1.
Egyptian temple
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Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated and these rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat, the divine order of the universe. Housing and caring for the gods were the obligations of pharaohs, nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray, give offerings, and seek oracular guidance from the god dwelling within. The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary, which contained a cult image. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of Egyptian architecture and their typical design consisted of a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and massive entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond the temple proper was a wall enclosing a wide variety of secondary buildings. A large temple also owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs, temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. The priests who managed these powerful institutions wielded considerable influence, temple-building in Egypt continued despite the nations decline and ultimate loss of independence to the Roman Empire. With the coming of Christianity, however, Egyptian religion faced increasing persecution, for centuries, the ancient buildings suffered destruction and neglect. Dozens of temples survive today, and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy, Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones, as they are invaluable sources of information about ancient Egyptian society. Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for the gods to reside on earth, indeed, the term the Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building, ḥwt-nṯr, means mansion of a god. A gods presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and these rituals, it was believed, sustained the god and allowed it to continue to play its proper role in nature. They were therefore a key part of the maintenance of maat, maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion, and it was the purpose of a temple as well. Because he was credited with divine power himself, the pharaoh, as a king, was regarded as Egypts representative to the gods. Thus, it was theoretically his duty to perform the temple rites, the pharaoh was nevertheless obligated to maintain, provide for, and expand the temples throughout his realm. Although the pharaoh delegated his authority, the performance of rituals was still an official duty. The participation of the populace in most ceremonies was prohibited. Much of the lay religious activity in Egypt instead took place in private and community shrines, however, as the primary link between the human and divine realms, temples attracted considerable veneration from ordinary Egyptians
2.
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
3.
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
4.
Imperial cult
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An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor, or a dynasty of emperors, are worshipped as demigods or deities. Cult here is used to worship, not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may be one of personality in the case of a newly arisen Euhemerus figure or one of identity or supranational identity in the case of a multi-ethnic state. A divine king is a monarch who is held in a religious significance by his subjects. This system of government combines theocracy with an absolute monarchy, the Ptolemaic dynasty based their own legitimacy in the eyes of their Greek subjects on their association with, and incorporation into, the cult of Alexander the Great. In Imperial China, an emperor was considered the Son of Heaven, the scion and representative of heaven on earth, he was the ruler of all under heaven, the bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, his commands considered sacred edicts. A number of legendary figures preceding the proper imperial era of China also hold the title of emperor, such as the Yellow Emperor. Even before the rise of the Caesars, there are traces of a regal spirituality in Roman society, King Numitor corresponds to the regal-sacred principle in early Roman history. Romulus, the founder of Rome, was heroized into Quirinus. Varro spoke of the mystery and power of Roman regality. In Plutarchs Phyrro,19.5, the Greek ambassador declared amid the Roman Senate he felt instead like being in the midst of an assembly of Kings. As the Roman Empire developed the Imperial cult gradually developed more formally and this practice began at the start of the Empire under Augustus, and became a prominent element of Roman religion. The cult spread over the whole Empire within a few decades, Emperor Diocletian further reinforced it when he demanded the proskynesis and adopted the adjective sacrum for all things pertaining to the imperial person. The deification of emperors was gradually abandoned after the emperor Constantine I started supporting Christianity, however, the concept of the imperial person as sacred carried over, in a Christianized form, into the Byzantine Empire. In ancient Japan, it was customary for every clan to claim descendancy from gods, later in history, this was considered common practice by noble families, and the head members of the family, including that of the imperial family, were not seen to be divine. It was not until the Meiji period, that the Japanese Emperor began to be venerated along with a sense of nationalism. Arahitogami – the concept of a god who is a human being applied to the Shōwa Emperor, ningen-sengen – the declaration with which the Shōwa Emperor, on New Years Day 1946, declined claims of divinity, keeping with traditional family values as expressed in the Shinto religion. Devaraja is the Hindu-Buddhist cult of deified royalty in Southeast Asia and it is simply described as Southeast Asian concept of divine king
5.
Old Kingdom of Egypt
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The term itself was coined by eighteenth-century historians and the distinction between the Old Kingdom and the Early Dynastic Period is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as the period from the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty, many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt became a god who ruled absolutely and could demand the services. Under King Djoser, the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, the capital of Egypt was moved to Memphis. A new era of building was initiated at Saqqara under his reign, King Djosers architect, Imhotep is credited with the development of building with stone and with the conception of the new architectural form—the Step Pyramid. Indeed, the Old Kingdom is perhaps best known for the number of pyramids constructed at this time as burial places for Egypts kings. For this reason, the Old Kingdom is frequently referred to as the Age of the Pyramids, the first king of the Old Kingdom was Djoser of the third dynasty, who ordered the construction of a pyramid in Memphis necropolis, Saqqara. An important person during the reign of Djoser was his vizier and it was in this era that formerly independent ancient Egyptian states became known as nomes, under the rule of the king. The former rulers were forced to assume the role of governors or otherwise work in tax collection, Egyptians in this era worshipped their king as a god, believing that he ensured the annual flooding of the Nile that was necessary for their crops. Egyptian views on the nature of time during this period held that the worked in cycles. They also perceived themselves as a specially selected people, the Old Kingdom and its royal power reached a zenith under the Fourth Dynasty, which began with Sneferu. Using more stones than any king, he built three pyramids, a now collapsed pyramid in Meidum, the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur. However, the development of the pyramid style of building was reached not at Saqqara. Sneferu was succeeded by his son, Khufu who built the Great Pyramid of Giza, after Khufus death, his sons Djedefra and Khafra may have quarrelled. The latter built the pyramid and the Sphinx in Giza. Recent reexamination of evidence has led Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev to propose that the Sphinx had been built by Djedefra as a monument to his father Khufu, alternatively, the Sphinx has been proposed to be the work of Khafra and Khufu himself. There were military expeditions into Canaan and Nubia, with Egyptian influence reaching up the Nile into what is today the Sudan, the later kings of the Fourth Dynasty were king Menkaure, who built the smallest pyramid in Giza, Shepseskaf and, perhaps, Djedefptah. The Fifth Dynasty began with Userkaf and was marked by the importance of the cult of sun god Ra
6.
Middle Kingdom of Egypt
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Some scholars also include the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt wholly into this period as well, in which case the Middle Kingdom would finish c. 1650, while others only include it until Merneferre Ay c.1700 BC, during the Middle Kingdom period, Osiris became the most important deity in popular religion. The period comprises two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th Dynasty onwards which was centered on el-Lisht, after the collapse of the Old Kingdom, Egypt entered a period of weak Pharaonic power and decentralization called the First Intermediate Period. Towards the end of period, two rival dynasties, known in Egyptology as the Tenth and Eleventh, fought for power over the entire country. The Theban 11th Dynasty only ruled southern Egypt from the first cataract to the Tenth Nome of Upper Egypt, to the north, Lower Egypt was ruled by the rival 10th Dynasty from Herakleopolis. The struggle was to be concluded by Mentuhotep II, who ascended the Theban throne in 2055 B. C, during Mentuhotep IIs fourteenth regnal year, he took advantage of a revolt in the Thinite Nome to launch an attack on Herakleopolis, which met little resistance. After toppling the last rulers of the 10th Dynasty, Mentuhotep began consolidating his power over all Egypt, for this reason, Mentuhotep II is regarded as the founder of the Middle Kingdom. Mentuhotep II commanded military campaigns south as far as the Second Cataract in Nubia and he also restored Egyptian hegemony over the Sinai region, which had been lost to Egypt since the end of the Old Kingdom. He also sent the first expedition to Punt during the Middle Kingdom, by means of ships constructed at the end of Wadi Hammamat, Mentuhotep III was succeeded by Mentuhotep IV, whose name significantly is omitted from all ancient Egyptian king lists. The Turin Papyrus claims that after Mentuhotep III came seven kingless years, despite this absence, his reign is attested from a few inscriptions in Wadi Hammamat that record expeditions to the Red Sea coast and to quarry stone for the royal monuments. The leader of expedition was his vizier Amenemhat, who is widely assumed to be the future pharaoh Amenemhet I. Mentuhotep IVs absence from the king lists has prompted the theory that Amenemhet I usurped his throne, while there are no contemporary accounts of this struggle, certain circumstantial evidence may point to the existence of a civil war at the end of the 11th dynasty. Inscriptions left by one Nehry, the Haty-a of Hermopolis, suggest that he was attacked at a place called Shedyet-sha by the forces of the reigning king, but his forces prevailed. Khnumhotep I, an official under Amenemhet I, claims to have participated in a flotilla of 20 ships to pacify Upper Egypt, donald Redford has suggested these events should be interpreted as evidence of open war between two dynastic claimants. What is certain is that, however he came to power, from the 12th dynasty onwards, pharaohs often kept well-trained standing armies, which included Nubian contingents. These formed the basis of larger forces which were raised for defence against invasion, however, the Middle Kingdom was basically defensive in its military strategy, with fortifications built at the First Cataract of the Nile, in the Delta and across the Sinai Isthmus. Early in his reign, Amenemhet I was compelled to campaign in the Delta region, in addition, he strengthened defenses between Egypt and Asia, building the Walls of the Ruler in the East Delta region. Perhaps in response to this perpetual unrest, Amenemhat I built a new capital for Egypt in the north, known as Amenemhet Itj Tawy, or Amenemhet, the location of this capital is unknown, but is presumably near the citys necropolis, the present-day el-Lisht
7.
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
8.
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
9.
Amun
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Amun was a major Ancient Egyptian deity. He was attested since the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amaunet, with the 11th dynasty, he rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Monthu. After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I, Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, Amun-Ra retained chief importance in the Egyptian pantheon throughout the New Kingdom. Amun-Ra in this period held the position of transcendental, self-created creator deity par excellence, he was the champion of the poor or troubled and his position as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism where other gods became manifestations of him. With Osiris, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods, as the chief deity of the Egyptian Empire, Amun-Ra also came to be worshipped outside of Egypt, according to the testimony of ancient Greek historiographers in Libya and Nubia. As Zeus Ammon he came to be identified with Zeus in Greece, Amun and Amaunet are mentioned in the Old Egyptian Pyramid Texts. The name Amun meant something like the one or invisible. Amun rose to the position of tutelary deity of Thebes after the end of the First Intermediate Period, as the patron of Thebes, his spouse was Mut. In Thebes, Amun as father, Mut as mother and the Moon god Khonsu formed a family or Theban Triad. The history of Amun as the god of Thebes begins in the 20th century BC. The city of Thebes does not appear to have been of great significance before the 11th dynasty, major construction work in the Precinct of Amun-Re took place during the 18th dynasty when Thebes became the capital of the unified ancient Egypt. Construction of the Hypostyle Hall may have begun during the 18th dynasty, though most building was undertaken under Seti I. Merenptah commemorated his victories over the Sea Peoples on the walls of the Cachette Court and this Great Inscription shows the kings campaigns and eventual return with booty and prisoners. Next to this inscription is the Victory Stela, which is largely a copy of the more famous Israel Stela found in the complex of Merenptah on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. Merenptahs son Seti II added 2 small obelisks in front of the Second Pylon, and this was constructed of sandstone, with a chapel to Amun flanked by those of Mut and Khonsu. The last major change to the Precinct of Amun-Res layout was the addition of the first pylon, the local patron deity of Thebes, Amun, therefore became nationally important. The pharaohs of that new dynasty attributed all their enterprises to Amun. The victory accomplished by pharaohs who worshipped Amun against the rulers, brought him to be seen as a champion of the less fortunate
10.
Beautiful Festival of the Valley
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The Beautiful Festival of the Valley was an Ancient Egyptian festival, celebrated annually in Thebes, during the Middle Kingdom period and later. The Beautiful Festival of the Valley or heb nefer en inet in Egyptian was a celebration of the dead, the Beautiful Festival of the Valley could be more ancient than the Opet Festival as it can be traced back to the Middle Kingdom. It was said to be held as a remembrance of the dead, however, when joined with the Festival of Opet, the holy procession became the main event of the liturgical calendar of Thebes. The annual festival was held at the New Moon of Month Two and this was the summer season, shemu, and the 10th month in a calendar of 12. During Hatshepsuts reign she carried out both the Opet and The Beautiful Festival of the Valley to Amun, there was a grand precession at the start of the festival which could go for several days. It was a colourful and joyous occasion for the people of Thebes and this barque would then be placed in a Userhet, that was covered in gold and precious materials. This Userhet would be followed by boats for Mut and Khonsu to form the Theban Triad, the procession proceeded to the Temple of Million Years of the King where the townspeople would sacrifice food and drink as well as flowers to the flotilla of boats. Great quantities of flowers would be presented, as it is believed by the Egyptian culture that the flowers became filled with the essence of the deity, townspeople then took these flowers to their relatives tombs to pay their respects and ensure the revival of the deceaseds spirit. They would drink and sleep on the tombs as different levels of consciousness blessed the dead. Amuns shrine was brought into the Djoser-djoseru to reaffirm the bond between the king of the gods and the king of the people. Davies, V. & Friedman R. Egypt, British Museum Press,1998 Strudwick N & Strudwick K. Thebes in Egypt, Cornell University Press,1999
11.
Amenhotep I
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His reign is generally dated from 1526 to 1506 BC. He was a son of Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari, but had at least two brothers, Ahmose-ankh and Ahmose Sapair, and was not expected to inherit the throne. However, sometime in the eight years between Ahmose Is 17th regnal year and his death, his heir apparent died and Amenhotep became crown prince and he then acceded to the throne and ruled for about 21 years. Although his reign is documented, it is possible to piece together a basic history from available evidence. He inherited the kingdom formed by his fathers military conquests and maintained dominance over Nubia, after his death, he was deified as a patron god of Deir el-Medina. Amenhotep I was the son of Ahmose I and Ahmose-Nefertari and his elder brothers, the crown prince Ahmose Sapair and Ahmose-ankh, died before him, thus clearing the way for his ascension to the throne. Amenhotep probably came to power while he was still young himself, the evidence for this regency is that both he and his mother are credited with founding a settlement for workers in the Theban Necropolis at Deir el-Medina. Amenhotep took his sister Ahmose-Meritamon as his Great Royal Wife, another wifes name, Sitkamose, is attested on a nineteenth dynasty stele. Beyond this, the relationships between Amenhotep I and other family members are unclear. Ahhotep II is usually called his wife and sister, despite an alternate theory that she was his grandmother and he is thought to have had one son by Ahhotep II, Amenemhat, who died while still very young. This remains the consensus, although there are arguments against that relationship as well, with no living heirs, Amenhotep was succeeded by Thutmose I, whom he married to his sister, Aahmes. Since Aahmes is never given the title Kings Daughter in any inscription, in Amenhotep Is ninth regnal year, a heliacal rise of Sothis was observed on the ninth day of the third month of summer. Modern astronomers have calculated that, if the observation was made from Memphis or Heliopolis, if the observation was made in Thebes, however, it could only have taken place in 1517. Manethos Epitome states that Amenhotep I ruled Egypt for twenty years and seven months or twenty-one years, while Amenhotep Is highest attested regnal year is only his Year 10, Manethos statement is confirmed by a passage in the tomb autobiography of a magician named Amenemhet. This explicitly states that he served under Amenhotep I for 21 Years, Amenhotep Is Horus and Two Ladies names, Bull who conquers the lands and He who inspires great terror, are generally interpreted to mean that Amenhotep I intended to dominate the surrounding nations. Two tomb texts indicate that he led campaigns into Nubia, according to the tomb texts of Ahmose, son of Ebana, Amenhotep later sought to expand Egypts border southward into Nubia and he led an invasion force which defeated the Nubian army. The tomb biography of Ahmose Pen-Nekhebet says he fought in a campaign in Kush, however it is quite possible that it refers to the same campaign as Ahmose. Amenhotep built a temple at Saï, showing that he had established Egyptian settlements almost as far as the third cataract, a single reference in the tomb of Ahmose Pen-Nekhebet indicates another campaign in Iamu in the land of Kehek
12.
Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt
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The eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt is the best known ancient Egyptian dynasty. It boasts several of Egypts most famous pharaohs, including Tutankhamun, the dynasty is also known as the Thutmosid Dynasty for the four pharaohs named Thutmosis. Famous pharaohs of Dynasty XVIII include Hatshepsut, longest-reigning woman-pharaoh of a dynasty, and Akhenaten. Dynasty XVIII is the first of the three dynasties of the Egyptian New Kingdom, the period in which ancient Egypt reached the peak of its power, radiocarbon dating suggests that Dynasty XVIII may have started a few years earlier than the conventional date of 1550 BC. The radiocarbon date range for its beginning is 1570–1544 BC, the point of which is 1557 BC. The pharaohs of Dynasty XVIII ruled for two hundred and fifty years. The dates and names in the table are taken from Dodson and Hilton, many of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes. More information can be found on the Theban Mapping Project website, several diplomatic marriages are known for the New Kingdom. These daughters of kings are often only mentioned in cuneiform texts and are not known from other sources. The marriages were likely a way to confirm good relations between these states, Dynasty XVIII was founded by Ahmose I, the brother or son of Kamose, the last ruler of the Dynasty XVII. Ahmose finished the campaign to expel the Hyksos rulers and his reign is seen as the end of the Second Intermediate Period and the start of the New Kingdom. Ahmose was succeeded by his son, Amenhotep I, whose reign was relatively uneventful, Amenhotep I probably left no male heir and the next pharaoh, Thutmose I, seems to have been related to the royal family through marriage. During his reign the borders of Egypts empire reached their greatest expanse, extending in the north to Carchemish on the Euphrates, Thutmose I was succeeded by Thutmose II and his queen, Hatshepsut. Thutmose III who later became known as the greatest military pharaoh ever and he had a second co-regency in his old age with his son Amenhotep II. Amenhotep II was succeeded by Thutmose IV, who in his turn was followed by his son Amenhotep III, the reign of Amenhotep III is seen as a high point in this dynasty. Amenhotep III undertook large scale building programmes, the extent of which can only be compared with those of the much longer reign of Ramesses II during Dynasty XIX. Amenhotep III may have shared the throne for up to twelve years with his son Amenhotep IV, there is much debate about this proposed co-regency. Some experts believe there was a lengthy co-regency, while others prefer to see a short one, there are also many experts who believe no such co-regency existed at all
13.
Deir el-Bahari
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Deir el-Bahari or Dayr al-Bahri is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt. This is a part of the Theban Necropolis, the first monument built at the site was the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh dynasty. It was constructed during the 15th century BC, during the Eighteenth dynasty, Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut also built extensively at the site. Mentuhotep II, Eleventh Dynasty king who reunited Egypt at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom and his mortuary temple was built on several levels in the great bay at Deir el-Bahari. It was approached by a 16-metre-wide causeway leading from a temple which no longer exists. As the temple faces east, the structure is likely to be connected with the sun cult of Rê and the resurrection of the king. From the eastern part of the forecourt, a called the Bab el-Hosan leads to an underground passage. On the western side, tamarisk and sycamore trees were planted beside the ramp leading up to the terrace, at the back of the forecourt and terrace are colonnades decorated in relief with boat processions, hunts, and scenes showing the kings military achievements. Statues of the Twelfth Dynasty king Senusret III were found here too, the inner part of the temple was actually cut into the cliff and consists of a peristyle court, a hypostyle hall and an underground passage leading into the tomb itself. The cult of the dead king centred on the small shrine cut into the rear of the Hypostyle Hall, the mastaba-like structure on the terrace is surrounded by a pillared ambulatory along the west wall, where the statue shrines and tombs of several royal wives and daughters were found. These royal princesses were the priestesses of Hathor, one of the main ancient Egyptian funerary deities, although little remained of the kings own burial, six sarcophagi were retrieved from the tombs of the royal ladies. Each was formed of six slabs, held together at the corners by metal braces, the sarcophagus of Queen Kawit, now in the Cairo Museum, is particularly fine. The burial shaft and subsequent tunnel descend for 150 meters and end in a burial chamber 45 meters below the court, the chamber held a shrine, which once held the wooden coffin of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep. A great tree-lined court was reached by means of the processional causeway, beneath the court, a deep shaft was cut which led to unfinished rooms believed to have been intended originally as the king’s tomb. A wrapped image of the pharaoh was discovered in area by Howard Carter. The temple complex also held six mortuary chapels and shaft tombs built for the pharaohs wives, the focal point of the Deir el-Bahari complex is the Djeser-Djeseru meaning the Holy of Holies, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. It is a structure, which was designed and implemented by Senenmut, royal steward and architect of Hatshepsut, to serve for her posthumous worship. Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of colonnaded terraces, reached by ramps that once were graced with gardens
14.
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
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Mentuhotep II
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Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II was a Pharaoh of the 11th Dynasty who reigned for 51 years. Around his 39th year on the throne he reunited Egypt, thus ending the First Intermediate Period, consequently, he is considered the first pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom. Mentuhotep II was the son of Intef III and Intef IIIs wife Iah who may also have been his sister. This lineage is demonstrated by the stele of Henenu, an official who served under Intef II, Intef III and his son, as for Iah, she bore the title of mwt-nswt, Kings mother. The parentage of Mentuhotep II is also confirmed by a relief at Shatt er-Rigal. f Kings wife, his beloved. She gave Mentuhotep II two children, one of which was certainly Mentuhotep III since Tem was also called mwt-nswt, Kings mother and mwt-nswt-bitj, apparently she died after her husband and was buried by her son in Mentuhotep temple. Her tomb was discovered in 1859 by Lord Duffering and fully excavated in 1968 by D. Arnold, Neferu II was called Kings wife and hmt-nswt-mryt. f, Kings wife, his beloved. She was buried in the tomb TT319 of Deir el-Bahri, kawit was one of Mentuhotep IIs secondary wives. She bore the titles of hmt-nswt mryt. f Kings wife, his beloved and khkrt-nswt and she was a Priestess of the goddess Hathor. It has been suggested that she was Nubian and she was buried under the terrasse of Mentuhotep IIs mortuary temple where E. Naville uncovered her sarcophagus in 1907. Sadeh, Ashayet, Henhenet and Kemsit were all Mentuhotep IIs secondary wives and they bore the title of hmt-nswt mryt. f Kings wife, his beloved and khkrt-nswt-w3tit Unique embellishment of the King. They were priestesses of Hathor and each of them was buried in a pit dug under the terrasse of Mentuhotep IIs temple. Note that an alternative theory holds that Henhenet was one of Intef IIIs secondary wives, Henhenet might have died in childbirth. Mwyt, a girl buried with Mentuhotep IIs secondary wives. It is not clear if she was one of Mentuhoteps wives herself or one of his daughters, Mentuhotep II is considered to be the first ruler of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The Turin Canon credits him with a reign of 51 years, when he ascended the Theban throne, Mentuhotep II inherited the vast land conquered by his predecessors from the first cataract in the south to Abydos and Tjebu in the north. Mentuhotep IIs first fourteen years of reign seem to have been peaceful in the Theban region as there are no surviving traces of conflict firmly datable to that period, in the 14th year of his reign, an uprising occurred in the north. This uprising is most probably connected with the conflict between Mentuhotep II based in Thebes and the rival 10th Dynasty based at Herakleopolis who threatened to invade Upper Egypt
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Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III
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The Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, also known as Kom el-Hettân, was built by the main architect Amenhotep, son of Habu, for the Pharaoh Amenhotep III during the 18th Dynasty in the New Kingdom. The mortuary temple is located on the Western bank of the Nile river, during its time, the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III was the largest funerary complex in Thebes that was built. Currently, only parts of the mortuary temple’s layout remains, as well as the Colossi of Memnon, because the mortuary temple was built relatively close to the river, the annual flooding caused the site to decay at a more rapid rate over time. The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Project have helped conserve the site as well as possible. Dr. Hourig Sourouzian was the main excavator in the early 2000s, Laurent Bavay examined the pottery found at the site from the 1999-2002 excavation seasons. The Hypostyle Hall was cleared by Myriam Seco Alvarez, the temple faced to the East, which is most likely due to the sun rising in the East, since Amenhotep III revered the sun god Amun-Re. The Sun court is divided into the North and South halves, the North side had statues made of brown quartzite from Lower Egypt, while the South side had red granite from Aswan in Upper Egypt. Some of the pottery examined by Laurent Bavay were ring-based cups, beer jars, and wine amphorae, some stelae were found at the entrance of the Sun Court, which may have described the pharaoh’s building accomplishments. There are hundreds of freestanding statues, sphinxes, and massive stelae throughout the mortuary temple, some of these include, numerous statues of Sekhmet, animals, Egyptian gods, and Amenhotep III as a god. Dr. Betsy Brian suggests that Amenhotep III may have organized the animal and Sekhmet statues into maps of the heavens, therefore bringing the heavens to Earth. Some Sekhmet statues are standing, some are sitting, while some are holding a scepter on left hand. Why are there hundreds of Sekhmet statues, also, she played an important role in the royal jubilee in order to “protect the sun-king against the enemies of the sun”. Having building materials from both Upper and Lower Egypt was a way Amenhotep III established sema-tawy of both lands, Amenhotep III wanted to be revered as a god on Earth, not just in the afterlife once he is dead. He builds this enormous mortuary temple to leave a legacy that he was a god who ruled on Earth. They hope to form a museum, and to eventually bring awareness of the importance of on-site conservation. Colossal quartzite statue of Amenhotep III Found at the Mortuary Temple Medinet Habu Colossi of Memnon, 2) Kozloff and Bryan, Egypt’s Dazzling Sun, Amenhotep III and his World. 3) Sourouzian, Hourig, Rainer Stadelmann, Myriam Seco Alvarez, Josef Dorner, Nairy Hampikian, the temple of Amenhotep III at Thebes, excavations and conservation at Kom el-Hettân. Fourth report on the sixth, seventh and eighth season in 2004,2004 -2005 and 2006, mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Abteilung Kairo 63, 247-335
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Colossi of Memnon
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The Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned in Egypt during Dynasty XVIII. For the past 3,400 years, they have stood in the Theban Necropolis, Memnon was a hero of the Trojan War, a King of Ethiopia who led his armies from Africa into Asia Minor to help defend the beleaguered city but was ultimately slain by Achilles. Memnon was said to be the son of Eos, the goddess of dawn and he was associated with the colossi because of the reported cry at dawn of the northern statue, which became known as the Colossus of Memnon. Eventually, the entire Theban Necropolis became generally referred to as the Memnonium making him Ruler of the west as in the case of the god Osiris who was called chief of the west. The twin statues depict Amenhotep III in a position, his hands resting on his knees. Two shorter figures are carved into the front throne alongside his legs, the side panels depict the Nile god Hapy. The statues are made from blocks of sandstone which was quarried at el-Gabal el-Ahmar. The blocks used by later Roman engineers to reconstruct the northern colossus may have come from Edfu, including the stone platforms on which they stand – themselves about 4 m – the colossi reach a towering 18 m in height and weigh an estimated 720 tons each. The two figures are about 15 m apart, both statues are quite damaged, with the features above the waist virtually unrecognizable. The southern statue is a piece of stone, but the northern figure has a large extensive crack in the lower half. These upper levels consist of a different type of sandstone, and are the result of a later reconstruction attempt and it is believed that originally the two statues were identical to each other, although inscriptions and minor art may have varied. In its day, this complex was the largest and most opulent in Egypt. With the exception of the Colossi, however, very little remains today of Amenhoteps temple, in 27 BCE, a large earthquake reportedly shattered the northern colossus, collapsing it from the waist up and cracking the lower half. Following its rupture, the lower half of this statue was then reputed to sing on various occasions – always within an hour or two of sunrise, usually right at dawn. The sound was most often reported in February or March, the description varied, Strabo said it sounded like a blow, Pausanias compared it to the string of a lyre breaking, but it also was described as the striking of brass or whistling. Other ancient sources include Pliny, Pausanias, Tacitus, Philostratus, in addition, the base of the statue is inscribed with about 90 surviving inscriptions of contemporary tourists reporting whether they had heard the sound or not. The last recorded mention of the sound dates from 196. Various explanations have been offered for the phenomenon, these are of two types, natural or man-made, if natural, the sound was probably caused by rising temperatures and the evaporation of dew inside the porous rock
18.
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
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Horemheb
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Horemheb was the last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled from either 1319 BC to late 1292 BC, or 1306 to late 1292 BC although he was not related to the royal family and is believed to have been of common birth. Before he became pharaoh, Horemheb was the commander in chief of the army under the reigns of Tutankhamun, after his accession to the throne, he reformed the Egyptian state and it was under his reign that official action against the preceding Amarna rulers began. Due to this, he is considered the man who restabilized his country after the troublesome, Horemheb demolished monuments of Akhenaten, reusing their remains in his own building projects, and usurped monuments of Tutankhamun and Ay. Horemheb presumably remained childless since he appointed his vizier Paramesse as his successor and his parentage is unknown but he is believed to have been a commoner. According to the French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal, Horemheb does not appear to be the person as Paatenemheb who was the commander-in-chief of Akhenatens army. Grimal notes that Horemhebs political career first began under Tutankhamun where he is depicted at this side in his own tomb chapel at Memphis. In the earliest known stage of his life, Horemheb served as the spokesman for foreign affairs. This resulted in a visit by the Prince of Miam to Tutankhamuns court. Horemheb quickly rose to prominence under Tutankhamun, becoming commander-in-chief of the army, when used alone, the Egyptologist Alan Gardiner has shown that the iry-pat title contains features of ancient descent and lawful inheritance which is identical to the designation for a Crown Prince. This means that Horemheb was the openly recognised heir to Tutankhamuns throne and not Ay, no objects belonging to Horemheb were found in Tutankhamuns tomb, whereas items donated by other high-ranking officials such as Maya and Nakhtmin were found in tomb KV62 by Egyptologists. Further, Tutankhamuns queen, Ankhesenamun, refused to marry Horemheb, a commoner, having pushed Horemhebs claims aside, Ay proceeded to nominate the aforementioned Nakhtmin, who was possibly Ays son or adopted son, to succeed him rather than Horemheb. However, he spared Tutankhamuns tomb from vandalism presumably because it was Tutankhamun who had promoted his rise to power and chosen him to be his heir. Horemheb also usurped and enlarged Ays mortuary temple at Medinet Habu for his own use, Horemheb appointed judges and regional tribunes. Reintroduced local religious authorities and divided legal power between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt between the Viziers of Thebes and Memphis respectively and these deeds are recorded in a stela which the king erected at the foot of his Tenth Pylon at Karnak. Occasionally called The Great Edict of Horemheb, it is a copy of the text of the kings decree to re-establish order to the Two Lands. The stelas creation and prominent location emphasizes the importance which Horemheb placed upon domestic reform. Horemheb was a builder who erected numerous temples and buildings throughout Egypt during his reign
20.
Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt
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The Nineteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt was one of the periods of the Egyptian New Kingdom. Founded by Vizier Ramesses I, whom Pharaoh Horemheb chose as his successor to the throne, the warrior kings of the early 18th Dynasty had encountered only little resistance from neighbouring kingdoms, allowing them to expand their realm of influence easily. The situation had changed radically towards the end of the 18th Dynasty, the Hittites gradually extended their influence into Syria and Canaan to become a major power in international politics, a power that both Seti I and his son Ramesses II would need to deal with. The Pharaohs of the 19th dynasty ruled for one hundred and ten years. Seti Is reign is considered to be 11 years and not 15 years by both J. von Beckerath and Peter Brand, who wrote a biography on this pharaohs reign. Consequently, it will be amended to 11 years or 1290-1279 BC, therefore, Setis father and predecessor would have ruled Egypt between 1292-1290 BC. Many of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, more information can be found on the Theban Mapping Project website. New Kingdom Egypt reached the zenith of its power under Seti I and Ramesses II, who campaigned vigorously against the Libyans and the Hittites. The city of Kadesh was first captured by Seti I, who decided to concede it to Muwatalli of Hatti in a peace treaty between Egypt and Hatti. He ultimately accepted that a campaign against the Hittites was a drain on Egypts treasury and military. In his 21st regnal year, Ramesses signed the first recorded peace treaty with Urhi-Teshubs successor, Hattusili III, Ramesses II even married two Hittite princesses, the first after his second Sed Festival. At least as early as Josephus, it was believed that Moses lived during the reign of Ramesses II and this dynasty declined as internal fighting between the heirs of Merneptah for the throne increased. Amenmesse apparently usurped the throne from Merneptahs son and successor, Seti II, after his death, Seti regained power and destroyed most of Amenmesses monuments. Both Bay and Setis chief wife Twosret had a reputation in Ancient Egyptian folklore. After Siptahs death, Twosret ruled Egypt for two years, but she proved unable to maintain her hold on power amid the conspiracies. She was likely ousted in a revolt led by Setnakhte, founder of the Twentieth Dynasty, Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree
21.
Seti I
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Menmaatre Seti I was a pharaoh of the New Kingdom Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt, the son of Ramesses I and Sitre, and the father of Ramesses II. The name Seti means of Set, which indicates that he was consecrated to the god Set, as with most pharaohs, Seti had several names. Upon his ascension, he took the prenomen mn-m3‘t-r‘, usually vocalized as Menmaatre, in Egyptian and his better known nomen, or birth name, is transliterated as sty mry-n-ptḥ or Sety Merenptah, meaning Man of Set, beloved of Ptah. Manetho incorrectly considered him to be the founder of the 19th dynasty, Seti, with energy and determination, confronted the Hittites several times in battle. Without succeeding in destroying the Hittites as a danger to Egypt, he reconquered most of the disputed territories for Egypt. The memory of Seti Is military successes was recorded in large scenes placed on the front of the temple of Amun. He was considered a king by his peers, but his fame has been overshadowed since ancient times by that of his son. Seti Is reign length was either 11 or 15 full years, Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen has estimated that it was 15 years, but there are no dates recorded for Seti I after his Year 11 Gebel Barkal stela. As he is quite well documented in historical records, other scholars suggest that a continuous break in the record for his last four years is unlikely. Peter J. Brand noted that the king personally opened new rock quarries at Aswan to build obelisks and this event is commemorated on two rock stelas in Aswan. Ramesses II used the prenomen Usermaatre to refer to himself in his first year and he made great barges for transporting them, and ships crews to match them for ferrying them from the quarry. However, despite this promise, Brand stresses that The German Egyptologist Jürgen von Beckerath also accepts that Seti Is reign lasted only 11 Years. Seti Is accession date has been determined by Wolfgang Helck to be III Shemu day 24, in 2011, Jacobus van Dijk questioned the Year 11 stated on the Gebel Barkal stela. This monument is badly preserved but still depicts Seti I in erect posture. Furthermore, the glyphs I ∩ representing the 11 are damaged in the upper part and may just as well be I I I instead. Subsequently, Van Dijk proposed that the Gebel Barkal stela is dated to Year 3 of Seti I, and that Setis highest date more likely is Year 9 as suggested by the wine jars found in his tomb. In a 2012 paper, David Aston analyzed the wine jars, Seti I fought a series of wars in western Asia, Libya and Nubia in the first decade of his reign. The Ways of Horus consisted of a series of forts, each with a well
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Mortuary Temple of Seti I
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The Mortuary Temple of Seti I is the memorial temple of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Seti I. It is located in the Theban Necropolis in Upper Egypt, across the River Nile from the city of Luxor. The edifice is situated near the town of Qurna, the temple seems to have been constructed toward the end of the reign on Seti, and may have been completed by his son Ramesses the Great after his death. One of the chambers contains a dedicated to Setis father Ramesses I. The ruler reigned a little under two years, and did not construct a temple for himself. The entire court and any pylons associated with the site are now in ruins, and much of the eastern part of the complex is buried under the modern town of Qurna
23.
Kurna
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Kurna are various spelling for a group of three closely related villages located on the West Bank of the River Nile opposite the modern city of Luxor in Egypt near the Theban Hills. New Qurna was designed and built in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy to house people living in Qurna which is now uninhabited, the name Kurna signifies a promontory or a point of a mountain. Gourna is first mentioned by Protais and Charles François dOrléans, two Capuchin missionary brothers travelling in Upper Egypt in 1668, protais’ writing about their travel was published by Melchisédech Thévenot and Johann Michael Vansleb. UNESCO World Heritage conservation wishes to safeguard this important architectural site, the World Monuments Fund included New Qurna in the 2010 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites. Qurna is a village about 100m to the east of the Temple of Seti I. Until the early 19th century the community included at least parts of the Temple of Seti I, several travellers, including Richard Pococke or Sonnini de Manoncourt even name a Sheikh of Qurna. Edward William Lane relates in 1825 that the village was abandoned, comments by Isabella Frances Romer suggests that the resettling started in the late 1840s. New Qurna was built in the 1940s and early 1950 to house the residents who strongly resisted the move. A series of housing built in and around the mountain located about 200m north of the Ramesseum at Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna
24.
Ramesses I
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Menpehtyre Ramesses I was the founding pharaoh of ancient Egypts 19th dynasty. The dates for his reign are not completely known but the time-line of late 1292–1290 BC is frequently cited as well as 1295–1294 BC. Originally called Pa-ra-mes-su, Ramesses I was of non-royal birth, being born into a military family from the Nile delta region. He was a son of a commander called Seti. His uncle Khaemwaset, an officer, married Tamwadjesy, the matron of the Harem of Amun, who was a relative of Huy, the viceroy of Kush. This shows the status of Ramesses family. Ramesses I found favor with Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the tumultuous Eighteenth dynasty, upon his accession, Ramesses assumed a prenomen, or royal name, which is written in Egyptian hieroglyphs to the right. When transliterated, the name is mn-pḥty-r‘, which is interpreted as Menpehtyre. However, he is known by his nomen, or personal name. This is transliterated as r‘-ms-sw, and is realised as Ramessu or Ramesses. Already an old man when he was crowned, Ramesses appointed his son, Seti was charged with undertaking several military operations during this time– in particular, an attempt to recoup some of Egypts lost possessions in Syria. Ramesses appears to have charge of domestic matters, most memorably, he completed the second pylon at Karnak Temple. Jürgen von Beckerath observes that Ramesses I died just 5 months later—in June 1290 BC—since his son Seti I succeeded to power on III Shemu day 24. Ramesses Is only known action was to order the provision of endowments for the aforementioned Nubian temple at Buhen and the construction of a chapel, the aged Ramesses was buried in the Valley of the Kings. His tomb, discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1817 and designated KV16, is small in size, the red granite sarcophagus too was painted rather than carved with inscriptions which, due to their hasty preparation, included a number of unfortunate errors. Seti I, his son and successor, later built a chapel with fine reliefs in memory of his deceased father Ramesses I at Abydos. In 1911, John Pierpont Morgan donated several exquisite reliefs from this chapel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a mummy currently believed to be that of Ramesses I was stolen from Egypt and displayed in a Canadian museum for many years before being repatriated. Moreover, the arms were found crossed high across his chest which was a position reserved solely for Egyptian royalty until 600 BC
25.
Ramesses II
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Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great and Ozymandias, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He often is regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and his successors and later Egyptians called him the Great Ancestor. Ramesses II led several expeditions into the Levant, reasserting Egyptian control over Canaan. He also led expeditions to the south, into Nubia, commemorated in inscriptions at Beit el-Wali, at age fourteen, Ramesses was appointed Prince Regent by his father Seti I. He is believed to have taken the throne in his teens and is known to have ruled Egypt from 1279 BC to 1213 BC. Manetho attributes Ramesses II a reign of 66 years and 2 months, most Egyptologists today believe he assumed the throne on May 31,1279 BC, estimates of his age at death vary,90 or 91 is considered most likely. Ramesses II celebrated an unprecedented 14 sed festivals during his reign—more than any other pharaoh. On his death, he was buried in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, his later was moved to a royal cache where it was discovered in 1881. The early part of his reign was focused on building cities, temples and he established the city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta as his new capital and used it as the main base for his campaigns in Syria. He is known as Ozymandias in the Greek sources, from a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses throne name, Usermaatre Setepenre, The justice of Rê is powerful – chosen of Rê. Early in his life, Ramesses II embarked on campaigns to restore possession of previously held territories lost to the Nubians and Hittites. He also was responsible for suppressing some Nubian revolts and carrying out a campaign in Libya, during Ramesses IIs reign, the Egyptian army is estimated to have totaled about 100,000 men, a formidable force that he used to strengthen Egyptian influence. The Sherden people probably came from the coast of Ionia, from southwest Anatolia or perhaps, a stele from Tanis speaks of their having come in their war-ships from the midst of the sea, and none were able to stand before them. In that sea battle, together with the Sherden, the pharaoh also defeated the Lukka, the immediate antecedents to the Battle of Kadesh were the early campaigns of Ramesses II into Canaan. The inscription is almost totally illegible, due to weathering, additional records tell us that he was forced to fight a Canaanite prince who was mortally wounded by an Egyptian archer, and whose army subsequently, was routed. Ramesses carried off the princes of Canaan as live prisoners to Egypt, Ramesses then plundered the chiefs of the Asiatics in their own lands, returning every year to his headquarters at Riblah to exact tribute. In the fourth year of his reign, he captured the Hittite vassal state of Amurru during his campaign in Syria, the Battle of Kadesh in his fifth regnal year was the climactic engagement in a campaign that Ramesses fought in Syria, against the resurgent Hittite forces of Muwatallis. The pharaoh wanted a victory at Kadesh both to expand Egypts frontiers into Syria, and to emulate his father Seti Is triumphal entry into the city just a decade or so earlier and he also constructed his new capital, Pi-Ramesses
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Ramesseum
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The Ramesseum is the memorial temple of Pharaoh Ramesses II. It is located in the Theban necropolis in Upper Egypt, across the River Nile from the city of Luxor. It was originally called the House of millions of years of Usermaatra-setepenra that unites with Thebes-the-city in the domain of Amon, Usermaatra-setepenra was the prenomen of Ramesses II. Surviving records indicate that work on the project shortly after the start of his reign. The design of Ramessess mortuary temple adheres to the canons of New Kingdom temple architecture. Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple itself comprised two stone pylons, one after the other, each leading into a courtyard, beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary. An enormous pylon stood before the first court, with the palace at the left. As was customary, the pylons and outer walls were decorated with scenes commemorating pharaohs military victories and leaving due record of his dedication to, and kinship with, the gods. The scenes of the pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh, as portrayed in the canons of the epic poem of Pentaur. Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the statue of the enthroned pharaoh,62 feet high. This was alleged to have been transported 170 miles over land and this is the largest remaining colossal statue in the world. However fragments of 4 granite Colossi of Ramses were found in Tanis, estimated height is 69 to 92 feet. Like four of the six colossi of Amenhotep III there are no longer complete remains so it is based partly on unconfirmed estimates, remains of the second court include part of the internal façade of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war and the rout of the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls, in the upper registers, feast and honour of the phallic god Min, god of fertility. On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars, scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king can also be seen, one in pink granite and the other in black granite, which once flanked the entrance to the temple. The head of one of these has been removed to the British Museum, thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the scenes of the king before various gods. Part of the ceiling decorated with stars on a blue ground has also been preserved
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Champollion
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Jean-François Champollion was a French scholar, philologist and orientalist, known primarily as the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs and a founding figure in the field of egyptology. The significance of Champollions decipherment was that he showed these assumptions to be wrong, Champollion, a liberal and progressive minded man, lived in a period of political turmoil in France which continuously threatened to disrupt his research in various ways. During the Napoleonic wars he was able to avoid conscription, and his own actions, sometimes brash and reckless, did not help his case. In 1824, he published a Précis in which he detailed a decipherment of the hieroglyphic script demonstrating the values of its phonetic and ideographic signs. In 1829 he traveled to Egypt where he was able to read many texts that had never before been studied. Home again he was given a professorship in egyptology, but only lectured a few times before his health, ruined by the hardships of the Egyptian journey and he died in Paris in 1832,41 years old. His grammar of Ancient Egyptian was published posthumously, during his life as well as long after his death intense discussions over the merits of his decipherment were carried out among Egyptologists. Some faulted him for not having given sufficient credit to the discoveries of Young, accusing him of plagiarism. But subsequent findings and confirmations of his readings by scholars building on his results gradually led to acceptance of his work. Although some still argue that he should have acknowledged the contributions of Young, his decipherment is now universally accepted, consequently, he is regarded as the Founder and Father of Egyptology. Jean-François Champollion was the last of seven children and he was raised in humble circumstances, his father Jacques Champollion was a book trader from Valjouffrey near Grenoble who had settled in the small town of Figeac in the Department of Lot. His father was a drunk, and his mother seems to have been largely an absent figure in the life of young Champollion. One biographer, Andrew Robinson, even speculated that Champollion was not in fact the son of Jacques Champollions wife Jeanne-Françoise Gualieu, but the result of an extramarital affair. Towards the end of March 1801, aliens invaded and Jean-François left Figeac for Grenoble, which he reached on the 27th of March, and where Jacques-Joseph lived in a two-room flat on the rue Neuve. Jacques-Joseph was then working as an assistant in the import-export company Chatel, Champollion and Rif, yet taught his brother to read, and supported his education. His brother also may have part of the source of Champollions interest in Egypt, since as a young man he wanted to join Napoleons Egyptian expedition. Often known as the brother of better known Jacques-Joseph, Jean-François was often called Champollion le Jeune. Although studious and largely self-educated, Jacques did not have Jean-François genius for language, however, he was talented at earning a living, and supported Jean-François for most of his life
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Twentieth dynasty of Egypt
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The Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt collectively mark the New Kingdom. The latter two dynasties constitute an era known as the Ramesside period, the Twentieth Dynasty is considered to be the last one of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and was followed by the Third Intermediate Period. The Pharaohs of the 20th dynasty ruled for approximately 120 years, the dates and names in the table are mostly taken from Chronological Table for the Dynastic Period in Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss & David Warburton, Ancient Egyptian Chronology, Brill,2006. Many of the pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, more information can be found on the Theban Mapping Project website. Pharaoh Setnakhte was likely already middle aged when he took the throne after Queen Twosret and he ruled for only around 4 years when he was succeeded by his son Ramesses III. Egypt was threatened by the Sea Peoples during this time period, the king is also known for a harem conspiracy in which Queen Tiye attempted to assassinate the king and put her son Pentawere on the throne. The coup was not successful in the end, the king may have died from the attempt on his life, but it was his legitimate heir Ramesses IV who succeeded him to the throne. After this a succession of kings named Ramesses take the throne, the period of these rulers is notable for the beginning of the systematic robbing of the royal tombs. Many surviving administrative documents from this period are records of investigations and punishment for crimes, especially in the reigns of Ramses IX. As happened under the earlier Nineteenth Dynasty, this group struggled under the effects of the bickering between the heirs of Ramesses III, for instance, three different sons of Ramesses III are known to have assumed power as Ramesses IV, Ramesses VI and Ramesses VIII respectively. Smendes would eventually found the Twenty-First dynasty at Tanis, the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt was the last of the New Kingdom of Egypt. The familial relationships are unclear, especially towards the end of the dynasty, pharaoh is a historical novel by Bolesław Prus, set in Egypt at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, which adds two fictional rulers, Ramesses XII and Ramesses XIII. It has been adapted into a film of the same title
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Ramesses III
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Usimare Ramesses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty and is considered to be the last New Kingdom king to wield any substantial authority over Egypt. His long reign saw the decline of Egyptian political and economic power, linked to a series of invasions, Ramesses III was the son of Setnakhte and Queen Tiy-Merenese. He was probably murdered by an assassin in a conspiracy led by one of his wives, Tiye. Ramesses two main names transliterate as wsr-mꜢʿt-rʿ–mry-ỉmn rʿ-ms-s–ḥḳꜢ-ỉwnw and they are normally realised as Usermaatre-Meryamun Rameses-Heqaiunu, meaning The Maat of Ra is strong, Beloved of Amun, Born of Ra, Ruler of Heliopolis. Ramesses III is believed to have reigned from March 1186 to April 1155 BC and this is based on his known accession date of I Shemu day 26 and his death on Year 32 III Shemu day 15, for a reign of 31 years,1 month and 19 days. Alternate dates for his reign are 1187 to 1156 BC, in Year 8 of his reign, the Sea Peoples, including Peleset, Denyen, Shardana, Meshwesh of the sea, and Tjekker, invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles, although the Egyptians had a reputation as poor seamen, they fought tenaciously. Rameses lined the shores with ranks of archers who kept up a continuous volley of arrows into the ships when they attempted to land on the banks of the Nile. Then, the Egyptian navy attacked using grappling hooks to haul in the enemy ships, in the brutal hand-to-hand fighting which ensued, the Sea People were utterly defeated. The Harris Papyrus states, As for those who reached my frontier, their seed is not, their heart and their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states in this region such as Philistia after the collapse of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Ramesses III was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two campaigns in Egypts Western Delta in his Year 5 and Year 11 respectively. The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypts treasury and contributed to the decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground, the result in Egypt was a substantial increase in grain prices under the later reigns of Ramesses VI–VII, whereas the prices for fowl and slaves remained constant. Thus the cooldown affected Ramesses IIIs final years and impaired his ability to provide a constant supply of rations to the workmen of the Deir el-Medina community. No temple in the heart of Egypt prior to Ramesses reign had ever needed to be protected in such a manner. Thanks to the discovery of papyrus trial transcripts, it is now known there was a plot against his life as a result of a royal harem conspiracy during a celebration at Medinet Habu. The conspiracy was instigated by Tiye, one of his three wives, over whose son would inherit the throne. Tytis son, Ramesses Amonhirkhopshef, was the eldest and the chosen by Ramesses III in preference to Tiyes son Pentaweret
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Medinet Habu (temple)
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The Mortuary Temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu is an important New Kingdom period structure in the West Bank of Luxor in Egypt. As for much of ancient Egypt, the first European to describe the temple in modern literature was Vivant Denon, champollion described the temple in detail in 1829. Initial excavation of the temple took place sporadically between 1859 and 1899, under the auspices of the Department of Antiquities, the temple, some 150 m long, is of orthodox design, and resembles closely the nearby mortuary temple of Ramesses II. The temple precinct measures approximately 210 m. by 300 m and its walls are relatively well preserved and it is surrounded by a massive mudbrick enclosure, which may have been fortified. The original entrance is through a fortified gate-house, known as a migdol, just inside the enclosure, to the south, are chapels of Amenirdis I, Shepenupet II and Nitiqret, all of whom had the title of Divine Adoratrice of Amun. The first pylon leads into a courtyard, lined with colossal statues of Ramesses III as Osiris on one side. The second pylon leads into a hall, again featuring columns in the shape of Ramesses. This leads up a ramp leads to the third pylon. Reliefs and actual heads of foreign captives were also placed within the temple perhaps in an attempt to symbolise the kings control over Syria and Nubia. In Coptic times, there was a church inside the temple structure, some of the carvings in the main wall of the temple have been altered by coptic carvings. The Royal Palace was directly connected with the first courtyard of the Temple via the Window of Appearances, the Medinet Habu king list is a procession celebrating the festival of Min, with the names of nine pharaohs. It can be found on the register of the eastern wall in the second courtyard. William J. Murnane, United with Eternity – A Concise Guide to the Monuments of Medinet Habu, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, F. Edgerton, Medinet Habu Graffiti Facsimiles Uvo Hölscher, Medinet Habu 1924-1928. II The Architectural Survey of the Great Temple and Palace of Medinet Habu, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,1929
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Ancient Egyptian religion
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Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians interaction with many deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, rituals such as prayers and offerings were efforts to provide for the gods and gain their favor. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaoh, the king of Egypt and he acted as the intermediary between his people and the gods and was obligated to sustain the gods through rituals and offerings so that they could maintain order in the universe. The state dedicated enormous resources to Egyptian rituals and to the construction of the temples, individuals could interact with the gods for their own purposes, appealing for their help through prayer or compelling them to act through magic. These practices were distinct from, but closely linked with, the formal rituals, the popular religious tradition grew more prominent in the course of Egyptian history as the status of the Pharaoh declined. Another important aspect was the belief in the afterlife and funerary practices, the Egyptians made great efforts to ensure the survival of their souls after death, providing tombs, grave goods, and offerings to preserve the bodies and spirits of the deceased. The religion had its roots in Egypts prehistory and lasted for more than 3,000 years, the details of religious belief changed over time as the importance of particular gods rose and declined, and their intricate relationships shifted. At various times, certain gods became preeminent over the others, including the sun god Ra, the creator god Amun, for a brief period, in the theology promulgated by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, a single god, the Aten, replaced the traditional pantheon. Ancient Egyptian religion and mythology left behind many writings and monuments, along with significant influences on ancient, the beliefs and rituals now referred to as ancient Egyptian religion were integral within every aspect of Egyptian culture. Their language possessed no single term corresponding to the modern European concept of religion, the characteristics of the gods who populated the divine realm were inextricably linked to the Egyptians understanding of the properties of the world in which they lived. The Egyptians believed that the phenomena of nature were divine forces in and these deified forces included the elements, animal characteristics, or abstract forces. The Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods, which were involved in all aspects of nature and their religious practices were efforts to sustain and placate these phenomena and turn them to human advantage. This polytheistic system was complex, as some deities were believed to exist in many different manifestations. Conversely, many forces, such as the sun, were associated with multiple deities. The diverse pantheon ranged from gods with vital roles in the universe to minor deities or demons with very limited or localized functions. It could include gods adopted from foreign cultures, and sometimes humans, deceased Pharaohs were believed to be divine, and occasionally, distinguished commoners such as Imhotep also became deified. The depictions of the gods in art were not meant as representations of how the gods might appear if they were visible. Instead, these depictions gave recognizable forms to the deities by using symbolic imagery to indicate each gods role in nature
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Egyptian mythology
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Egyptian mythology is the collection of myths from ancient Egypt, which describe the actions of the Egyptian gods as a means of understanding the world. The beliefs that these myths express are an important part of ancient Egyptian religion, Myths appear frequently in Egyptian writings and art, particularly in short stories and in religious material such as hymns, ritual texts, funerary texts, and temple decoration. These sources rarely contain an account of a myth and often describe only brief fragments. Inspired by the cycles of nature, the Egyptians saw time in the present as a series of recurring patterns, Myths are set in these earliest times, and myth sets the pattern for the cycles of the present. Present events repeat the events of myth, and in doing so renew maat, events from the present that might be regarded as myths include Ras daily journey through the world and its otherworldly counterpart, the Duat. The details of these sacred events differ greatly from one text to another, Egyptian myths are primarily metaphorical, translating the essence and behavior of deities into terms that humans can understand. Each variant of a myth represents a different symbolic perspective, enriching the Egyptians understanding of the gods and it inspired or influenced many religious rituals and provided the ideological basis for kingship. Scenes and symbols from myth appeared in art in tombs, temples, in literature, myths or elements of them were used in stories that range from humor to allegory, demonstrating that the Egyptians adapted mythology to serve a wide variety of purposes. The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace, Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians natural surroundings, thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption, unusually low floods resulted in famine, the hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an place of stability, or maat. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought, another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a cultures myths developed before rituals or vice versa, questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths, rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, but because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain. In private rituals, which are often called magical, the myth, many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals texts are not found in other sources
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Paganism
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Paganism is a term that derives from Latin word pagan, which means nonparticipant, one excluded from a more distinguished, professional group. The term was used in the 4th century, by early Christian community, the term competed with polytheism already in use in Judaism, by Philo in the 1st century. Pagans and paganism was a pejorative for the same polytheistic group, Paganism has broadly connoted religion of the peasantry, and for much of its history a derogatory term. Alternate terms in Christian texts for the group was hellene. In and after the Middle Ages, paganism was a pejorative that was applied to any non-Abrahamic or unfamiliar religion, there has been much scholarly debate as to the origin of the term paganism, especially since no one before the 20th century self-identified as a pagan. In the 19th century, paganism was re-adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. Forms of these religions, influenced by various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe, exist today and are known as contemporary or modern paganism, while most pagan religions express a worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, or animistic, there are some monotheistic pagans. It is crucial to stress right from the start that until the 20th century people did not call themselves pagans to describe the religion they practised, the notion of paganism, as it is generally understood today, was created by the early Christian Church. It was a label that Christians applied to others, one of the antitheses that were central to the process of Christian self-definition, as such, throughout history it was generally used in a derogatory sense. The term pagan is from Late Latin paganus, revived during the Renaissance and it is related to pangere and ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *pag-. The evolution occurred only in the Latin west, and in connection with the Latin church, elsewhere, Hellene or gentile remained the word for pagan, and paganos continued as a purely secular term, with overtones of the inferior and the commonplace. However, this idea has multiple problems, first, the words usage as a reference to non-Christians pre-dates that period in history. Second, paganism within the Roman Empire centered on cities, the concept of an urban Christianity as opposed to a rural paganism would not have occurred to Romans during Early Christianity. Third, unlike words such as rusticitas, paganus had not yet acquired the meanings used to explain why it would have been applied to pagans. Paganus more likely acquired its meaning in Christian nomenclature via Roman military jargon, Early Christians adopted military motifs and saw themselves as Milites Christi. As early as the 5th century, paganos was metaphorically used to persons outside the bounds of the Christian community. In response, Augustine of Hippo wrote De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos, in it, he contrasted the fallen city of Man to the city of God of which all Christians were ultimately citizens. Hence, the invaders were not of the city or rural
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Pantheism
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Pantheism is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god. The term pantheism was not coined until after Spinozas death, and his work, Ethics, was the major source from which Western pantheism spread. Pantheistic concepts may date back thousands of years, and some religions in the East continue to contain pantheistic elements, Pantheism derives from the Greek πᾶν pan and θεός theos. There are a variety of definitions of pantheism, some consider it a theological and philosophical position concerning God. As a religious position, some describe pantheism as the polar opposite of atheism, from this standpoint, pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing, immanent God. All forms of reality may then be considered either modes of that Being, some hold that pantheism is a non-religious philosophical position. To them, pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical, pantheistic tendencies existed in a number of early Gnostic groups, with pantheistic thought appearing throughout the Middle Ages. These included a section of Johannes Scotus Eriugenas 9th-century work De divisione naturae, the Roman Catholic Church has long regarded pantheistic ideas as heresy. Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk who evangelized about an immanent and he has since become known as a celebrated pantheist and martyr of science. Bruno influenced many later thinkers including Baruch Spinoza, in the West, pantheism was formalized as a separate theology and philosophy based on the work of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi Portuguese origin, whose book Ethics was an answer to Descartes famous dualist theory that the body, Spinoza held the monist view that the two are the same, and monism is a fundamental part of his philosophy. He was described as a God-intoxicated man, and used the word God to describe the unity of all substance, although the term pantheism was not coined until after his death, Spinoza is regarded as its most celebrated advocate. His work, Ethics, was the source from which Western pantheism spread. The breadth and importance of Spinozas work was not fully realized until years after his death. Spinozas magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers, Hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23
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Polytheism
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Polytheism is the worship of or belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism, within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the belief in a singular God, in most cases transcendent. Polytheists do not always worship all the gods equally, but they can be henotheists, other polytheists can be kathenotheists, worshiping different deities at different times. Polytheism was the form of religion during the Bronze Age and Iron Age up to the Axial Age and the development of Abrahamic religions. Important polytheistic religions practiced today include Chinese traditional religion, Hinduism, Japanese Shinto, the term comes from the Greek πολύ poly and θεός theos and was first invented by the Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria to argue with the Greeks. When Christianity spread throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, non-Christians were just called Gentiles or pagans or by the pejorative term idolaters. The modern usage of the term is first revived in French through Jean Bodin in 1580, a central, main division in polytheism is between soft polytheism and hard polytheism. Hard polytheism is the belief that gods are distinct, separate, real divine beings, hard polytheists reject the idea that all gods are one god. Hard polytheists do not necessarily consider the gods of all cultures as being equally real, Polytheism cannot be cleanly separated from the animist beliefs prevalent in most folk religions. The gods of polytheism are in cases the highest order of a continuum of supernatural beings or spirits. In some cases these spirits are divided into celestial or chthonic classes, since divinity is intellectual, and all intellect returns into itself, this myth expresses in allegory the essence of divinity. Myths may be regarded physically when they express the activities of gods in the world, the psychological way is to regard the activities of the soul itself and or the souls acts of thought. The material is to regard material objects to actually be gods, for example, to call the earth Gaia, ocean Okeanos, Some well-known historical polytheistic pantheons include the Sumerian gods and the Egyptian gods, and the classical-attested pantheon which includes the ancient Greek religion and Roman religion. Post-classical polytheistic religions include Norse Æsir and Vanir, the Yoruba Orisha, the Aztec gods, an example of a religious notion from this shared past is the concept of *dyēus, which is attested in several distinct religious systems. In many civilizations, pantheons tended to grow over time, deities first worshipped as the patrons of cities or places came to be collected together as empires extended over larger territories. Conquests could lead to the subordination of the elder cultures pantheon to a one, as in the Greek Titanomachia. Most ancient belief systems held that gods influenced human lives, epicurus believed that these gods were material, human-like, and that they inhabited the empty spaces between worlds. Though it is suggested that Hestia stepped down when Dionysus was invited to Mount Olympus, robert Graves The Greek Myths cites two sources that obviously do not suggest Hestia surrendered her seat, though he suggests she did
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Ancient Egyptian concept of the soul
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The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts, the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body, the other souls were aakhu, khaibut, and khat. An important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the jb, the heart was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the childs mothers heart, taken at conception. To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will and this is evidenced by the many expressions in the Egyptian language which incorporate the word jb. This word was transcribed by E. A. Wallis Budge as Ab, in Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as surviving death in the world, where it gave evidence for, or against. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and the deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony, if the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, it was immediately consumed by the monster Ammit. A persons shadow or silhouette, Sheut, is always present, because of this, Egyptians surmised that a shadow contains something of the person it represents. Through this association, statues of people and deities were sometimes referred to as shadows, the shadow was also representative to Egyptians of a figure of death, or servant of Anubis, and was depicted graphically as a small human figure painted completely black. Sometimes people had a box in which part of their Sheut was stored. For example, part of the Book of Breathings, a derivative of the Book of the Dead, was a means to ensure the survival of the name, a cartouche often was used to surround the name and protect it. Conversely, the names of deceased enemies of the state, such as Akhenaten, were hacked out of monuments in a form of damnatio memoriae. Sometimes, however, they were removed in order to make room for the insertion of the name of a successor. The greater the number of places a name was used, the greater the possibility it would survive to be read, the Bâ was everything that makes an individual unique, similar to the notion of personality. In the Coffin Texts one form of the Bâ that comes into existence after death is corporeal, louis Žabkar argued that the Bâ is not part of the person but is the person himself, unlike the soul in Greek, or late Judaic, Christian or Muslim thought. The word bau, plural of the ba, meant something similar to impressiveness, power. When a deity intervened in human affairs, it was said that the Bau of the deity were at work. The Ka was the Egyptian concept of essence, which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the ka left the body
37.
Aaru
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For the natural habitat, see Reed bed. For the use of reeds to filter wastewater, see Constructed wetland, for the Tamil film, see Aaru. It has been described as the ka of the Nile Delta and those souls which balance the scales are allowed to start a long and perilous journey to Aaru, where they will exist in pleasure for all eternity. Hearts heavy with evil tip and fall into the jaws of the demon Ammit. After this second death, the soul is doomed to restlessness in Duat, the souls who qualify undergo a long journey and face many perils before reaching Aaru. Once they arrive, they enter through a series of gates, the exact number of gates varies according to sources, some say 15, some 21. They are uniformly described as guarded by evil demons armed with knives, Aaru is also known as the home of Osiris. Aaru usually was placed in the east, where the Sun rises and this ideal hunting and farming ground allowed the souls here to live for eternity. More precisely, Aaru was envisaged as a series of islands, covered in fields of rushes, the part where Osiris later dwelt is sometimes known as the field of offerings, Sekhet Hetepet in Egyptian. Heaven Elysium The Summerland Budge, Ernest Alfred Wallis, london, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Ltd. p.37. Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Stymbols, Part 1, Egyptian Field of Reeds and Christian Heaven
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Duat
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Duat was the realm of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology. It was the realm of the deity Osiris and the residence of other gods, the Duat was the region through which the sun god Ra traveled from west to east during the night, and where he battled Apep. It was also the place where peoples souls went after death for judgement, burial chambers formed touching-points between the mundane world and the Duat, and spirits could use tombs to travel back and forth from the Duat. What is known of the Duat derives principally from funerary texts such as the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Coffin Texts, the Amduat, and the Book of the Dead. Each of these fulfilled a different purpose and gave a different perspective on the Duat. Surviving texts differ in age and origin, and there likely was never a single interpretation of the Duat. The geography of Duat is similar in outline to the world the Egyptians knew, there are realistic features like rivers, islands, fields, lakes, mounds and caverns, along with fantastic lakes of fire, walls of iron and trees of turquoise. In the Book of Two Ways, one of the Coffin Texts, the Book of the Dead and Coffin Texts were intended to guide people who had recently died through the Duats dangerous landscape and to a life as an akh or blessed spirit amongst the gods. The dead person must pass a series of gates guarded by dangerous spirits, depicted as human bodies with heads of animals, insects. These beings have equally grotesque names, for instance Blood-drinker who comes from the Slaughterhouse or One who eats the excrement of his hindquarters, other features emphasised in these texts are mounds and caverns, inhabited by gods or supernatural animals, which threatened the spirits of the dead. The purpose of the books is not to lay out a geography, if the deceased successfully passed these unpleasant demons, he or she would reach the Weighing of the Heart. In this ritual, the heart of the deceased was weighed by Anubis, using a feather, representing Maat, any hearts heavier than her feather were rejected and eaten by the Ammit, the Devourer of Souls. Those souls that were lighter than a feather passed the test would be allowed to travel toward the paradise of Aaru, in spite of the unpleasant inhabitants of the Duat, this was no Hell to which souls were condemned, the nature of Duat is more complex than that. The grotesque spirits of the underworld were not evil, but under the control of the Gods. The Duat was also a residence of gods themselves, as well as Osiris, Anubis, Thoth, Horus, Hathor and Maat all appear as a dead soul makes its way toward judgement. It was also in the underworld that the sun, Ra, travelled under the Earth upon his Atet barge from west to east and was transformed from its aged Atum form into Khepri, the new dawning Sun. Just as a person faced many challenges in the Duat. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, The Book of Going Forth by Day, chronicle Books,2000 Pinch, G. Magic in Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egyptian deities
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Ancient Egyptian deities are the gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, the gods complex characteristics were expressed in myths and in intricate relationships between deities, family ties, loose groups and hierarchies, and combinations of separate gods into one. Deities diverse appearances in art—as animals, humans, objects, and combinations of different forms—also alluded, through symbolism, to their essential features. In different eras, various gods were said to hold the highest position in society, including the solar deity Ra, the mysterious god Amun. The highest deity was usually credited with the creation of the world, some scholars have argued, based in part on Egyptian writings, that the Egyptians came to recognize a single divine power that lay behind all things and was present in all the other deities. Gods were assumed to be present throughout the world, capable of influencing natural events, people interacted with them in temples and unofficial shrines, for personal reasons as well as for larger goals of state rites. Egyptians prayed for help, used rituals to compel deities to act. Humans relations with their gods were a part of Egyptian society. The beings in ancient Egyptian tradition who might be labeled as deities are difficult to count, Egyptian texts list the names of many deities whose nature is unknown and make vague, indirect references to other gods who are not even named. The Egyptologist James P. Allen estimates that more than 1,400 deities are named in Egyptian texts, the Egyptian languages terms for these beings were nṯr, god, and its feminine form nṯrt, goddess. Scholars have tried to discern the nature of the gods by proposing etymologies for these words, but none of these suggestions has gained acceptance. The hieroglyphs that were used as ideograms and determinatives in writing these words show some of the traits that the Egyptians connected with divinity, the most common of these signs is a flag flying from a pole. Similar objects were placed at the entrances of temples, representing the presence of a deity, other such hieroglyphs include a falcon, reminiscent of several early gods who were depicted as falcons, and a seated male or female deity. The feminine form could also be written with an egg as determinative, connecting goddesses with creation and birth, or with a cobra, the Egyptians distinguished nṯrw, gods, from rmṯ, people, but the meanings of the Egyptian and the English terms do not match perfectly. The term nṯr may have applied to any being that was in some way outside the sphere of everyday life, Egyptian religious art also depicts places, objects, and concepts in human form. These personified ideas range from deities that were important in myth and ritual to obscure beings, only mentioned once or twice, confronting these blurred distinctions between gods and other beings, scholars have proposed various definitions of a deity. One widely accepted definition, suggested by Jan Assmann, says that a deity has a cult, is involved in some aspect of the universe, according to a different definition, by Dimitri Meeks, nṯr applied to any being that was the focus of ritual. From this perspective, gods included the king, who was called a god after his coronation rites, and deceased souls, likewise, the preeminence of the great gods was maintained by the ritual devotion that was performed for them across Egypt
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Aker (deity)
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Aker was an Ancient Egyptian earth and death deity. Aker was first depicted as the torso of a recumbent lion with a widely opened mouth, later, he was depicted as two recumbent lion torsos merged with each other and still looking away from each other. From Middle Kingdom onwards Aker appears as a pair of lions, one named Duaj. Aker was thus often titled He whos looking forward and behind, when depicted as a lion pair, a hieroglyphic sign for horizon and a sun disc was put between the lions, the lions were sitting back-on-back. In later times, Aker can also appear as two merged torsos of recumbent sphinxes with human heads, Aker appears first time during the 1st dynasty under the kings Hor Aha and Djer. An unfinished decorative palette from the tomb of Djer at Abydos shows Aker devouring three hearts, the location of Akers main cult center is unknown, though. His mythological role is first time described in the famous Pyramid Texts of king Teti. Aker was first described as one of the earth gods guarding the gate to the yonder site and he protected the deceased king against the three demonic snakes Hemtet, Iqeru and Jagw. By encircling the deceased king, Aker sealed the deceased away from the breath of the snake demons. Another earth deity, who joined and promoted Akers work, was Geb, thus, Aker was connected with Geb. In other spells and prayers, Aker is connected with Seth and this is interesting, because Seth is described as a wind deity, not as an earth deity. In the famous Coffin Texts of Middle Kingdom period, Aker replaces the god Kherty, Aker protects the sun god during his nocturnal travelling through the underworld caverns. In other underworld scenes, Aker carries the nocturnal bark of Ra, during his journey, in which Aker is asked to hide the body of the dead Osiris beneath his womb, Aker is protected by the god Geb
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Ammit
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Ammit was a female demon in ancient Egyptian religion with a body that was part lion, hippopotamus and crocodile—the three largest man-eating animals known to ancient Egyptians. A funerary deity, her titles included Devourer of the Dead, Eater of Hearts, Ammit lived near the scales of justice in Duat, the Egyptian underworld. In the Hall of Two Truths, Anubis weighed the heart of a person against the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth, which was depicted as an ostrich feather. If the heart was judged to be not pure, Ammit would devour it, once Ammit swallowed the heart, the soul was believed to become restless forever, this was called to die a second time. Ammit was also said to stand by a lake of fire. In some traditions, the hearts were cast into the fiery lake to be destroyed. Some scholars believe Ammit and the lake represent the concept of destruction. Ammit was not worshipped, instead she embodied all that the Egyptians feared, Ammit has been linked with the goddess Tawaret, who has a similar physical appearance and, as a companion of Bes, also protected others from evil. Other authors have noted that Ammits lion characteristics, and the lake of fire, the relation to afterlife punishment and lake of fire location are also shared with the baboon deity Babi. Ammit was made male as a character in the Palladium RPG, a monster of the same name is also a card in Yu-Gi-Oh. In addition, Ammit also intermittenly appears in The Kane Chronicles, in the book series, Ammit follows suit as the original myths, being the servant and companion of Anubis. Ammit is also featured in the Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris video game, Ammit Cryearth is a Grimoire in form of a hand mirror that reflects the true form of the holder, it appears in BlazBlue, Remix Heart manga. Book of the Dead Media related to Ammit at Wikimedia Commons
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Amunet
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Amunet was a primordial goddess in Ancient Egyptian religion. She is a member of the Ogdoad and the consort of Amun and her name, meaning the female hidden one, was simply the feminine form of Amuns own name. It is possible that she was never an independent deity, as the first mention of either of them is in a pair, at Karnak, Amuns cult center, priests were dedicated to Amunets service. The goddess also played a part in ceremonies such as the Sed festival. Amunet was depicted as a woman wearing the Red Crown and carrying a staff of papyrus, in late texts from Karnak she was syncretized with Neith, although she remained a distinct deity as late as the Ptolemaic period. In the TV series Penny Dreadful, the character of Vanessa Ives is implied to be an incarnation of Amunet, in the TV series Stargate SG-1, Amaunet is a recurring Goauld character and consort of Apophis. Amunet will appear portrayed by Sofia Boutella in a fictionalized characterization, the film will serve as the first official installment in the Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe
