1.
Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt. Cairo has long been a center of the political and cultural life. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the worlds second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, with a population of 6.76 million spread over 453 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution, Cairos metro, one of only two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the citys importance for the country. In Coptic the city is known as Kahire, meaning Place of the Sun, possibly referring to the ancient city of Heliopolis, the location of the ancient city is the suburb of Ain Shams. The ancient Egyptian name for the area is thought to be Khere-Ohe, The Place of Combat, sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro. The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance and this fortress, known as Babylon, remained the nucleus of the Roman, and, later, the Byzantine, city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is also situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, many of Cairos oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo. Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area became known as al-Fustat. Originally a tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt, in 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp, a rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government. This was al-Qattai, to the north of Fustat and closer to the river, Al Qattai was centred around a palace and ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905 the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their returned to Fustat
2.
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
3.
History museum
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Most large museums are located in major cities throughout the world and more local ones exist in smaller cities, towns and even the countryside. Museums have varying aims, ranging from serving researchers and specialists to serving the general public, the goal of serving researchers is increasingly shifting to serving the general public. There are many types of museums, including art museums, natural history museums, science museums, war museums, the city with the largest number of museums is Mexico City with over 128 museums. According to The World Museum Community, there are more than 55,000 museums in 202 countries, the English museum comes from the Latin word, and is pluralized as museums. The first museum/library is considered to be the one of Plato in Athens, however, Pausanias gives another place called Museum, namely a small hill in Classical Athens opposite to the Akropolis. The hill was called Mouseion after Mousaious, a man who used to sing on the hill, the purpose of modern museums is to collect, preserve, interpret, and display items of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for the education of the public. The purpose can also depend on ones point of view, to a family looking for entertainment on a Sunday afternoon, a trip to a local history museum or large city art museum could be a fun, and enlightening way to spend the day. To city leaders, a healthy museum community can be seen as a gauge of the health of a city. To a museum professional, a museum might be seen as a way to educate the public about the museums mission, Museums are, above all, storehouses of knowledge. In 1829, James Smithsons bequest, that would fund the Smithsonian Institution, stated he wanted to establish an institution for the increase, Museums of natural history in the late 19th century exemplified the Victorian desire for consumption and for order. Gathering all examples of classification of a field of knowledge for research. As American colleges grew in the 19th century, they developed their own natural history collections for the use of their students, while many large museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution, are still respected as research centers, research is no longer a main purpose of most museums. While there is a debate about the purposes of interpretation of a museums collection, there has been a consistent mission to protect. Much care, expertise, and expense is invested in efforts to retard decomposition in aging documents, artifacts, artworks. All museums display objects that are important to a culture, as historian Steven Conn writes, To see the thing itself, with ones own eyes and in a public place, surrounded by other people having some version of the same experience can be enchanting. Museum purposes vary from institution to institution, some favor education over conservation, or vice versa. For example, in the 1970s, the Canada Science and Technology Museum favored education over preservation of their objects and they displayed objects as well as their functions. One exhibit featured a printing press that a staff member used for visitors to create museum memorabilia
4.
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
5.
Azbakeya
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Azbakeya is one of the districts of Cairo, Egypt in the centre of Cairo, and contains many historically important establishments. One of these is the Saint Marks Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, which was inaugurated by Pope Mark VIII in 1800, Azbakeya was the place where the first Cairo Opera House was established, until it was burnt in 1970. By the time of Barquq, the first Circassian Mamluk Sultan, in 1384 AD, when Barquq started his madrassa in Bayn al-Qasrayn, markets were rebuilt, and Khan al-Khalili, the most famous touristic market in Cairo, was established. The Maqrisi showed that the cemetery, founded by al-Nasir Muhammad. When al-Nasir Muhammad in 1320 abandoned the area between Bab al-Nasr cemetery and Muqattam, a number of buildings started to be built in the northern cemetery. The lack of opposition allowed for the construction of striking religious buildings of monumental scale in the northern cemetery, examples include Khanqa of Faraj Ibn Barquq, Madrasas of Inal, Qurqumas, Barsbay and Qaitbay. During the latter half of the 15th century, two major transformations took place in Cairo, the port of Bulaq, and a district called Azbakeya in the northwest section of the city. By the end of the 15th century, Bulaq was even able to take over the role as the commercial port from Old Cairo. With Al Khalij always serving as the boundary of the city and feeding nearby ponds. After each flooding, surrounding lands would be transformed into green areas with vegetation. Cairo was often referred to as Misr, or Egypt, which implies that Cairo was often considered to be synonymous to Egypt whereas other cities in Egypt were of far less significance. By the Ayyubid period, the Iqtaa or feudal system was established and was continued by the Mamluks as an important source of revenue. Although the Mamluk Amirs owned large pieces of lands in various parts of Egypt. In comparison with the European of that time, the majordomo residing on the land, the Mamluks used to visit their lands infrequently either for supervision or the collection of the profits. The Mamluk class was not a community, as Max Weber explains that class is a number of people have in common a specific component of their life chances. This component is represented exclusively by economic interests in the possession of goods, Cairo was the center of trade for the caravans, joining the east with the west and most of the profitable commercial deals were done in through its commercial centers. The Ambitious Mamluks preferred to live in Cairo seeking a power that guarantees a social class within the amires. This social benefit may lead to better position in the royal hierarchy, the conspiracies, murders and imprisoning were phenomenon that subsisted for the entire period of the Mamluk rule
6.
Cairo Citadel
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The Saladin Citadel of Cairo is a medieval Islamic fortification in Cairo, Egypt. The location, on Mokattam hill near the center of Cairo, was famous for its fresh breeze. It is now a historic site, with mosques and museums. The Citadel was fortified by the Ayyubid ruler Salah al-Din between 1176 and 1183 CE, to protect it from the Crusaders, only a few years after defeating the Fatimid Caliphate, Saladin set out to build a wall that would surround both Cairo and Fustat. The Citadel would be the centerpiece of the wall, the citadel stopped being the seat of government when Egypts ruler, Khedive Ismail, moved to his newly built Abdin Palace in the Ismailiya neighborhood in the 1860s. While the Citadel was completed in 1183–1184, the wall Saladin had envisioned was still under construction in 1238, to supply water to the Citadel, Saladin built the 85-metre deep Well of Joseph, which can still be seen today. This well is known as the Well of the Spiral because its entrance consisted of 300 stairs that wound around the inside of the well. Once water was raised from the well to the surface, it traveled to the Citadel on a series of aqueducts, during the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad, the Well of Joseph failed to produce enough water for the numerous animals and humans then living in the Citadel. The improvements to the Citadels water supply were not Nasirs only additions to the Citadel, Nasirs most notable contribution was the Mosque of Nasir. In 1318 Nasir rebuilt the Ayyubid structure, turning it into a mosque in his name, the structure underwent further additions in 1335. Other contributions to the Citadel during Nasirs reign include the southern enclosure and the residential area, which included space for the harem. Prior to Nasirs work on the Citadel, the Baybars constructed the Hall of Justice and the House of Gold. The Citadel is sometimes referred to as Mohamed Ali Citadel, because it contains the Mosque of Muhammad Ali of and this Ottoman mosque was built in memory of Tusun Pasha, Muhammad Alis second son who died in 1816. However, it also represents Muhammad Alis efforts to erase symbols of the Mamluk dynasty that he replaced, when Ottoman ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha took control from the Mamluks in 1805 he altered many of the additions to the Citadel that reflected Cairos previous leaders. One obvious change that Muhammad Ali enacted pertained to the uses of the Citadels northern and southern enclosures, during the Mamluk period the southern enclosure was the residential area, but Muhammad Ali claimed the northern enclosure as the royal residence when he took power. He then opened the enclosure to the public and effectively established his position as the new leader. The mosque is the feature of the Citadel that reflects the reign of Muhammad Ali. This feature, with its dome and overtly Ottoman influenced architecture
7.
Maximilian I of Mexico
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Maximilian was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was a brother of the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he accepted an offer by Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico, France had invaded Mexico in the winter of 1861, as part of the War of the French Intervention. Seeking to legitimize French rule in the Americas, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new Mexican monarchy for him. With the support of the French army, and a group of conservative Mexican monarchists hostile to the administration of new Mexican President Benito Juárez. Once there, he declared himself Emperor of Mexico on 10 April 1864, the Empire managed to gain recognition by major European powers including Britain, Austria, and Prussia. The United States however, continued to recognize Juarez as the president of Mexico. Maximilian never completely defeated the Mexican Republic, Republican forces led by President Benito Juárez continued to be active during Maximilians rule, with the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States began more explicit aid of President Juárezs forces. Matters worsened for Maximilian after the French armies withdrew from Mexico in 1866 and his self-declared empire collapsed, and he was captured and executed by the Mexican government in 1867. His wife, Charlotte of Belgium, had left for Europe earlier to try to support for her husbands regime, after his execution, however. Maximilian was born on 6 July 1832 in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna and he was baptized the following day as Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph. The first name honored his godfather and paternal uncle, The King of Hungary and his father was Archduke Franz Karl, the second surviving son of The Emperor of Austria, during whose reign he was born. Maximilian was thus a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, a cadet branch of the House of Habsburg. His mother was Princess Sophie of Bavaria, a member of the House of Wittelsbach, despite their different personalities, the marriage was fruitful, and after four miscarriages, four sons—including Maximilian—would reach adulthood. The existence of an affair between Sophie and the Duke, and any possibility that Maximilian was conceived from such a union, are widely dismissed by historians. Adhering to traditions inherited from the Spanish court during Habsburg rule, afterwards, his education was entrusted to a tutor. Most of Maximilians day was spent in study, the thirty-two hours per week of classes at age 7 steadily grew until it reached fifty-five hours per week by the time he was 17. The disciplines were diverse, ranging from history, geography, law and technology, to languages, military studies, fencing, in addition to his native German, he eventually learned to speak Hungarian, Slovak, English, French, Italian and Spanish
8.
Kunsthistorisches Museum
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The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome, the term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country and it was opened around 1891 at the same time as the Naturhistorisches Museum, by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. The two museums have similar exteriors and face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz, both buildings were built between 1871 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer. The two Ringstraße museums were commissioned by the Emperor in order to find a shelter for the Habsburgs formidable art collection. The façade was built of sandstone, the building is rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The inside of the building is decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf. It was featured in an episode of Museum Secrets on the History Channel and it had been the biggest art theft in Austrian history. Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós Media related to Kunsthistorisches Museum at Wikimedia Commons Official website Spherical panorama of entrance Hofburgs Armory - photo gallery in Flickr
9.
Bulaq
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Bulaq, Arabic, بولاق, is a district of Cairo, Egypt. It neighbours Downtown Cairo, Azbakeya, and the River Nile and it is populated with a mixed working class from all parts of Egypt, who migrated to the city during the 19th century to work on Muhammad ‘Ali’s projects. To the north of the district is located the bulk of the newer industrial plants. The history of Bulaq goes back to the Mamluk rule of the century when the site was the main port of Cairo filled with several Wikalas. The new Egyptian Museum of Antiquities was established at Bulaq in 1858 in a former warehouse, the building lay on the bank of the Nile River, and in 1878 it suffered significant damage in a flood. In 1892, the collections were moved to a royal palace. They remained there until 1902 when they were moved, for the last time, the Museums former location is indicated by the continued existence of a Maspero Street, named after the second head of the Antiquities Department. Schools in Bulaq, International Italian School Leonardo da Vinci Kalousdian Armenian School Media related to Bulaq at Wikimedia Commons
10.
Auguste Mariette
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François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette was a French scholar, archaeologist and Egyptologist, and founder of the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Meanwhile, his cousin Nestor LHote, the friend and fellow-traveller of Champollion, died, largely self-taught, he devoted himself to the study of hieroglyphics and Coptic. His 1847 analytic catalogue of the Egyptian Gallery of the Boulogne Museum got him an appointment at the Louvre Museum in 1849. The site initially looked a spectacle of desolation, thus, in 1851, he made his celebrated discovery of this avenue and eventually the subterranean tomb-temple complex of catacombs with their spectacular sarcophagi of the Apis bulls. Breaking through the rubble at the entrance on November 12, he entered the complex, finding thousands of statues, bronze tablets and other treasures. He also found the intact tomb of Prince Khaemweset, Ramesses IIs son. Accused of theft and destruction by rival diggers and by the Egyptian authorities, Mariette began to rebury his finds in the desert to keep them from these competitors. However, the French government and the Louvre set up an arrangement to divide the finds 50,50, so that upon his return to Paris 230 crates went to the Louvre, but an equal amount remained in Egypt. In 1860 alone, Mariette set up 35 new dig sites and his success was aided by the fact that no rivals were permitted to dig in Egypt, a fact that the British and Germans protested at as a sweetheart deal between Egypt and France. Nor were Mariettes relations with the Khedive always stable, the Khedive, like many potentates, assumed all discoveries ranked as treasure and that what went to the museum in Cairo went only at his pleasure. Even early on, in February 1859, Mariette dashed to Thebes to confiscate a boatload of antiquities from the tomb of Queen Ahhotep I that were to have been sent to the Khedive. In 1867, he returned to oversee the ancient Egyptian stand at the Exposition Universelle, in 1869, at the request of the Khedive, he wrote a brief plot for an opera. The following year this concept, worked into a scenario by Camille du Locle, was proposed to Giuseppe Verdi, for Aida, Mariette and Du Locle oversaw the scenery and costumes, which were inspired by the art of Ancient Egypt. The premiere of Aida was originally scheduled for February 1871, but was delayed until 24 December 1871, the opera met with great acclaim. Mariette was raised successively to the rank of bey and pasha, in 1878, his museum was ravaged by floods, which destroyed most of his notes and drawings. At this time, the English comprised the majority of Egyptologists in Egypt and he died in Cairo and was interred in a sarcophagus which is on display in the Garden of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. The bust of other famous Egyptologists, including Charles Wycliffe Goodwin, have placed on a semi-circular memorial around the sarcophagus. Though not all his discoveries were published, the list of his publications is a long one
11.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
12.
Giza
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Giza, is the third-largest city in Egypt. It is located on the west bank of the Nile,5 km southwest of central Cairo, along with Cairo Governorate, Shubra El-Kheima, Helwan, 6th October City and Obour, the five form Greater Cairo metropolis. The city of Giza is the capital of the Giza Governorate and it is located right on the banks of the River Nile. The citys population was 2,681,863 in the 2006 national census and its large population made it the worlds second largest suburb in 2006, tied with Incheon, South Korea and Quezon City, Philippines, second only to Yokohama, Japan. Giza has always been a point in Egypts history due to its location close to Memphis. Its St. George cathedral is the see of the Coptic Catholic Eparchy of Giza. The Great Pyramid of Giza at one time was advocated as the location for the Prime Meridian, a reference point used for determining a base longitude. Mn Nefer, which means the wall in the ancient Egyptian language. Gizas most famous site, the Giza Plateau, holds some major monuments of Egyptian history. Once thriving with the Nile that flowed right into the Giza Plateau, the Giza Plateau is also home to Egyptian monuments such as the tomb of Pharaoh Djet of the First Dynasty, as well as that of Pharaoh Ninetjer of the Second Dynasty. The area in what is now Giza served as the necropolis of several pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt, Three of these tombs, in the form of giant pyramids, are what is now the famed Three Pyramids of Giza. As ancient Egypt passed under several conquests under the Persians, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines, a Byzantine village named Teresa, located south of Giza, existed before the Muslim conquest of the region. A year later in 642 AD, they founded the city of Giza and its name, al-Jizzah in Arabic, means the valley or the plateau, pertaining to the areas topography. Giza has seen changes over time. Giza is a centre of Egyptian culture and is quite heavily populated, with many facilities. Giza saw much attention in particular to its vast amount of ancient Egyptian monuments found on the Giza Plateau, gizas infrastructure saw much attention from both the British government prior to the 1952 coup détat, as well as the current Egyptian government due to the citys importance in tourism. The city hosts the first zoo on the entire African continent and one of the oldest in the Mediterranean region, in addition, there are several parks, the most famous among them is Orman Park, which means Forest Park in the Turkish language. Giza has advanced level of medical care just like its elder twin Cairo, a list of famous hospitals in Giza, Agooza in Agouza district
13.
Tahrir Square
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Tahrir Square, also known as Martyr Square, is a major public town square in Downtown Cairo, Egypt. The square has been the location and focus for political demonstrations in Cairo, most notably those led to the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The square was originally called Ismailia Square, after the 19th-century ruler Khedive Ismail, the square was a focal point for the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 At the centre of Tahrir Square is a large and busy traffic circle. On the north-east side is a plaza with a statue of nationalist hero Omar Makram, celebrated for his resistance against Napoleon Is invasion of Egypt, the National Democratic Party-NDP headquarters building stood here until it was set on fire during the revolution and demolished in 2015. The Cairo Metro serves Tahrir Square with the Sadat Station, which is the junction of the systems two lines, linking to Giza, Maadi, Helwan, and other districts and suburbs of Greater Cairo. Its underground access viaducts provide the safest routes for crossing the broad roads of the heavily trafficked square. Tahrir Square has been the site for numerous major protests and demonstrations over the years, including the 1977 Egyptian Bread Riots. Tahrir Square was the point of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution against former president Hosni Mubarak. Over 50,000 protesters first occupied the square on 25 January, in the following days, Tahrir Square continued to be the primary destination for protests in Cairo. On 29 January, Egyptian fighter aircraft flew low over the people gathered in the square, on 1 February, Al Jazeera reported that more than one million protesters peacefully gathered in the square and adjacent streets. The square became established as a point and a symbol for the ongoing Egyptian democracy demonstrations. Within a week, due to media coverage, the image. The announcement that Mubarak had passed all authority to the Council of the Armed Forces was made by longtime intelligence chief, Tahrir Square, with democracy anniversary celebrations and visits from foreign dignitaries, continued to be a symbol of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. One of the ships in the planned Freedom Flotilla II, intended to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, was named Tahrir after the square, among its passengers was Haaretz reporter Amira Hass. Ultimately, the sailing did not take place, Tahrir Square has also been the site of numerous mass sexual assaults. These crimes have increased since Mubaraks removal in 2011, on 29 June 2013, millions of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square to demonstrate against the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, demanding his resignation from office. The demonstrators used the slogan the people want the ouster of the regime, by the 30th, their number had increased and demonstrations were reported to be in progress in 18 locations across Cairo. The demonstration was noted as the largest revolution in modern-day history, bring together more than 33 million people to the Egyptian streets
14.
Egyptian revolution of 2011
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The Egyptian revolution of 2011, locally known as the January 25 Revolution, began on 25 January 2011 and took place across all of Egypt. The date was set by various groups to coincide with the annual Egyptian police day as a statement against increasing police brutality during the last few years of Mubaraks presidency. It consisted of demonstrations, marches, occupations of plazas, non-violent civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience, millions of protesters from a range of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The revolution started by calls for protests from online youth groups, initially these included liberal, anti-capitalist, nationalist, and feminist elements, but they finally included Islamist elements as well. Violent clashes between security forces and protesters resulted in at least 846 people killed and over 6,000 injured, protesters retaliated by burning over 90 police stations across the country. The protests took place in Cairo, Alexandria and all cities across the nation. The protesters primary demands were the end of the Mubarak regime and emergency law, freedom, justice, a responsive non-military government, strikes by labour unions added to the pressure on government officials. During the uprising, the capital Cairo was described as a war zone, protesters defied a government-imposed curfew, which was impossible to enforce by the police and military. Egypts Central Security Forces, loyal to Mubarak, were replaced by military troops. In the chaos, there was some looting by gangs which was instigated by plainclothes police officers, in response, watch groups were organized by civilians to protect neighbourhoods. International reaction has varied, with most Western nations condoning peaceful protests but concerned about the stability of Egypt, the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions have influenced demonstrations in other Arab countries, including Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria and Libya. Mubarak dissolved his government, appointing former head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Omar Suleiman vice-president in an attempt to quell dissent, Mubarak asked aviation minister and former chief of Egypts air force Ahmed Shafik to form a new government. Mohamed ElBaradei became an opposition figure, with all major opposition groups supporting his role as negotiator for a transitional unity government. In response to mounting pressure, Mubarak in another attempt to contain the crisis announced he did not intend to seek re-election in September. On 11 February 2011 Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak would resign as president, the previous cabinet, including Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik, would serve as a caretaker government until a new one was formed. On 24 May 2011, Mubarak was ordered to trial on charges of premeditated murder of peaceful protesters and, if convicted. On 2 June 2012 Mubarak was found guilty of complicity in the murder of protesters and sentenced to imprisonment, but the sentence was overturned on appeal. A number of protesters, upset that others tried with Mubarak were acquitted, Mubarak was eventually cleared of all charges on 29 November 2014, although Egypts prosecutor general announced he would appeal the verdict
15.
Tutankhamun
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Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom or sometimes the New Empire Period. He has, since his discovery, been referred to as King Tut. His original name, Tutankhaten, means Living Image of Aten, in hieroglyphs, the name Tutankhamun was typically written Amen-tut-ankh, because of a scribal custom that placed a divine name at the beginning of a phrase to show appropriate reverence. The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Tutankhamuns nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and it sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamuns mask, now in the Egyptian Museum, remains the popular symbol. Exhibits of artifacts from his tomb have toured the world, in February 2010, the results of DNA tests confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten. His mother was Akhenatens sister and wife, whose name is unknown, the mysterious deaths of a few of those who excavated Tutankhamuns tomb has been popularly attributed to the curse of the pharaohs. Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten and one of Akhenatens sisters, as a prince, he was known as Tutankhaten. He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine or ten and his wet nurse was a woman called Maia, known from her tomb at Saqqara. His teacher was most likely Sennedjem, when he became king, he married his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. They had two daughters, both stillborn, computed tomography studies released in 2011 revealed that one daughter died at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other at 9 months of pregnancy. No evidence was found in either mummy of congenital anomalies or an apparent cause of death, given his age, the king probably had very powerful advisers, presumably including General Horemheb and Grand Vizier Ay. Horemheb records that the king appointed him lord of the land as hereditary prince to maintain law and he also noted his ability to calm the young king when his temper flared. In his third year, under the influence of his advisors. He ended the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy, the ban on the cult of Amun was lifted and traditional privileges were restored to its priesthood. The capital was moved back to Thebes and the city of Akhetaten abandoned and this is when he changed his name to Tutankhamun, Living image of Amun, reinforcing the restoration of Amun. As part of his restoration, the king initiated building projects, in particular at Karnak in Thebes, many monuments were erected, and an inscription on his tomb door declares the king had spent his life in fashioning the images of the gods. The traditional festivals were now celebrated again, including those related to the Apis Bull, Horemakhet and his restoration stela says, The temples of the gods and goddesses. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown and their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads
16.
Akhenaten
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Akhenaten known before the fifth year of his reign as Amenhotep IV, was an Ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty who ruled for 17 years and died perhaps in 1336 BC or 1334 BC. An early inscription likens the Aten to the sun as compared to stars, Akhenaten tried to bring about a departure from traditional religion, yet in the end it would not be accepted. After his death, his monuments were dismantled and hidden, his statues were terminated and he was all but lost from history until the discovery during the 19th century of the site of Akhetaten, the city he built and designed for the worship of Aten, at Amarna. DNA analysis has determined that the man buried in KV55 is the father of King Tutankhamun, the future Akhenaten was a younger son of Amenhotep III and Chief Queen Tiye. The eldest son Crown Prince Thutmose was recognized as the heir of Amenhotep III but he died relatively young, there is much controversy around whether Amenhotep IV succeeded to the throne on the death of his father Amenhotep III or whether there was a coregency. Other literature by Donald Redford, William Murnane, Alan Gardiner, in February 2014, the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities announced what it called conclusive evidence that Akhenaten shared power with his father for at least 8 years. The evidence came from the found in the Luxor tomb of Vizier Amenhotep-Huy. A team of Spanish archeologists have been working at this tomb, Amenhotep IV was crowned in Thebes and there he started a building program. He decorated the entrance to the precincts of the temple of Amun-Re with scenes of his worshiping Re-Harakhti. He soon decreed the construction of a dedicated to the Aten in Eastern Karnak. This Temple of Amenhotep IV was called the Gempaaten, the Gempaaten consisted of a series of buildings, including a palace and a structure called the Hwt Benben which was dedicated to Queen Nefertiti. Other Aten temples constructed at Karnak during this time include the Rud-menu, during this time he did not repress the worship of Amun, and the High Priest of Amun was still active in the fourth year of his reign. The king appears as Amenhotep IV in the tombs of some of the nobles in Thebes, Kheruef, Ramose, in the tomb of Ramose, Amenhotep IV appears on the west wall in the traditional style, seated on a throne with Ramose appearing before the king. On the other side of the doorway, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are shown in the window of appearance with the Aten depicted as the sun disc. In the Theban tomb of Parennefer, Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti are seated on a throne with the sun disk depicted over the king, among the latter-known documents referring to Amenhotep IV are two copies of a letter from the Steward Of Memphis Apy to the pharaoh. The documents were found in Gurob and are dated to regnal year 5, third month of the Growing Season, on day 13, Month 8, in the fifth year of his reign, the king arrived at the site of the new city Akhetaten. A month before that Amenhotep IV had officially changed his name to Akhenaten, Amenhotep IV changed most of his 5 fold titulary in year 5 of his reign. The only name he kept was his prenomen or throne name of Neferkheperure, some recent debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people
17.
Ushabti
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The ushabti was a funerary figurine used in Ancient Egypt. Ushabtis were placed in tombs among the goods and were intended to act as servants or minions for the deceased. The figurines frequently carried a hoe on their shoulder and a basket on their backs and they were usually written on by the use of hieroglyphs typically found on the legs. Called “answerers, ” they carried inscriptions asserting their readiness to answer the summons to work. The practice of using ushabtis originated in the Old Kingdom with the use of life-sized reserve heads made from limestone, most ushabtis were of minor size, and many produced in multiples – they sometimes covered the floor around a sarcophagus. Exceptional ushabtis are of size, or produced as a one-of-a-kind master work. Produced in huge numbers, ushabtis, along with scarabs, are the most numerous of all ancient Egyptian antiquities to survive, otherwise, they might better be defined by the generic term, funerary figurines. The shabtis were servant figures that carried out the tasks required of the deceased in the underworld and it was necessary for the owners name to be inscribed on an ushabti, along with a phrase sending them to action, written in the hieratic script. The shabti figure answers, I am here and will come wherever you bid me, the shawabti were a distinct class of funerary figurines within the area of Thebes during the New Kingdom. The term ushabti became prevalent after the 21st Dynasty and remained in use until Ptolemaic times, Ushabti inscriptions often contain the 6th chapter of the Book of the Dead, translated as, Illumine the Osiris, whose word is truth. The Shabti Figure replieth, I will do it, verily I am here when thou callest”, in rare cases different chapters of the Book of the Dead are written. Furthermore, ushabtis often mention the name and the titles of the owner, before being inscribed on funerary figurines, the spell was written on some mid-Twelfth Dynasty coffins from Deir el-Bersha and is known today as spell 472 of the Coffin Texts. Mentioned first in spell 472 of the Coffin Texts, they were included in the goods of the dead as small figurines since the reign of Mentuhotep II of the 11th Dynasty. In the 18th Dynasty during the reign of Amenhotep IV, the figurines were inscribed with an offering addressed to the sun disk, Aten, rather than the traditional speech of the ushabti figure. The ushabti was believed to magically animate after the dead had been judged, from the New Kingdom onwards, it was often referred to as servant. From the 21st Dynasty on, ushabtis became common and numerous in graves, in some tombs the floor was covered with a great many ushabti figurines, in others the ushabtis were neatly packed into ushabti boxes. At times, several hundred ushabti were placed in a deceased Ancient Egyptians tomb, but pharaohs had considerably more of these servants than commoners, some tombs contained overseer or reis ushabtis holding a whip, which were responsible for groups of ten ushabti each -. These overseers became rare during the Late Period, the tomb of Tutankhamun had a large number of ushabtis
18.
Papyrus
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The word papyrus /pəˈpaɪrəs/ refers to a thick precursor to modern paper made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus. Papyrus can also refer to a document written on sheets of papyrus joined together side by side and rolled up into a scroll, the plural for such documents is papyri. Papyrus is first known to have used in ancient Egypt. It was also used throughout the Mediterranean region and in Kingdom of Kush, the Ancient Egyptians used papyrus as a writing material, as well as employing it commonly in the construction of other artifacts such as reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, and baskets. Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the fourth millennium BCE, the earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf, an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza, in the first centuries BCE and CE, papyrus scrolls gained a rival as a writing surface in the form of parchment, which was prepared from animal skins. Sheets of parchment were folded to form quires from which book-form codices were fashioned, early Christian writers soon adopted the codex form, and in the Græco-Roman world, it became common to cut sheets from papyrus rolls to form codices. Codices were an improvement on the scroll, as the papyrus was not pliable enough to fold without cracking. Papyrus had the advantage of being cheap and easy to produce. Unless the papyrus was of quality, the writing surface was irregular. Its last appearance in the Merovingian chancery is with a document of 692, the latest certain dates for the use of papyrus are 1057 for a papal decree, under Pope Victor II, and 1087 for an Arabic document. Its use in Egypt continued until it was replaced by more inexpensive paper introduced by Arabs who originally learned of it from the Chinese, by the 12th century, parchment and paper were in use in the Byzantine Empire, but papyrus was still an option. Papyrus was made in several qualities and prices, pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville described six variations of papyrus which were sold in the Roman market of the day. These were graded by quality based on how fine, firm, white, grades ranged from the superfine Augustan, which was produced in sheets of 13 digits wide, to the least expensive and most coarse, measuring six digits wide. Materials deemed unusable for writing or less than six digits were considered commercial quality and were pasted edge to edge to be used only for wrapping, until the middle of the 19th century, only some isolated documents written on papyrus were known. They did not contain literary works, the first modern discovery of papyri rolls was made at Herculaneum in 1752. Until then, the papyri known had been a few surviving from medieval times. The English word papyrus derives, via Latin, from Greek πάπυρος, Greek has a second word for it, βύβλος
19.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
20.
Egyptian language
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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
21.
Thutmose III
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Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first 22 years of Thutmoses reign he was co-regent with his stepmother and aunt, Hatshepsut, while he was shown first on surviving monuments, both were assigned the usual royal names and insignia and neither is given any obvious seniority over the other. He served as the head of her armies, during the final 2 years of his reign, he appointed his son and successor, Amenhotep II, as his junior co-regent. His firstborn son and heir to the throne, Amenemhat, predeceased Thutmose III, when Thutmose III died, he was buried in the Valley of the Kings as were the rest of the kings from this period in Egypt. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by a secondary wife and his fathers great royal wife was Queen Hatshepsut. Her daughter Neferure was Thutmoses half-sister, Thutmosis III had little power over the empire while Hatshepsut exercised the formal titulary of kingship. Her rule was quite prosperous and marked by great advancements, when he reached a suitable age and demonstrated the capability, she appointed him to head her armies. Thutmosis III had several wives, Satiah, She may have been the mother of his firstborn son, an alternative theory is that the boy was the son of Neferure. Thutmoses successor, the prince and future king Amenhotep II, was the son of Merytre-Hatshepsut. Additional children include Menkheperre and daughters named Nebetiunet, Meryetamun, Meryetamun, Merytre-Hatshepsut was the daughter of the divine adoratrice Huy. Nebtu, she is depicted on a pillar in Thutmose IIIs tomb, menwi, Merti, Menhet three foreign wives. Neferure, Thutmose III may have married his half-sister, but there is no evidence for this marriage. It has been suggested that Neferure, instead of Satiah, may have been the mother of Amenemhat, Thutmose III reigned from 1479 BC to 1425 BC according to the Low Chronology of Ancient Egypt. This has been the conventional Egyptian chronology in academic circles since the 1960s and this document has no note of the place of observation, but it can safely be assumed that it was taken in either a Delta city such as Memphis or Heliopolis, or in Thebes. These two latitudes give dates 20 years apart, the High and Low chronologies, respectively, the length of Thutmose IIIs reign is known to the day thanks to information found in the tomb of the military commander Amenemheb-Mahu. Amenemheb-Mahu records Thutmose IIIs death to his masters 54th regnal year, widely considered a military genius by historians, Thutmose III made 16 raids in 20 years. He was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes called Egypts greatest conqueror or the Napoleon of Egypt and he is recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule and conquered much of the Near East from the Euphrates to Nubia during seventeen known military campaigns. He was the first Pharaoh after Thutmose I to cross the Euphrates and his campaign records were transcribed onto the walls of the temple of Amun at Karnak, and are now transcribed into Urkunden IV
22.
Thutmose IV
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Thutmose IV was the 8th Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt, who ruled in approximately the 14th century BC. His prenomen or royal name, Menkheperure, means Established in forms is Re, Thutmose IV was born to Amenhotep II and Tiaa but was not actually the crown prince and Amenhotep IIs chosen successor to the throne. Some scholars speculate that Thutmose ousted his brother in order to usurp power. Thutmoses most celebrated accomplishment was the restoration of the Sphinx at Giza and subsequent commission of the Dream Stele. According to Thutmoses account on the Dream Stele, while the prince was out on a hunting trip, he stopped to rest under the head of the Sphinx. He soon fell asleep and had a dream in which the Sphinx told him if he cleared away the sand. Little is known about his brief ten-year rule and he suppressed a minor uprising in Nubia in his 8th year around 1393 BC and was referred to in a stela as the Conqueror of Syria, but little else has been pieced together about his military exploits. Thutmose IVs rule is significant because he established relations with Mitanni. Thutmoses grandfather Thutmose III almost certainly acceded the throne in either 1504 or 1479 and his successor Amenhotep II, Thutmose IVs father, took the throne and ruled for at least 26 years but has been assigned up to 35 years in some chronological reconstructions. The currently preferred reconstruction, after analyzing all this evidence, usually comes to a date around 1401 BC or 1400 BC for the beginning of Thutmose IVs reign. The length of his reign is not as clear as one would wish and he is usually given about nine or ten years of reign. Manetho credits him a reign of 9 years and 8 months, however, Manethos other figures for the 18th dynasty are frequently assigned to the wrong kings or simply incorrect, so monumental evidence is also used to determine his reign length. Of all of Thutmose IVs dated monuments, three date to his first regnal year, one to his fourth, possibly one to his fifth, one to his sixth, two to his seventh, and one to his eighth. Two possible other dated objects, one dated to a Year 19 and another year 20, have suggested as belonging to him. The reading of the king in these dates are accepted as referring to the prenomen of Thutmose III—Menkheperre—and not Menkhepere Thutmose IV himself. Due to the absence of higher dates for Thutmose IV after his Year 8 Konosso stela, there were once chronological reconstructions which gave him a reign as long as 34–35 years. Today, however, most scholars ascribe him a 10-year reign from 1401 to 1391 BC, like most of the Thutmoside kings, he built on a grand scale. Thutmose IV completed the eastern obelisk first started by Thutmose III, Thutmose IV called it the tekhen waty or unique obelisk
23.
Amenhotep II
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Amenhotep II was the seventh Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. His reign is dated from 1427 to 1401 BC. Amenhotep II was born to Thutmose III and a wife of the king. However, between Years 24 and 35 of Thutmose III, both queen Satiah and prince Amenemhat died, which prompted the pharaoh to marry the non-royal Merytre-Hatshepsut and she would bear Thutmose III a number of children including the future Amenhotep II. Amenhotep II was born and raised in Memphis in the north, instead of in Thebes, while a prince, he oversaw deliveries of wood sent to the dockyard of Peru-nūfe in Memphis, and was made the Setem, the high priest over Lower Egypt. Amenhotep has left several inscriptions touting his athletic skills while he was a leader of the army before his crowning, Amenhotep was no less athletic than his powerful father. He claims to have been able to shoot an arrow through a target one palm thick. Accordingly, some skepticism concerning the truth of his claims has been expressed among Egyptologists, Amenhotep acceded to the throne on the first day of the fourth month of Akhet, but his father died on the thirtieth day of the third month of Peret. If an Egyptian crown prince was proclaimed king but did not take the throne on the day after his fathers death, a coregency with Thutmose III and Amenhotep II is believed to have lasted for two years and four months. After becoming pharaoh, Amenhotep married a woman of uncertain parentage named Tiaa, as many as ten sons and one daughter have been attributed to him. Amenhoteps most important son was Thutmose IV, who succeeded him, however, Princes Amenhotep, Webensenu, Amenemopet, and Nedjem are all clearly attested, and Amenemhat, Khaemwaset, and Aakheperure as well as a daughter, Iaret, are also possible children. 10056, which dates to sometime after Amenhotep IIs tenth year, refers to a kings son and this Amenhotep might also be attested in a stele from Amenhotep IIs temple at Giza, however the steles name has been defaced so that positive identification is impossible. Stele B may belong to another son, Webensenu, webensenus name is otherwise attested on a statue of Amenhoteps chief architect, Minmose, and his canopic jars and a funerary statue have been found in Amenhotep IIs tomb. Another Giza stele, stele C, records the name of a Prince Amenemopet, the same statue with the name Webensenu on it is also inscribed with the name of prince Nedjem, who is otherwise unattested. There are other references to kings sons from this period who may or may not be sons of Amenhotep II, two graffiti from Sahel mention a kings son and stable master named Khaemwaset, but specifically which king is his father is unknown. A figure with the name Amenemhet is recorded behind a prince Amenhotep in Theban tomb 64,10056, Amenemhat would also be Amenhotep IIs son. Additionally, a prince Aakheperure is mentioned in a Konosso graffito alongside a prince Amenhotep,10056, Aakheperure would also have been Amenhotep IIs son. In addition to sons, Amenhotep II may have had a daughter named Iaret, two more sons had been attributed to Amenhotep II in the past, however, they have since been proven to be of other parentage
24.
Hatshepsut
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Hatshepsut was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the second historically confirmed female pharaoh, the first being Sobekneferu, Hatshepsut came to the throne of Egypt in 1478 BC. Officially, she ruled jointly with Thutmose III, who had ascended to the throne the year as a child of about two years old. Hatshepsut was the wife of Thutmose II, Thutmose III’s father. She is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, according to Egyptologist James Henry Breasted she is also known as the first great woman in history of whom we are informed. Hatshepsut was the daughter and only child of Thutmose I and his primary wife Ahmose and her husband Thutmose II was the son of Thutmose I and a secondary wife named Mutnofret, who carried the title Kings daughter and was probably a child of Ahmose I. Hatshepsut and Thutmose II had a daughter named Neferure, Thutmose II fathered Thutmose III with Iset, a secondary wife. Today Egyptologists generally agree that Hatshepsut assumed the position of pharaoh, Hatshepsut was described as having a reign of about 22 years by ancient authors. Josephus and Julius Africanus both quote Manethos king list, mentioning a woman called Amessis or Amensis who has identified as Hatshepsut. In Josephus work, her reign is described as lasting 21 years and nine months, dating the beginning of her reign is more difficult, however. Her fathers reign began in either 1526 or 1506 BC according to the high and low estimates of her reign, the length of the reigns of Tuthmosis I and Tuthmosis II, however, cannot be determined with absolute certainty. With short reigns, Hatshepsut would have ascended the throne 14 years after the coronation of Tuthmosis I, longer reigns would put her ascension 25 years after Tuthmosis Is coronation. Thus, Hatshepsut could have assumed power as early as 1512 BC, or, Hatshepsut established the trade networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building the wealth of the eighteenth dynasty. She oversaw the preparations and funding for a mission to the Land of Punt and this trading expedition to Punt was roughly during Hatshepsuts ninth year of reign. It set out in her name with five ships, each measuring 70 feet long bearing several sails, many trade goods were bought in Punt, notably frankincense and myrrh. Hatshepsuts delegation returned from Punt bearing 31 live myrrh trees, the roots of which were kept in baskets for the duration of the voyage. This was the first recorded attempt to transplant foreign trees and it is reported that Hatshepsut had these trees planted in the courts of her mortuary temple complex. Egyptians also returned with a number of gifts from Punt
25.
Maiherpri
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Maiherperi was an Ancient Egyptian noble of Nubian origin buried in the Valley of the Kings, in tomb KV36. He probably lived during the rule of Thutmose IV, and received the honour of a burial in the Valley of the Kings and his name can be translated as Lion of the Battlefield. Amongst his titles were Child of the Nursery and Fan-bearer on the Right Side of the King. There is speculation that the first title signified that he grew up in the nursery as a prince of a vassal territory. He was among the first during the New Kingdom to hold the second title and this same title was also used to denote the Viceroys of Kush later in the New Kingdom. In Maiherperis tomb, a papyrus was found depicting him with literally blackish skin, the papyrus in question was the Book of the Dead, in the eyes of OConnor and Cline ertainly the most famous and arguably the most beautiful Book of the Dead. He also had tightly curled, woolly hair, which turned out to be a wig that had been glued to his scalp, Michael Rice, Whos Who in Ancient Egypt By Michael Rice, Routledge 2001, ISBN 0-415-15448-0, p.104 David B
26.
Valley of the Kings
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The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley and West Valley, with the 2005 discovery of a new chamber. And the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers and it was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues as to the beliefs, almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the Pharaohs. This area has been a focus of archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, in modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis, exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley, and a new tourist centre has recently been opened. The types of soil where the Valley of the Kings is located are a sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock. During the Pleistocene the valley was carved out of the plateau by steady rains, there is currently little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional flash floods that hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs. The quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely-grained to coarse stone, the occasional layer of shale also caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered, builders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, the problems of tomb construction can be seen with tombs of Ramesses III and his father Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate KV11 but broke into the tomb of Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he usurped the tomb of Twosret. When looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended the partly-excavated tomb started by his father, the tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated. The area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunder storms, recent studies have shown that there are at least seven active flood stream beds leading down into the central area of the valley. This central area appears to have been flooded at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the tombs KV63, KV62, and KV55 are dug into the actual wadi bedrock rather than the debris, showing that the level of the valley was five meters below its present level. This was the area that was the subject of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project ground scanning radar investigation, the Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or The Peak. It has an appearance, and it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the Old Kingdom. Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special police were able to guard the necropolis
27.
Psusennes I
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Psusennes I was the third pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty who ruled from Tanis between 1047 –1001 BC. He was the son of Pinedjem I and Henuttawy, Ramesses XIs daughter by Tentamun, professor Pierre Montet discovered pharaoh Psusennes Is intact tomb in Tanis in 1940. However, the kings magnificent funerary mask was recovered intact, it proved to be made of gold and lapis lazuli and held inlays of black and white glass for the eyes and eyebrows of the object. Psusennes Is mask is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the treasure of Tanis and is housed in Room 2 of the Cairo Museum. It has a width and height of 38 cm and 48 cm respectively. The pharaohs fingers and toes had been encased in gold stalls, the finger stalls are the most elaborate ever found, with sculpted fingernails. Each finger wore a ring of gold and lapis lazuli or some other semiprecious stone. A cartouche on the red outer sarcophagus shows that it had originally made for Pharaoh Merenptah. Psusennes I, himself, was interred in a silver coffin which was inlaid with gold. Since silver was considerably rarer in Egypt than gold, Psusennes Is silver coffin represents a sumptuous burial of great wealth during Egypts declining years. Dr. Douglass Derry, who worked as the head of Cairo Universitys Anatomy Department, examined the remains in 1940. Psusennes Is precise reign length is unknown because different copies of Manethos records credit him with a reign of either 41 or 46 years. Some Egyptologists have proposed raising the 41 year figure by a decade to 51 years to closely match certain anonymous Year 48. Jansen-Winkeln notes that in the first half of Dyn, hence, two separate Year 49 dates from Thebes and Kom Ombo could be attributed to the ruling High Priest Menkheperre in Thebes instead of Psusennes I but this remains uncertain. Psusennes Is reign has been estimated at 46 years by the editors of the Handbook to Ancient Egyptian Chronology. During his long reign, Psusennes built the walls and the central part of the Great Temple at Tanis which was dedicated to the triad of Amun, Mut. Bob Brier, Egyptian Mummies, Unraveling the Secrets of an Ancient Art, William Morrow & Co, ad Thijs, The Burial of Psusennes I and “The Bad Times” of P. Brooklyn 16.205, ZÄS96, 209–223 Jean Yoyotte, Secrets of the Dead episode, The Silver Pharaoh
28.
Mummy
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Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least 1615 CE. Mummies of humans and other animals have found on every continent. Over one million animal mummies have been found in Egypt, many of which are cats, in addition to the well-known mummies of ancient Egypt, deliberate mummification was a feature of several ancient cultures in areas of America and Asia with very dry climates. The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old. Before this discovery, the oldest known deliberate mummy was a child, one of the Chinchorro mummies found in the Camarones Valley, Chile, which dates around 5050 BCE. The oldest known naturally mummified corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old. These substances were defined as mummia, the OED defines a mummy as the body of a human being or animal embalmed as a preparation for burial, citing sources from 1615 CE onward. However, Chambers Cyclopædia and the Victorian zoologist Francis Trevelyan Buckland define a mummy as follows, also applied to the frozen carcase of an animal imbedded in prehistoric snow. Wasps of the genus Aleiodes are known as mummy wasps because they wrap their prey as mummies. While interest in the study of mummies dates as far back as Ptolemaic Greece, prior to this, many rediscovered mummies were sold as curiosities or for use in pseudoscientific novelties such as mummia. The first modern scientific examinations of mummies began in 1901, conducted by professors at the English-language Government School of Medicine in Cairo, Egypt. The first X-ray of a mummy came in 1903, when professors Grafton Elliot Smith, British chemist Alfred Lucas applied chemical analyses to Egyptian mummies during this same period, which returned many results about the types of substances used in embalming. Lucas also made significant contributions to the analysis of Tutankhamun in 1922, pathological study of mummies saw varying levels of popularity throughout the 20th century. In 1992, the First World Congress on Mummy Studies was held in Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, more than 300 scientists attended the Congress to share nearly 100 years of collected data on mummies. This was not possible prior to the Congress due to the unique, in more recent years, CT scanning has become an invaluable tool in the study of mummification by allowing researchers to digitally unwrap mummies without risking damage to the body. The level of detail in such scans is so intricate that small linens used in areas such as the nostrils can be digitally reconstructed in 3-D. Such modelling has been utilized to perform autopsies on mummies to determine cause of death and lifestyle. Mummies are typically divided into one of two categories, anthropogenic or spontaneous
29.
New Kingdom of Egypt
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Radiocarbon dating places the exact beginning of the New Kingdom between 1570–1544 BC. The New Kingdom followed the Second Intermediate Period and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period and it was Egypt’s most prosperous time and marked the peak of its power. The later part of period, under the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties is also known as the Ramesside period. It is named after the pharaohs that took the name of Ramesses I. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria, the Eighteenth Dynasty contained some of Egypts most famous Pharaohs, including Ahmose I, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. Queen Hatshepsut concentrated on expanding Egypts external trade by sending an expedition to the land of Punt. Thutmose III expanded Egypts army and wielded it with success to consolidate the empire created by his predecessors. This resulted in a peak in Egypts power and wealth during the reign of Amenhotep III, during the reign of Thutmose III, Pharaoh, originally referring to the kings palace, became a form of address for the person who was king. Akhenatens religious fervor is cited as the reason why he was written out of Egyptian history. Under his reign, in the 14th century BC, Egyptian art flourished and attained a level of realism. Towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, the situation had changed radically, Ramesses II sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by the 18th Dynasty. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. Ramesses was caught in historys first recorded military ambush, although he was able to rally his troops, the outcome of the battle was undecided with both sides claiming victory at their home front, ultimately resulting in a peace treaty between the two nations. The last great pharaoh from the New Kingdom is widely considered to be Ramesses III, in the eighth year of his reign the Sea Peoples invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles and he incorporated them as subject peoples and settled them in Southern Canaan although there is evidence that they forced their way into Canaan. Their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states, such as Philistia and he was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns in Egypts Western Delta in his sixth year and eleventh year respectively. The heavy cost of this warfare slowly drained Egypts treasury and contributed to the decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground, one proposed cause is the Hekla 3 eruption of the Hekla volcano in Iceland but the dating of this remains disputed
30.
Samuel Birch
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Samuel Birch was a British Egyptologist and antiquary. Birch was the son of a rector at St Mary Woolnoth and he was educated at Merchant Taylors School. From an early age, his manifest tendency to the study of out-of-the-way subjects well suited his later interest in archaeology, after brief employment in the Record Office, he obtained, in 1836, an appointment to the antiquities department of the British Museum. The appointment was due to his knowledge of Chinese, which was unusual at that time and he soon broadened his research to Egyptian. When the cumbrous department came to be divided, he was appointed to head the Egyptian and Assyrian branch. In the latter language he had assistance, but for years there was only one other person in the institution, in a different department. The entire arrangement of the department devolved upon Birch and he further wrote what was long a standard history of pottery, investigated the Cypriote syllabary, and proved by various publications that he had not lost his old interest in Chinese. Paradoxical in many of his views on things in general, he was sound and cautious as a philologist, while learned and laborious and his grandfather, also named Samuel Birch was a renowned dramatist and Lord Mayor of London. Select Papyri in the Hieratic Character,3 pts. fol, tablets from the Collection of the Earl of Belmore,1843. An Introduction to the Study of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics,1857, History of Ancient Pottery,2 vols. A Description of the Collection of Ancient Marbles in the British Museum Part 11, inscriptions in the Himyaritic Character,1863. Egypts Place in Universal History,1867, facsimile of Papyrus of Rameses III, fol. The Monumental History of Egypt,1876, catalogue of Egyptian Antiquities at Alnwick Castle,1880. Dictionary of National Biography,1901 supplement, works written by or about Samuel Birch at Wikisource
31.
Edward Hincks
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The Reverend Edward Hincks M. A. D. D. was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, best remembered as an Assyriologist and one of the decipherers of Mesopotamian cuneiform. He was one of the three men known as the trinity of cuneiform, with Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and Jules Oppert. Edward Hincks was born in Cork on 19 August 1792 and he was the eldest son of the Rev. Thomas Dix Hincks, a distinguished Protestant minister, orientalist and naturalist. Edward Hincks was educated at home by his father before entering Trinity College and he was elected a scholar of the College and in 1812 won the Gold Medal and Bishop Laws Prize for Mathematics. Standing against Thomas Romney Robinson, he won through and was elected a Fellow of the College in 1813, in 1819, following the death of Thomas Meredith, he was presented to the Rectory of Ardtrea in County Tyrone. The undemanding nature of his duties left him with more than enough time to pursue his interest in ancient languages. His first love was for the writing of ancient Egypt. In the 1830s he turned his attention to Old Persian cuneiform, in 1835 he supervised the unrolling of the mummified body of Takabuti at the Belfast Natural History Society. Hincks deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which revealed that she was mistress of a great house, Hincks greatest achievement was the decipherment of the ancient language and writing of Babylon and Assyria, Akkadian cuneiform. But his attention might never have been drawn to the new topic of Assyriology had it not been for a lucky find during 1842. During that year the archaeologist Paul Émile Botta uncovered the remains of the ancient city of Niniveh and these tablets were inscribed in a strange illegible form of writing known as cuneiform. Three men were to play a role in the decipherment of this script, Hincks, Rawlinson. Hincks deduced correctly that cuneiform writing had been invented by one of the earliest civilisations of Mesopotamia, in 1848 he was awarded the Cunningham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy for his achievements. By 1850 Hincks had come to a number of important conclusions regarding the nature of Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform and he believed that the script was essentially syllabic, comprising open syllables as well as more complex closed syllables. He also discovered that cuneiform characters were polyphonic, by which he meant that a single sign could have different readings depending on the context in which it occurred. By now Hincks had recognised a number of determinatives and had correctly established their readings. But not everyone was convinced by the claims being made by the Irishman, some philologists even suggested that they were simply inventing multiple readings of the signs to suit their own translations. In 1857 the versatile English Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot suggested that an undeciphered cuneiform text be given to several different Assyriologists to translate, if, working independently of one another, they came up with reasonably similar translations, it would surely dispel the doubts surrounding their claims
32.
Luigi Vassalli
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Luigi Vassalli was an Italian Egyptologist and patriot. Vassalli was born in 1812 in Milan, in 1828 he enrolled at the Brera Academy and around this period he joined the Mazzinian activism but after a failed conspiracy he was sentenced to death, only to be pardoned but exiled. He moved in places across Europe and later he traveled to Egypt where he began working for the local government. Around 1858 he was appointed Inspector of excavations by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, Vassalli assisted in excavations at Giza and Saqqara until 1860, when he gave resignation and returned again home to give his contribution to the Expedition of the Thousand led by Giuseppe Garibaldi. In Egypt he made several explorations in many sites such as Tanis, Saqqara, Dendera. He sent many mummy remains to the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale of Milan, during his short stay here the Italian government asked him to inspect many Egyptian collections in Italy, after which he returned to his duties in Cairo. Still in 1871, along with Mariette he discovered the mastaba of Nefermaat at Meidum, Vassalli carefully removed the whole scene from the tomb wall and reassembled it inside the Bulaq Museum. After Mariettes death in 1881, Vassalli became Director ad interim until the installation of Gaston Maspero and he retired in 1884 and returned to Milan and then to Rome, he committed suicide here in June 13,1887. According to his will, all his papers were donated to the city of Milan, I monumenti istorici egizi, il museo e gli scavi dantichità eseguiti per ordine di S. A. Il vicerè Ismail Pascia
33.
Karl Richard Lepsius
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Karl or Carl Richard Lepsius was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist and linguist and pioneer of modern archaeology. He was born in Naumburg an der Saale, Saxony, the son of Friedericke Glaser and Peter Carl Lepsius. Karl Richards grandfather was Johann August Lepsius, the mayor of Naumburg upon Saale and he studied Greek and Roman archaeology at the University of Leipzig, the George Augustus University of Göttingen, and the Frederick William University of Berlin. After the death of Champollion, Lepsius made a study of the French scholars Grammaire égyptienne. In that year, Lepsius travelled to Tuscany to meet with Ippolito Rosellini, in a series of letters to Rosellini, Lepsius expanded on Champollions explanation of the use of alphabetic signs in hieroglyphic writing, emphasizing that vowels were not written. In 1842, Lepsius was commissioned by King Frederich Wilhelm IV of Prussia to lead an expedition to Egypt, the Prussian expedition was modelled after the earlier Napoleonic mission, with surveyors, draftsmen, and other specialists. The mission reached Giza in November 1842 and spent six months making some of the first scientific studies of the pyramids of Giza, Abusir, Saqqara and they discovered 67 pyramids recorded in the pioneering Lepsius list of pyramids and more than 130 tombs of noblemen in the area. While at the Great Pyramid of Giza, Lepsius inscribed a graffito written in Egyptian hieroglyphs that honours Friedrich Wilhelm IV above the original entrance. In 1843 he visited Naqa and copied some of the inscriptions and representations of the temple standing there, afterwards they stopped at Coptos, the Sinai, and sites in the Egyptian Delta, such as Tanis, before returning to Europe in 1846. In 1866 Lepsius returned to Egypt, where he discovered the Decree of Canopus at Tanis, a closely related to the Rosetta Stone. Lepsius was president of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome from 1867–1880, and from 1873 until his death in 1884, the head of the Royal Library at Berlin. He was the editor of the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, a scientific journal for the new field of Egyptology. While at the helm, Lepsius commissioned typographer Ferdinand Theinhardt to cut the first hieroglyphic typeface, the so-called Theinhardt font. Much of his work is fundamental to the field, indeed, Lepsius even coined the phrase Totenbuch. He was also a leader in the field of African linguistics, on 5 July 1846, he married Elisabeth Klein, daughter of the composer Bernhard Klein and great-granddaughter of Friedrich Nicolai. They had six children, including the geologist and Rector of the Darmstadt University of Technology G.1842, das Todtenbuch der Ägypter nach dem hieroglyphischen Papyrus in Turin mit einem Vorworte zum ersten Male Herausgegeben. Translated into English 1853 Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopia and the Peninsular of Sinai, das allgemeine linguistische Alphabet, Grundsätze der Übertragung fremder Schriftsysteme und bisher noch ungeschriebener Sprachen in europäische Buchstaben. Berlin, Verlag von Wilhelm Hertz 1856, ägyptische königsdynastie nebst einigen bemerkungen zu der XXVI
34.
Vladimir Golenishchev
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Vladimir Semyonovich Golenishchev was one of the first and most accomplished Russian Egyptologists. Golenishchev, the son of a merchant, was educated at the Saint Petersburg University. In 1884–85 he organized and financed excavations in Wadi Hammamat, followed by the research at Tell el-Maskhuta in 1888–89 and he also published the so-called Hermitage papyri, including the Prophecy of Neferti, now stored in the Hermitage Museum. Having sold his collection to the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts in 1909, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he never returned to Russia, residing in Nice and Cairo. In Egypt, he established and held the chair in Egyptology at the University of Cairo from 1924 to 1929 and he was also employed by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where he catalogued hieratic papyri. Golenishchev died in Nice aged 90 and his papers are held at the Pushkin Museum, at the Centre Wl. Golenischeff, Paris and also in the Griffith Institute, Oxford, a memorial to famous egyptologists by the Egyptian Museum since 2006 features a bust of Vladimir Golenishchev. Egyptian Collection of the Hermitage Museum Oscar Eduardovich Lemm Boris Turayev Centre Wl, golenischeff, Paris Bibliography of Vladimir Golenishchev
35.
Ippolito Rosellini
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Niccola Francesco Ippolito Baldassarre Rosellini, known simply as Ippolito Rosellini was an Italian Egyptologist. A scholar and friend of Jean-François Champollion, he is regarded as the founder of Egyptology in Italy and he was born in Pisa, eldest son of a family originally from Pescia. He was the first disciple, a friend and an associate of Jean-François Champollion. They met in Florence in August 1825, during Champollions journey to study the important Egyptological collections in Turin, Rome, in 1827, he went to Paris for a year in order to improve his knowledge of the method of decipherment proposed by Champollion. Here, he met and then married Zenobia, daughter of the Italian composer Luigi Cherubini, a year later, Rosellini accompanied Champollion in the latters Egyptian exploration also known as the Franco-Tuscan expedition, as the leader of the Tuscan group. The expedition was financed by the Grand-duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, since 1836, Rosellinis health started to decline possibly due to malaria, which ultimately led to his death on 4 June 1843 in Pisa. All his papers were donated to the library of the University of Pisa, three years after his death, his widow married his brother Ferdinando Pio a mathematician who adopted their three sons. Di un bassorilievo egiziano della imp, I Monumenti dellEgitto e della Nubia, disegnati dalla spedizione scientifico-letteraria Toscana in Egitto, distribuiti in ordine di materie, interpretati ed illustrati 1832. Monumenti storici, tomo III, parte I1839, Monumenti storici, tomo III, parte II1839. Monumenti di culto, tomo unico 1837, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Rosellini, Ippolito. Works by or about Ippolito Rosellini at Internet Archive
36.
Labib Habachi
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Labib Habachi was an influential Egyptian Egyptologist. Dr Habachi spent 30 years in the Antiquities Department of the Egyptian Government, during this period he spent an enormous amount of time in numerous dig sites in Egypt and the Sudan. He left government work to accept a position at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago as an Archaeological Consultant to its Nubian Expedition and he believed that he found the location of Avaris, and this opinion was widely accepted at the time. In 1941-42 he worked at Tell el-Daba for the Egyptian Antiquities Service, the Obelisks of Egypt, Skyscrapers of the Past. Aswan, the town with a glorious past and a promising future / by Labib Habachi, features of the deification of Ramesses II / Labib Habachi. Fī ṣaḥrāʼ al-ʻArab wa-al-adyirah al-sharqīyah / taʼlīf Labīb Ḥabashī, Zakī Tāwaḍrūs, sixteen studies on lower Nubia / by Labib Habachi. Studies on the Middle Kingdom / Labib Habachi, Tell Basta / by Labib Habachi Le tombeau de Naÿ à Gournet Marʻeï / Labib Habachi, Pierre Anus. American Univ in Cairo Press,2007 ISBN9774160614
37.
Selim Hassan
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Selim Hassan was an Egyptian Egyptologist. He wrote the 16-volume Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt in Arabic and supervised the excavation of many ancient Egyptian tombs under the auspices of Cairo University, Selim Hassan excavated in several seasons the Central Field at Giza. He found and recorded many mastabas and discovered several undisturbed tombs, the results of his excavations were published in ten volumes. From about five missions working and excavating the cemeteries at Giza his work is regarded for science the most important one, george Reisner, working at the same cemetery published only little of his results. Hermann Junker, also working at Giza, concentrated in his very much on architecture with long chapters better placed in articles on different subjects. The publications of Selim Hassan concentrates on the find and the archaeology, including the pottery found, the Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt is considered the definitive historical reference for Ancient Egypt. Hassan wrote it in Arabic and worked on it for most of his life, the first volume is entitled From Prehistory to the End of the Ahnasy Era. Excavations at Giza The Sphinx, Its History in the Light of Recent Excavations Excavations at Saqqara, 1937-1938 / by Selim Hassan, the Great Pyramid of Khufu and its Mortuary Chapel, with names and titles vols. I-X of the excavations at Giza / by Selim Hassan,1956 Fajr al-ḍamīr / taʼlīf Jaymis Hanrī Baristid, tarjamat Salīm Ḥasan. Zahi Hawass, Selim Hassan, In, Egyptian Art in the Age of the Pyramids, New York 1999, ISBN 0-87099-907-9 S. 156-57
38.
Ahmed Kamal (Egyptologist)
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Ahmed Kamāl was Egypt’s first Egyptologist and pioneer in his own country. He trained under the German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch and he was a curator at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and a staff member of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. He took part in excavations at Dayr al-Barsha, Gabal at-Tayr, Tihna el-Gebel, Gamhud, Atfih, Mayr, Shaykh Said, Asyut. Kamal, Ahmed, Stèles ptolémaiques et romaines, two volumes, Le Caire, 1904–1905, kamal, Ahmed, Tables doffrandes, two volumes, Le Caire,1906,1909. 1849–1923, Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte, volume 64, pp.1 –5, dawson, Warren R. Uphill, Eric P. Bierbrier, M. L. Who was who in Egyptology, London, The Egypt Exploration Society,1995, p.224
39.
Willem Pleyte
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Dr. Willem Pleyte was a Dutch Egyptologist and museum director. Willem Pleyte was the son of Cornelius Marinus Pleyte and he was born on 26 June 1836 in Hillegom, where his father was a pastor. He attended French schools from 1840, but was not very bright in his studies and he was then sent to the Gymnasium Bommel, where his uncle was the rector where he studied up to 1855. From 1855 to 1860, Pleyte studied theology at the Opzoomer college of Utrecht University and he found the subject of theology to his liking and did well in his studies. In 1860, he completed his education successfully and he hoped to follow in the footsteps of his father and started his career from 1860 in church council of Gelderland and he found the job of a preacher not to his liking. He then started research on Egyptology, a still in its infancy with very few well known experts in the field such as Rouge, Lepsius, Brugsch. From 1862 to 1892, he wrote several publications for which he was criticized, such as La religion pre-Israelite. He was dispirited by this critique but continued to write and he then wrote a few articles on the value of various hieroglyphics and the numerals in Egyptian in Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache und Alterthumskunde which were well received. A notable work of Pleyte was in 1868, when he wrote an article for Etudes Égyptologiques in which he gave a translation and this book proved his erudition in Egyptology. The subject of text is a collection of spells against various diseases. The Etudes begins with a translation and commentary of a text on the verso of Papyrus I348 and he also commented on the Book of the Dead, number 125, comparing 40 papyri from Leiden and Paris. Pleyte also studied the papyri in the Museo Egizio in Turin, between 1869 and 1876, he and museum curator Francesco Rossi published Papyrus de Turin, making a part of the large papyri collection of the Regio Museo di Antichita di Torino available to others. In his last major work Chapitres supplémentaires du Livre des Morts 162–174, the discovery that the Leiden and london papyrii originally formed one manuscript is attributed to Pleyte, as he recognized the handwriting to be the same. The work was published however, by Professor Hess from Freiburg in 1892, starting in 1869, Pleyte applied for the curator position at the archaeological cabinet, earlier he had been invited only as a volunteer. Even though there was opposition from the Director Conradus Leemans, Pleyte appointment as conservator was approved by the Minister on 11 January 1869, before his appointment as curator, he had visited the Museum at Turin where he found that a large number of hieratic papyri were organized scientifically. On his return from Turin, he made a proposal to Rossi, Pleyte was not put in charge of the Egyptian section, rather he was given the Classic and Dutch sections. After Leemans retired in 1891, Pleyte became the director of the RMO and he reorganized the drawings, he created space to study, and he made a significant expansion to the library. Not long after his appointment as director, Pleyte began to suffer from rheumatism, only a few weeks later, on March 11, he died at the age 66
40.
Gaston Maspero
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Sir Gaston Camille Charles Maspero KCMG was a French Egyptologist known for popularizing the term Sea Peoples in an 1881 paper. Masperos son, Henri Maspero, became a notable sinologist and scholar of East Asia, Gaston Maspero was born in Paris to Jewish parents of Italian origin. While at school he showed a taste for history. The publication of texts in the same year established his academic reputation. This occurred a few months before the death of Mariette, whom Maspero then succeeded as director-general of excavations, aware that his reputation was then more as a linguist than an archaeologist, Masperos first work in the post was to build on Mariettes achievements at Saqqara. Selecting five later Old Kingdom tombs, he was successful in that aim, the cache was moved to Cairo as soon as possible to keep it safe from robbers. In 1886 he resumed work begun by Mariette to uncover the Sphinx, removing more than 65 feet of sand and he also introduced admission charges for Egyptian sites to the increasing number of tourists to pay for their upkeep and maintenance. Maspero did not attempt to halt all collecting, but rather sought to control what went out of the country, when Maspero left his position in 1886 and was replaced by a series of other directors who attempted to halt the trade in antiquities, his absence was much lamented. Maspero resumed his duties in Paris from June 1886 until 1899. On October 3 that year an earthquake at Karnak collapsed 11 columns, the vast catalogue of the collections made rapid progress under Masperos direction. Twenty-four volumes or sections were published in 1909. This work and the workload of the Antiquities Service led to an expansion of staff at the museum. In 1912 he also succeeded where his predecessors had failed in the introduction of a series of anti-looting laws, Maspero died on June 30,1916 and was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. And the Annales du service des antiquités de lEgypte, a repository for reports on official excavations, Gaston Maspero was also the one to find Amenemhats pyramid, located at Lisht. The pyramid was already eroded when he found it. C. to 330 B. C, the Egyptian director Shadi Abdel Salam has recorded his presence in the feature film The Mummy. Collège de France list of Chair of Egyptian Archaeology Works by Gaston Maspero at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Gaston Maspero at Internet Archive Works by Gaston Maspero at LibriVox
