1.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
2.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
3.
Near East
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The Near East is a geographical term that roughly encompasses Western Asia. Despite having varying definitions within different academic circles, the term was applied to the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire. The term has fallen into disuse in English and has replaced by the terms Middle East. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines the region similarly, but also includes Afghanistan while excluding the countries of North Africa and the Palestinian territories. Up until 1912 the Ottomans retained a band of territory including Albania, Macedonia and Southern Thrace, the Ottoman Empire, believed to be about to collapse, was portrayed in the press as the sick man of Europe. The Balkan states, with the exception of Bosnia and Albania, were primarily Christian. Starting in 1894 the Ottomans struck at the Armenians on the grounds that they were a non-Muslim people. The Hamidian Massacres aroused the indignation of the entire Christian world, in the United States the now aging Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, leaped into the war of words and joined the Red Cross. Relations of minorities within the Ottoman Empire and the disposition of former Ottoman lands became known as the Eastern Question and it now became relevant to define the east of the eastern question. In about the middle of the 19th century Near East came into use to describe part of the east closest to Europe. The term Far East appeared contemporaneously meaning Japan, China, Korea, Indonesia, near East applied to what had been mainly known as the Levant, which was in the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Porte, or government. Those who used the term had little choice about its meaning and they could not set foot on most of the shores of the southern and central Mediterranean from the Gulf of Sidra to Albania without permits from the Ottoman Empire. Some regions beyond the Ottoman Porte were included, one was North Africa west of Egypt. It was occupied by piratical kingdoms of the Barbary Coast, de facto independent since the 18th century, formerly part of the empire at its apogee. Iran was included because it could not easily be reached except through the Ottoman Empire or neighboring Russia, in the 1890s the term tended to focus on the conflicts in the Balkan states and Armenia. The demise of the man of Europe left considerable confusion as to what was to be meant by Near East. It is now used only in historical contexts, to describe the countries of Western Asia from the Mediterranean to Iran. There is, in short, no universally understood fixed inventory of nations and they appear together in the journals of the mid-19th century
4.
Nile Delta
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The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the worlds largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, from north to south the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. The Delta begins slightly down-river from Cairo, from north to south, the delta is approximately 160 kilometres in length. From west-to-east, it covers some 240 kilometres of coastline, the delta is sometimes divided into sections, with the Nile dividing into two main distributaries, the Damietta and the Rosetta, flowing into the Mediterranean at port cities with the same name. In the past, the delta had several distributaries, but these have been lost due to flood control, one such defunct distributary is Wadi Tumilat. The Suez Canal runs to the east of the delta, entering the coastal Lake Manzala in the north-east of the delta, to the north-west are three other coastal lakes or lagoons, Lake Burullus, Lake Idku and Lake Maryut. The Nile is considered to be a delta, as it resembles a triangle or flower when seen from above. The outer edges of the delta are eroding, and some coastal lagoons have seen increasing salinity levels as their connection to the Mediterranean Sea increases, topsoil in the delta can be as much as 70 feet in depth. People have lived in the Delta region for thousands of years, the Delta River used to flood on an annual basis, but this ended with the construction of the Aswan Dam. The Rosetta Stone was found in the Nile Delta in 1799 in the city of Rosetta. The delta was a constituent of Lower Egypt. The Biblical Land of Goshen was located in an area on the west bank of the Pelusiac distributary. There are many sites in and around the Nile Delta. About 39 million people live in the Delta region, outside of major cities, population density in the delta averages 1,000 persons/km² or more. Alexandria is the largest city in the delta with a population of more than 4.5 million. Other large cities in the delta include Shubra al Khaymah, Port Said, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, El Mansura, Tanta, during autumn, parts of the Nile River are red with lotus flowers. The Lower Nile and the Upper Nile have plants that grow in abundance, the Upper Nile plant is the Egyptian lotus, and the Lower Nile plant is the Papyrus Sedge, although it is not nearly as plentiful as it once was, and is becoming quite rare. Several hundred thousand birds winter in the delta, including the world’s largest concentrations of little gulls
5.
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
6.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
7.
Bubastis
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Bubastis, also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an Ancient Egyptian city. It was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt, Bubastis is often identified with the biblical Phibeseth. The name of Bubastis in Egyptian is Pr-Bȝśt. t, typically transcribed Per-Bast, PR means house and the second word is the name of the goddess Bast or Bastet. The phrase means House of Bast, Bubastis served as the capital of the nome of Am-Khent, the Bubastite nome, the 18th nome of Lower Egypt. Bubastis was situated southwest of Tanis, upon the side of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. The nome and city of Bubastis were allotted to the Calasirian division of the Egyptian war-caste and it became a royal residence after Shoshenq I, the first ruler and founder of the 22nd dynasty, became pharaoh in 943 BC. Bubastis was its height during this dynasty and the 23rd and it declined after the Persian conquest by Cambyses II in 525 BC, which heralded the end of the Saite 26th dynasty and the start of the Achaemenid dynasty. After Bubastis was taken by the Persians, its walls were dismantled, from this period it gradually declined, although it appears in ecclesiastical annals among the episcopal sees of the province Augustamnica Secunda. Bubastite coins of the age of Hadrian exist, temples there are more spacious and costlier than that of Bubastis, but none so pleasant to behold. It is after the following fashion, each canal is a hundred feet wide, and its banks are lined with trees. The propylaea are sixty feet in height, and are adorned with nine feet high. Quite round the temple there goes a wall, adorned with sculptures, within the inclosure is a grove of fair tall trees, planted around a large building in which is the effigy. The form of temple is square, each side being a stadium in length. In a line with the entrance is a built of stone about three stadia long, leading eastwards through the public market. The road is about 400 feet broad, and is flanked by exceeding tall trees and it leads to the temple of Hermes. Bubastis was a center of worship for the feline goddess Bast, the cat was the sacred and peculiar animal of Bast, who is represented with the head of a cat or a lioness and frequently accompanies the deity Ptah in monumental inscriptions. The tombs at Bubastis were accordingly the principal depository in Egypt of the mummies of the cat, the most distinguished features of the city and nome of Bubastis were its oracle of Bast, the splendid temple of that goddess and the annual procession in honor of her. The men played on pipes of lotus, the women on cymbals and tambourines, and such as had no instruments accompanied the music with clapping of hands and dances, and other joyous gestures
8.
Sheshi
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Maaibre Sheshi was a ruler of areas of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. The dynasty, chronological position, duration and extent of his reign are uncertain, the difficulty of identification is mirrored by problems in determining events from the end of the Middle Kingdom to the arrival of the Hyksos in Egypt. Hundreds of scaraboid seals bearing his name have been found throughout Canaan, Egypt, Nubia, three competing hypotheses have been put forth for the dynasty to which Sheshi belonged. Salitis is credited with 19 years of reign and would have lived some time between c.1720 BC and 1650 BC. The Egyptologist William Ayres Ward and the archaeologist Daphna Ben-Tor propose that Sheshi was a Hyksos king and belongs to the half of the 15th Dynasty. Alternatively, Manfred Bietak has proposed that Sheshi was a vassal of the Hyksos, the very existence of such vassals is debated. Finally, Sheshi could be a ruler of the early 14th Dynasty, proponents of this theory, such as Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker, credit Sheshi with 40 years of reign starting c.1745 BC. Ryholt proposed that Sheshi allied his kingdom with the Kushites in Nubia via a marriage with the Nubian princess Tati. Ryholt further posits that the son of Sheshi and Tati was Nehesy, whose name means The Nubian, the nomen of Sheshi is inscribed on over two hundred scarab seals, which constitute the sole attestations of his reign. The number of scarabs attributed to Sheshi is paralleled in number only by those bearing the prenomen Maaibre, based on the close stylistic similarities between both groups of scarabs as well as their otherwise unmatched numbers, The consensus among Egyptologists is that Maaibre was the prenomen of Sheshi. This figure is three times higher than the 123 seals attributed to the next best attested king of the period, Yakbim Sekhaenre. In addition to seals, Manfred Bietak has suggested that a scarab discovered in Avaris. This conclusion is rejected by Kim Ryholt and Darrell Baker, who believe that Shenshek was a separate king, important finds include seals from Lachish, Gezer, Jericho, Tel Michal, Amman and Tell el-Ajjul in Canaan. In Lower Egypt, three seals have been unearthed in Tell el-Yahudiya and Tell el-Mashkuta and a further eight are from the wider Delta region. Four seals originate from Saqqara and a five from the Middle Egyptian sites of Abusir el-Melek, Kom Medinet Ghurab, Kom el-Ahmar. Finally, two seal impressions of Sheshi have been found in Carthage, in a context dated archeologically to the 2nd century BC, no historical attestation of Sheshi is known for certain. Sheshi is absent from the Turin canon, a list of written on papyrus during the Ramesside period. This is because the section of the covering the 13th to 17th Dynasties is heavily damaged
9.
Egyptology
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A practitioner of the discipline is an Egyptologist. In Europe, particularly on the Continent, Egyptology is primarily regarded as being a philological discipline, the first explorers were the ancient Egyptians themselves. Thutmose IV restored the Sphinx and had the dream that inspired his restoration carved on the famous Dream Stele, less than two centuries later, Prince Khaemweset, fourth son of Ramesses II, is famed for identifying and restoring historic buildings, tombs and temples including the pyramid. The Ptolemies were much interested in the work of the ancient Egyptians, the Romans too carried out restoration work in this most ancient of lands. A number of their accounts have survived and offer insights as to conditions in their time periods. Abdul Latif al-Baghdadi, a teacher at Cairos Al-Azhar University in the 13th century, similarly, the 15th-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi wrote detailed accounts of Egyptian antiquities. In the early 17th century, John Greaves measured the pyramids, having inspected the broken Obelisk of Domitian in Rome, then destined for the Earl of Arundels collection in London. In the late 18th century, with Napoleons scholars recording of Egyptian flora, fauna and history, the British captured Egypt from the French and gained the Rosetta Stone. Modern Egyptology is generally perceived as beginning about 1822, egyptologys modern history begins with the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte. The subsequent publication of Description de lÉgypte between 1809 and 1829 made numerous ancient Egyptian source materials available to Europeans for the first time, jean-François Champollion, Thomas Young and Ippolito Rosellini were some of the first Egyptologists of wide acclaim. The German Karl Richard Lepsius was a participant in the investigations of Egypt, mapping, excavating. Champollion announced his general decipherment of the system of Egyptian hieroglyphics for the first time, the Stones decipherment was a very important development of Egyptology. Egyptology became more professional via work of William Matthew Flinders Petrie, Petrie introduced techniques of field preservation, recording, and excavating. Howard Carters expedition brought much acclaim to the field of Egyptology, a tradition of collecting objets-orientales Egyptologists Electronic Forum, version 64. List shows Egyptology societies and Institutes Egyptology at DMOZ Egyptology Books, the University of Memphis Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology. Hawass, Zahi, Brock, Lyla Pinch, eds, Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists. Rare Books and Special Collections Digital Library Underwood & Underwood Egypt Stereoviews Collection, czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague
10.
Joseph (Genesis)
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Joseph is an important figure in the Bibles Book of Genesis and also in the Quran as well as the Book of Mormon. In Rabbinic tradition Joseph is considered the ancestor of another Messiah called Mashiach ben Yosef and he will wage war against the evil forces alongside Mashiach ben David and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel. Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, lived in the land of Canaan with ten half-brothers, one full brother and he was Rachels firstborn and Jacobs eleventh son. Of all the sons, Joseph was preferred by his father, when Joseph was seventeen years old he had two dreams that made his brothers plot his demise. In the first dream, Joseph and his brothers gathered bundles of grain, in the second dream, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed to Joseph himself. These dreams, implying his supremacy, angered his brothers, unaware of this secondary intention, the others obeyed his first. Upon imprisoning Joseph, the brothers saw a caravan carrying spices and perfumes to Egypt. Thereafter the guilty brothers painted goats blood on Josephs coat and showed it to Jacob, ultimately, Joseph was sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaohs guard. Later, Joseph became Potiphars personal servant, and subsequently his households superintendent, here, Potiphars wife Zuleika tried to seduce Joseph, which he refused. Angered by his running away from her, she made an accusation of rape. Joseph requested the cup-bearer to mention him to Pharaoh and secure his release from prison, after two more years, the Pharaoh dreamt of seven lean cows which devoured seven fat cows, and of seven withered ears of grain which devoured seven fat ears. When the Pharaohs advisers failed to interpret dreams, the cup-bearer remembered Joseph. He interpreted the dream as seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, following the prediction, Joseph became Vizier, under the name of Zaphnath-Paaneah, and was given Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, to be his wife. During the seven years of abundance, Joseph ensured that the storehouses were full, in the sixth year, Asenath bore two children to Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim. When the famine came, it was so severe that people from surrounding nations came to Egypt to buy bread, the narrative also indicates that they went straight to Joseph or were directed to him, even by the Pharaoh himself. This mandate lasted until the days of Moses, in the second year of famine, Josephs half brothers were sent to Egypt to buy goods. After questioning them, he accused them of being spies, after they mentioned a younger brother at home, the Vizier demanded that he be brought to Egypt as a demonstration of their veracity. This was Josephs full brother, Benjamin, Joseph placed his brothers in prison for three days
11.
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
12.
Hyksos
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The Hyksos were a people of mixed origins from Western Asia, who settled in the eastern Nile Delta, some time before 1650 BC. The arrival of the Hyksos led to the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt, in the context of Ancient Egypt, the term Asiatic – which is often used of the Hyksos – may refer to any people native to areas east of Egypt. Immigration by Canaanite populations preceded the Hyksos, canaanites first appeared in Egypt towards the end of the 12th Dynasty c.1800 BC, and either around that time or c.1720 BC, established an independent realm in the eastern Nile Delta. The Canaanite rulers of the Delta, regrouped in the Fourteenth Dynasty, coexisted with the Egyptian Thirteenth Dynasty, the power of the 13th and 14th Dynasties progressively waned, perhaps due to famine and plague. In about 1650 BC, both dynasties were invaded by the Hyksos, who formed the Fifteenth Dynasty. The collapse of the Thirteenth Dynasty created a vacuum in the south, which may have led to the rise of the Sixteenth Dynasty, based in Thebes. The Hyksos eventually conquered both, albeit for only a time in the case of Thebes. From then on, the 17th Dynasty took control of Thebes and reigned for some time in peaceful coexistence with the Hyksos kings, eventually, Seqenenre Tao, Kamose and Ahmose waged war against the Hyksos and expelled Khamudi, their last king, from Egypt c.1550 BC. The Hyksos practiced horse burials, and their deity, their native storm god, Baal, became associated with the Egyptian storm and desert god. The Hyksos were a people of mixed Asiatic origin with mainly Semitic-speaking components, although some scholars have suggested that the Hyksos contained a Hurrian component, most other scholars have dismissed this possibility. The Hyksos brought several innovations to Egypt, as well as cultural infusions such as new musical instruments. The changes introduced include new techniques of working and pottery, new breeds of animals. In warfare, they introduced the horse and chariot, the bow, improved battle axes. Because of these advances, Hyksos rule became decisive for Egypt’s later empire in the Middle East. There are various hypotheses as to the Hyksos ethnic identity, most archaeologists describe the Hyksos as multi-ethnic, to include all of the peoples who occupied the Nile Delta. The origin of the term Hyksos derives from the Egyptian expression hekau khaswet, the German Egyptologist Wolfgang Helck once argued that the Hyksos were part of massive and widespread Hurrian and Indo-Aryan migrations into the Near East. According to Helck, the Hyksos were Hurrians and part of a Hurrian empire that, most scholars have rejected this theory, and Helck himself abandoned this hypothesis in a 1993 article. The Hyksos were likely Semites who came from the Eastern Mediterranean, khyans name has generally been interpreted as Amorite Hayanu which the Egyptian form represents perfectly, and this is in all likelihood the correct interpretation
