1.
Wadi Maghareh
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Wadi Maghareh, is an archaeological site located in the southwestern Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. It contains pharaonic monuments and turquoise mines dating from the Old, Middle, the Ancient Egyptians knew the site as the Terraces of Turquoise. The site was rediscovered in 1809 by Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, and since then has seen several excavation teams, major C. K. Ancient Egyptian monuments, buildings and inscriptions span the period from the Third to Twenty-Ninth Dynasties, although most monuments date only to the Twelfth Dynasty. Two Third Dynasty rock tables of king Sanakht are found in the valley, as is one of Djoser, tables of Sneferu and Khufu from the Fourth Dynasty are also found there. The Fifth Dynasty king Sahures funerary temple at Abusir has a relief representing him dispatching a fleet to the Red Sea, sahure raised a monument depicting himself smiting the Mentju of all foreign lands which was found at Maghareh. Fifth Dynasty rock tablets include those of King Nyuserre Ini accompanied by a vase and images of the gods Horus and Thoth, one of king Menkauhor Kaiu
2.
Pharaoh
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The word pharaoh ultimately derive from the Egyptian compound pr-ˤ3 great house, written with the two biliteral hieroglyphs pr house and ˤ3 column, here meaning great or high. It was used only in larger phrases such as smr pr-ˤ3 Courtier of the High House, with specific reference to the buildings of the court or palace. From the twelfth dynasty onward, the word appears in a wish formula Great House, may it live, prosper, and be in health, but again only with reference to the royal palace and not the person. During the reign of Thutmose III in the New Kingdom, after the rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period. During the eighteenth dynasty the title pharaoh was employed as a designation of the ruler. From the nineteenth dynasty onward pr-ˤ3 on its own was used as regularly as hm. f, the term, therefore, evolved from a word specifically referring to a building to a respectful designation for the ruler, particularly by the twenty-second dynasty and twenty-third dynasty. For instance, the first dated appearance of the pharaoh being attached to a rulers name occurs in Year 17 of Siamun on a fragment from the Karnak Priestly Annals. Here, an induction of an individual to the Amun priesthood is dated specifically to the reign of Pharaoh Siamun and this new practice was continued under his successor Psusennes II and the twenty-second dynasty kings. Shoshenq I was the successor of Siamun. Meanwhile, the old custom of referring to the sovereign simply as pr-ˤ3 continued in traditional Egyptian narratives, by this time, the Late Egyptian word is reconstructed to have been pronounced *par-ʕoʔ whence Herodotus derived the name of one of the Egyptian kings, Φερων. In the Bible, the title also occurs as פרעה, from that, Septuagint φαραώ pharaō and then Late Latin pharaō, both -n stem nouns. The Quran likewise spells it فرعون firawn with n, interestingly, the Arabic combines the original pharyngeal ayin sound from Egyptian, along with the -n ending from Greek. English at first spelt it Pharao, but the King James Bible revived Pharaoh with h from the Hebrew, meanwhile in Egypt itself, *par-ʕoʔ evolved into Sahidic Coptic ⲡⲣ̅ⲣⲟ prro and then rro. Scepters and staves were a sign of authority in ancient Egypt. One of the earliest royal scepters was discovered in the tomb of Khasekhemwy in Abydos, kings were also known to carry a staff, and Pharaoh Anedjib is shown on stone vessels carrying a so-called mks-staff. The scepter with the longest history seems to be the heqa-scepter, the earliest examples of this piece of regalia dates to pre-dynastic times. A scepter was found in a tomb at Abydos that dates to the late Naqada period, another scepter associated with the king is the was-scepter. This is a long staff mounted with an animal head, the earliest known depictions of the was-scepter date to the first dynasty
3.
Egyptian chronology
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The majority of Egyptologists agree on the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. Scholarly consensus on the outline of the conventional chronology current in Egyptology has not fluctuated much over the last 100 years. For the Old Kingdom, consensus fluctuates by as much as a few centuries and this is illustrated by comparing the chronology as given by two Egyptologists, the first writing in 1906, the second in 2000. The disparities between the two sets of result from additional discoveries and refined understanding of the still very incomplete source evidence. For example, Breasted adds a ruler in the Twentieth dynasty that further research showed did not exist, following Manetho, Breasted also believed all the dynasties were sequential, whereas it is now known that several existed at the same time. These revisions have resulted in a lowering of the chronology by up to 400 years at the beginning of Dynasty I. The backbone of Egyptian chronology are the years as recorded in Ancient Egyptian king lists. In addition, some Egyptian dynasties may have overlapped, with different pharaohs ruling in different regions at the same time, not knowing whether monarchies were simultaneous or sequential results in widely differing chronological interpretations. However, further research has shown that these censuses were taken in consecutive years. The sed festival was celebrated on the thirtieth anniversary of the Pharaohs ascension. However, once again, this may not be the practice in all cases. In the early days of Egyptology, the compilation of regnal periods may also have been hampered due to bias on the part of the Egyptologists. This was most pervasive before the mid 19th century, when Manethos figures were recognized as conflicting with biblical chronology based on Old Testament references to Egypt, in the 20th century, such biblical bias has mostly been confined to alternative chronologies outside of scholarly mainstream. A useful way to work around these gaps in knowledge is to find chronological synchronisms, over the past decades, a number of these have been found, although they are of varying degrees of usefulness and reliability. While this does not fix a person or event to a specific year, another example are blocks from the Old Kingdom bearing the names of several kings, which were reused in the construction of Middle Kingdom pyramid-temples at Lisht in the structures of Amenemhat I. The poor documentation of these finds in the Serapeum also compounds the difficulties in using these records. The best known of these is the Sothic cycle, and careful study of this led Richard A. Parker to argue that the dates of the Twelfth dynasty could be fixed with absolute precision. More recent research has eroded this confidence, questioning many of the assumptions used with the Sothic Cycle and this is useful especially for the Early Dynastic period, where Egyptological consensus has only been possible within a range of about three or four centuries
4.
Third Dynasty of Egypt
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For the Sumerian Renaissance, see Third Dynasty of Ur The Third Dynasty of ancient Egypt is the first dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Other dynasties of the Old Kingdom include the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth, the capital during the period of the Old Kingdom was at Memphis. After the turbulent last years of the Second Dynasty which might have included civil war, Egypt came under the rule of Djoser, both the Turin King List and the Abydos King List record five kings, while the Saqqara Tablet only records four. Djoser’s successor was Sekhemkhet who had the nebty name Djeserty, the last king of the dynasty is Huni. There are three remaining Horus names of known 3rd dynasty kings, Sanakht, Khaba and perhaps Qahedjet, one of these three went by the nebty name Nebka. Dating the Third Dynasty is similarly challenging, shaw gives the dates as being approximately from 2686 to 2613 BC. The Turin King List suggests a total of 75 years for the third dynasty, baines and Malek have placed the third dynasty as spanning the years 2650 –2575 BC, while Dodson and Hilton date the dynasty to 2584 –2520 BC. It is not uncommon for these estimates to differ by more than a century, a radiocarbon study done of the period in 2010 gives a reign for Djoser between roughly 2691 to 2625 BC. The pharaohs of the Third Dynasty ruled for approximately seventy-five years, the order of the kings is based on Wilkinson. The number of years as king, the years, is based on Dodson and Hilton. They have the dynasty lasting only 64 years, more importantly, seals naming Djoser were found at the entrance to Khasekhemwys tomb at Abydos, which demonstrates that it was Djoser, rather than Sanakht, who buried and succeeded this king. The Turin King List scribe wrote Djosers name in red ink, in any case, Djoser is the best known king of this dynasty, for commissioning his vizier Imhotep to build the earliest surviving pyramids, the Step Pyramid. Some authorities believe that Imhotep lived into the reign of the Pharaoh Huni, little is known for certain of Sekhemkhet. However, it is believed that Khaba possibly built the Layer Pyramid at Zawyet elAryan
5.
Djoser
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Djoser was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of the 3rd dynasty during the Old Kingdom and the founder of this epoch. He is well known under his Hellenized names Tosorthros and Sesorthos and he was the son of king Khasekhemwy and queen Nimaathap, but if he also was the direct throne successor is still unclear. The painted limestone statue of Djoser, now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, is the oldest known life-sized Egyptian statue, today at the site in Saqqara where it was found, a plaster copy of the statue stands in place of the original. The statue was found during the Antiquities Service Excavations of 1924–1925, in contemporary inscriptions, he is called Netjerikhet, meaning divine of body. Later sources, which include a New Kingdom reference to his construction, help confirm that Netjerikhet, more significantly, the English Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson has demonstrated that burial seals found at the entrance to Khasekhemwys tomb in Abydos name only Djoser, rather than Nebka. This supports the view that it was Djoser who buried and, hence, directly succeeded Khasekhemwy and this is also suggested by another jar sealing, dating to Djosers reign, calling her Mother of the King of the Two Lands. Her cult seems to have still been active in the reign of Sneferu. Inetkawes was their only known by name. There was also a royal female attested during Djosers reign. The relationship between Djoser and his successor, Sekhemkhet, is not known, and the date of his death is uncertain, manetho states Djoser ruled Egypt for twenty-nine years, while the Turin King List states it was only nineteen years. Because of his many building projects, particularly at Saqqara. Manethos figure appears to be accurate, according to Wilkinsons analysis. Unfortunately, next to all entrances are illegible today, the Year of coronation is preserved, followed by the year events receiving the twin-pillars and stretching the cords for the fortress Qau-Netjerw. Djoser dispatched several military expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula, during which the inhabitants were subdued. He also sent expeditions there to mine for minerals such as turquoise. This is known from inscriptions found in the desert there, sometimes displaying the banner of Seth alongside the symbols of Horus, the Sinai was also strategically important as a buffer between the Nile valley and Asia. His most famous monument was his step pyramid, which entailed the construction of several mastaba tombs one over another and these forms would eventually lead to the standard pyramid tomb in the later Old Kingdom. Some fragmentary reliefs found at Heliopolis and Gebelein mention Djosers name, also, he may have fixed the southern boundary of his kingdom at the First Cataract
6.
Sanakht
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Sanakht was an ancient Egyptian king of the Third Dynasty during the Old Kingdom. His chronological position is uncertain, and it is also unclear under which Hellenized name the ancient historian Manetho could have listed him. Many Egyptologists connect Sanakht with the cartouche name Nebka. However, this remains disputable, because no further royal title of king was ever found, neither in contemporary sources. There are two fragments depicting Sanakht that once originated from the Wadi Maghareh on the Sinai Peninsula. Sanakhts identity and position in the third Dynasty is not entirely clear and these discoveries establish that it was likely Djoser who helped bury—and thus succeed—Khasekhemwy, rather than Sanakht. This is determined from seals found at the entrance to the latters tomb bearing Djosers name, Sanakht could then have married Queen Nimaethap, with Nimaethap being the daughter of Khasekhemwy rather than his wife. Together with Sanakht, they could be the parents of Djoser, alternatively, some have considered Sanakht to be Djosers elder brother. Presently, the dominant theory is that Sanakhts reign dates to the later Third Dynasty, Egyptologists Toby Wilkinson, Stephan Seidlmayer, Kenneth Kitchen and Rainer Stadelmann equate Sanakht with Nebka, a name appearing in Ramesside king lists. In support of this theory is a clay seal fragment on which the part of a cartouche appears. In this cartouche Wilkinson, Seidlmayer and Stadelmann see traces of a Ka-sign, john D. Degreef, Nabil Swelim and Wolfgang Helck are against equating Nebka with Sanakht. They refer to the fact that the name Nebka is not attested on any monument nor in any document dating to before Djoser, instead, Nabil Swelim identifies Nebka with the Horus name Khaba. He further identifies Sanakht with a king Mesochris mentioned by Manetho and he dated Sanakhts reign to between the seventh and eighth king of the 3rd dynasty. Jürgen von Beckerath, Wolfgang Helck, Dietrich Wildung and Peter Kaplony proposed that Sanakhts horus name is that of the shadowy Horus Sa, from this Wolfgang Helck holds that Sanakhts Nisut-Biti name was Weneg. King Weneg however, is widely hold to have ruled during the 2nd Dynasty, Sanakhts name was once read Hen Nekht by Egyptologists such as Ernest Wallis Budge. Today, this reading is not in use anymore, the reading is Sanakht or Nakht-Sa. The exact duration of Sanakhts time on the throne is unknown, unlike Djoser, few relics survive from his reign, which casts serious doubts on the traditional figure of 18 years of reign for this king, as given by both Manetho and the Turin Canon. The Turin Canon, for instance, was transcribed on papyri that dates to the reign of the New Kingdom king, Ramesses II, very little is known of Sanakhts activities during his reign
7.
Khaba
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Khaba was a pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, active during the 3rd dynasty of the Old Kingdom period. The exact time during which Khaba ruled is unknown but may have been around 2670 BC, King Khaba is considered to be difficult to assess as a figure of ancient Egypt. His name is archaeologically well-attested by stone bowls and mud seal impressions, Khabas reign is securely dated to the Third Dynasty. Because of the contradictions within Ramesside king lists and the lack of contemporary, festive inscriptions and these problems originate in part from contradictory king lists, which were all compiled long after Khabas death, especially during the Ramesside era. It is also a matter of debate as to where Khaba might have been buried, many Egyptologists and archaeologists propose that an unfinished step pyramid at Zawyet elAryan, known as the Layer Pyramid, belongs to him. Others believe instead that his tomb is a large mastaba close to the Layer Pyramid, Khabas name appears on nine polished stone bowls, variously made of magnesite, travertine, and diorite, which were found at the archaeological locales of Zawyet elAryan, Abusir, and Naga-ed-Deir. The bowls were found intact, they show only the kings serekh name on their polished surfaces. As was conventional at the time they were made, they contain no additional inscriptions for context and his name also appears on several mud seal impressions found at Quesna, Zawyet elAryan, Hierakonpolis, and Elephantine. Most of the mud seals were excavated at modern-day Elephantine, it is possible that more of them lie under the garden of the current museum of Elephantine. These seal impressions bear more inscriptions than the stone bowls, however most of the seals are only preserved as small fragments and their surfaces have been roughened over the years. Only one seal bears a well-preserved complete row of names or titles, the inscription alternates between Horus and Golden Horus names. Khaba is known by his serekh and Golden Horus name only and his Nisut-Bity title and his Nebty name are unknown. Aside from Khaba, the kings with Gold names who lived before king Sneferu, founder of the 4th dynasty, were Djer, Den, Nynetjer, Khasekhemwy. From Snefru onward, the Golden Horus name became a royal title to any ruling king. Khabas Golden Horus name can be found on seal impressions, although its correct reading. Peter Kaplony interprets it as Nub-iret or Nub iret-djedef, though he is unsure whether the syllable djedef was an inherent part of the name or an honorary title. Thomas Schneider and Jürgen von Beckerath, in contrast, see Khabas Golden Horus as Netjer-nub, Khabas Gold name is the first to show the infinitive form of the royal Gold name. Scholars face several problems in attempting to connect Khaba to royal names known from the Ramesside era, unfortunately, these lists offer no clear consensus about the number or names of the kings of the 3rd dynasty
8.
Ancient Egyptian royal titulary
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The royal titulary or royal protocol of an Egyptian pharaoh is the standard naming convention taken by the kings of Ancient Egypt. It symbolises worldly power and holy might and also acts as a sort of mission statement for the reign of a monarch. The full titulary, consisting of five names, did not come into standard usage until the Middle Kingdom, the Horus name is the oldest form of the pharaohs name, originating in the Predynastic Period. Many of the oldest-known Egyptian pharaohs were known only by this title, the Horus name was usually written in a serekh, a representation of a palace façade. The name of the pharaoh was written in hieroglyphs inside this representation of a palace, typically an image of the falcon God Horus was perched on top of or beside it. At least one Egyptian ruler, the 2nd dynasty Seth-Peribsen, used an image of the god Seth instead of Horus and he was succeeded by Khasekhemwy, who placed the symbols of both Seth and Horus above his name. Thereafter, the image of Horus always appeared alongside the name of the pharaoh, by the time of the New Kingdom the Horus name was often written without the enclosing serekh. The name is first definitively used by the First Dynasty pharaoh Semerkhet and this particular name was not typically framed by a cartouche or serekh, but always begins with the hieroglyphs of a vulture and cobra resting upon two baskets, the dual noun nebty. Also known as the Golden Horus Name, this form of the name typically featured the image of a Horus falcon perched above or beside the hieroglyph for gold. The meaning of this title has been disputed. One belief is that it represents the triumph of Horus over his uncle Seth, Gold also was strongly associated in the ancient Egyptian mind with eternity, so this may have been intended to convey the pharaohs eternal Horus name. Similar to the Nebty name, this particular name typically was not framed by a cartouche or serekh, the pharaohs throne name, the first of the two names written inside a cartouche, and usually accompanied the title nsw-bity. The term nsw-bity It has been suggested that the Berber term for strong man, the epithet neb tawy, Lord of the Two Lands, referring to valley and delta regions of Egypt, often occurs as well. This was the name given at birth and it was first introduced to the set of royal titles in the Fourth Dynasty and emphasizes the kings role as a representative of the solar god Ra. For women who became pharaoh, the title was interpreted as daughter also. Modern historians typically refer to the ancient kings of Egypt by this name, Middle Egyptian, An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Cairo, London, and New York, The American University in Cairo Press and Thames and Hudson. The Great Name, Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary, Egyptian Grammar, Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs
9.
Saqqara Tablet
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The Saqqara Tablet, now in the Egyptian Museum, is an ancient stone engraving which features a list of Egyptian pharaohs surviving from the Ramesside Period. It was found during 1861 in Egypt in Saqqara, in the tomb of Tjenry, the inscription lists 58 kings, from Anedjib and Qaa to Ramesses II, in reverse chronological order, omitting rulers from the Second Intermediate Period, the Hyksos, and those rulers. Who had been close to the heretic Akhenaten, the names, of which only 47 survive, are badly damaged. Inaccuracies abound, e. g. the tablet mentions only four kings of Dynasty 3, the chronology is correct only for the kings of Dynasty 12. The only known photograph of the king list was published in 1865, the names are listed in reverse chronological order from the upper right to the bottom left, as they were meant to be read. 143-145 Auguste Mariette, Monuments divers recueillis en Égypte et en Nubie, Paris 1872, Vol. II, Pl.58 Eduard Meyer, Ägyptische Chronologie, Pl
10.
Turin King List
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The Turin King List, also known as the Turin Royal Canon, is an Egyptian hieratic papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, now in the Museo Egizio in Turin. The papyrus is the most extensive list available of kings compiled by the Egyptians, the papyrus is believed to date from the reign of Ramesses II, during the middle of the New Kingdom, or the 19th Dynasty. The beginning and ending of the list are now lost, there is no introduction, the composition may thus have occurred at any subsequent time, from the reign of Ramesses II to as late as the 20th Dynasty. The papyrus lists the names of rulers, the lengths of reigns in years, with months, in some cases they are grouped together by family, which corresponds approximately to the dynasties of Manetho’s book. The list includes the names of rulers or those ruling small territories that may be unmentioned in other sources. The list also is believed to contain kings from the 15th Dynasty, the Hyksos who ruled Lower Egypt, the Hyksos rulers do not have cartouches, and a hieroglyphic sign is added to indicate that they were foreigners, although typically on King Lists foreign rulers are not listed. The papyrus was originally a tax roll, but on its back is written a list of rulers of Egypt – including mythical kings such as gods, demi-gods, and spirits, as well as human kings. As such, the papyrus is not supposed to be biased against certain rulers and is believed to all the kings of Egypt up through at least the 19th Dynasty. The papyrus was found by the Italian traveler Bernardino Drovetti in 1820 at Luxor, Egypt and was acquired in 1824 by the Egyptian Museum in Turin, when the box in which it had been transported to Italy was unpacked, the list had disintegrated into small fragments. Jean-Francois Champollion, examining it, could recognize only some of the larger fragments containing royal names, a reconstruction of the list was created to better understand it and to aid in research. Subsequent work on the fragments was done by the Munich Egyptologist Jens Peter Lauth, in 1997, prominent Egyptologist Kim Ryholt published a new and better interpretation of the list in his book, The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c. After another study of the papyrus, a version from Ryholt is expected. Despite attempts at reconstruction, approximately 50% of the papyrus remains missing and this papyrus as presently constituted is 1.7 m long and 0.41 m wide, broken into over 160 fragments. In 2009, previously unpublished fragments were discovered in the room of the Egyptian Museum of Turin, in good condition. A new edition of the papyrus is expected, the papyrus is divided into eleven columns, distributed as follows. The names and positions of several kings are still being disputed, List of lists of ancient kings List of pharaohs Palermo stone Alan Gardiner, editor. “Some remarks on Helcks Anmerkungen zum Turiner Konigspapyrus‘. “ Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 81, “The Date of the End of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. ”Journal of Near Eastern Studies 21, no. “A Genealogical Chronology of the Seventeenth Dynasty. ”Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 39, george Adam Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis p290 Contains a different translation of the Turin Papyrus in a chart about dynasty of gods
11.
Buried Pyramid
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The Buried Pyramid is an unfinished step pyramid constructed ca.2645 BC for Sekhemkhet Djoserty. This pharaoh was the second of the Third Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, many historians believe that the third dynasty played an important role in the transition from Early Dynastic Period of Egypt to the Age of the Pyramids. The pyramid may be visited, but the public is not allowed access to the base, Sekhemkhet Djoserty was also the successor to the better-known pharaoh Djoser, who was buried in his famous step pyramid at Saqqara. The buried pyramid was originally modelled after Djoser’s step pyramid and is located a few hundred metres southwest. It is also arguable that the pyramid of Sekhemkhet was originally designed to surpass the step pyramid of Djoser but barely made it above ground level and its incompletion is thought to have been due to Sekhemkhets short reign as ruler, which was approximately six years. The Buried Pyramid was an unknown structure until, in 1951. A three part rubble-coursed enclosure wall was first discovered, and by digging to its bottom, it was found to be 5,18 m tall and 18,28 m thick. He later discovered that the wall further extended on both sides to dimensions of 518 m in the axis and 182,8 m to the east-west and was full of false doors. The pyramid itself was located at the centre of the complex, with a length of 115 m. During the next stage of excavation, Goneim discovered a passage to the north side which led to a gallery blocked with rubble. There were a number of objects found during the excavation of this gallery including animal bones, demotic papyri, in a decayed wooden casket, gold was discovered which included gold bracelets, cosmetic cases, beads, and jars inscribed with Sekhemkhets name. When the blocked wall was breached, on May 31,1954, inside it, lay an alabaster sarcophagus cut from a single block with a vertical lid which seemed to still be sealed. However, on June 26,1954, after great difficulties to unblock and raise the lid, criticism of Goneim and his subsequent suicide on January 12,1959 dampened the interest in the pyramid and investigation was left incomplete. In 1963, the excavation was re-opened by Jean-Philippe Lauer due to the possibility of a south tomb, Lauer did indeed find a partially destroyed tomb under the southern side that at some point had been looted by robbers. He found a coffin with the remains of an unidentified two-year-old child and gold leaf fragments. Sekhemkhets pyramid complex was built southwest of Djosers at Saqqara, and it includes a pyramid, a subterranean structure, the name Imhotep appears on a section of the complexs enclosure wall. Its present state is similar to a mastaba, only reaching 2.43 m of height. The pyramids foundations stand upon a rock surface, leading the builders to try to level the terrain by building terraces
12.
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
13.
Old Kingdom of Egypt
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The term itself was coined by eighteenth-century historians and the distinction between the Old Kingdom and the Early Dynastic Period is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as the period from the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty, many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. During the Old Kingdom, the king of Egypt became a god who ruled absolutely and could demand the services. Under King Djoser, the first king of the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, the capital of Egypt was moved to Memphis. A new era of building was initiated at Saqqara under his reign, King Djosers architect, Imhotep is credited with the development of building with stone and with the conception of the new architectural form—the Step Pyramid. Indeed, the Old Kingdom is perhaps best known for the number of pyramids constructed at this time as burial places for Egypts kings. For this reason, the Old Kingdom is frequently referred to as the Age of the Pyramids, the first king of the Old Kingdom was Djoser of the third dynasty, who ordered the construction of a pyramid in Memphis necropolis, Saqqara. An important person during the reign of Djoser was his vizier and it was in this era that formerly independent ancient Egyptian states became known as nomes, under the rule of the king. The former rulers were forced to assume the role of governors or otherwise work in tax collection, Egyptians in this era worshipped their king as a god, believing that he ensured the annual flooding of the Nile that was necessary for their crops. Egyptian views on the nature of time during this period held that the worked in cycles. They also perceived themselves as a specially selected people, the Old Kingdom and its royal power reached a zenith under the Fourth Dynasty, which began with Sneferu. Using more stones than any king, he built three pyramids, a now collapsed pyramid in Meidum, the Bent Pyramid at Dahshur. However, the development of the pyramid style of building was reached not at Saqqara. Sneferu was succeeded by his son, Khufu who built the Great Pyramid of Giza, after Khufus death, his sons Djedefra and Khafra may have quarrelled. The latter built the pyramid and the Sphinx in Giza. Recent reexamination of evidence has led Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev to propose that the Sphinx had been built by Djedefra as a monument to his father Khufu, alternatively, the Sphinx has been proposed to be the work of Khafra and Khufu himself. There were military expeditions into Canaan and Nubia, with Egyptian influence reaching up the Nile into what is today the Sudan, the later kings of the Fourth Dynasty were king Menkaure, who built the smallest pyramid in Giza, Shepseskaf and, perhaps, Djedefptah. The Fifth Dynasty began with Userkaf and was marked by the importance of the cult of sun god Ra
14.
Tradition
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A tradition is a belief or behavior passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes, there are about 150 new traditions made each year. Traditions can persist and evolve for thousands of years—the word tradition itself derives from the Latin tradere or traderer literally meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. While it is assumed that traditions have ancient history, many traditions have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural. Various academic disciplines also use the word in a variety of ways, one way tradition is used more simply, often in academic work but elsewhere also, is to indicate the quality of a piece of information being discussed. For example, According to tradition, Homer was born on Chios and this tradition may never be proven or disproven. In another example, King Arthur, by tradition a true British king, has inspired many well loved stories, of course whether they are documented fact or not does not decrease their value as cultural history and literature. Aside from this use in describing the quality of information, various scholarly fields define the term differently, for example, anthropology and biology have each defined tradition it more precisely than in conventional, as described below, in order to facilitate scholarly discourse. The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse. For example, it is the basis of the concept of traditionalism. In artistic contexts, tradition is used to decide the correct display of an art form, for example, in the performance of traditional genres, adherence to guidelines dictating how an art form should be composed are given greater importance than the performers own preferences. A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, in response to this, tradition-preservation attempts have now been started in many countries around the world, focusing on aspects such as traditional languages. Tradition is usually contrasted with the goal of modernity and should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts. The English word tradition comes from the Latin traditio, the noun from the verb traderere or tradere, it was used in Roman law to refer to the concept of legal transfers. As with many other terms, there are many definitions of tradition. Tradition can also refer to beliefs or customs that are Prehistoric, with lost or arcane origins, originally, traditions were passed orally, without the need for a writing system. Tools to aid this process include poetic devices such as rhyme, the stories thus preserved are also referred to as tradition, or as part of an oral tradition. Even such traditions, however, are presumed to have originated at some point, Traditions are often presumed to be ancient, unalterable, and deeply important, though they may sometimes be much less natural than is presumed
15.
Given name
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A given name is a part of a persons personal name. It identifies a person, and differentiates that person from other members of a group, such as a family or clan. The term given name refers to the fact that the name usually is bestowed upon a person and this contrasts with a surname, which is normally inherited, and shared with other members of the childs immediate family. Given names are used in a familiar and friendly manner in informal situations. In more formal situations the surname is commonly used, unless it is necessary to distinguish between people with the same surname. The idioms on a basis and being on first-name terms allude to the familiarity of addressing another by a given name. The order given name – family name, commonly known as the Western order, is used throughout most European countries and in countries that have cultures predominantly influenced by Western Europe. The order family name – given name, commonly known as the Eastern order, is used in East Asia, as well as in Southern and North-Eastern parts of India. The order given name - fathers family name - mothers family name is used in Spanish-speaking countries to acknowledge the families of both parents. Today the order can also be changed legally in Spain using given name - mothers family name - fathers family name, under the common Western naming convention, people may have one or more forenames. If more than one, there is usually a main forename for everyday use, sometimes however two or more forenames may carry equal weight. There is no particular ordering rule for forenames – often the main forename is at the beginning, a childs given name or names are usually chosen by the parents soon after birth. If a name is not assigned at birth, one may be given at a ceremony, with family. In most jurisdictions, a name at birth is a matter of public record, inscribed on a birth certificate. In western cultures, people normally retain the same name throughout their lives. However, in some cases names may be changed by petitioning a court of law. People may also change their names when immigrating from one country to another with different naming conventions, in France, the agency can refer the case to a local judge. Some jurisdictions, like in Sweden, restrict the spelling of names, parents may choose a name because of its meaning
16.
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
17.
Step pyramid
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A step pyramid or stepped pyramid is an architectural structure that uses flat platforms, or steps, receding from the ground up, to achieve a completed shape similar to a geometric pyramid. Step pyramids are structures which characterized several cultures throughout history, in locations throughout the world. These pyramids typically are large and made of layers of stone. The term refers to pyramids of similar design that emerged separately from one another, ziggurats were huge religious monuments built in the ancient Mesopotamian valley and western Iranian plateau, having the form of a terraced step pyramid of successively receding stories or levels. There are 32 ziggurats known at, and near, Mesopotamia, twenty-eight of them are in Iraq, and four of them are in Iran. Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites and Assyrians as monuments to local religions, the earliest ziggurats probably date from the latter part of the Early Dynastic Period of Sumer. Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of fired bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological significance, kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven, with a shrine or temple at the summit, access to the shrine was provided by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. It was also called Hill of Heaven or Mountain of the gods, the earliest Egyptian pyramids were step pyramids. During the Third Dynasty of Egypt, the architect Imhotep designed Egypts first step pyramid as a tomb for the pharaoh and this structure, the Pyramid of Djoser, was composed of a series of six successively smaller mastabas, one on top of another. Later pharaohs, including Sekhemkhet and Khaba, built structures, known as the Buried Pyramid. In the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt, the Egyptians began to build true pyramids with smooth sides, the earliest of these pyramids, located at Meidum, began as a step pyramid built for Sneferu. Sneferu later made other pyramids, the Bent Pyramid and Red Pyramid at Dahshur, with this innovation, the age of Egyptian stepped pyramids came to an end. One of the structures of Igboland was the Nsude Pyramids, at the Nigerian town of Nsude. Ten pyramidal structures were built of clay/mud, the first base section was 60 ft. in circumference and 3 ft. in height. The next stack was 45 ft. in circumference, circular stacks continued, till it reached the top. The structures were temples for the god Ala/Uto, who was believed to reside at the top, a stick was placed at the top to represent the gods residence
18.
Saqqara
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Saqqara, also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English /səˈkɑːrə/, is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, serving as the necropolis for the Ancient Egyptian capital, Memphis. Saqqara features numerous pyramids, including the world-famous Step pyramid of Djoser, sometimes referred to as the Step Tomb due to its rectangular base, located some 30 km south of modern-day Cairo, Saqqara covers an area of around 7 by 1.5 km. At Saqqara, the oldest complete stone building known in history was built, Djosers step pyramid. Another 16 Egyptian kings built pyramids at Saqqara, which are now in states of preservation or dilapidation. High officials added private funeral monuments to this necropolis during the pharaonic period. It remained an important complex for non-royal burials and cult ceremonies for more than 3,000 years, well into Ptolemaic, north of the area known as Saqqara lies Abusir, south lies Dahshur. The area running from Giza to Dahshur has been used as a necropolis by the inhabitants of Memphis at different times, some scholars believe that the name Saqqara is not derived from the ancient Egyptian funerary god Sokar, but from a supposed local Berber Tribe called Beni Saqqar. The earliest burials of nobles can be traced back to the First Dynasty, during this time, the royal burial ground was at Abydos. The first royal burials at Saqqara, comprising underground galleries, date to the Second Dynasty, the last Second Dynasty king Khasekhemwy was buried in his tomb at Abydos, but also built a funerary monument at Saqqara consisting of a large rectangular enclosure, known as Gisr el-Mudir. It probably inspired the monumental enclosure wall around the Step Pyramid complex, Djosers funerary complex, built by the royal architect Imhotep, further comprises a large number of dummy buildings and a secondary mastaba. French architect and Egyptologist Jean-Philippe Lauer spent the part of his life excavating and restoring Djosers funerary complex. During the second half of the Old Kingdom, under the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, the Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids are not built of massive stone, but with a core consisting of rubble. They are consequently less well preserved than the world-famous pyramids built by the Fourth Dynasty kings at Giza, Unas, the last ruler of the Fifth Dynasty, was the first king to adorn the chambers in his pyramid with Pyramid Texts. It was custom for courtiers during the Old Kingdom to be buried in mastaba tombs close to the pyramid of their king, clusters of private tombs were thus formed in Saqqara around the pyramid complexes of Unas and Teti. Few private monuments from this period have been found at Saqqara, Pyramid of king Khendjer Pyramid of an unknown king During the New Kingdom Memphis was an important administrative and military centre, being the capital after the Amaran Period. From the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards many high officials built tombs at Saqqara, when still a general, Horemheb built a large tomb here, though he was later buried as Pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. Other important tombs belong to the vizier Aperel, the vizier Neferrenpet, the artist Thutmose and to Maia, many monuments from earlier periods were still standing, but dilapidated by this period. Prince Khaemweset, son of Pharaoh Ramesses II, made repairs to buildings at Saqqara, among other things, he restored the Pyramid of Unas and added an inscription to its south face to commemorate the restoration
19.
Sinai Peninsula
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The Sinai Peninsula or simply Sinai is a peninsula in Egypt, situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, serving as a land bridge between Asia and Africa. It is the part of Egyptian territory located in Asia. Sinai has an area of about 60,000 km2. The bulk of the peninsula is divided administratively into two of Egypts 27 governorates, the Sinai Peninsula has been a part of Egypt from the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. In periods of occupation, the Sinai was, like the rest of Egypt, also occupied and controlled by foreign empires, in more recent history the Ottoman Empire. Israel invaded and occupied Sinai during the Suez Crisis of 1956, on 6 October 1973, Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War to retake the peninsula, which was the site of fierce fighting between Egyptian and Israeli forces. Today, Sinai has become a tourist destination due to its setting, rich coral reefs. Mount Sinai is one of the most religiously significant places in Abrahamic faiths, in addition to its formal name, Egyptians also refer to it as Arḍ ul-Fairūz. The ancient Egyptians called it Ta Mefkat, or land of turquoise, Sinai is triangular in shape, with northern shore lying on the southern Mediterranean Sea, and southwest and southeast shores on Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. It is linked to the African continent by the Isthmus of Suez,125 kilometres wide strip of land, the eastern isthmus, linking it to the Asian mainland, is around 200 kilometres wide. The peninsulas eastern shore separates the Arabian plate from the African plate, the southernmost tip is the Ras Muhammad National Park. Most of the Sinai Peninsula is divided among the two governorates of Egypt, South Sinai and North Sinai, together, they comprise around 60,000 square kilometres and have a population of 597,000. Three more governates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt, Suez is on the end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia in the centre. The largest city of Sinai is Arish, capital of the North Sinai, other larger settlements include Sharm el-Sheikh and El-Tor, on the southern coast. Inland Sinai is arid, mountainous and sparsely populated, the largest settlements being Saint Catherine, Sinai is one of the coldest provinces in Egypt because of its high altitudes and mountainous topographies. Winter temperatures in some of Sinais cities and towns reach −16 °C, the mines were worked intermittently and on a seasonal basis for thousands of years. Modern attempts to exploit the deposits have been unprofitable and these may be the first historically attested mines. According to the Hebrew Bible, the peninsula was crossed by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt and this included numerous halts over a 40-year period of travel sometime towards the end of the Bronze Age
20.
Palermo Stone
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The Palermo Stone is one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty through to the part of the Fifth Dynasty. It was probably made during the Fifth dynasty, the Palermo Stone is held in the Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name. The term Palermo Stone is sometimes applied to all seven surviving fragments of the Royal Annals, including held in museums in Cairo. The fragments are also sometimes described collectively as the Cairo Annals Stone, the Royal Annals stele, of which the Palermo Stone formed part, may originally have been about 60 cm high and 2. 1m wide. The fragments are composed of a hard black stone, probably a form of basalt. The Palermo Stone itself is an irregular shield-shaped fragment,43.5 cm high,25 cm wide and 6.5 cm thick, the inscription on the front of the Palermo Stone consists of 6 horizontal bands or registers of hieroglyphic text running right to left. The first register lists the names of kings of Lower Egypt. The second register on the Palermo Stone begins with the final year entries for a king of the First Dynasty whose name is not preserved, but who is generally assumed to be either Narmer or Aha. The rest of the register is taken up with the first nine annual entries for this kings successor, who is again not named on the fragment. The remainder of the inscription on this continues with royal annals down to the kings of the Fourth Dynasty. The text continues on the back of the Palermo Stone, cataloguing events during the reigns of pharaohs down to Neferirkare Kakai, from the surviving fragments it is unclear whether the Royal Annals originally continued beyond this point in time. Where a king is named, the name of his mother is also recorded, such as Betrest mother of the First Dynasty king Semerkhet and Meresankh I mother of the Fourth Dynasty king Seneferu. Information recorded in the Royal Annals includes measurements of the height of the annual Nile flood, the Inundation, details of festivals, taxation, sculpture, buildings, the original location of the stele is unknown and none of the surviving fragments have a secure archeological provenance. One fragment now in Cairo is said to have found at an archaeological site at Memphis. No find site for the Palermo Stone itself has been suggested, the Palermo Stone was purchased by a Sicilian lawyer, Ferdinand Guidano, in 1859 and it has been in Palermo since 1866. On 19 October 1877, it was presented to the Palermo Archaeological Museum by the Guidano family, there are five fragments of the Royal Annals in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, four of which were acquired between 1895 and 1914. The fifth was purchased on the market in 1963
21.
Register (art)
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It is thus comparable to a row, or a line in modern texts. Common examples are from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as decoration scenes on objects, luwian language hieroglyphs were also represented in stone art, in registers. Another example, in Mesopotamian art, would be the stones called Kudurru, or boundary stones, libyan Palette, Former link 1, had 3 registers of Marching animals. Louvre block statue of Wahibre- Louvre statue, enlarge in Window--, accessed 1 June 2007. See also, Block statue Aramaic inscription-, Article
22.
Elephantine
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Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in southern Egypt. There are archaeological sites on the island, Elephantine island is 1,200 metres from north to south, and is 400 metres across at its widest point. The layout of this and other islands in Aswan can be seen from west bank hillsides along the Nile. The island is located just downstream of the First Cataract, at the border of Upper Egypt with Lower Nubia. This region above is referred to as Upper Egypt due to land and river elevations being higher than downstream, and than the Nile Delta region to the Mediterranean Sea. The island may have received its name after its shape, which in aerial views is similar to that of an elephant tusk and this is the meaning of the Greek word elephas. Known to the Ancient Egyptians as Abu or Yebu, the island of Elephantine stood at the border between Egypt and Nubia and it was an excellent defensive site for a city and its location made it a natural cargo transfer point for river trade. Elephantine was a fort that stood just before the first cataract of the Nile, during the Second Intermediate Period, the fort marked the southern border of Egypt. According to Egyptian mythology, here was the place of Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts. He was worshipped here as part of a late triad among the Egyptian pantheon of deities, the Elephantine Triad included Satis and Anuket. Satis was worshipped from very early times as a war goddess, when seen as a fertility goddess, she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile, which was identified as her daughter, Anuket. The cult of Satis originated in the ancient city of Swenet, later, when the triad was formed, Khnum became identified as her consort and, thereby, was thought of as the father of Anuket. His role in myths changed later and another deity was assigned his duties with the river, at that time his role as a potter enabled him to be assigned a duty in the creation of human bodies. Ongoing excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at the town have uncovered many findings, on display in the Aswan Museum located on the island, artifacts dating back to predynastic times have been found on Elephantine. A rare calendar, known as the Elephantine Calendar of Things, in ancient times, the island was also an important stone quarry providing granite materials that would be transported widely within Egypt for monuments and buildings. Prior to 1822, there were temples to Thutmose III and Amenhotep III on the island, at that time they were destroyed during the campaign of Muhammad Ali, who had taken power in Egypt, to Conquer Sudan. Both temples were relatively intact prior to the deliberate demolition, the first temple was the Temple of Satet, it was founded around 3000 BC and enlarged and renovated over the next 3000 years. There are records of an Egyptian temple to Khnum on the island as early as the third Dynasty of Egypt and this temple was completely rebuilt in the Late Period, during the thirtieth dynasty of Egypt, just before the foreign rule that followed in the Graeco-Roman Period
23.
Hedjet
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Hedjet is the formal name for the White Crown of pharaonic Upper Egypt. The crown was white and, after the unification of Egypt, it was combined with the Deshret, the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, to form the Pschent, the Double Crown of Egypt. The symbol sometimes used for the Hedjet was the vulture goddess Nekhbet shown next to the head of the cobra goddess Wadjet, the earliest image of the Hedjet was thought to have been in the Qustul in Nubia. According to Jane Roy, New evidence from Abydos, however, particularly the excavation of Cemetery U, Nekhbet, the tutelary goddess of Nekhebet near Hierakonpolis, was depicted as a woman, sometimes with the head of a vulture, wearing the White Crown. The falcon god Horus of Hierakonpolis was generally shown wearing a White Crown, a famous depiction of the White Crown is on the Narmer Palette found at Hierakonpolis in which the king of the South wearing the hedjet is shown triumphing over his northern enemies. The kings of the united Egypt saw themselves as successors of Horus, vases from the reign of Khasekhemwy show the king as Horus wearing the White Crown. As with the Deshret, no example of the White Crown has survived and it is unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used. Felt or leather have been suggested, but this is purely speculative, the fact that no crown has ever been found, even in relatively intact tombs might suggest that the crown was passed from one regent to the next, much as in present day monarchies. Atef - Hedjet Crown with feathers identified with Osiris Khepresh - Blue or War Crown also called Royal Crown Uraeus - Rearing Cobra N-red crown N-water ripple
24.
Deshret
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Deshret, from ancient Egyptian, was the formal name for the Red Crown of Lower Egypt and for the desert Red Land on either side of Kemet, the fertile Nile river basin. When combined with the Hedjet of Upper Egypt, it forms the Pschent, the Red Crown in Egyptian language hieroglyphs eventually was used as the vertical letter n. The original n hieroglyph from the Predynastic Period, and the Old Kingdom was the sign depicting ripples of water, in mythology, the earth deity Geb, original ruler of Egypt, invested Horus with the rule over Lower Egypt. The Egyptian pharaohs, who saw themselves as successors of Horus, other deities wore the deshret too, or were identified with it, such as the protective serpent goddess Wadjet and the creator-goddess of Sais, Neith, who often is shown wearing the Red Crown. The Red Crown would later be combined with the White Crown of Upper Egypt to form the Double Crown, symbolizing the rule over the whole country, as concerns deshret, the Red Land which comprised the deserts and foreign lands surrounding Egypt, Seth was its lord. It was considered a region of chaos, without law and full of dangers, none of the red crowns have survived, and it is unknown how it was constructed and what materials were used. Copper, reeds, cloth, and leather have been suggested, the Red Crown frequently is mentioned in texts and depicted in reliefs and statues. An early example is the depiction of the victorious pharaoh wearing the deshret on the Narmer Palette, a label from the reign of Djer records a royal visit to the shrine of the Deshret which may have been located at Buto in the Nile delta. The ancient Egyptian Red Crown, the Deshret crown, is one of the oldest Egyptian hieroglyphs, as an iconographic element, it is used on the famous Narmer Palette of Pharaoh Narmer as the Red Crown of the Delta, the Delta being Lower Egypt. The first usage of the Red Crown was in iconography as the symbol for Lower Egypt with the Nile Delta, later it came to be used in the Egyptian language – as an alphabetic uniliteral, vertical form for letter n as a phoneme or preposition. It became functional in running hieroglyphic texts, where either the horizontal or vertical form preposition satisfied space requirements, the Red Crown is also used as a determinative, most notably in the word for deshret. It is also used in words or names of gods. One older use of the red crown hieroglyph is to make the word, Egyptian in is used at the beginning of a text and translates as, Behold. or Lo. and is an emphatic. In the 198 BC Rosetta Stone, the Red Crown as hieroglyph has the usage mostly of the form of the preposition n. Visually it is also a hieroglyph that takes up more space-, so it may have a purpose of a less compact text. The Red Crown hieroglyph is used 35 times in the Rosetta Stone and it averages once per line usage in the 36 line Decree of Memphis -. Deshret, the Red Crown of the Pharaoh Gardiners Sign List#S. Crowns, Dress, Staves, Gardiners Sign List Deshret in hieroglyphic writing Budge. An Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary, E. A. Wallace Budge, c 1978, the Rosetta Stone, E. A. Wallace Budge, c 1929, Dover edition,1989
25.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
26.
Turquoise
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Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl648·4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone, in recent times, turquoise has been devalued, like most other opaque gems, by the introduction onto the market of treatments, imitations, and synthetics. Pliny the Elder referred to the mineral as callais and the Aztecs knew it as chalchihuitl, the finest of turquoise reaches a maximum Mohs hardness of just under 6, or slightly more than window glass. Characteristically a cryptocrystalline mineral, turquoise almost never forms single crystals and its crystal system is proven to be triclinic via X-ray diffraction testing. With lower hardness comes lower specific gravity and greater porosity, These properties are dependent on grain size, the lustre of turquoise is typically waxy to subvitreous, and transparency is usually opaque, but may be semitranslucent in thin sections. Colour is as variable as the other properties, ranging from white to a powder blue to a sky blue. The blue is attributed to idiochromatic copper while the green may be the result of either iron impurities or dehydration, a reading of 1. 61–1.65 has been taken from rare single crystals. An absorption spectrum may also be obtained with a spectroscope, revealing a line at 432 nm. Under longwave ultraviolet light, turquoise may occasionally fluoresce green, yellow or bright blue, it is inert under shortwave ultraviolet, Turquoise is insoluble in all but heated hydrochloric acid. Its streak is a bluish white and its fracture is conchoidal. Despite its low relative to other gems, turquoise takes a good polish. Turquoise may also be peppered with flecks of pyrite or interspersed with dark, as a secondary mineral, turquoise apparently forms by the action of percolating acidic aqueous solutions during the weathering and oxidation of preexisting minerals. In the Southwestern United States turquoise is almost invariably associated with the products of copper sulfide deposits in or around potassium-feldspar-bearing porphyritic intrusives. In some occurrences alunite, potassium sulfate, is a prominent secondary mineral. Turquoise is nearly always cryptocrystalline and massive and assumes no definite external shape, crystals, even at the microscopic scale, are exceedingly rare. Typically the form is vein or fracture filling, nodular, or botryoidal in habit, Turquoise may also pseudomorphously replace feldspar, apatite, other minerals, or even fossils. Odontolite is fossil bone or ivory that has been thought to have been altered by turquoise or similar phosphate minerals such as the iron phosphate vivianite. Intergrowth with other copper minerals such as chrysocolla is also common
27.
Foot (unit)
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The foot is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement. Since 1959, both units have been defined by international agreement as equivalent to 0.3048 meters exactly, in both systems, the foot comprises 12 inches and three feet compose a yard. Historically the foot was a part of local systems of units, including the Greek, Roman, Chinese, French. It varied in length from country to country, from city to city and its length was usually between 250 mm and 335 mm and was generally, but not always, subdivided into 12 inches or 16 digits. The United States is the industrialized nation that uses the international foot and the survey foot in preference to the meter in its commercial, engineering. The foot is legally recognized in the United Kingdom, road signs must use imperial units, the measurement of altitude in international aviation is one of the few areas where the foot is widely used outside the English-speaking world. The length of the international foot corresponds to a foot with shoe size of 13,14,15.5 or 46. Historically the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length. The foot of a male is typically about 15. 3% of his height, giving a person of 160 cm a foot of 245 mm. These figures are less than the used in most cities over time. Archeologists believe that the Egyptians, Ancient Indians and Mesopotamians preferred the cubit while the Romans, under the Harappan linear measures, Indus cities during the Bronze Age used a foot of 13.2 inches and a cubit of 20.8 inches. The Egyptian equivalent of the measure of four palms or 16 digits—was known as the djeser and has been reconstructed as about 30 cm. The Greek foot had a length of 1⁄600 of a stadion, one stadion being about 181.2 m, the standard Roman foot was normally about 295.7 mm, but in the provinces, the pes Drusianus was used, with a length of about 334 mm. Originally both the Greeks and the Romans subdivided the foot into 16 digits, but in later years, after the fall of the Roman Empire, some Roman traditions were continued but others fell into disuse. In AD790 Charlemagne attempted to reform the units of measure in his domains and his units of length were based on the toise and in particular the toise de lÉcritoire, the distance between the fingertips of the outstretched arms of a man. The toise has 6 pieds each of 326.6 mm, at the same time, monastic buildings used the Carolingian foot of 340 mm. The procedure for verification of the foot as described in the 16th century by Jacob Koebel in his book Geometrei, the measures of Iron Age Britain are uncertain and proposed reconstructions such as the Megalithic Yard are controversial. Later Welsh legend credited Dyfnwal Moelmud with the establishment of their units, the Belgic or North German foot of 335 mm was introduced to England either by the Belgic Celts during their invasions prior to the Romans or by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th & 6th century
28.
Cubit
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The cubit is an ancient unit based on the forearm length from the middle finger tip to the elbow bottom. Cubits of various lengths were employed in many parts of the world in antiquity, during the Middle Ages, the term is still used in hedge laying, the length of the forearm being frequently used to determine the interval between stakes placed within the hedge. The English word cubit comes from the Latin noun cubitus elbow, from the verb cubo, cubare, cubui, cubitum to lie down, the ancient Egyptian royal cubit is the earliest attested standard measure. Cubit rods were used for the measurement of length, a number of these rods have survived, two are known from the tomb of Maya, the treasurer of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Tutankhamun, in Saqqara, another was found in the tomb of Kha in Thebes. Fourteen such rods, including one double cubit rod, were described and compared by Lepsius in 1865. These cubit rods range from 523.5 to 529.2 mm in length, and are divided into seven palms, each palm is divided into four fingers and the fingers are further subdivided. Use of the royal cubit is also known from Old Kingdom architecture, in 1916, during the last years of the Ottoman Empire and in the middle of World War I, the German assyriologist Eckhard Unger found a copper-alloy bar while excavating at Nippur. The bar dates from c.2650 BC and Unger claimed it was used as a measurement standard and this irregularly formed and irregularly marked graduated rule supposedly defined the Sumerian cubit as about 518.6 mm. The Near Eastern or Biblical cubit is usually estimated as approximately 457.2 mm, in ancient Greek units of measurement, the standard forearm cubit measured approximately 0.46 m. The short forearm cubit, from the wrist to the elbow, in ancient Rome, according to Vitruvius, a cubit was equal to 1 1⁄2 Roman feet or 6 palm widths. Other measurements based on the length of the forearm include some lengths of ell, the Chinese chi, the Japanese shaku, the Indian hasta, the Thai sok, the Tamil, the Telugu, a cubit arm in heraldry may be dexter or sinister. It may be vested and may be shown in positions, most commonly erect. It is most often used erect as a crest, for example by the families of Poyntz of Iron Acton, Rolle of Stevenstone, the Encyclopaedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture. The Cubit, A History and Measurement Commentary, Journal of Anthropology doi,10. 1155/2014/489757,2014 Media related to Cubit arms at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of cubit at Wiktionary
29.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
30.
Mastaba
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A mastaba or pr-djt is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward sloping sides, constructed out of mud-bricks or stone. These edifices marked the sites of many eminent Egyptians during Egypts Early Dynastic Period. In the Old Kingdom epoch, local kings began to be buried in pyramids instead of in mastabas, egyptologists call these tombs mastaba, which is the Arabic word for stone bench. The afterlife was a focus of Egyptian civilization and ruled every aspect of the society. This is reflected in their architecture and most prominently by the amounts of time, money. Ancient Egyptians believed the soul could live only if the body was preserved from corruption and depredation as well as fed, starting from the Predynastic era and into the later dynasties, the ancient Egyptians developed increasingly complex and effective methods for preserving and protecting the bodies of the dead. The Ancient Egyptians initially began by burying their dead in pit graves dug out from the sand, the body of the deceased was buried inside the pit on a mat, usually along with some items believed to help them in the afterlife. The first tomb structure that the Egyptians built was the mastaba, mastabas provided better protection from scavenging animals and grave robbers. However, the remains were not in contact with the dry desert sand. Use of the more secure mastabas required Ancient Egyptians to devise a system of artificial mummification, until at least the Old Period or First Intermediate Period, only high officials and royalty would be buried in these mastabas. The word mastaba comes from the Arabic word for a bench of mud, historians speculate that the Egyptians may have borrowed architectural ideas from Mesopotamia since at the time they were both building similar structures. The above-ground structure of a mastaba is rectangular in shape with inward-sloping sides, the exterior building materials were initially bricks made of sun dried mud, which was readily available from the Nile River. Even after more durable materials like stone came into use, all, mastabas were often about four times as long as they were wide, and many rose to at least 30 feet in height. The mastaba was built with an orientation, which the Ancient Egyptians believed was essential for access to the afterlife. This above-ground structure had space for an offering chapel equipped with a false door. Inside the mastaba, a chamber was dug into the ground and lined with stone. The burial chambers were cut deep, until they passed the bedrock, the mastaba housed a statue of the deceased that was hidden within the masonry for its protection. High up the walls of the serdab were small openings that would allow the ba to leave and return to the body, Ancient Egyptians believed the ba had to return to its body or it would die
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Sarcophagus
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A sarcophagus is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek σάρξ sarx meaning flesh, since lithos is Greek for stone, lithos sarcophagos means, flesh-eating stone. The word also came to refer to a kind of limestone that was thought to decompose the flesh of corpses trapped within it. Sarcophagi were most often designed to remain above ground, in Ancient Egypt, a sarcophagus acted like an outer shell. They are made of clay in shades of brown to pink. Added to the basin-like main sarcophagus is a broad, rectangular frame, often covered with a white slip and then painted. The huge Lycian Tomb of Payava, now in the British Museum, is a tomb monument of about 360 BC designed for an open-air placing. However, there are many important Early Christian sarcophagi from the 3rd to 4th centuries, most Roman examples were designed to be placed against a wall and are decorated on three of the sides only. More plain sarcophagi were placed in crypts, of which the most famous include the Habsburg Imperial Crypt in Vienna. The term tends to be often used to describe Medieval, Renaissance. They continued to be popular into the 1950s, at time the popularity of flat memorials made them obsolete. Nonetheless, a 1952 catalog from the industry still included 8 pages of them, broken down into Georgian and Classical detail, a Gothic and Renaissance adaptation. Shown on the right are sarcophagi from the late 19th century located in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the one in the back, the Warner Monument created by Alexander Milne Calder, features the spirit or soul of the deceased being released. In Sulawesi, Indonesia, waruga are a form of sarcophagus. Mont Allen, Sarcophagus, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Michael Gagarin, R. R. R. Smith, Sculptured for Eternity, Treasures of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Art from Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Ewald, Living with Myths, The Imagery of Roman Sarcophagi, egyptian sarcophagi sarcaphagi in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Sarcophagus
32.
Alabaster
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Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft and often used for carving, as well as being processed for plaster powder. The term is used in different ways by archaeologists and the processing industry on the one hand. The first use is in a meaning, covering varieties of two different minerals, the fine-grained massive type of gypsum, as well as the fine-grained banded type of calcite. Geologists only define the gypsum variety as alabaster, chemically, gypsum is a hydrous sulfate of calcium, while calcite is a carbonate of calcium. Both types of alabaster have broadly similar properties and they are usually light-coloured, translucent and soft stones that have been used throughout human history mainly for carving decorative artifacts. Onyx-marble must be understood as a traditional, but geologically inaccurate term, in general, ancient alabaster is calcite in the wider Middle East, including Egypt and Mesopotamia, while it is gypsum in medieval Europe. Modern alabaster is calcite, but may be either. Both are easy to work and slightly water-soluble and they have been used for making a variety of indoor artworks and carvings, as they will not survive long outdoors. Moreover, calcite alabaster, being a carbonate, effervesces when treated with hydrochloric acid, the origin of the word alabaster is in Middle English through Old French alabastre, in turn derived from the Latin alabaster, and that from Greek ἀλάβαστρος or ἀλάβαστος. The Greek words were used to identify a vase made of alabaster and this name may be derived further from the Ancient Egyptian word a-labaste, which refers to vessels of the Egyptian goddess Bast. She was represented as a lioness and frequently depicted as such in figures placed atop these alabaster vessels, other suggestions include derivation from the town of Alabastron in Egypt, described in sometimes contradictory manner by Roman-era authors Pliny and Ptolemy and whose location is not yet known. The purest alabaster is a material of fine uniform grain, but it often is associated with an oxide of iron. The coarser varieties of gypsum alabaster are converted by calcination into plaster of Paris, the softness of alabaster enables it to be carved readily into elaborate forms, but its solubility in water renders it unsuitable for outdoor work. If alabaster with a smooth, polished surface is washed with dishwashing liquid, it will become rough, dull and whiter, losing most of its translucency and lustre. The finer kinds of alabaster are employed largely as a stone, especially for ecclesiastical decoration and for the rails of staircases. Alabaster is mined and then sold in blocks to alabaster workshops, the effect of heating appears to be a partial dehydration of the gypsum. If properly treated, it closely resembles true marble and is known as marmo di Castellina. Alabaster is a stone and can be dyed into any colour or shade
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Mortar (masonry)
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In its broadest sense mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft mud or clay, such as used between mud bricks. Mortar comes from Latin mortarium meaning crushed, mortars are typically made from a mixture of sand, a binder, and water. The most common binder since the early 20th century is Portland cement, there are several types of cement mortars and additives. The first mortars were made of mud and clay, because of a lack of stone and an abundance of clay, Babylonian constructions were of baked brick, using lime or pitch for mortar. According to Roman Ghirshman, the first evidence of using a form of mortar was at the Mehrgarh of Baluchistan in Pakistan. The ancient sites of Harappan civilization of third millennium BCE are built with kiln-fired bricks, gypsum mortar, also called plaster of Paris, was used in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids and many other ancient structures. It is made from gypsum, which requires a firing temperature. It is therefore easier to make lime mortar and sets up much faster which may be a reason it was used as the typical mortar in ancient, brick arch. Gypsum mortar is not as durable as other mortars in damp conditions, in early Egyptian pyramids, which were constructed during the Old Kingdom, the limestone blocks were bound by mortar of mud and clay, or clay and sand. In later Egyptian pyramids, the mortar was made of gypsum or lime. Gypsum mortar was essentially a mixture of plaster and sand and was quite soft, in the Indian subcontinent, multiple cement types have been observed in the sites of the Indus Valley Civilization, such as the Mohenjo-daro city-settlement that dates to earlier than 2600 BCE. Bitumen mortar was used at a lower-frequency, including in the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro. Historically, building with concrete and mortar next appeared in Greece, the excavation of the underground aqueduct of Megara revealed that a reservoir was coated with a pozzolanic mortar 12 mm thick. This aqueduct dates back to c.500 BCE, pozzolanic mortar is a lime based mortar, but is made with an additive of volcanic ash that allows it to be hardened underwater, thus it is known as hydraulic cement. The Greeks obtained the volcanic ash from the Greek islands Thira and Nisiros, or from the then Greek colony of Dicaearchia near Naples, the Romans later improved the use and methods of making what became known as pozzolanic mortar and cement. Even later, the Romans used a mortar without pozzolana using crushed terra cotta, introducing aluminum oxide and this mortar was not as strong as pozzolanic mortar, but, because it was denser, it better resisted penetration by water. Hydraulic mortar was not available in ancient China, possibly due to a lack of volcanic ash, around 500 CE, sticky rice soup was mixed with slaked lime to make an inorganic−organic composite mortar that had more strength and water resistance than lime mortar. It is not understood how the art of making hydraulic mortar and cement, during the Middle Ages when the Gothic cathedrals were being built, the only active ingredient in the mortar was lime
34.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
35.
Inch
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The inch is a unit of length in the imperial and United States customary systems of measurement now formally equal to 1⁄36 yard but usually understood as 1⁄12 of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia, inch is also used to translate related units in other measurement systems. The English word inch was a borrowing from Latin uncia not present in other Germanic languages. The vowel change from Latin /u/ to English /ɪ/ is known as umlaut, the consonant change from the Latin /k/ to English /tʃ/ or /ʃ/ is palatalisation. Both were features of Old English phonology, inch is cognate with ounce, whose separate pronunciation and spelling reflect its reborrowing in Middle English from Anglo-Norman unce and ounce. In many other European languages, the word for inch is the same as or derived from the word for thumb, the inch is a commonly used customary unit of length in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It is also used in Japan for electronic parts, especially display screens, for example, three feet two inches can be written as 3′ 2″. Paragraph LXVII sets out the fine for wounds of various depths, one inch, one shilling, an Anglo-Saxon unit of length was the barleycorn. After 1066,1 inch was equal to 3 barleycorns, which continued to be its legal definition for several centuries, similar definitions are recorded in both English and Welsh medieval law tracts. One, dating from the first half of the 10th century, is contained in the Laws of Hywel Dda which superseded those of Dyfnwal, both definitions, as recorded in Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, are that three lengths of a barleycorn is the inch. However, the oldest surviving manuscripts date from the early 14th century, john Bouvier similarly recorded in his 1843 law dictionary that the barleycorn was the fundamental measure. He noted that this process would not perfectly recover the standard, before the adoption of the international yard and pound, various definitions were in use. In the United Kingdom and most countries of the British Commonwealth, the United States adopted the conversion factor 1 metre =39.37 inches by an act in 1866. In 1930, the British Standards Institution adopted an inch of exactly 25.4 mm, the American Standards Association followed suit in 1933. By 1935, industry in 16 countries had adopted the industrial inch as it came to be known, in 1946, the Commonwealth Science Congress recommended a yard of exactly 0.9144 metres for adoption throughout the British Commonwealth. This was adopted by Canada in 1951, the United States on 1 July 1959, Australia in 1961, effective 1 January 1964, and the United Kingdom in 1963, effective on 1 January 1964. The new standards gave an inch of exactly 25.4 mm,1.7 millionths of a longer than the old imperial inch and 2 millionths of an inch shorter than the old US inch. The United States retains the 1/39. 37-metre definition for survey purposes and this is approximately 1/8-inch in a mile
36.
Egyptian Museum
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The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or Museum of Cairo, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with an amount on display. The edifice is one of the largest museums in the region, as of February 2017, the museum is open to the public. The Egyptian Museum of Antiquities contains many important pieces of ancient Egyptian history and it houses the world’s largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities. The Egyptian government established the museum, built in 1835 near the Ezbekeyah Garden, in 1855 Archduke Maximilian of Austria was given all of the artifacts by the Egyptian government, these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. A new museum was established at Boulaq in 1858 in a former warehouse, the building lay on the bank of the Nile River, and in 1878 it suffered significant damage in a flood of the Nile River. In 1891, the collections were moved to a royal palace. They remained there until 1902 when they were moved, for the last time, during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the museum was broken into, and two mummies were destroyed. Several artifacts were shown to have been damaged. Since then 25 objects have been found and those that were restored were put on display in September 2013 in an exhibition entitled Damaged and Restored. There are two floors in the museum, the ground floor and the first floor. On the ground there is an extensive collection of papyrus. The numerous pieces of papyrus are generally small fragments, due to their decay over the past two millennia, several languages are found on these pieces, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and ancient Egyptian. The coins found on floor are made of many different metals, including gold, silver. The coins are not only Egyptian, but also Greek, Roman and this has helped historians research the history of Ancient Egyptian trade. Also on the floor are artifacts from the New Kingdom. These artifacts are generally larger than items created in earlier centuries, two special rooms contain a number of mummies of kings and other royal family members of the New Kingdom. In the garden adjacent to the building of the museum a memorial to famous egyptologists of the world is located, the Murder of Tutankhamen, A True Story
37.
Jean-Philippe Lauer
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Jean-Philippe Lauer, was a French architect and Egyptologist. He was considered to be the foremost expert on pyramid construction techniques and he was born in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France to a wealthy family of Alsacian origins. He studied architecture, but his cousin Jacques Hardy, an architect working in Egypt, Lauer thus arrived in Egypt in 1926 where Pierre Lacau, then head of Supreme Council of Antiquities, gave him an 8-month position assisting Cecil Mallaby Firths work on Djosers Step Pyramid. His collaboration with Firth working very well, Lauers position was regularly renewed, there he met Marguerite Jouguet, the daughter of the renowned Hellenist Pierre Jouguet, who had been appointed director of the Institut Français dArchéologie Orientale. Monsieur Jouguet had published translations of many Greek papyri found in Egypt, J. P. Lauer married Marguerite on October 1,1929 in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. Firth died in 1931 and was replaced by James E. Quibell. Five years later in 1936, less than a year after Quibells death, Lauers position was not renewed, in the 1950s, J. P. Lauer worked in close association with his friend Zakaria Goneim on the step pyramid of Sekhemkhet. Later, in 1959, he helped Goneim clear his name on allegations that he had smuggled a vessel discovered by Lauer, in 1963, together with Jean Leclant, he founded the Mission Archéologique Française de Saqqâra which is still active to this day. Aged more than 90 and still working onsite he was nicknamed « the forgotten of God » by Egyptian workers, J. P. Lauers main work during his 75 years in Saqqara was the restoration of Djosers mortuary complex in particular the serdab and the enclosure wall. He is also known for his excavations of the chambers of the step pyramid. He died aged 99 in 15th arrondissement of Paris, the blue faience chambers, discovered in J. P. Lauer J. P. La pyramide à degrés, I et II, l’architecture, Fouilles à Saqqarah, Service des antiquités de lÉgypte, la pyramide à degrés, III, compléments, Fouilles à Saqqarah, Service des antiquités de lÉgypte, Le Caire,1939. Le temple funéraire de Khéops à la grande pyramide de Guizèh, n°46, ASAE, Études complémentaires sur les monuments du roi Djoser à Saqqarah, cahier 9, Supplément, ASAE, Le Caire,1948. Le problème des pyramides dÉgypte, traditions et légendes, Bibliothèque historique, Payot, note complémentaire sur le temple funéraire de Khéops, n°49, ASAE, Le Caire,1949. In collaboration with Ch. Picard, Les statues ptolémaïques du Sarapieion de Memphis, n°3, Publications dart et darchéologie de luniversité de Paris, PUF, Le temple haut de la pyramide du roi Ouserkaf à Saqqarah, n°53, ASAE, Le Caire,1956. In collaboration with Pierre Lacau, Fouilles à Saqqarah, la pyramide à degrés, IV, Inscriptions gravées sur les vases,2 fasc. Observations sur les pyramides, Bibliothèque d’étude, n°30, IFAO, histoire monumentale des pyramides dÉgypte, I, Les pyramides à degrés, n°39, BdE, IFAO, Le Caire,1962. In collaboration with Pierre Lacau, Fouilles à Saqqarah, la pyramide à degrés, V, Inscriptions à lencre sur les vases, PIFAO, Le Caire,1965
38.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
39.
Naqada III
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Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Egyptian prehistory, dating approximately from 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation and they would more probably have been completely unrelated and very possibly in competition with each other. In this period, those names were inscribed in the form of serekhs on a variety of surfaces including pottery. The Protodynastic Period in ancient Egypt was characterised by a process of political unification. Furthermore, it is during this time that the Egyptian language was first recorded in hieroglyphs, there is also strong archaeological evidence of Egyptian settlements in southern Canaan during the Protodynastic Period, which are regarded as colonies or trading entrepôts. State formation began during this era and perhaps even earlier, various small city-states arose along the Nile. Centuries of conquest then reduced Upper Egypt to three states, Thinis, Naqada, and Nekhen. Sandwiched between Thinis and Nekhen, Naqada was the first to fall, nekhens relationship with Thinis is uncertain, but these two states may have merged peacefully, with the Thinite royal family ruling all of Egypt. The Thinite kings were buried at Abydos in the Umm el-Qaab cemetery, most Egyptologists consider Narmer to be both the last king of this period and the first king of the First Dynasty. Southern Canaan as an Egyptian Protodynastic Colony, the Emergence of the Egyptian State. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press. The Prehistory of Egypt, From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs, the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Contacts Between Egypt and Syro-Palestine During the Protodynastic Period, biblical Archeologist, Perspectives on the Ancient World from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean. Http, //www. touregypt. net/featurestories/hdyn00. htm Unification Theories, Digital Egypt, UK, UCL
