1.
National Archaeological Museum (France)
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The musée dArchéologie nationale is a major French archeology museum, covering pre-historic times to the Merovingian period. It is located in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the département of Yvelines, main article, Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The château had been one of the most important French royal residences in the Paris region since the 12th century. Following the move of the court to Versailles, the castle housed the court of James II of England in exile, became a school in 1809. The château, which was in poor condition, was classified as a monument historique on 8 April 1863. The interior was a maze of cells, corridors, false floors, the exterior was dilapidated and covered in a black coating. In 1857 he reported that all the partitions forming the cells and dungeons had been demolished, construction work began in 1862 with the destruction of the West pavilion. Millets goal was to restore the building to its state as it was under Francis I of France, Eugène Millet died in Cannes on 24 February 1879. The restoration was continued by Auguste Lafollye and Honoré Daumet, there was a great expansion of archaeology during the Second French Empire. The decree creating the Musée des antiquités celtiques et gallo-romaines was signed by Napoleon III on 8 March 1862. The first meeting of the set up to organize the museum was held on 1 April 1865 in the office of Count Émilien de Nieuwerkerke. Attendees included major figures in archaeology including Alexandre Bertrand, Édouard Lartet, Louis Félicien de Saulcy, the project was assigned to Bertrand, who became the first director, Jean-Baptiste Verchère de Reffye and Claude Rossignol. Bertrand adopted the arrangement of objects by age rather than by subject, the first seven rooms were inaugurated by the Emperor Napoleon III on 12 May 1867. In 1867 Arthur Rhoné joined the newly created Museum of Antiquities, by 190744 rooms were open to the public. These finds, discovered on the territory, are presented by chronological periods, Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman period. A collection of archaeological and ethnological objects are presented in the comparative archeology room. The paleolithic collections include objects related to the lithic inductry, and to the of bone, the museum introduces the evolution of the homo genus with castings of homo erectus skulls and neanderthal. Among the most notorious objects of the collections of the museum is the Venus of Brassempouy. Among the many objects Piette has housed in the museum, about 10000 are exhibited in a dedicated room, the room was restored and reopened in 2008, with the aim of restituting the original nineteenth century museology and can be visited with a guide
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Second Dynasty of Egypt
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The Second Dynasty of ancient Egypt is the latter of the two dynasties of the Egyptian Archaic Period, when the seat of government was centred at Thinis. Save for the time of its last ruler Khasekhemwy, it one of the most obscure periods in ancient Egyptian history. Though archaeological evidence of the time is very scant, contrasting data from the First and Third Dynasties indicates important institutional, the names of the actual rulers of the Second Dynasty are in dispute. For the first five pharaohs, the sources are fairly close in agreement, known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for this dynasty are as follows, However, the identity of the next two or three rulers is unclear. We may have the Horus name or Nebty name and their names for these rulers, yet they may be entirely different individuals or they may be legendary names. Beyond this, little can be said about the events during this period as the records on the Palermo stone only survive to the end of the reign of Nebra. One important event possibly happened during the reign of Khasekhemwy, many Egyptologists read his name, Khasekhemwy, as the Two Powers arise, possibly commemorating the union of the Upper and Lower Egypts
5.
Qa'a
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Qaa was the last king of the First Dynasty of Egypt. He reigned for 33 years at the end of the 30th century BC, Manetho calls Qaa Biénechês and gives him a reign of 26 years. Other versions of copies of Manetho´s epithomes give Óubiênthis and Víbenthis as hellenized names, the parents of Qaa are unknown, but it is thought that either his predecessor Anedjib or Semerkhet was his father, since it was tradition to leave the throne to the eldest son. If Manetho suggested correctly, Semerkhet was the father, there is not much information left about Qaas reign, but it seems that he reigned for a long time. Several stone vessel inscriptions mention a second Sed festival for Qaa, indeed, the first festival was usually not celebrated before 30 years of reign, and subsequent festivals could be repeated every third year. The Palermo Stone only mentions the year of coronation and some usual cultic events that were celebrated under every king, the numerous ivory tags dating to his reign also mention only typical arrangements, such as depicting and counting burial offerings and personal possessions of the king. Several mastaba tombs of high officials date into Qaas reign, Merka, Henuka, despite Qaa´s long and prosperous reign, evidence shows that after his death, a dynastic war between different royal houses began over the newly empty throne. In the tomb of the high official Merka, a vessel with the name of a king Sneferka was found. It is unclear whether Sneferka was a name of Qaa or if he was a separate. Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck and Toby Wilkinson point to a mysterious ruler named Horus Bird. It is postulated that Sneferka and Horus Bird fought for power, strong clues to that theory are traces of grave robberies and arsons found in the royal tombs of Abydos. Clay seals of Hotepsekhemwy found in Qaas tomb suggest that he restored the tomb or buried Qaa, Qaa had a fairly large tomb in Abydos which measures 98.5 X75.5 feet or 30 X23 meters. A long reign is supported by the size of this rulers burial site at Abydos. This tomb was excavated by German archaeologists in 1993 and proved to contain 26 satellite burials, a seal impression bearing Hotepsekhemwys name was found near the entrance of the tomb of Qaa by the German Archaeological Institute in the mid-1990s. The discovery of the seal impression has been interpreted as evidence that Qaa was buried, and therefore succeeded, by Hotepsekhemwy, the beautiful tomb stela of Qaa is now on display at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The tomb of one of Qaas state officials at Saqqara—a certain nobleman named Merka—contained a stele with many titles, there is a second Sed festival attested. This fact plus the quality of a number of royal steles depicting the king implies that Qaas reign was a fairly stable. A number of year labels have also discovered dating to his reign at the First Dynasty burial site of Umm el-Qaab in Abydos
6.
Sneferka
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Sneferka is the serekh-name of an early Egyptian king who may have ruled at the end of 1st dynasty. The exact length of his reign is unknown, but thought to have very short. Sneferka´s serekh-name is the object of current investigations, because of the unusual typographical order of the signs within the serekh. This led to several different readings, his name is read as Seneferka, Sneferka, Neferseka, the serekh-name Sneferka appears on several schist- and alabaster vessels. A fourth artifact with Sneferkas name is found in the private Georges-Michailidis-Collection but its authenticity is questioned by Archaeologists and Egyptologists, additionally, the inscription on the Michailidis-object is a serekh with no Horus-falcon, which is highly unusual for any Egyptian artifact of that time period. Beside Sneferkas serekh, the inscriptions mention several institutions and places already known thanks to finds dating to Qaas reign and they are called Qau-Netjeru and Ah-Netjer and appear in several stone vessel inscriptions from Qaas tomb at Abydos. Egyptologists such as Peter Kaplony conclude that the inscriptions prove a chronological adjacency to king Qaa or that the name Sneferka was a name that Qaa bore for a short time. Two artifacts of different origins show the serekh of a king, whose name is highly disputed, since at least the depiction of a bird was recognised, the king in question is called Horus Bird. Egyptologists such as Wolfgang Helck and Peter Kaplony believe that Sneferka, the struggles peaked in the plundering of the royal cemetery of Abydos, which was therefore abandoned. The struggle for the throne was possibly brought to an end by the founder of the 2nd dynasty, king Hotepsekhemwy. An evidence supporting this theory is the Horus name of Hotepsekhemwy which means The two powers are reconciled, and could relate to a re-unification of the Egyptian realm after a period of discord. In contrast, Egyptologist Kim Ryholt believes that Sneferka ruled during the midst of 2nd dynasty and was to be identified with Neferkara I, attested in Ramesside sources. To support his view, Ryholt points to cartouche names such as Neferkara II and Nebkara I, Egyptologist Aidan Dodson thinks alike and points to the fact, that nearly all serekhs of Sneferka are made on erasures, thus leading to the conclusion that Sneferka usurped Qaas vessels. This behavior was typical for kings that ruled somewhat later than the owner of the re-used artefacts. Francesco Raffaele, Horus SNEFERKA - Horus Bird - Horus SEKHET - Horus BA
7.
Nebra (Pharaoh)
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Nebra or Raneb is the Horus name of the second early Egyptian king of the 2nd dynasty. The exact length of his reign is unknown since the Turin canon is damaged and they credit Nebra with either a 10- or 14-year rule. According to different authors, Nebra ruled Egypt c.2850 BC, Nerbas name appears on several stone vessels, mostly made of schist, alabaster and marble. Most of the bowls were found at Abydos, Giza and Saqqara, the inscriptions contain depictions of cultic buildings such as the Ka-house, depictions of deities such as Bastet, Neith and Seth and also the mentionings of cultic feasts. Interestingly, all objects present Nebras name either together with that of his predecessor Hotepsekhemwy or with his successor Nynetjer. Clay seal impressions with Nebras name were found beneath the causeway of the Pyramid of Unas at Saqqara and inside a gallery tomb. This tomb also yielded several seal impressions with Hotepsekhemwys name and for this reason it is debated whether the tomb belongs to Nebra or his predecessor Hotepsekhemwy, in 2012, Pierre Tallet and Damien Leisnay reported three rock inscriptions with Nebras horus name found in the south of Sinai peninsula. Each rock inscription can be found in a different wadi, Wadi Abu Madawi, Wadi Abu Koua and Wadi Ameyra. The places where Nerbas name is displayed lie along an old route used for expeditions from the western shore of the Sinai to its inland. Along the wadis the names of predynastic kings up to pharaohs of the 4th Dynasty are located at the same places. Nebras serekh name is of great interest to Egyptologists, since it is written with the sign of the sun. At the time of king Nebra, the most important religious cults were concentrated on the preservation of the equal status of the state patrons Horus. Nothing was more important than keeping that divine balance, the kings themselves were seen as the living representation of that godlike pair. The sun was seen as a celestial object controlled either by Horus or, as in the case of king Seth-Peribsen, therefore, the sun was no independent deity yet. The first definite proof of the existence of the sun-deity Ra occurs at the beginning of the 3rd dynasty during the reign of king Djoser in the names of officials such as Hesyre. And the first definitive detectable proof for an established royal sun cult occurs under king Radjedef. He was the first king who connected his name with the name of Ra, starting the great religious belief that Egyptian kings were the living representation of the sun alongside Horus. Therefore, Nebras Horus name is problematic regarding its translation and meaning, the typical translation of Nebras name as Ra is my lord, which would be read Raneb, is questionable, as this would assume that the Sun was already being worshiped as an independent deity
8.
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
9.
Smelting
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Smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy, its main use is to produce a base metal from its ore. This includes production of silver, iron, copper and other metals from their ores. Smelting makes use of heat and a reducing agent to decompose the ore, driving off other elements as gases or slag. The reducing agent is commonly a source of such as coke. The carbon removes oxygen from the ore, leaving behind the elemental metal, the carbon is thus oxidized in two stages, producing first carbon monoxide and then carbon dioxide. As most ores are impure, it is necessary to use flux, such as limestone. Plants for the reduction of aluminium are also generally referred to as aluminium smelters. Smelting involves more than just melting the metal out of its ore, most ores are a chemical compound of the metal with other elements, such as oxygen, sulfur or carbon and oxygen together. To produce the metal, these compounds have to undergo a chemical reaction, smelting therefore consists of using suitable reducing substances that will combine with those oxidizing elements to free the metal. In the case of carbonates and sulfides, a process called roasting drives out the carbon or sulfur, leaving an oxide. Roasting is usually carried out in an oxidizing environment, a few practical examples, Malachite, a common ore of copper, is primarily copper carbonate hydroxide Cu22. This mineral undergoes thermal decomposition to 2CuO, CO2, and H2O in several stages between 250 °C and 350 °C, the carbon dioxide and water are expelled into the atmosphere, leaving copper oxide which can be directly reduced to copper as described in the following section titled Reduction. Galena, the most common mineral of lead, is primarily lead sulfide, the sulfide is oxidized to a sulfite which thermally decomposes into lead oxide and sulfur dioxide gas. The sulfur dioxide is expelled, and the oxide is reduced as below. Reduction is the final, high-temperature step in smelting and it is here that the oxide becomes the elemental metal. A reducing environment pulls the final oxygen atoms from the raw metal, the required temperature varies over a very large range, both in absolute terms and in terms of the melting point of the base metal. Fluxes are used in smelting for several purposes, chief among them catalyzing the desired reactions, of the seven metals known in antiquity, only gold occurred regularly in native form in the natural environment. The others – copper, lead, silver, tin, iron and mercury – occur primarily as minerals and these minerals are primarily carbonates, sulfides, or oxides of the metal, mixed with other components such as silica and alumina
