1.
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
2.
Egyptian chronology
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The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. Scholarly consensus on the outline of the conventional chronology current in Egyptology has not fluctuated much over the last 100 years. For the Old Kingdom, consensus fluctuates by as much as a few centuries and this is illustrated by comparing the chronology as given by two Egyptologists, the first writing in 1906, the second in 2000. The disparities between the two sets of result from additional discoveries and refined understanding of the still very incomplete source evidence. For example, Breasted adds a ruler in the Twentieth dynasty that further research showed did not exist, following Manetho, Breasted also believed all the dynasties were sequential, whereas it is now known that several existed at the same time. These revisions have resulted in a lowering of the chronology by up to 400 years at the beginning of Dynasty I. The backbone of Egyptian chronology are the years as recorded in Ancient Egyptian king lists. In addition, some Egyptian dynasties may have overlapped, with different pharaohs ruling in different regions at the same time, not knowing whether monarchies were simultaneous or sequential results in widely differing chronological interpretations. However, further research has shown that these censuses were taken in consecutive years. The sed festival was celebrated on the thirtieth anniversary of the Pharaohs ascension. However, once again, this may not be the practice in all cases. In the early days of Egyptology, the compilation of regnal periods may also have been hampered due to bias on the part of the Egyptologists. This was most pervasive before the mid 19th century, when Manethos figures were recognized as conflicting with biblical chronology based on Old Testament references to Egypt, in the 20th century, such biblical bias has mostly been confined to alternative chronologies outside of scholarly mainstream. A useful way to work around these gaps in knowledge is to find chronological synchronisms, over the past decades, a number of these have been found, although they are of varying degrees of usefulness and reliability. While this does not fix a person or event to a specific year, another example are blocks from the Old Kingdom bearing the names of several kings, which were reused in the construction of Middle Kingdom pyramid-temples at Lisht in the structures of Amenemhat I. The poor documentation of these finds in the Serapeum also compounds the difficulties in using these records. The best known of these is the Sothic cycle, and careful study of this led Richard A. Parker to argue that the dates of the Twelfth dynasty could be fixed with absolute precision. More recent research has eroded this confidence, questioning many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle and this is useful especially for the Early Dynastic period, where Egyptological consensus has only been possible within a range of about three or four centuries
3.
30th Dynasty
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The Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt is usually classified as the fifth Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Late Period. It was founded after the overthrow of Nefaarud II in 380 BC by Nectanebo I, Nectanebo I had gained control of all of Egypt by November of 380 BC, but spent much of his reign defending his kingdom from Persian reconquest with the occasional help of Sparta or Athens. In 365 BC, Nectanebo made his son Teos co-king and heir, tjahepimu took advantage of Teos unpopularity within Egypt by declaring his son—and Teos nephew, Nectanebo II—king. The Egyptian army rallied around Nectanebo which forced Teos to flee to the court of the king of Persia, Nectanebo IIs reign was dominated by the efforts of the Persian rulers to reconquer Egypt, which they considered a satrapy in revolt. For the first ten years, Nectanebo avoided the Persian reconquest because Artaxerxes III was forced to consolidate his control of the realm. Artaxerxes then attempted an invasion of Egypt in the winter of 351/350 BC, the repercussions of his defeat prompted revolts in Cyprus, Phoenicia. Although Nectanebo gave support to these revolts, Artaxerxes would eventually suppress these rebellions and was again able to invade Egypt in 343 BC. This second invasion proved successful, and Nectanebo was forced to withdraw from his defenses in the Nile Delta to Memphis and he thereupon fled south to Nubia, where he is assumed to have found refuge at the court of King Nastasen of Napata. Nectanebo, however, may have managed to some form of independent rule in the south of Egypt for 2 more years since a document from Edfu is dated to his eighteenth year. Although a shadowy figure named Khababash proclaimed himself king and led a rebellion against the Persians from about 338 to 335 BC and his flight marked the end of Egypt as an independent entity
4.
Teos of Egypt
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Djedhor, better known as Teos or Tachos, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 30th Dynasty. A son of his predecessor Nectanebo I, Teos was his co-regent for three years before ascending to the throne in 361/0 BCE. However, to such an expedition, Teos had to impose new taxes and to expropriate the goods of the temples. This action ensured to Teos both the required finances and a great unpopularity, the operation against the Persians started with Chabrias as the admiral of the fleet, Agesilaus as the commander of the Greek mercenaries and Teos nephew Nakhthorheb as the leader of the machimoi. Teos placed himself in the command of the expedition leaving his brother Tjahapimu. The expedition made its way to Phoenicia without particular problems, unfortunately for Teos, his brother Tjahapimu was plotting against him. Taking advantage of Teos unpopularity, and with the support of the classes, Tjahapimu convinced his son Nakhthorheb to rebel against Teos. Nakhthorheb persuaded Agesilaus to join his side by taking advantage of the disagreements that had arisen between the Spartan king and the pharaoh. Nakhthorheb was acclaimed pharaoh – better known today as Nectanebo II – and the betrayed Teos had no alternative but to flee to Susa, the court of his enemies. Knowledge of the fate of Teos comes from the inscription by a noble called Wennefer. Wennefer was sent by Nectanebo II in search of Teos and managed to have him held by the Persian king Artaxerxes II at Susa, Wennefer then had Teos brought back with him in chains to the Egyptian pharaoh
5.
Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
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The royal titulary or royal protocol of an Egyptian pharaoh is the standard naming convention taken by the kings of Ancient Egypt. It symbolises worldly power and holy might and also acts as a sort of mission statement for the reign of a monarch. The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom, the Horus name is the oldest form of the pharaohs name, originating in the Predynastic Period. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title, the Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in hieroglyphs inside this representation of a palace, typically an image of the falcon God Horus was perched on top of or beside it. At least one Egyptian ruler, the 2nd dynasty Seth-Peribsen, used an image of the god Seth instead of Horus and he was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Seth and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh, by the time of the New Kingdom the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh. The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh Semerkhet and this particular name was not typically framed by a cartouche or serekh, but always begins with the hieroglyphs of a vulture and cobra resting upon two baskets, the dual noun nebty. Also known as the Golden Horus Name, this form of the name typically featured the image of a Horus falcon perched above or beside the hieroglyph for gold. The meaning of this title has been disputed. One belief is that it represents the triumph of Horus over his uncle Seth, Gold also was strongly associated in the ancient Egyptian mind with eternity, so this may have been intended to convey the pharaohs eternal Horus name. Similar to the Nebty name, this particular name typically was not framed by a cartouche or serekh, the pharaohs throne name, the first of the two names written inside a cartouche, and usually accompanied the title nsw-bity. The term nsw-bity It has been suggested that the Berber term for strong man, the epithet neb tawy, Lord of the Two Lands, referring to valley and delta regions of Egypt, often occurs as well. This was the name given at birth and it was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the kings role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the title was interpreted as daughter also. Modern historians typically refer to the ancient kings of Egypt by this name, Middle Egyptian, An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, London, and New York, The American University in Cairo Press and Thames and Hudson. The Great Name, Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary, Egyptian Grammar, Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs
6.
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
7.
Atum
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Atum, sometimes rendered as Atem or Tem, is an important deity in Egyptian mythology. Atums name is thought to be derived from the word tem which means to complete or finish, thus he has been interpreted as being the complete one and also the finisher of the world, which he returns to watery chaos at the end of the creative cycle. As creator he was seen as the substance of the world. In the Heliopolitan creation myth, Atum was considered to be the first god, having created himself, sitting on a mound, early myths state that Atum created the god Shu and goddess Tefnut by spitting them out of his mouth. To explain how Atum did this, the uses the metaphor of masturbation. Other interpretations state that he has made union with his shadow, in the Old Kingdom the Egyptians believed that Atum lifted the dead kings soul from his pyramid to the starry heavens. He was also a deity, associated with the primary sun god Ra. Atum was linked specifically with the sun, while Ra or the closely linked god Khepri were connected with the sun at morning. Atum is the god of pre-existence and post-existence, in the binary solar cycle, the serpentine Atum is contrasted with the ram-headed scarab Khepri—the young sun god, whose name is derived from the Egyptian hpr to come into existence. Khepri-Atum encompassed sunrise and sunset, thus reflecting the solar cycle. Atum was a deity, the first being to emerge from the darkness and endless watery abyss that existed before creation. A product of the energy and matter contained in this chaos, he created his children—the first deities and he produced from his own sneeze, or in some accounts, semen, Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of moisture. The brother and sister, curious about the waters that surrounded them, went to explore the waters. Unable to bear his loss, Atum sent a fiery messenger, the tears of joy he shed on their return were the first human beings. He is usually depicted as a man wearing either the royal head-cloth or the white and red crown of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Sometimes he also is shown as a serpent, the form he returns to at the end of the creative cycle, atums cult centered on the city of Heliopolis. The only surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the Temple of Re-Atum obelisk located in Al-Masalla of Al-Matariyyah and it was erected by Senusret I of the Twelfth dynasty, and still stands in its original position. The 68 ft high red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons, band I, Die heiligen Tiere des Atum
8.
Heliopolis (Ancient Egypt)
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Heliopolis was a major city of ancient Egypt. It was the capital of the 13th or Heliopolite Nome of Lower Egypt and it is now located in Ayn Shams, a northeastern suburb of Cairo. Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, occupied since the Predynastic Period and it greatly expanded under the Old and Middle Kingdoms but is today mostly destroyed, its temples and other buildings having been scavenged for the construction of medieval Cairo. Most information about the ancient city comes from surviving records, the major surviving remnant of Heliopolis is the obelisk of the Temple of Ra-Atum erected by Senusret I of Dynasty XII. It still stands in its position, now within Al-Masalla in Al-Matariyyah. The 21 m high red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons, Heliopolis is the latinized form of the Ptolemaic Greek name Hēlioúpolis, meaning City of the Sun. Helios, the personified and deified form of the sun, was identified by the Greeks with the native Egyptian gods Ra and Atum and its native name was I͗wnw, whose exact pronunciation is uncertain because ancient Egyptian recorded only consonantal values. Its traditional Egyptological transcription is Iunu but it appears in biblical Hebrew as Ôn and Āwen, variant transcriptions include Awnu and Annu. The city also appears in the Old Kingdom Pyramid Texts as the House of Ra, in ancient Egypt, Heliopolis was a regional center from predynastic times. It was principally notable as the center of the sun god Atum. The primary temple of the city was known as the Great House or House of Atum and its priests maintained that Atum or Ra was the first being, rising self-created from the primeval waters. A decline in the importance of Ras cult during Dynasty V led to the development of the Ennead, the high priests of Ra are not as well documented as those of other deities, although the high priests of Dynasty VI have been discovered and excavated. During the Amarna Period of Dynasty XVIII, Pharaoh Akhenaten introduced a kind of worship of Aten. As part of his projects, he built a Heliopolitan temple named Elevating Aten. The cult of the Mnevis bull, another embodiment of the Sun, had its altar here as well and their personal formal burial ground was situated north of the city. The store-city Pithom is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible, and according to one theory, ptolemy II had Manetho, the chief priest of Heliopolis, collect his history of the ancient kings of Egypt from its archives. By the 1st century BC, in fact, Strabo found the deserted. In Roman Egypt, Heliopolis belonged to the province Augustamnica, causing it to appear as Heliopolis in Augustamnica when it needed to be distinguished from Baalbek and its population probably contained a considerable Arabian element
9.
Tjahapimu
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Tjahapimu or Tjahepimu, was an ancient Egyptian prince, general and regent during the 30th Dynasty. Tjahapimu most likely was a son of pharaoh Nectanebo I and thus a brother of pharaoh Teos, though he is sometimes reported as a brother of Nectanebo I. When Teos went to the Near East leading an expedition against the Achaemenid Empire. However, Tjahapimu took advantage of Teos unpopularity in Egypt, which was due to the tax regime that the pharaoh imposed in order to finance his expedition. Tjahapimu convinced his own son Nakhthorheb, who was serving Teos as the commander of the machimoi, to rebel against him and his plan was successful, Nakhthorheb was acclaimed pharaoh and Teos fled at Susa to the court of the Great King. For Tjahapimu we have a statue made from meta–greywacke which was unearthed at Memphis and is now exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the statue Tjahapimu is called Brother of the King and Father of the King
10.
Hellenization
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In modern times, Hellenization has been associated with the adoption of modern Greek culture and the ethnic and cultural homogenization of Greece. Other tribes that underwent varying degrees of Hellenization included Thracians, Dardanians, Paeonians and Illyrians south of the Jireček Line, Hellenization during the Hellenistic period, however, had its limitations. For example, areas of southern Syria that were affected by Greek culture mostly entailed Seleucid urban centers where Greek was commonly spoken, the countryside, on the other hand, was largely unaffected since most of its inhabitants spoke Syriac and continued to maintain their native traditions. Moreover, Hellenization did not necessarily involve assimilation of ethnic groups since Hellenistic Greeks in regions such as Asia Minor were conscious of their ancestral lineages. Hellenization can also refer to the medieval Byzantine Empire and Constantines founding of Constantinople, moreover, it can refer to the primacy of Greek culture and the Greek language after the reign of Emperor Heraclius in the 7th century AD. Hellenization during the period of Ottoman imperial rule entailed the higher status which Greek culture, in 1909, a commission appointed by the Greek government reported that one third of the villages of Greece should have their names changed, often because of their non-Greek origin. In other instances, names were changed from a name of Greek origin to the ancient Greek toponym. Some village names were formed from a Greek root word with a foreign suffix, the majority of the name changes took place in areas populated by ethnic Greeks, where a strata of foreign, or divergent, toponyms had accumulated over the centuries. However, in parts of northern Greece the population was not Greek-speaking. The process of the change of toponyms in modern Greece has been described as a process of Hellenization and this led to the diminution of the community of Corfiot Italians, resident in Corfu since the Middle Ages, by the 1940s there were only four hundred Corfiot Italians left. The twentieth century witnessed a debate over the extent of Hellenization in the Levant. Rudolf Bultmann thus argued that Christianity arose almost completely within those Hellenistic confines, in his Introduction to the 1964 book Meditations, the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth discussed the profound influence of Stoic philosophy on Christianity. In particular, Again in the doctrine of the Trinity, the conception of Father, Word
11.
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
12.
Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt
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The Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt is usually classified as the fifth Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Late Period. It was founded after the overthrow of Nefaarud II in 380 BC by Nectanebo I, Nectanebo I had gained control of all of Egypt by November of 380 BC, but spent much of his reign defending his kingdom from Persian reconquest with the occasional help of Sparta or Athens. In 365 BC, Nectanebo made his son Teos co-king and heir, tjahepimu took advantage of Teos unpopularity within Egypt by declaring his son—and Teos nephew, Nectanebo II—king. The Egyptian army rallied around Nectanebo which forced Teos to flee to the court of the king of Persia, Nectanebo IIs reign was dominated by the efforts of the Persian rulers to reconquer Egypt, which they considered a satrapy in revolt. For the first ten years, Nectanebo avoided the Persian reconquest because Artaxerxes III was forced to consolidate his control of the realm. Artaxerxes then attempted an invasion of Egypt in the winter of 351/350 BC, the repercussions of his defeat prompted revolts in Cyprus, Phoenicia. Although Nectanebo gave support to these revolts, Artaxerxes would eventually suppress these rebellions and was again able to invade Egypt in 343 BC. This second invasion proved successful, and Nectanebo was forced to withdraw from his defenses in the Nile Delta to Memphis and he thereupon fled south to Nubia, where he is assumed to have found refuge at the court of King Nastasen of Napata. Nectanebo, however, may have managed to some form of independent rule in the south of Egypt for 2 more years since a document from Edfu is dated to his eighteenth year. Although a shadowy figure named Khababash proclaimed himself king and led a rebellion against the Persians from about 338 to 335 BC and his flight marked the end of Egypt as an independent entity
13.
Egyptian language
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The language spoken in ancient Egypt was a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. The earliest known complete sentence in the Egyptian language has been dated to about 2690 BCE, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the seventeenth century in the form of Coptic. The national language of modern Egypt is Egyptian Arabic, which gradually replaced Coptic as the language of life in the centuries after the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Coptic is still used as the language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It has several hundred fluent speakers today, the Egyptian language belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. Of the other Afroasiatic branches, Egyptian shows its greatest affinities with Semitic, in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/, e. g. Eg. Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩, ⟨r⟩, ⟨ꜣ⟩, and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the language was based. Original */k g ḳ/ palatalize to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others, Egyptian has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to the Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian probably is more archaic in this regard, whereas Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern, scholars group the Egyptian language into six major chronological divisions, Archaic Egyptian language Old Egyptian language Middle Egyptian language, characterizing Middle Kingdom. Demotic Coptic The earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to around 3300 BC and these early texts are generally lumped together under the general term Archaic Egyptian. They record names, titles and labels, but a few of them show morphological and syntactic features familiar from later, more complete, Old Egyptian is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen and dated to around 2690 BCE. It reads, dmḏ. n. f t3wj n z3. f nswt-bjt pr-jb. snj He has united the Two Lands for his son, extensive texts appear from about 2600 BCE. Demotic first appears about 650 BCE and survived as a written language until the fifth century CE and it probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Bohairic Coptic is still used by the Coptic Churches, Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using hieroglyphs and hieratic. Demotic was written using a script derived from hieratic, its appearance is similar to modern Arabic script and is also written from right to left. Coptic is written using the Coptic alphabet, a form of the Greek alphabet with a number of symbols borrowed from Demotic for sounds that did not occur in ancient Greek. Arabic became the language of Egypts political administration soon after the early Muslim conquests in the seventh century, today, Coptic survives as the sacred language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church
14.
Hermopolis
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Hermopolis was a major city in antiquity, located near the boundary between Lower and Upper Egypt. A provincial capital since the Old Kingdom period, Hermopolis developed into a city of Roman Egypt. It was abandoned after the Muslim invasion and its remains are located near the modern Egyptian town of El Ashmunein in Al Minya governorate. Khemenu, the Ancient Egyptian name of the city, means eight-town, after the Ogdoad, the name survived into Coptic as Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛⲉⲓⲛ, from which the modern name, El Ashmunein, is derived. Thoth was associated in the way with the Semitic Eshmun. Inscriptions at the call the god The Lord of Eshmun. The city was the capital of the Hare nome in the Heptanomis, Hermopolis stood on the borders of Upper and Lower Egypt, and, for many ages, the Thebaïd or upper country extended much further to the north than in more recent periods. As the border town, Hermopolis was a place of resort and opulence. A little to south of the city was the castle of Hermopolis, the principal deities worshipped at Hermopolis were Typhôn and Thoth. Typhon was represented by a hippopotamus, on which sat a hawk fighting with a serpent, Thoth, whom the Ancient Greeks associated with Hermes because they were both gods of magic and writing, was represented by the Ibis. A surviving Oxyrhynchus Papyrus of the 3rd century AD indicates that buildings with seven stories existed in the town. The collection of Arabic papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, contains many documents referring to Hermopolis, the city is still a titular diocese in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the Coptic Orthodox Church. The Ibis-headed god, was, with his accompanying emblems, the Ibis and the Cynocephalus or ape and his designation in inscriptions was The Lord of Eshmoon. The portico, the remnant of the temple, consists of a double row of pillars. The architraves are formed of five stones, each passes from the centre of one pillar to that of the next, the intercolumnation of the centre pillars is wider than that of the others, and the stone over the centre is twenty-five feet and six inches long. These columns were painted yellow, red, and blue in alternate bands, there is also a peculiarity in the pillars of the Hermopolitan portico peculiar to themselves, or, at least, discovered only again in the temple of Gournou. Instead of being formed of large masses placed horizontally above each other, they are composed of irregular pieces, the widest part of the intercolumnation is 17 feet, the other pillars are 13 feet apart. Currently there is a small museum in which stand two massive statues of Thoth as a baboon worshipping the sun, and a few carved blocks of masonry
15.
Twenty-ninth Dynasty of Egypt
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The Twenty-ninth Dynasty of Egypt is usually classified as the fourth Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Late Period. It was founded after the overthrow of Amyrtaeus, the last Pharaoh of the 28th Dynasty, by Nefaarud I in 398 BC, Nefaarud I founded the 29th Dynasty by defeating Amyrtaeus in open battle, and later putting him to death at Memphis. Nefaarud then made Mendes his capital, psammuthes was overthrown by Hakor, who claimed to be the grandson of Nefaarud I. He successfully resisted Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt, drawing support from Athens, although his son Nefaarud II became king on his death, the younger Nefaarud was unable to keep hold on his inheritance. Clarysse, Willy, Nephorites, Founder of the 29th Dynasty and His Name, Chronique dÉgypte, Bulletin périodique de la Fondation égyptologique reine Élisabeth,69, 215–217. Lloyd, Alan Brian, The Late Period, in Shaw, Ian, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 369–394, ISBN 0-8109-1020-9. Myśliwiec, Karol, The Twilight of Ancient Egypt, First Millennium B. C. E, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, ISBN 0-8014-8630-0. Ray, John D. Psammuthis and Hakoris, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Egypt Exploration Society,72, 149–158, doi,10. 2307/3821486, traunecker, Claude, Essai sur lhistoire de la XXIXe dynastie, Bulletin de lInstitut français darchéologie orientale,79, 395–436
16.
Athenian
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Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, financial, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, culture, education and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is also the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city also retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years later it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics. In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the later on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom, Athena, and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil. In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines, Satine, and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
17.
Sais, Egypt
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Sais or Sa El Hagar was an ancient Egyptian town in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile. Its Ancient Egyptian name was Zau, Herodotus wrote that Sais is where the grave of Osiris was located and that the sufferings of the god were displayed as a mystery by night on an adjacent lake. The citys patron goddess was Neith, whose cult is attested as early as the 1st Dynasty, the Greeks, such as Herodotus, Plato and Diodorus Siculus, identified her with Athena and hence postulated a primordial link to Athens. Diodorus recounts that Athena built Sais before the deluge that supposedly destroyed Athens, while all Greek cities were destroyed during that cataclysm, the Egyptian cities including Sais survived. Plato also notes the city as the birthplace of the pharaoh Amasis II. Plutarch said that the shrine of Athena, which he identifies with Isis, in Sais carried the inscription I am all that hath been, and is, and shall be, and my veil no mortal has hitherto raised. There are today no surviving traces of town prior to the Late New Kingdom due to the extensive destruction of the city by the Sebakhin leaving only a few relief blocks in situ. The Temple of Sais had a school associated with it. The medical school at Sais had many students and apparently women faculty as well, mainly in gynecology. Sonchis of Sais Archeological description of Sais Official site at the University of Durham
18.
Memphis, Egypt
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Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Mit Rahina,20 km south of Giza, according to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an important city throughout ancient Mediterranean history and it occupied a strategic position at the mouth of the Nile delta, and was home to feverish activity. Its principal port, Peru-nefer, harboured a high density of workshops, factories, during its golden age, Memphis thrived as a regional centre for commerce, trade, and religion. Memphis was believed to be under the protection of the god Ptah and its great temple, Hut-ka-Ptah, was one of the most prominent structures in the city. The name of temple, rendered in Greek as Aί γυ πτoς by the historian Manetho, is believed to be the etymological origin of the modern English name Egypt. The history of Memphis is closely linked to that of the country itself and its eventual downfall is believed to be due to the loss of its economic significance in late antiquity, following the rise of coastal Alexandria. Its religious significance also diminished after the abandonment of the ancient religion following the Edict of Thessalonica, the ruins of the former capital today offer fragmented evidence of its past. They have been preserved, along with the complex at Giza. The site is open to the public as an open-air museum, Memphis has had several names during its history of almost four millennia. Its Ancient Egyptian name was Inbu-Hedj, because of its size, the city also came to be known by various other names that were actually the names of neighbourhoods or districts that enjoyed considerable prominence at one time or another. For example, according to a text of the First Intermediate Period, it was known as Djed-Sut, the city was also at one point referred to as Ankh-Tawy, stressing the strategic position of the city between Upper and Lower Egypt. This name appears to date from the Middle Kingdom, and is found in ancient Egyptian texts. At the beginning of the New Kingdom, the city known as Men-nefer. The name Memphis is the Greek adaptation of this name, which was originally the name of the pyramid of Pepi I, in the Bible, Memphis is called Moph or Noph. The city of Memphis is 20 km south of Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile. The modern cities and towns of Mit Rahina, Dahshur, Abusir, Abu Gorab, the city was also the place that marked the boundary between Upper and Lower Egypt. The island of the city is today uninhabited, the closest settlement is the town of Mit Rahina
19.
Mendes
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Mendes, the Greek name of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in Ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba. The city is located in the eastern Nile delta and was the capital of the 16th Lower Egyptian nome of Kha, the two cities are only several hundred meters apart. During the 29th dynasty, Mendes was also the capital of Ancient Egypt, lying on the Mendesian branch of the Nile, the city was the capital of the Mendesian nome, situated at the point where the Mendesian arm of the Nile flows into the lake of Tanis. Archaeological evidence attests to the existence of the town at least as far back as the Naqada II period, under the first Pharaohs, Mendes quickly became a strong seat of provincial government and remained so throughout the Ancient Egyptian period. Mendes, however, declined early, and disappears in the first century AD, the chief deities of Mendes were the ram deity Banebdjedet, who was the Ba of Osiris, and his consort, the fish goddess Hatmehit. With their child Har-pa-khered, they formed the triad of Mendes and they say that Heracles’ overriding desire was to see Zeus, but Zeus was refusing to let him do so. Eventually, as a result of Heracles’ pleading, Zeus came up with a plan and he skinned a ram and cut off his head, then he held the head in front of himself, wore the fleece, and showed himself to Heracles like that. That is why the Egyptian statues of Zeus have a head, is why rams are sacred to the Thebans. Then everyone around the sanctuary mourns the death of the ram, the image of the satyr-like Baphomet and its supposed connection with Mendes has since been repeated by various occultists, conspiracy theorists, and neopagans. The site is today the largest surviving tell in the Nile delta, overall, Mendes is about 3 km long from north to south and averages about 900m east-to-west. An Old Kingdom necropolis is estimated to contain over 9,000 interments, under the direction of Prof. Redford, the current excavations are concentrating on a number of areas in and around the main temple. Work on the New Kingdom processional-style temple has recently uncovered foundation deposits of Merenptah below the second pylon and it is thought that four separate pylons or gates existed for each of the Avatars of the main deity worshiped here. Evidence has suggested that their dates from at least the Middle Kingdom. The original structures were buried, added to, or incorporated into later ones over time by later rulers, over thirty of the bricks were stamped with the cartouche of Menkheperre, the pre-nomen of Thutmose III. A cemetery of sacred rams was discovered in the northwest corner of Tell El-Ruba, Monuments bearing the names of Ramesses II, Merneptah. and Ramesses III were also found. A temple attested by its foundation deposits was built by Amasis II, the tomb of Nepherites I, which Donald Reford concluded was destroyed by the Persians, was discovered by a joint team from the University of Washington and the University of Toronto in 1992-1993. On the edge of the mound, a sondage supervised by Matthew J. Adams has revealed uninterrupted stratification from the Middle Kingdom down to the First Dynasty. Coring results suggest that future excavations in that sondage should expect to take the stratification down into the Buto-Maadi Period, the material excavated so far is already the longest uninterrupted stratification for all of the Nile Delta, and possibly for all of Egypt
20.
Achoris
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Hakor or Hagar, also known by the hellenized forms Achoris or Hakoris, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 29th Dynasty. His reign marks the apex of this feeble and short-lived dynasty, hakors accession and relationships with his predecessor Nepherites I were long debated. As a result, Hakor was alternately considered Nepherites legitimate successor or an unrelated usurper, ray suggested that Hakor was Nepherites heir, who ruled undisturbed until his Year 2 when he was deposed by Psammuthes. The third pretender, Muthis, could be inserted within this struggle, rays hypothesis is accepted by other Egyptologists such as Alan B. Shortly after his death, Hakor was called an usurper by the founder of the subsequent dynasty, however, it has been suggested that Achoris and Nectanebo might have been relatives in some way, possibly both related to Nepherites I but rivals to each other. Once re-established, Hakor made considerable exertions to affirm his legitimacy and his building activity was remarkable and he also extensively restored many monuments of his royal predecessors. His building activity is attested in various places in Upper Egypt, in the Temple of Hibis of Kharga Oasis. Hakor apparently reprised Nepherites foreign policy, Theopompus also reported an alliance between Hakor and the Pisidians. The peace of Antalcidas between the Persians and Greeks was a point, after that, Egypt and Cyprus remained the only opponents of Artaxerxes II as reported by Theopompus and Orosius. The following years are obscure, but it seems that the Persians first attacked Egypt in 385 BCE and. In 381 BCE Hakor sent aid, money and 50 triremes to Evagoras in order to contribute to his resistance against the Great King who, after the unsuccessful campaign in Egypt, was now focusing on Cyprus. However, when, in 380 BCE, Evagoras himself came to Egypt to beg other aid, Hakor saw no need to continue supporting him and sent him back to Cyprus with merely some more money. Hakor managed to get the Athenian general Chabrias into his service, Hakor died in 379/8 BCE, leaving his throne to his son Nepherites II
21.
Nepherites I
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Nefaarud I or Nayfaurud I, better known with his hellenised name Nepherites I, was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, the founder of the 29th Dynasty. Nepherites then crowned himself pharaoh at Memphis and possibly also at Sais, according to Manetho, Nepherites I ruled for six years, although his highest archaeologically attested date is his regnal year 4. There has been evidence of Nepherites building work found in a number of locations across the country, in Lower Egypt, he is attested at Thmuis, Tell Roba, Buto, Memphis, Saqqara and his capital and hometown Mendes. In Middle and Upper Egypt, he ordered a chapel at Akoris while at Akhmim, near Sohag and he also added some buildings at Karnak such as a storeroom and a shrine meant to house a sacred bark. A basalt sphinx with his name is now located in the Louvre, in foreign affairs, he resumed the policy of Egyptian intervention in the Middle East. Nepherites supplied the Spartans with 500,000 measures of grain, however, the cargo reached Rhodes just after the Persians managed to retake the island, so it was entirely seized by the philo-Persian admiral Conon of Athens. Nepherites I died during the winter of 394/393 BC after six years of reign, the Demotic Chronicle simply states that his son was allowed to succeeded him, without providing any name. A tomb believed to be that of Nepherites was discovered by a joint team from the University of Toronto, possible ownership of the tomb was identified by the presence of a shabti bearing the name of Nepherites I, however, definitive proof has not been found. Although still containing funerary objects and a limestone sarcophagus, the tomb was believed to have been destroyed by the Persians in 343 BC. Ceramic vessels containing fish specimens and fish-covered stelae have been found on the site of Nepheritess funerary complex, the presence of the fish, often interpreted as votive offerings, could be an indication that the site was previously occupied by a temple of the fish-goddess Hatmehyt. Muthis – A conjectural pharaoh, once believed to be Nepherites Is son
22.
Philae
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Philae is currently an island in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt. Philae was originally located near the expansive First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt and was the site of an Egyptian temple complex and these rapids and the surrounding area have been variously flooded since the initial construction of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902. Philae is mentioned by ancient writers, including Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Ptolemy, Seneca. It was, as the name indicates, the appellation of two small islands situated in latitude 24° north, just above the First Cataract near Aswan. Groskurd computes the distance between these islands and Aswan at about 100 km, despite being the smaller island, Philae proper was, from the numerous and picturesque ruins formerly there, the more interesting of the two. Prior to the inundation, it was not more than 380 metres long and it is composed of syenite, its sides are steep and on their summits a lofty wall was built encompassing the island. Since Philae was said to be one of the burying-places of Osiris and it was deemed profane for any but priests to dwell there and was accordingly sequestered and denominated the Unapproachable. It was reported too that neither birds flew over it nor fish approached its shores, in the nineteenth century, William John Bankes took the Philae obelisk on which this petition was engraved to England. When its Egyptian hieroglyphs were compared with those of the Rosetta Stone, the islands of Philae were not, however, merely sacerdotal abodes, they were the centres of commerce also between Meroë and Memphis. For the rapids of the cataracts were at most seasons impracticable, Philae also was remarkable for the singular effects of light and shade resulting from its position near the Tropic of Cancer. The most conspicuous feature of islands was their architectural wealth. Monuments of various eras, extending from the Pharaohs to the Caesars, the principal structures, however, lay at the south end of the smaller island. The most ancient was a temple for Isis, built in the reign of Nectanebo I during 380-362 BC, nekhtnebef was his ancient Egyptian royal titulary and he became the founding pharaoh of the Thirtieth and last native dynasty when he deposed and killed Nepherites II. In front of the propyla were two lions in granite, behind which stood a pair of obelisks, each 13 metres high. The propyla were pyramidal in form and colossal in dimensions, one stood between the dromos and pronaos, another between the pronaos and the portico, while a smaller one led into the sekos or adyton. At each corner of the adytum stood a shrine, the cage of a sacred hawk. Of these shrines one is now in the Louvre, the other in the Museum at Florence, the story of Osiris is everywhere represented on the walls of this temple, and two of its inner chambers are particularly rich in symbolic imagery. Upon the two great propyla are Greek inscriptions intersected and partially destroyed by Egyptian figures cut across them
23.
Aswan
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Aswan, formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate. Aswan is a market and tourist centre located just north of the Aswan Dams on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract. The modern city has expanded and includes the separate community on the island of Elephantine. Aswan is the ancient city of Swenett, which in antiquity was the town of Ancient Egypt facing the south. Swenett is supposed to have derived its name from an Egyptian goddess with the same name, the ancient name of the city also is said to be derived from the Egyptian symbol for trade, or market. The city stood upon a peninsula on the bank of the Nile, immediately below the first cataract of the flowing waters. Navigation to the delta was possible from this location without encountering a barrier, the stone quarries of ancient Egypt located here were celebrated for their stone, and especially for the granitic rock called Syenite. They lie on either bank of the Nile, and a road,6.5 km in length, was cut beside them from Syene to Philae, Swenett was equally important as a military station as a place of traffic. Under every dynasty it was a town, and here tolls. Around 330, the legion stationed here received a bishop from Alexandria, the city is mentioned by numerous ancient writers, including Herodotus, Strabo, Stephanus of Byzantium, Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder, Vitruvius, and it appears on the Antonine Itinerary. It also is mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel and the Book of Isaiah, the latitude of the city that would become Aswan – located at 24° 5′ 23″ – was an object of great interest to the ancient geographers. They believed that it was seated immediately under the tropic, and that on the day of the summer solstice and they noted that the suns disc was reflected in a well at noon. However, Eratosthenes used this information together with measurements of the length on the solstice at Alexandria to perform the first known calculation of the circumference of the Earth. The Nile is nearly 650 m wide above Aswan, from this frontier town to the northern extremity of Egypt, the river flows for more than 1,200 km without bar or cataract. The voyage from Aswan to Alexandria usually took 21 to 28 days in favourable weather, Aswan has a hot desert climate like the rest of Egypt. Aswan and Luxor have the hottest summer days of any city in Egypt, Aswan is one of the hottest, sunniest and driest cities in the world. Averages high temperatures are consistently above 40 °C during summer while averages low temperatures remain above 25 °C, summers are long, prolonged and extremely hot. Averages high temperatures remain above 23 °C during the coldest month of the year while averages low temperatures remain above 8 °C, winters are short, brief and extremely warm
24.
Isis
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Isis is a goddess from the polytheistic pantheon of Egypt. She was first worshiped in ancient Egyptian religion, and later her worship spread throughout the Roman Empire, Isis was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans and the downtrodden, Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon-headed deity associated with king and kingship. Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children, as the personification of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaohs power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I, on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the first daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky and she married her brother, Osiris, and she conceived Horus with him. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set, using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set. This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period, for example, it was believed that the Nile River flooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiriss death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals, the worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, the Greek name version of Isis is close to her original, Egyptian name spelling. Isis name was written with the signs of a throne seat. The grammar, spelling and used signs of Isis name never changed during time in any way, however, the symbolic and metaphoric meaning of Isis name remains unclear. The throne seat sign in her name might point to a role as a goddess of kingship. Thus, her name could mean she of the kings throne, but all other Egyptian deities have names that point to clear cosmological or nature elemental roles, thus the name of Isis shouldnt be connected to the king himself. The throne seat symbol might alternatively point to a meaning as throne-mother of the gods and this in turn would supply a very old existence of Isis, long before her first mentioning during the late Old Kingdom, but this hypothesis remains unproven. A third possible meaning might be hidden in the egg-symbol, that was used in Isis name. The egg-symbol always represented motherhood, implying a role of Isis
25.
Vestibule (architecture)
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The term applies to structures in both modern and historical architecture since ancient times. In modern architecture, vestibule typically refers to a room next to the outer door. In ancient Roman architecture, vestibule referred to an enclosed area between the interior of the house and the street. In contemporary usage, a vestibule constitutes an area surrounding the exterior door and it acts as an antechamber between the exterior and the interior structure. Often it connects the doorway to a lobby or hallway and it is the space one occupies once passing the door, but not yet in the main interior of the building. The residence of the White House in the United States is such an example, the difference in sizes between a vestibule and the following space is better illustrated by the - so called - entrance to the main gallery in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum by Frank Lloyd Wright. Many government buildings mimic the architecture from which the vestibule originates. A purely utilitarian use of vestibules in modern buildings is to create an air lock entry. Such vestibules consist of merely a set of doors and a set of outer doors. An ATM vestibule is an area with automated teller machines that is accessible from the outside of a building. There may be an entrance to the vestibule which requires a card to open. Entrance to and exit from the car is through the side doors, in British usage the term refers to the part of the carriage where the passenger doors are located, this can be at the ends of the carriage or at the 1/4 and 3/4 of length positions. Vestibules were common in ancient Greek temples, due to the construction techniques available at the time, it was not possible to build large spans. Consequently, many ways had two rows of columns that supported the roof and created a distinct space around the entrance. In ancient Roman architecture, where the term originates, a vestibule was a space between the interior of a building and the street, the structure was a mixture between a modern hall and porch. Upon entering a Roman house or domus, one would have to pass through the vestibule before entering the atrium, from the 5th century on vestibules were used in churches in both the east and west. Genkan Propylaeum Antarala, vestibule in certain Hindu temples
26.
Precinct of Amun-Re
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The Precinct of Amun-Re, located near Luxor, Egypt, is one of the four main temple enclosures that make up the immense Karnak Temple Complex. The precinct is by far the largest of these and the one that is open to the general public. The temple complex is dedicated to the god of the Theban Triad, Amun. The site occupies roughly 250000 m², containing many structures, the main temple itself, Temple of Amun, covers roughly 61 acres and would have been able to hold 10 average European cathedrals. Some parts of the complex are closed or semi-closed, partially large parts of the North/South Axis, the whole southeast corner is semi-closed. The northwest corner is a museum that requires a ticket to visit. Most of the southwest is an area with millions of stone fragments, from small to huge, laid out in long rows. Also in this area can be found the housing of the Akhenaten Temple Project, a long building. The history of the Karnak complex is largely the history of Thebes, the earliest artifact found in the area of the temple is a small, eight-sided column from the Eleventh Dynasty, which mentions Amun-Ra. The tomb of Intef II mentions a house of Amun, which implies some structure, the main temple is laid out on an East/West axis, entered via a quay. The modern entrance is placed over the end of the ancient cult terrace, inscribed into the terrace are the inundation levels for several kings of the Third Intermediate Period, collectively known as the Nile Level Texts. The cult terrace is often thought to be a dock or quay. It was intended for the presentation of cult images, originally the quay led via a corridor of Sphinxes to the entrance to the second pylon, but these were moved aside when the First Pylon was constructed. Construction of the current pylon began in 30th dynasty, but was never totally completed and it is 113m wide and 15m thick. There are large numbers of mud bricks piled up against the inside of the pylon, the construction of the original first pylon and Forecourt in the 22nd dynasty enclosed several older structures, and meant that the original avenue of sphinxes had to be moved. These were built in the time of Seti II, and are dedicated to Amun, Mut, in order to construct this kiosk, the ram-sphinx corridor was removed and the statues moved to the edges of the open court. Only one column remains in place, bearing inscriptions by Taharqa, Psamtik II, on the south side of the forecourt, there is a small temple built by Ramesses III. Inscriptions inside the show the king slaughtering captives, whilst Amun-Re looks on
27.
Karnak
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The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings. Building at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, the area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut and the main place of worship of the eighteenth dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, the complex is a vast open-air museum, and the second largest ancient religious site in the world, after the Angkor Wat Temple of Cambodia. It is believed to be the second most visited site in Egypt. It consists of four parts, of which only the largest is currently open to the general public. The term Karnak often is understood as being the Precinct of Amun-Ra only, the three other parts, the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Montu, and the dismantled Temple of Amenhotep IV, are closed to the public. There also are a few temples and sanctuaries connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amun-Re. The Precinct of Mut is very ancient, being dedicated to an Earth and creation deity, the original temple was destroyed and partially restored by Hatshepsut, although another pharaoh built around it in order to change the focus or orientation of the sacred area. Many portions of it may have carried away for use in other buildings. The key difference between Karnak and most of the temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued through to Ptolemaic times, approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the features of Karnak are unique, but the size. The deities represented range from some of the earliest worshiped to those worshiped much later in the history of the Ancient Egyptian culture and it also contains evidence of adaptations, using buildings of the Ancient Egyptians by later cultures for their own religious purposes. One famous aspect of Karnak is the Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun-Re,122 of these columns are 10 meters tall, and the other 12 are 21 meters tall with a diameter of over three meters. The architraves on top of columns are estimated to weigh 70 tons. These architraves may have been lifted to these heights using levers and this would be an extremely time-consuming process and also would require great balance to get to such great heights. A common alternative theory regarding how they were moved is that large ramps were constructed of sand, mud, brick or stone, if stone had been used for the ramps, they would have been able to use much less material
28.
Dendera
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Dendera is a small town and former bishopric in Egypt situated on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 kilometres south of Qena, on the opposite side of the river. It is located approximately 60 kilometres north of Luxor and remains a Latin Catholic titular see, the modern Arab town is built on the ancient site of Ta-ynt-netert, which means She of the Divine Pillar. In the Greek era, the town was known as Tentyra and it was once the -modest- capital of the 6th Nome of Upper Egypt, and was also called Nikentori or Nitentori, which means willow wood or willow earth. Some scholars believe the name derives from the sky and fertility goddess Hathor, also associated with the Greek Aphrodite, the official deity of the city was a crocodile. Crocodiles were also venerated as deities in other Egyptian cities, which rise to many quarrels. After Egypt became a Roman possession, the city of Tentyris was part of the Late Roman province of Thebais Secunda and its bishopric was a suffragan of Ptolemais Hermiou, the capital and metropolitan see of the province. Pachomius, whose diocese boasted the celebrated convent of Tabennisi, the town was given its present Arabic name of Denderah during the late Ottoman Empire and ruled 6000 inhabitants in Qena district. M. I. André van den Bronk, Society of African Missions Teodoro Bensch Jean-Rosière-Eugène Arnau], the Dendera Temple complex, which contains the Temple of Hathor, is one of the best-preserved temples, if not the best-preserved one, in all of Upper Egypt. The whole complex covers some 40,000 square meters and is surrounded by a hefty mud brick wall and it was once home to the celebrated Dendera zodiac, which is now displayed in the Louvre Museum in Paris. There are also Roman and pharaonic Mammisi, ruins of a Coptic church, the area around the temple has been extensively landscaped and now has a modern visitor centre, bazaar and small cafeteria. This area has an amount of sunshine year round due to its stable descending air. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Dendera has a hot desert climate, Dendera light Dendera Herbermann, Charles, ed. Tentyris. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. GigaCatholic, listing the titular bishops Media related to Dendera at Wikimedia Commons
29.
Animal worship
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Animal worship refers to rituals involving animals, such as the glorification of animal deities or animal sacrifice. When a god is respected or worshipped by means of a representative animal, Animal cults may be classified according to their outward form or according to their inward meaning, which may of course undergo transformations. The classical author Diodorus explained the origin of worship by recalling the myth in which the gods, supposedly threatened by giants. The people then began to worship the animals that their gods had disguised themselves as. In 1906, Weissenborn suggested that animal worship resulted from man’s natural curiosity, Primitive man would observe an animal that had a unique trait and the inexplicability of this trait would appeal to man’s curiosity. Wonder resulted from primitive man’s observations of this trait and this wonder eventually induced adoration. Thus, primitive man worshipped animals that had inimitable traits, Lubbock put forward a more recent view. Lubbock proposed that animal-worship originated from family names, in societies, families would name themselves and their children after certain animals and eventually came to hold that animal above other animals. Eventually, these turned into deep respect and evolved into fully developed worship of the family animal. The belief that an animal is sacred frequently results in dietary laws prohibiting their consumption, as well as holding certain animals to be sacred, religions have also adopted the opposite attitude, that certain animals are unclean. The idea that divinity embodies itself in animals, such as a deity incarnate, in Independent Assemblies of God and Pentecostal churches, animals have very little religious significance. Animals have become less and less important and symbolic in cult rituals and religion, especially among African cultures, as Christianity, Animals were often mummified as a result of these beliefs. There is evidence that connects the Greek goddess Artemis with a cult of the bear, girls danced as bears in her honour, and might not marry before undergoing this ceremony. According to mythology, the goddess once transformed a nymph into a bear, the existence of an ancient bear cult among Neanderthals in the Middle Paleolithic period has been a topic of discussion spurred by archaeological findings. Ancient bear bones have been discovered in different caves and their peculiar arrangement are believed by some archaeologists to be evidence of a bear cult during the Paleolithic era. However, others argue that the placement of these remains, whether it appears to be a pattern or not, is due to natural causes such as wind, sediment. The Ainu people, who live on islands in the Japanese archipelago, call the bear “kamui” in their language. While many other animals are considered to be gods in the Ainu culture, for the Ainu, when the gods visit the world of man, they don fur and claws and take on the physical appearance of an animal
30.
Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt
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The Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Second Egyptian Satrapy, was effectively a short-lived province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire between 343 BC to 332 BC. The period of the 31st Dynasty was the occasion in which Persian pharaohs ruled Egypt. Before the 31st Dynasty was founded, Egypt had enjoyed a period of independence. The period before this is referred to as the First Egyptian Satrapy or the 27th Dynasty and it is not known who served as satrap after Artaxerxes III, but under Darius III there was Sabaces, who fought and died at Issus and was succeeded by Mazaces. In 332 BC, Mazaces handed over the country to Alexander the Great without a fight, the Achaemenid empire had ended, and for a while Egypt was a satrapy in Alexanders empire. Later the Ptolemies and the Romans successively ruled the Nile valley, occasionally Egyptians wore foreign costumes and jewelry. The taste for non-Egyptian fashion arose during periods of trade or diplomatic contact with distant courts. The Persians, who invaded the Nile Valley from their Iranian homeland, dominated Egypt during Dynasty 27. This statue to the dates to the later period of Persian rule in Egypt. The long skirt shown wrapped around this body and tucked in at the upper edge of the garment is typically Persian. The necklace, called a torque, is decorated with images of ibexes, symbols in ancient Persia of agility, the depiction of this official in Persian dress may have been a demonstration of loyalty to the new rulers. Fragments of Ctesias Diodorus Siculus Fragments of Manetho Flavius Josephus Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt — also known as the First Egyptian Satrapy
31.
Hermopolis Parva
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Damanhur is a city in Lower Egypt, and the capital of the Beheira Governorate. It is located 160 km northwest of Cairo, and 70 km E. S. E. of Alexandria, in Ancient Egypt, the city was the capital of Lower Egypts 7th Nome of A-ment. It stood on the banks of a canal connected the lake Mareotis with the Canopic or most westerly arm of the Nile. The city was dedicated to the Ancient Egyptian god Horus, in Greek and Roman times, it was called Hermopolis Mikra or Hermopolis Parva, which would also give it an association with Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth. As Hermopolis, the city attracted the notice of numerous ancient geographers, including Stephanus of Byzantium s. v. Strabo, Ptolemy, and it is a Roman Catholic titular see. In 1986, the population of Damanhur was 188,939, the richly cultivated Beheira province gives rise to mainly agricultural industries which include cotton ginning, potato processing, and date picking. It also has a market for cotton and rice, ahmed H. Zewail, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1999, was born in Damanhur in 1946. Damanhur was known in the ancient Egyptian scripts by the name Dmi en Hor, later, the Egyptians reverted to the old name, represented as Temenhor, which after the Islamic conquest was reinterpreted in Arabic as Damanhur, the present name. Being located close to the Nile Delta and the northern coast of Egypt, the city gets average precipitation during winter, and rare rain during other seasons. Hail and frost are not unknown specifically during winter, a nearby town called Damityo contains the tomb of the shoemaker Yaakov Abuhatzeira, a Moroccan rabbi who died there in 1880 while on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The site is visited each year by hundreds of devotees, with protests from local inhabitants, a high court in Egypt officially removed the tomb from a list of sites of historical value, so Egyptian government protection stopped. Some Egyptians have protested against permitting Jews to enter Egypt to make the pilgrimage to Rabbi Abuhatzeiras tomb. Damanhur is the home of the character Nebamon in the book Rise of the Golden Cobra. Damanhur name is used by the artist eco-village Federation of Damanhur in northern Italy and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Smith, William, ed. article name needed. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, https, //www. facebook. com/Egy. Dam Official Facebook page for the city http, //www. damanhour. 5u. com/en. htm English script http, //www. saeednet. 4t. com live cam from damanhour S. Pétridès
32.
Tanis
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Tanis is a city in the north-eastern Nile Delta of Egypt. It is located on the Tanitic branch of the Nile which has long since silted up, Tanis was a city in ancient Egypt and served as a parallel religious center to Thebes in the Third Intermediate Period. No archaeological evidence from it pre-dates the reign of Psusennes I, taniss creation was most likely due to the silting up of the Nile branch that ran by Pi-Ramesses, which forced people to seek another area with access to water. Later on, Tanis would become known as Thebes of Lower Egypt, the kings at Tanis saw themselves as the legitimate successors on the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. They used traditional titles and displayed their royalty in building work, Tanis was founded in the late Twentieth Dynasty, and became the northern capital of Egypt during the following Twenty-first Dynasty. It was the city of Smendes, founder of the 21st dynasty. During the Twenty-second Dynasty, Tanis remained as Egypts political capital and it was an important commercial and strategic city until it was threatened with inundation by Lake Manzala in the 6th century AD, when it was finally abandoned. The refugees founded the city of Tennis. The Hebrew story of Moses’ being found in the marshes of the Nile River as told in Exodus 2, the demise of the city may well have been caused by the relocation of Nile tributaries. Tanis was the site of archaeological digs beginning in the 19th century, involving Flinders Petrie. In 1866, Karl Richard Lepsius discovered at Tanis the Decree of Canopus—an inscription closely related to the Rosetta Stone and this discovery contributed significantly to the decipherment of hieroglyphics. There are ruins of a number of temples, including the temple dedicated to Amun. However, the burials of three Dynasty 21 and Dynasty 22 pharaohs — Psusennes I, Amenemope and Shoshenq II — survived the depredations of tomb robbers throughout antiquity. The chief deities of Tanis were Amun, his consort, Mut and this triad was, however, identical to that of Thebes, leading many scholars to speak of Tanis as the northern Thebes. In 2009, the Egyptian Culture Ministry reported archaeologists had discovered the site of a lake in a temple to the goddess Mut at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in ancient Tanis. The lake, built out of blocks, had been 15 meters long and 12 meters wide. It was discovered 12 meters below ground in good condition and this was the second sacred lake found at Tanis. The first lake at the site had been identified in 1928, a French archeological team selected a site from the imagery and confirmed mud-brick structures approximately 30 cm below the surface
33.
El Kab
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El Kab is an Upper Egyptian site on the east bank of the Nile at the mouth of the Wadi Hillal about 80 kilometres south of Luxor. El Kab was called Nekheb in the Egyptian language, a name that refers to Nekhbet, however, Belgian archaeologists took over the project in 1937, and it has remained in their hands since then. Much of the research done at this site took place within the enclosure of El-Kab. However, since the 1980s the work has shifted more to the north and north east of the town. El-Kab is in Upper Egypt, located on the east side of the Nile River, almost to the opposite of Hierakonpolis, during Quibells first excavation, most of the work was done in the cemetery east of the town. There Quibell found many buried skeletons, all with their heads pointing towards the north and this being the earliest cemetery at the site, pots, bead, paint slabs and mirrors were found in these burials, but no papyrus or text were found anywhere. Its massive mudbrick walls, dating to the Late Period and thought to have built by Nectanebo II as a defensive measure, are still largely preserved. They enclose an area of about 25,000 square metres, the necropolis has some important tombs, showing the early history of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the reunification of Egypt. The style of the early Eighteenth Dynasty wallpaintings anticipates that of the first New Kingdom nobles tombs at Thebes. All that remains of the buildings are the lower parts of the walls of the houses. Coins from the first to fourth century were recovered along with Demotic Greek, one of the discoveries at the site that Quibell questioned the most during his dig was the walls that surrounded the Serdab. In 1921, an article titled El-Kab and the Great Wall was published in The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and this last wall mentioned surrounds a plot of land that had never actually been inhabited. After some time, because the movement of the Nile River towards the city had threatened to destroy the construction, the original wall around the city could no longer be useful. The Egyptians had to construct a new wall, farther from the Nile, so that the people could continue to build their houses, James Breasted also mentions these walls in an account he wrote of the site in 1897. In his article he states with admiration that, it is the city of remote antiquity the walls of which still stand almost intact. He then goes on to describe these walls as sun baked brick that are laid thirty-eight feet thick, in 1967 Pierre Vermeersch discovered a series of well-stratified Epipaleolithic campsites. Since the 1980s, even more discoveries have been made, the surrounding hills are inscribed with petroglyphs that range in time period, from Predynastic to Islamic times, not to mention hieroglyphics that also vary in date. At first, many thought these inscriptions to be similar to modern day graffiti – random phrases written by passerby, however, once further studied, it was realized that these phrases are actually short texts that mention the inhabitants of the town
34.
Twin steles of Decree of Nectanebo I
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The Decree of Nectanebo I was issued by Pharaoh Nectanebo I of the 30th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. It regards payments to the temple, and was recorded on two steles. The location of the temple was near the Canopic branch of the Nile River, accordingly, steles were erected at two locations as statements to curry political favor with the priesthood, and possibly the populace. The twin steles are identical in 14 columns of hieroglyphs except in column 13, the steles were erected shortly after Nectanebo came to power, ca 380 BC. The steles purpose was to use a 10 percent portion of the tax for the services of the priests in charge of the temples of the goddess Neith. A finely engraved lunette adorns the upper third of the steles, the lunette focusses on two versions of the Goddess Neith, being offered a food offering on the right, and a usekh collar on the left, by the presenter Nectanebo. The first stele, the Stele of Naukratis was uncovered at Naukratis in 1899, only recently, its twin stele was recovered from the underwater site of Heracleion, an ancient Egyptian city that was discovered by archaeologists in 2000. Heracleion was also located on the Canopic branch of the Nile, herakleion is also mentioned on the steles. M. Lichtheim, The Naucratis Stela Once Again, in J. H. Johnson and E. F. Wente, Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, January 12,1977, S. v Bomhard, The Decree of Saïs. Underwater Archaeology in the Canopic Region in Egypt, oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology 7. 2001 project Sunken City, the Canopic Region Nectanebo I, Naukratis Decree, translation
35.
Naucratis
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Naucratis or Naukratis was a city of Ancient Egypt, on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, and 45 mi southeast of the open sea and Alexandria. It was the first and, for much of its early history, the sister port of Naucratis was the harbour town of Thonis/Heracleion, which was undiscovered until 2000. Archaeological evidence suggests that the history of the ancient Greeks in Egypt dates back at least to Mycenaean times and this history is strictly one of commerce as no permanent Greek settlements have been found of these cultures to date. The first report of Greeks in 7th century BC Egypt is a story in the Histories of Herodotus of Ionian and Carian pirates forced by storm to land on or near the Nile Delta. Inspired upon seeing the bronze armor of the pirates, he offers them rewards in return for their aid in his campaign of return to power. Upon the success of this endeavor he makes good on his word, at present these sites remain uncertain but this may be a reference to the city of Daphnae. In 570 BC the Pharaoh Apries led the descendants of this mercenary army made up of 30,000 Carians and Ionians against a former general turned rebel by the name of Amasis, although fighting valiantly they suffered defeat and Amasis II became Pharaoh. Amasis shut down the camps and moved the Greek soldiers to Memphis where they were employed to guard him against the native Egyptians. Herodotus, Amasis was partial to the Greeks, and among other favors which he granted them, notice that he says gave the city which seems to indicate the existence of a city already there. This older city, settlement more likely, was no doubt small and inhabited by a mix of native Egyptians, Greeks, thus it seems the city was turned over to the Greeks, chartered, in the years immediately following 570 BC. The earlier date of c.625 BC put forward by archaeologists may be the establishment of a settlement at the site. Amasis indeed converted Naucratis into a major treaty-port and commercial link with the west and this was done most likely as a means to contain the Greeks and concentrate their activities in one place under his control. It became not the colony of any particular city-state but a similar to Al Mina. Thus the natives of at least twelve Greek city-states worked in a collaboration that was not only rare, Naucratis later became an important center of Greek culture under the Roman Empire, producing several celebrated orators of the Second Sophistic in the second and early third centuries AD. The third century writer Athenaeus came from Naucratis, the site was discovered by W. M. F. Petrie who dug there in 1884-5, gardener, and finally David George Hogarth, in 1899 and 1903. The archaeological focus fell into two areas of northern and southern quarters, found farthest south was a large Egyptian storehouse or treasury and just north of that a Greek mudbrick Temple of Aphrodite roughly 14m. Directly east of temple was unearthed a small factory for faience scarab seals. are of the earlier years of the town
36.
Neith
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Neith was an early goddess in the Egyptian pantheon. She was the deity of Sais, where her cult was centered in the Western Nile Delta of Egypt. The Ancient Egyptian name of city was Zau. Neith was a goddess of war and of hunting and had as her symbol, however, she is a far more complex goddess than is generally known, and of whom ancient texts only hint of her true nature. In her usual representations, she is portrayed as a fierce deity and her symbol also identified the city of Sais. This symbol was displayed on top of her head in Egyptian art, in her form as a goddess of war, she was said to make the weapons of warriors and to guard their bodies when they died. As a deity, Neith is normally shown carrying the was scepter and she is also called such cosmic epithets as the Cow of Heaven, a sky-goddess similar to Nut, and as the Great Flood, Mehet-Weret, as a cow who gives birth to the sun daily. In these forms, she is associated with creation of both the time and daily re-creation. She is identified as a mother goddess in this role as a creator. As a female deity and personification of the waters, Neith encompasses masculine elements. She is a version of Ptah-Nun, with her feminine nature complemented with masculine attributes symbolized with her association with the bow and arrow. In the same manner, her personification as the waters is Mehetweret. Neith is one of the most ancient deities associated with ancient Egyptian culture and her first anthropomorphic representations occur in the early dynastic period, on a diorite vase of King Ny-Netjer of the Second Dynasty, found in the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. That her worship predominated the early dynastic periods is shown by a preponderance of theophoric names within which Neith appears as an element. It has been suggested the hunt/war features of Neith’s imagery may indicate her origin from Libya, located west and southwest of Egypt, while Neith is generally regarded as a deity of Lower Egypt, her worship was not consistently located in that region. Her cult reached its height in Saïs and apparently in Memphis in the Old Kingdom, however, the cult regained political and religious prominence during the 26th Dynasties when worship at Saïs flourished again, as well as at Esna in Upper Egypt. Neiths symbol and part of her hieroglyph also bore a resemblance to a loom, at this time her role as a creator conflated with that of Athena, as a deity who wove all of the world and existence into being on her loom. As mother of Ra, in her Mehet-Weret form, she was described as the Great Cow who gave birth to Ra
37.
Heracleion
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Heracleion is also a spelling of Heraklion, Cretes largest city and capital. Heracleion, also known as Thonis, was an ancient Egyptian city located near the Canopic Mouth of the Nile and its ruins are located in Abu Qir Bay, currently 2.5 km off the coast, under 10 m of water. Its legendary beginnings go back to as early as the 12th century BC and its importance grew particularly during the waning days of the Pharaohs. In the Late Period, it was Egypts main port for international trade, Heracleion was originally built on some adjoining islands in the Nile Delta, and was intersected by canals. It had a number of harbors and anchorages and was the city of Naucratis until it was superseded by Alexandria. Heracleion was said by Herodotus to have been visited by Paris, also, it was believed that Heracles himself had visited the city, resulting in the Greeks calling it by the Greek name Heracleion rather than its original Egyptian name Thonis. Until very recently the site had been only from a few literary and epigraphic sources, one of which interestingly mentions the site as an emporion. The city was mentioned by the ancient historians Diodorus and Strabo, Herodotus was told that Thonis was the warden of the Canopic mouth of the Nile, Thonis arrested Alexander, the son of Priam, because Alexander had abducted Helen of Troy and taken much wealth. The city is mentioned in the Decree of Canopus honoring Pharaoh Ptolemy III. The city of Heracleion was also the site of the celebration of the ‘mysteries of Osiris each year during the month of Khoiak, the god in his ceremonial boat was brought in procession from the temple of Amun in that city to his shrine in Canopus. The city had a temple of Khonsou, son of Amun. Later, the worship of Amun became more prominent, Heracleion flourished especially from the 6th to the 4th century BC, as revealed by numerous archaeological finds. Pharaoh Nectanebo I made many additions to the temple in the 4th century B. C, the city sank in the 3rd or 2nd century AD, probably due to liquefaction of the silts on which it was built following earth tremors. The ruins submerged in the sea were located by the French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio in 2000, until then, the scholars were not sure if Heracleion and Thonis were in fact one and the same city. Canopus, Egypt Menouthis Spectacular finds of lost city revealed, sunken Egyptian city reveals 1, 200-year-old secrets. Photos of underwater treasures of Heracleion
38.
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
39.
Horus
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Horus is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the Ptolemaic Kingdom, different forms of Horus are recorded in history and these are treated as distinct gods by Egyptologists. He was most often depicted as a falcon, most likely a falcon or peregrine falcon. In another tradition Hathor is regarded as his mother and sometimes as his wife, Horus served many functions, most notably being a god of the sky, war and hunting. Horus is recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs as ḥr. w Falcon, additional meanings are thought to have been the distant one or one who is above, over. As the language changed over time, it appeared in Coptic dialects variously as hoːɾ or ħoːɾ and was adopted into ancient Greek as Ὧρος Hōros and it also survives in Late Egyptian and Coptic theophoric names such as Har-si-ese Horus, Son of Isis. Nekheny may have been another falcon god worshipped at Nekhen, city of the falcon, Horus may be shown as a falcon on the Narmer Palette, dating from about the 31st century BC. In early Egypt, Horus was the brother of Isis, Osiris, Set, as different cults formed, he became the son of Isis and Osiris. Isis remained the sister of Osiris, Set and Nephthys, the Pyramid Texts describe the nature of the pharaoh in different characters as both Horus and Osiris. The pharaoh as Horus in life became the pharaoh as Osiris in death, New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new pharaohs. The lineage of Horus, the product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been a means to explain and justify pharaonic power. The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life, the notion of Horus as the pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the pharaoh as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty. Once Isis knew she was pregnant with Horus, she fled to the Nile Delta marshlands to hide from her brother Set, who jealously killed Osiris, there Isis bore a divine son, Horus. Since Horus was said to be the sky, he was considered to contain the sun. It became said that the sun was his eye and the moon his left, and that they traversed the sky when he. Later, the reason that the moon was not as bright as the sun was explained by a tale, known as the The Contendings of Horus and Seth. As Horus was the victor he became known as ḥr. w wr Horus the Great. In the struggle, Set had lost a testicle, explaining why the desert, Horus left eye had also been gouged out, then a new eye was created by part of Khonsu, the moon god, and was replaced
40.
Edfu
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Edfu is an Egyptian city, located on the west bank of the Nile River between Esna and Aswan, with a population of approximately sixty thousand people. For the ancient history of the city, see below, Edfu is the site of the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus and an ancient settlement, Tell Edfu. About 5 km north of Edfu are remains of ancient pyramids, the town is known for the major Ptolemaic temple, built between 237 BC and 57 BC, into the reign of Cleopatra VII. Of all the remains in Egypt, the Temple of Horus at Edfu is the most completely preserved. Built from sandstone blocks, the huge Ptolemaic temple was constructed over the site of a smaller New Kingdom temple, oriented east to west, facing towards the river. The later structure faces north to south and leaves the remains of the older temple pylon to be seen on the east side of the first court. The remains of the ancient settlement of Edfu are situated about 50 m to the west of the Ptolemaic temple - to the left of the temple pylon. This settlement is known as Wetjeset-hor and the Latin name was Apollinopolis Magna, according to Notitia Dignitatum, part of Legio II Traiana Fortis was camped in Apollo superior, which was the Roman name for the town. Although unassuming and unglamorous to the tourists, Tell Edfu is a monument that contains evidence of more Egyptian history and is of more archaeological interest than the Ptolemaic temple. The remains of the settlement provides an insight into the development of Edfu as a town from the end of the Old Kingdom until the Byzantine period. The settlement at Edfu was the capital of the Second Upper Egypt nome, the oldest part of the town which can be dated to the late Old Kingdom lies on the eastern part of the tell, not far from the Ptolemaic temple. There is evidence that the town flourished during the First Intermediate Period when it expanded extensively to the west, interestingly, it is one of few settlements in southern Egypt that throve when it seems that the north, especially around the delta, was in economic decline. A central part of the site was explored by Henri Henne from the Institute for Egyptology in Lille in 1921 and 1922 and his team identified the remains of a small sanctuary from the Late or Ptolemaic period, possibly the Osiris chapel built by Psamtek I. Henne was followed by Octave Guéraud in 1928 then by Maurice Alliot in 1931 who each explored and excavated different aspects of the settlement remains, bruyère, J. Manteuffel and Kazimierz Michałowski, and three elaborate reports on the archaeology of Tell Edfu were published. Unfortunately, since no new detailed discoveries or thorough research has been completed at the tell except for recent work done by Barry Kemp. Since 2001, the Tell Edfu project has been directed by Nadine Moeller, the current work focuses on the eastern part of the site. Latter dates to the Second Intermediate Period, at least seven large round silos have been excavated here with a diameter between 5.5 and 6.5 meters which makes them the largest ones so far discovered within an ancient Egyptian urban centre. No larger remains dating earlier than the 5th Dynasty have been found at Edfu, the ancient cemetery comprised mastabas of the Old Kingdom as well as later tombs
41.
Achaemenid
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
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