1.
Faience
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Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body. It is originally associated by French speakers with wares exported from Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, the invention seems to have been made in Iran or the Middle East before the ninth century. A kiln capable of producing temperatures exceeding 1,000 °C was required to achieve this result, the result of millennia of refined pottery-making traditions. The term is now used for a variety of pottery from several parts of the world, including many types of European painted wares. Technically, lead-glazed earthenware, such as the French sixteenth-century Saint-Porchaire ware, does not properly qualify as faience, semi-vitreous stoneware may be glazed like faience. However, this material is not pottery at all, containing no clay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art displays a faience hippopotamus from Meir, Egypt, dated to Dynasty 12, ca. Examples of ancient faience are also found in Minoan Crete, which was influenced by Egyptian culture. Faience material, for instance, has recovered from the Knossos archaeological site. The Moors brought the technique of tin-glazed earthenware to Al-Andalus, where the art of lustreware with metallic glazes was perfected, from Málaga in Andalusia and later Valencia these Hispano-Moresque wares were exported, either directly or via the Balearic Islands to Italy and the rest of Europe. This type of Spanish pottery owed much to its Moorish inheritance, in Italy, locally produced tin-glazed earthenwares, initiated in the fourteenth century, reached a peak in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The first northerners to imitate the tin-glazed earthenwares being imported from Italy were the Dutch, English Delftware produced in Lambeth, London, and at other centers, from the late sixteenth century, provided apothecaries with jars for wet and dry drugs. Many of the potters in London were Flemish. By about 1600, blue-and-white wares were being produced, labelling the contents within decorative borders, the production was slowly superseded in the second half of the eighteenth century with the introduction of cheap creamware. Dutch potters in northern Germany established German centres of faience, the first manufactories in Germany were opened at Hanau and Heusenstamm, in Switzerland, Zunfthaus zur Meisen near Fraumünster church houses the porcelain and faience collection of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich. Faïence parlante bears mottoes often on decorative labels or banners, wares for apothecaries, including albarello, can bear the names of their intended contents, generally in Latin and often so abbreviated to be unrecognizable to the untutored eye. Mottoes of fellowships and associations became popular in the 18th century, at the low end of the market, local manufactories continued to supply regional markets with coarse and simple wares. These so-called majolica wares were also made by Wedgwood and numerous smaller Staffordshire potteries round Burslem
2.
Serekh
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A serekh was a specific important type of heraldic crest used in ancient Egypt. Like the later cartouche, it contained a royal name, a serekh was an ornamental vignette combining a view of a palace facade and a plan of the royal courtyard. The word serekh derives from the Egyptian word for facade, different serekhs on different types of object display countless variations of the facade decor in its complexity and detail. It seems that no strict rules for the design of the serekh itself existed. A serekh was normally used as a royal crest, accentuating and honouring the name of the pharaoh and its use can be dated back as early as the Gerzeh culture. The hieroglyphs forming the name were placed inside a rectangular extension atop the serekh. Additionally, the falcon of the god Horus, or in a few cases the Set animal, topped the serekh, if the word serekh was written in full letters, sometimes accompanied by a miniature of the serekh, it could also be used in text. As already mentioned, the serekh first appears as an ornamental miniature during the late Gerzeh culture, from the Old Kingdom period onward, the first uses of the full written word appear in old papyri
3.
Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
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The royal titulary or royal protocol of an Egyptian pharaoh is the standard naming convention taken by the kings of Ancient Egypt. It symbolises worldly power and holy might and also acts as a sort of mission statement for the reign of a monarch. The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom, the Horus name is the oldest form of the pharaohs name, originating in the Predynastic Period. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title, the Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in hieroglyphs inside this representation of a palace, typically an image of the falcon God Horus was perched on top of or beside it. At least one Egyptian ruler, the 2nd dynasty Seth-Peribsen, used an image of the god Seth instead of Horus and he was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Seth and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh, by the time of the New Kingdom the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh. The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh Semerkhet and this particular name was not typically framed by a cartouche or serekh, but always begins with the hieroglyphs of a vulture and cobra resting upon two baskets, the dual noun nebty. Also known as the Golden Horus Name, this form of the name typically featured the image of a Horus falcon perched above or beside the hieroglyph for gold. The meaning of this title has been disputed. One belief is that it represents the triumph of Horus over his uncle Seth, Gold also was strongly associated in the ancient Egyptian mind with eternity, so this may have been intended to convey the pharaohs eternal Horus name. Similar to the Nebty name, this particular name typically was not framed by a cartouche or serekh, the pharaohs throne name, the first of the two names written inside a cartouche, and usually accompanied the title nsw-bity. The term nsw-bity It has been suggested that the Berber term for strong man, the epithet neb tawy, Lord of the Two Lands, referring to valley and delta regions of Egypt, often occurs as well. This was the name given at birth and it was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the kings role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the title was interpreted as daughter also. Modern historians typically refer to the ancient kings of Egypt by this name, Middle Egyptian, An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, London, and New York, The American University in Cairo Press and Thames and Hudson. The Great Name, Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary, Egyptian Grammar, Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs
4.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
5.
Pharaoh
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The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
6.
Egyptian chronology
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The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. Scholarly consensus on the outline of the conventional chronology current in Egyptology has not fluctuated much over the last 100 years. For the Old Kingdom, consensus fluctuates by as much as a few centuries and this is illustrated by comparing the chronology as given by two Egyptologists, the first writing in 1906, the second in 2000. The disparities between the two sets of result from additional discoveries and refined understanding of the still very incomplete source evidence. For example, Breasted adds a ruler in the Twentieth dynasty that further research showed did not exist, following Manetho, Breasted also believed all the dynasties were sequential, whereas it is now known that several existed at the same time. These revisions have resulted in a lowering of the chronology by up to 400 years at the beginning of Dynasty I. The backbone of Egyptian chronology are the years as recorded in Ancient Egyptian king lists. In addition, some Egyptian dynasties may have overlapped, with different pharaohs ruling in different regions at the same time, not knowing whether monarchies were simultaneous or sequential results in widely differing chronological interpretations. However, further research has shown that these censuses were taken in consecutive years. The sed festival was celebrated on the thirtieth anniversary of the Pharaohs ascension. However, once again, this may not be the practice in all cases. In the early days of Egyptology, the compilation of regnal periods may also have been hampered due to bias on the part of the Egyptologists. This was most pervasive before the mid 19th century, when Manethos figures were recognized as conflicting with biblical chronology based on Old Testament references to Egypt, in the 20th century, such biblical bias has mostly been confined to alternative chronologies outside of scholarly mainstream. A useful way to work around these gaps in knowledge is to find chronological synchronisms, over the past decades, a number of these have been found, although they are of varying degrees of usefulness and reliability. While this does not fix a person or event to a specific year, another example are blocks from the Old Kingdom bearing the names of several kings, which were reused in the construction of Middle Kingdom pyramid-temples at Lisht in the structures of Amenemhat I. The poor documentation of these finds in the Serapeum also compounds the difficulties in using these records. The best known of these is the Sothic cycle, and careful study of this led Richard A. Parker to argue that the dates of the Twelfth dynasty could be fixed with absolute precision. More recent research has eroded this confidence, questioning many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle and this is useful especially for the Early Dynastic period, where Egyptological consensus has only been possible within a range of about three or four centuries
7.
31st century BC
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The 31st century BC is a century which lasted from the year 3100 BC to 3001 BC. c.3100 BC, Narmer unifies Upper and Lower Egypt into one country, he rules this new country from Memphis. C.3100 BC, Predynastic period ends in Ancient Egypt, C.3100 BC, Early Dynastic period starts in Ancient Egypt. C.3100 BC, The first temple of Tarxien is in use by the Neolithic inhabitants of Malta, C.3100 BC, First stage in the construction of Stonehenge. C.3100 BC –2600 BC, Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, C.3100 BC, Humans develop their first writing system, cuneiform script. C.3051 BC, The oldest currently living organism, a Pinus longaeva and it is still present to this day. C.3100 BC – Invention of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt
8.
Narmer
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Narmer was an ancient Egyptian king of the Early Dynastic Period. Probably the successor to the Protodynastic kings Scorpion and/or Ka, some consider him the unifier of Egypt and founder of the First Dynasty, and in turn the first king of a unified Egypt. This conclusion is based on the Narmer Palette and the two seals from the necropolis of Abydos that show him as the first king of the First Dynasty. The date commonly given for the beginning of his reign is c.3100 BC, other mainstream estimates using both the historical method and Radiocarbon dating are in the range 3273–2987 BC. Although highly inter-related, the question of “who was Menes. ”, while Menes is traditionally considered the first king of Ancient Egypt, Narmer has been identified by the majority of Egyptologists as the same person as Menes. Although vigorously debated, the predominant opinion is that Narmer was Menes, the issue is confusing because “Narmer” is a Horus Name, while “Menes” is a personal name. The difficulty is aligning the contemporary archaeological evidence which lists Horus Names with the King Lists that list personal names, two documents have been put forward as proof either that Narmer was Menes or alternatively Hor-Aha was Menes. The first is the “Naqada Label” which shows a serekh of Hor-Aha next to an enclosure inside of which are symbols that have been interpreted by scholars as the name “Menes”. The second is the impression from Abydos that alternates between a serekh of Narmer and the chessboard symbol, “mn”, which is interpreted as an abbreviation of Menes. Arguments have been made with regard to each of these documents in favour of Narmer or Hor-Aha being Menes, but in neither case, are the arguments conclusive. Two necropolis sealings, found in 1985 and 1991 in Abydos, in or near the tombs of Den and Qa’a, show Narmer as the founder of the First Dynasty, followed by Hor-Aha. The Qa’a sealing lists all eight of the kings of the First Dynasty in the correct order starting with Narmer and these necropolis sealings are strong evidence that Narmer was the first king of the First Dynasty – hence is the same person as Menes. The famous Narmer Palette, discovered by James E, since its discovery, however, it has been debated whether the Narmer Palette represents an actual historic event or is purely symbolic. Of course, the Narmer Palette could represent an historical event while at the same time having a symbolic significance. In 1993, Günter Dreyer discovered in Abydos, a “year label” of Narmer depicting the event that is depicted on the Narmer Palette. This year label shows that the Narmer Palette depicts an historical event. Archaeological evidence suggests that Egypt was at least partially unified during the reigns of Ka and Iry-Hor, but there is a substantial difference in the quantity and distribution of inscriptions with the names of those earlier kings in Lower Egypt and Canaan, compared to the inscriptions of Narmer. The archaeological evidence suggest that the unification began before Narmer, but was completed by him through the conquest of a polity in the North-West Delta as depicted on the Narmer Palette
9.
Djer
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Djer is considered the third pharaoh of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt in current Egyptology. He lived around the mid-thirty-first century BC and reigned for c.40 years, a mummified forearm of Djer or his wife was discovered by Flinders Petrie, but was discarded by Emile Brugsch. The Abydos King List lists the third pharaoh as Iti, the Turin Canon lists a damaged name, beginning with It. Wilkinson notes that years 1-10 of Djers reign are preserved in register II of the Palermo Stone, Djers reign was preceded by a regency controlled by Neithhotep, possibly his mother or grandmother. An ivory tablet from Abydos mentions that Djer visited Buto and Sais in the Nile Delta, one of his regnal years on the Cairo Stone was named Year of smiting the land of Setjet, which often is speculated to be Sinai or beyond. Manetho claimed that Athothes, who is identified as Djer, had written a treatise on anatomy that still existed in his own day. Djer was a son of the pharaoh Hor-Aha and his wife Khenthap, Djer fathered Merneith, wife of Djet and mother of Den. These women are thought to be the wives of Djer and include, Nakhtneith, buried in Abydos, Herneith, possibly a wife of Djer. Seshemetka, buried in Abydos next to the king and she was said to be a wife of Den in Dodson and Hilton. Penebui, her name and title were found on a label from Saqqara. Bsu, known from a label in Saqqara and several stone vessels, similarly to his father Hor-Aha, Djer was buried in Umm el-Qaab at Abydos. Djers tomb is tomb O of Petrie and his tomb contains the remains of 318 retainers who were buried with him. Several objects were found in and around the tomb of Djer, A stela of Djer, labels mentioning the name of a palace and the name of Meritneith. Fragments of two inscribed with the name of Queen Neithhotep. Bracelets of a Queen were found in the wall of the tomb, in the subsidiary tombs excavators found, Stelae of several individuals Ivory objects with the name of Neithhotep. Manetho indicates that the First Dynasty ruled from Memphis – and indeed Herneith, one of Djers wives, was buried nearby at Saqqara
10.
Benerib
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Benerib was a Queen Consort of ancient Egypt from the First dynasty. Beneribs name means sweet of heart, Benerib was a wife of pharaoh Hor-Aha, but she was not the mother of his heir, Djer. The mother of king Djer is named as Khenthap, another wife of Hor-Aha, Benerib is thought to be the wife of Hor-Aha based on ivories found in her tomb at Abydos which show his name. A fragment of a box with the names of Hor-Aha. Beneribs titles are not known, and neither is the identity of her parents, Benerib was buried at Umm el-Qaab in tomb B14
