Ancient Egypt: Difference between revisions
rm unsourced un-English |
No edit summary |
||
Line 6: | Line 6: | ||
Most of the [[geography of Egypt]] is in [[North Africa]], although the [[Sinai Peninsula]] is in [[Southwest Asia]]. The country has shorelines on the [[Mediterranean Sea]] and the [[Red Sea]]; it borders [[Libya]] to the west, [[Sudan]] to the south, and the [[Gaza Strip]], [[Palestine]] and [[Israel]] to the east. The [[Nile]] River, around which much of the population of the country clusters, has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since the [[Stone Age]] [[Naqada]] culture. |
Most of the [[geography of Egypt]] is in [[North Africa]], although the [[Sinai Peninsula]] is in [[Southwest Asia]]. The country has shorelines on the [[Mediterranean Sea]] and the [[Red Sea]]; it borders [[Libya]] to the west, [[Sudan]] to the south, and the [[Gaza Strip]], [[Palestine]] and [[Israel]] to the east. The [[Nile]] River, around which much of the population of the country clusters, has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since the [[Stone Age]] [[Naqada]] culture. |
||
Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as [[Upper and Lower Egypt]]. Counterintuitively, Upper Egypt was in the south and Lower Egypt was in the north; "Upper" and "Lower" pertained to the flow of the Nile, which heads north toward the Mediterranean, and not to north and south. [[Nome (Egypt)|Nomes]] were the subnational administrative divisions. The Pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Kingdoms, |
Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as [[Upper and Lower Egypt]]. Counterintuitively, Upper Egypt was in the south and Lower Egypt was in the north; "Upper" and "Lower" pertained to the flow of the Nile, which heads north toward the Mediterranean, and not to north and south. [[Nome (Egypt)|Nomes]] were the subnational administrative divisions. The Pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Kingdoms.Two Kingdoms formed Kemet ("the black"), the name for the dark soil deposited by the Nile floodwaters. The desert was called Deshret ("the red"), c.f. Herodotus "Egypt is a land of black soil...We know that Libya is a redder earth." (Histories, 2:12). But Herodotus also says "the Colchians are Egyptians...on the fact that they are black-skinned and have wooly hair." (Histories Book 2:104), and Champollion the Younger (who deciphered the Rossetta stone) in Expressions et Termes Particuliers (Expression of Particular Terms) claims that Kmt does not actually refer to the soil, but to a negroid population in the sense of "Black Nation". |
||
viz. upper and lower Egypt. |
|||
==History== |
==History== |
Revision as of 16:02, 30 August 2005
Ancient Egypt as a general historical term broadly refers to the civilization of the Lower Nile Valley, between the First Cataract and the mouths of the Nile Delta, from circa 3300 BC until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BC. As a civilization based on irrigation, it is the quintessential example of a hydraulic empire.
Geography
Most of the geography of Egypt is in North Africa, although the Sinai Peninsula is in Southwest Asia. The country has shorelines on the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea; it borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Gaza Strip, Palestine and Israel to the east. The Nile River, around which much of the population of the country clusters, has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since the Stone Age Naqada culture.
Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as Upper and Lower Egypt. Counterintuitively, Upper Egypt was in the south and Lower Egypt was in the north; "Upper" and "Lower" pertained to the flow of the Nile, which heads north toward the Mediterranean, and not to north and south. Nomes were the subnational administrative divisions. The Pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Kingdoms.Two Kingdoms formed Kemet ("the black"), the name for the dark soil deposited by the Nile floodwaters. The desert was called Deshret ("the red"), c.f. Herodotus "Egypt is a land of black soil...We know that Libya is a redder earth." (Histories, 2:12). But Herodotus also says "the Colchians are Egyptians...on the fact that they are black-skinned and have wooly hair." (Histories Book 2:104), and Champollion the Younger (who deciphered the Rossetta stone) in Expressions et Termes Particuliers (Expression of Particular Terms) claims that Kmt does not actually refer to the soil, but to a negroid population in the sense of "Black Nation".
viz. upper and lower Egypt.
History
- Main article: History of ancient Egypt
The ancient Egyptians themselves traced their origin to a land they called Punt, or "Ta Nteru" ("Land of the Gods"). Once commonly thought to be located on what is today the Somali coast, Punt now is thought to have been in either southern Sudan or Eritrea.
Following the predynastic period, variously held to begin with the Naqada culture, or the Lower Paleolithic, the history of Ancient Egypt proper started when Egypt was a unified state, sometime around 3000 BC.
Archaeological evidence indicates that a developed Egyptian society may have existed for much longer though. Along the Nile in the 10th millennium BC a grain-grinding culture using the earliest type of sickle blades had become replaced by another culture of hunters, fishers and gathering peoples using stone tools (see 10th millennium BC). Evidence also indicates human habitation in the southwestern corner of Egypt, near the Sudan border, before 8000 BC. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, eventually forming the Sahara (c.2500 BC), and early tribes naturally migrated to the Nile river where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society (see Nile: History). There is evidence of pastoralism and cultivation of cereals in the East Sahara in the 7th millennium BC (see 7th millennium BC). By 6000 BC ancient Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and constructing large buildings. Mortar (masonry) was in use by 4000 BC.
Egyptian chronology involves assigning beginnings and endings to various Dynasties. The conventional Egyptian chronology is the accepted developments during the 20th century but not including any of the major revision proposals that have also been made in that time. Even within a single work, often archeologists will offer several possible dates or even several whole chronologies as possibilities. Consequently, there may be discrepancies between dates shown here and in articles on particular rulers. Often there are also several possible spellings of the names.
- List of Pharaohs -- The Pharaohs stretch from before 3000 BC to around 30 BC.
- Dynasties (see also: List of Egyptian dynasties):
- Early Dynastic Period of Egypt (1st to 2nd dynasties; until ca. 27th century BC)
- Old Kingdom (3rd to 6th dynasties; 27th to 22nd centuries BC)
- First Intermediate Period (7th to 11th dynasties)
- Middle Kingdom of Egypt (11th to 14th dynasties; 20th to 17th centuries BC)
- Second Intermediate Period (14th to 17th dynasties)
- Hyksos (15th to 16th dynasties)
- New Kingdom of Egypt (18th to 20th dynasties; 16th to 11th centuries BC)
- Third Intermediate Period (21st to 25th dynasties; 11th to 7th centuries BC)
- Late Period of Ancient Egypt (26th to 31 dynasties; 7th century BC to 332 BC)
- Graeco-Roman Egypt (332 BC to AD 639)
Language
Language records of the Ancient Egyptian language have been dated to about 3000 BC. Most people refer to Egyptian hieroglyphs when they speak about Egyptian writing. It is uncertain if Egyptians were the first to invent writing and written language, via the Egyptian hieroglyph. It is debated as to why the Egyptians used hieroglyphs.
It is a common misconception that the hieroglyphs are pictures that represent ideas instead of the sounds of the language. While the shapes of the hieroglyphs are indeed taken from real (or imaginary) objects, most of them are used for their phonetic value. Hieratic is a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs first used during the 1st Dynasty (c. 2925 BC - c. 2775 BC). Demotic referes to both the ancient Egyptian script which followed hieratic and is the late stage of the Egyptian language that the Demotic script was used to write.
The oldest known alphabet was created in ancient Egypt.
Literature:
- Story of Sinuhe - Sinuhe, a deserter or hero
- Story of Wenamun
Literary:
- c.1800 BC - Ipuwer papyrus
- c.1800 BC - Papyrus Harris I
- c.2500 BC - Westcar Papyrus
Culture
The Egyptian religions, emboddied in Egyptian mythology, were a the succession of beliefs held by the people of Egypt until the coming of Christianity and Islam. This was conducted by Egyptian priests or magicians, but the use of magic and spells is questioned. The religious nature of Ancient Egyptian civilization influenced its contribution to the arts of the ancient world. Many of the great works of Ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and Pharaohs, who were also considered divine. Ancient Egyptian art in general is characterized by the idea of order.
Evidence of mummies and pyramids outside Ancient Egypt indicate reflections of ancient Egyptian belief values on other prehistoric cultures, transmitted in one way over the Silk Road.
Some scholars have speculated that Egypt's art pieces are sexually symbolic.
Ancient Egyptian peoples
Neolithic Egypt was probably inhabited by black African (Nilotic) peoples (as demonstrated by Saharan petroglyphs throughout the region). Following the desiccation of the Sahara, most black Africans migrated South into East and West Africa. The Aterian culture that developed here was one of the most advanced paleolithic societies. In the mesolithic the Capsian culture dominated the region with neolithic farmers becoming predominant by 6000 BC, see Predynastic Egypt.
The Ancient Egyptians spoke an Afro-Asiatic language, related to Chadic, Berber and Semitic languages. They recorded their origin as the Land of Punt (see Early Dynastic Period of Egypt). A recent genetic study links the maternal lineage of a traditional population from Upper Egypt to Eastern Africa [1]. A separate study further narrows the genetic lineage to Northeast Africa ([2]; reveals also that modern day Egyptians "reflect a mixture of European, Middle Eastern, and African"). The racial classification of Ancient Egyptians has come to play a role in the Afrocentrism debate in the USA (see Egypt and Black Identity for a discussion).
Ancient achievements
See Predynastic Egypt for inventions and other significant achievements in the Sahara region before the Protodynastic Period. For example the world's earliest known writing system dates to the predynastic era [3].
The art and science of engineering was present in Egypt, such as accurately determining the position of points and the distances between them (known as surveying). These skills were used to outline pyramid bases. The Egyptian pyramids took the geometric shape formed from a polygonal base and a point, called the apex, by triangular faces. Hydraulic Cement was first invented by the Egyptians. The Al Fayyum Irrigation (water works) was one of the main agricultural breadbaskets of the ancient world. There is evidence of ancient Egyptian pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty using the natural lake of the Fayyum as a reservoir to store surpluses of water for use during the dry seasons. From the time of the First dynasty or before, the Egyptians mined turquoise in Sinai Peninsula.
The earliest evidence (circa 1600 BC) of traditional empiricism is credited to Egypt, as evidenced by the Edwin Smith and Ebers papyri. The roots of the Scientific method may be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians are also credited with devising the world's earliest known alphabet, decimal system [4] and complex mathematical formularizations, in the form of the Moscow and Rhind Mathematical Papyri. An awareness of the Golden ratio seems to be reflected in many constructions, such as the Egyptian pyramids.
Government
The Ancient Egyptian state structure was headed by the pharaoh, who served as a monarch, spiritual leader, and commander-in-chief of the army and navy. The pharaoh was supposed to be divine; a connection between men and gods. Below him in the government, were the viziers (one for Upper Egypt and one for Lower Egypt) and various officials. Under him on the religious side were the high priest and various other priests. Generally, the position was handed down from father to eldest son. Sometimes this rule was broken and, occasionally, a woman came to power. [5]
Timeline
Predynastic Egypt
Dynastic
- 3300 BC - Bronze works (see Bronze Age)
- 3100 BC - Decimal system, [6], world's earliest (confirmed) use
- 3000 BC - Medical Institutions
- 3000 BC - Copper plumbing (see Copper: History)
- 3000 BC - Papyrus, world's earliest known paper
- 2900 BC - Senet, world's oldest (confirmed) board game
- 2700 BC - Surgery, world's earliest known
- 2700 BC - precision Surveying
- 2600 BC - Sphinx, still today the world's largest single-stone statue
- 2600 BC - Barge transportation, stone blocks (see Egyptian pyramids: Construction)
- 2600 BC - Pyramid of Djoser, world's earliest known large-scale stone building
- 2600 BC - Menkaure's Pyramid & Red Pyramid, world's earliest known works of carved granite
- 2600 BC - Red Pyramid, world's earliest known "true" smooth-sided pyramid; solid granite work
- 2580 BC - Great Pyramid of Giza, the world's tallest structure until AD 1300
- 2500 BC - Shipbuilding, world's earliest (direct) evidence (see Pharaoh Sahure: History, [7], [8])
- 2400 BC - Astronomical Calendar, used even in the Middle Ages for its mathematical regularity
- 1860 BC - possible Nile-Red Sea Canal (Twelfth dynasty of Egypt)
- 1800 BC - Alphabet, world's oldest known
- 1800 BC - Berlin Mathematical Papyrus, [9], 2nd order algebraic equations
- 1800 BC - Moscow Mathematical Papyrus, generalized formula for volume of frustrum
- 1650 BC - Rhind Mathematical Papyrus: geometry, cotangent analogue, algebraic equations, arithmetic series, geometric series
- 1600 BC - Edwin Smith papyrus, medical tradition traces as far back as c. 3000 BC
- 1550 BC - Ebers Medical Papyrus, traditional empiricism; world's earliest known documented tumors (see History of medicine)
- 1500 BC - Glass-making, world's earliest known
- 1160 BC - Turin papyrus, world's earliest known geologic and topographic map
- Other:
- c.2500 BC - Westcar Papyrus
- c.1800 BC - Ipuwer papyrus
- c.1800 BC - Papyrus Harris I
- c.1400 BC - Tulli Papyrus
- c.1300 BC - Brugsch Papyrus
- Unknown date - Rollin Papyrus
Open problems
There is a question as to the sophistication of ancient Egyptian technology, and there are several open problems concerning real and alleged ancient Egyptian achievements. Certain artifacts and records do not fit with conventional technological development systems. It is not known why there is no neat progression to an Egyptian Iron Age nor why the historical record shows the Egyptians taking so long to begin using iron. It is unknown how the Egyptians shaped and worked granite. The exact date the Egyptians started producing glass is debated.
Some question whether the Egyptians were capable of long distance navigation in their boats and when they become knowledgeable seamen. It is contentiously disputed as to whether or not the Egyptians had some understanding of electricity and if the Egyptians used engines or batteries. The relief at Dendera is interpreted in various ways by scholars. The topic of the Saqqara Bird is controversial, as is the extent of the Egyptians' understanding of aerodynamics. It is unknown for certain if the Egyptians had kites or gliders.
See also
- History of Egypt
- Egyptology
- Egyptian Museum
- List of Ancient Egyptians
- List of Ancient Egyptian sites
- List of ancient Egypt mysteries
- Mummies
- Pyramid sites
Further reading
- Manley, Bill (Ed.), "The Seventy Great Mysteries of Ancient Egypt". Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0500051232
- "Mysteries of Egypt" National Geographic Society, 1999, ISBN 0792297520
- Knapp, Ron, "Tutankhamun and the mysteries of ancient Egypt". Messner, 1979, ISBN 0671330365
- Jacq, Christian, "Magic and mystery in ancient Egypt". Souvenir Press, 1998, ISBN 0285634623
- Sitchin, Zecharia, "The earth chronicles expeditions : journeys to the mythical past". Bear & Co., 2004, ISBN 1591430364
- "Archibald's guide to the mysteries of ancient Egypt". Swfte International, Ltd., 1994. ISBN 1563059223
- Childress, David Hatcher, "Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients". Adventures Unlimited Pre, 2000, ISBN 0932813739
- Putnam, James "Mummy" Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides, 1993, ISBN 0751360074
External links
- "Egyptian Mythology". Information on Ancient Egyptian life, culture, and mythology
- "The Quick Guide to Ancient Egypt". Attic Designs, 2005.
- "Mysteries of Egypt". Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, 2001.
- Bayuk, Andrew, "Official Website for Dr. Zahi Hawass". Guardian, 2005.
- "Egyptian Mysteries". Can't Think of a Name Media, 2003.
- Orcutt, Larry, "Catchpenny Mysteries of Ancient Egypt". Catchpenny.org.
- Gray, Martin, "The Great Pyramid, Egypt". 2005.
- Dörnenburg, Frank, "Mysteries of the Past". 2004.
- Lee, Charles, and Frank Ling, "Egyptology ". Berkeley Groks Science Radio, Show June 30th, 2004.
- "Theban Mapping Project". 2005.
- Heinrich, Paul, et. al., "The Hall of Ma'at".
- Mike "The Antiquity of Man - Exploring human evolution and the dawn of civilisation". Antiquityofman.com
- "History of Ancient Egypt". Pages translated from the Arabic Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt.