarea, Acacius, wrote a Life of Eusebius, a work that has since been lost. Eusebius own surviving works probably only represent a portion of his total output. Beyond notices in his extant writings, the sources are the 5th-century ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. There are assorted notices of his activities in the writings of his contemporaries Athanasius, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius pupil, Eusebius of Emesa, provides some incidental information. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius writes of Dionysius of Alexandria as his contemporary, if this is true, Eusebius birth must have been before Dionysius death in autumn 264, most modern scholars date the birth to some point in the five years between 260 and 265. He was presumably born in the town in which he lived for most of his adult life and he was baptized and instructed in the city, and lived in Palestine in 296, when Diocletians army passed through the region. Eusebius was made presbyter by Agapius of Caesarea, S. Wallace-Hadrill, deem the phrase too ambiguous to support the contention. By the 3rd century, Caesarea had a population of about 100,000 and it had been a pagan city since Pompey had given control of the city to the gentiles during his command of the eastern provinces in the 60s BC. The gentiles retained control of the city for the three centuries to follow, despite Jewish petitions for joint governorship, gentile government was strengthened by the citys refoundation under Herod the Great, when it had taken on the name of Augustus Caesar. In addition to the settlers, Caesarea had large Jewish. Eusebius was probably born into the Christian contingent of the city.46 states that Zacchaeus was the first bishop, through the activities of the theologian Origen and the school of his follower Pamphilus, Caesarea became a center of Christian learning. Origen was largely responsible for the collection of information, or which churches were using which gospels. On his deathbed, Origen had made a bequest of his library to the Christian community in the city. Together with the books of his patron Ambrosius, Origens library formed the core of the collection that Pamphilus established, Pamphilus also managed a school that was similar to that of Origen. Pamphilus was compared to Demetrius of Phalerum and Pisistratus, for he had gathered Bibles from all parts of the world, like his model Origen, Pamphilus maintained close contact with his students
Eusebius
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Eusebius in a modern imagining
Eusebius
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Eusebius's
canon tables were often included in Early Medieval
Gospel books
Eusebius
–
Ministry of Jesus &
Apostolic Age
28.
Psamtik I
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Wahibre Psamtik I, known by the Greeks as Psammeticus or Psammetichus, who ruled 664–610 BC, was the first of three kings of that name of the Saite, or Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt. From cuneiform texts, it was discovered that twenty local princelings were appointed by Esarhaddon, the labyrinth built by Amenemhat III of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt is ascribed by Herodotus to the Dodecarchy, which must represent this combination of rulers. Necho I died in 664 BC when the Kushite king Tantamani tried unsuccessfully to control of lower Egypt from the Assyrian Empire. After his fathers death, Psamtik both united all of Egypt and freed it from Assyrian control within the first ten years of his reign, psamtiks victory destroyed the last vestiges of the Nubian Twenty-fifth Dynastys control over Upper Egypt under Tantamani since Thebes now accepted his authority. Nitocris would hold her office for 70 years from 656 BC until her death in 585 BC, thereafter, Psamtik campaigned vigorously against those local princes who opposed his reunification of Egypt. One of his victories over certain Libyan marauders is mentioned in a Year 10, Psamtik won Egypts independence from the Assyrian Empire and restored Egypts prosperity during his 54-year reign. The pharaoh proceeded to close relations with archaic Greece and also encouraged many Greek settlers to establish colonies in Egypt. In particular, he settled some Greeks at Tahpanhes, the Greek historian Herodotus conveyed an anecdote about Psamtik in the second volume of his Histories. During his travel to Egypt, Herodotus heard that Psammetichus sought to discover the origin of language by conducting an experiment with two children, the hypothesis was that the first word would be uttered in the root language of all people. When one of the children cried βεκός with outstretched arms, the shepherd concluded that the word was Phrygian because that was the sound of the Phrygian word for bread. Thus, they concluded that the Phrygians were a people than the Egyptians. There are no other extant sources to verify this story, psamtiks chief wife was Mehytenweskhet, the daughter of Harsiese, the vizier of the North and High Priests of Atum at Heliopolis. Psamtik and Mehytenweskhet were the parents of Necho II, Merneith, Harsiese was the son of vizier Harkhebi, and was related to two other Harsieses, both viziers, who were a part of the family of the famous Mayor of Thebes Montuemhat. On 9 March 2017, Egyptian and German archaeologists discovered a colossal statue about 7.9 metres in height at the Heliopolis site in Cairo. Made of quartzite, the statue was found in a state, with the bust, the lower part of the head. It is suggested to be of Psamtik I due to engravings found that one of the pharaohs names on the base of the statue. A spokesperson at the time commented that If it does belong to this king, the head and torso are expected to be moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
Psamtik I
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Relief of Psamtik I making an offering to Ra-Horakhty (Tomb of Pabasa)
Psamtik I
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7th century statue of Psamtik. Inscription reads, "Amphimeos' son Pedon brought me from Egypt and gave as a votive; Psammetichos, the king of Egypt gave him a city for his virtue and a golden diadem for his virtue."
Psamtik I
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Basalt wall depicting Psamtik I (
British Museum)
29.
Ionians
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The Ionians were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period, the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian dialects. When referring to populations, “Ionian” defines several groups in Classical Greece, in the narrowest sense it referred to the region of Ionia in Asia Minor. Finally, in the broadest sense it could be used to all those who spoke languages of the East Greek group. The foundation myth which was current in the Classical period suggested that the Ionians were named after Ion, son of Xuthus, when the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese they expelled the Achaeans from the Argolid and Lacedaemonia. The displaced Achaeans moved into Aegilaus, in expelling the Ionians from the Aegilaus. The Ionians moved to Attica and mingled with the population of Attica. Unlike the austere and militaristic Dorians, the Ionians are renowned for their love of philosophy, art, democracy, unlike Aeolians and Dorians, Ionians appears in the languages of different civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. They are not the earliest Greeks to appear in the records, that belongs to the Danaans. The trail of the Ionians begins in the Mycenaean Greek records of Crete, a fragmentary Linear B tablet from Knossos bears the name i-ja-wo-ne, interpreted by Ventris and Chadwick as possibly the dative or nominative plural case of *Iāwones, an ethnic name. The Knossos tablets are dated to 1400 or 1200 B. C. and thus pre-date the Dorian dominance in Crete and this name also appears in a fragment of the other early poet, Hesiod, in the singular Ἰάων, iāōn. In the Book of Genesis of the English Bible, Javan is a son of Japheth, Javan is believed nearly universally by Bible scholars to represent the Ionians, that is, Javan is Ion. The Hebrew is Yāwān, plural Yəwānīm, additionally, but less surely, Japheth may be related linguistically to the Greek mythological figure Iapetus. The locations of Biblical tribal countries have been the subjects of centuries of scholarship, the Book of Isaiah gives what may be a hint by listing the nations. That have not heard my fame including Javan and immediately after the isles afar off, are the isles in apposition to Javan or the last item in the series. If the former, the expression is used of the population of the islands in the Aegean Sea. The date of the Book of Isaiah cannot precede the date of the man Isaiah, the Assyrian word, which is preceded by the country determinative, has been reconstructed as *Iaunaia. More common is ia-a-ma-nu, ia-ma-nu and ia-am-na-a-a with the country determinative, sargon II related that he took the latter from the sea like fish and that they were from the sea of the setting sun. of Yadnana
Ionians
–
The location of ancient
Ionia on the coast of modern-day
Turkey.
,_Egypt._From_the_Amelia_Edwards_Collection._The_Petrie_Museum_of_Egyptian_Archaeology,_London.jpg)
Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "Bubastis". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
