|
|

In Ancient Egypt there were over 29 Kings and
Pharaohs and over 5 Queens. Some of the most famous kings and queens
were: King Tut, Cleopatra, and Nefertiti, Ramses II, Ramses III.
King
Tut or Tutankhamun (reigned 1343-1325 BC), Egyptian pharaoh
of the 18th dynasty, the son-in-law of Akhenaton, whom he succeeded.
He became Pharaoh about the age of 9 and ruled until his death; which
was about the age of 18. Peace was brought to Egypt during his reign
as the worship of Amon, abandoned under Akhenaton, was restored and
Thebes, the city sacred to Amon, was again made Egypt’s capitol.
Although he was not an important king, Tutankhamun is well known today
because of his tomb, containing fabulous treasurers, was found virtually
intact by the British archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon
in 1922.
Cleopatra
(69-30 BC), ill-fated queen of Egypt (51-30BC), celebrated for her
love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra, or more
precisely, Cleopatra VII, was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes,
king of Egypt. On her father's death in 51BC Cleopatra, then about
17 years old, and her brother, Ptolemy XIII, a child of about 12 years,
succeeded jointly to the throne of Egypt with the provision that they
should marry. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy, encouraged
by his advisers, assumed sole control of the government and drove
Cleopatra into exile. She promptly gathered an army in Syria but was
unable to assert her claim until the arrival at Alexandria of Julius
Caesar, who became her lover and espoused her cause. He was for a
time hard pressed by the Egyptians but ultimately triumphed, and in
47BC Ptolemy XIII was killed. Caesar proclaimed Cleopatra queen of
Egypt.
Cleopatra was forced to marry her younger brother by custom, Ptolemy
XIV, then about 11 years old. Later on in the marriage Antony killed
himself because of a false report that the queen had died. After hearing
that Antony killed himself Cleopatra then committed suicide, probably
by poison, or by tradition, the bite of an Asp.
Nefertiti, ancient Egyptian queen who was the chief
wife of Akhenaton, the pharaoh of Egypt, with whom she initiated many
religious, artistic, and cultural changes. Nefertiti may have exercised
the priestly office, a position normally reserved for kings.
Akhenaton, who reigned from about 1350 to 1334BC, was the first pharaoh
to establish worship of one god. He directed exclusive worship of
the sun god, Aton, of which Nefertiti was a devout follower. In honor
of Aton, Akhenaton changed his name to mean "beneficial to Aton"
(he was originally called Amenhotep IV) and established the capital
Akhetaton (now the site of Tall al ‘Amârinah). In the
12th year of Akhenaton’s reign, Nefertiti apparently fell from
favor and was replaced by Meritaten, one of her six daughters.
Ramses
II (reigned 1279-1212 BC), ancient Egyptian king, third ruler
of the 19th dynasty, the son of Seti I. During the early part of his
reign Ramses fought to reign the territory in Africa and Western Asia
that Egypt had held during the 16th and 15th centuries BC. His principle
opponents were the Hittites, a powerful people of Asia Minor, against
whom he waged a long war upon. The major battle of this war was fought
in 1274 at Kadesh, in Northern Syria, was hailed by Ramses as such
a great triumph. In 1258 BC a treaty was signed whereby the contested
lands were divided and Ramses agreed to marry the daughter of the
Hittite king.
The remaining years of his rule were distinguished by the construction
of such monuments as the rock-hewn temple of Abû Simbel, the
great hypostyle hall in the Temple of Amon at Al Karnak, and the mortuary
temple at Thebes, known as Ramesseum.
Ramses III (reigned 1182-1151 BC), Egyptian king
of the 20th dynasty, a great military leader who repeatedly saved
the country from invasion. In the 5th year of his reign, Ramses defeated
an attack by the Libyans from the west, and two years later he routed
invaders known as the Sea Peoples. In his 11th year he again repelled
an attempted attack by the Libyans. Ramses was also a builder of temples
and palaces in the tradition of his 19th-dynasty predecessor, Ramses
II. His victories are depicted on the walls of his mortuary temple
at Medinet Habu, near Luxor. Egyptian records tell of a strike by
workers at Ramses’s burial site and a plot against the king
near the end of his reign. Ramses III was the last of the great rulers
and after his death there were centuries of weakness and foreign domination.
Egyptian Gods,
Goddesses and Mythology |
Ancient Egyptian society treated men and women
equally. Women participated in the political, economic, and judicial
world of ancient Egypt on the same terms as men. This social system
reflects Egyptian mythology, where Goddesses played an equal, if not
chief, role. The primeval mother-figures in the earliest prehistoric
Egyptian myths are female. Female deities were kept separate from
the males, with their own temples and followers. Egyptian goddesses
are also creator deities, and the protectors of the pharaohs in the
form of the cobra, vulture, or linoness.
In ancient Egyptian mythology, Egypt was created from the Watery Waste
of Nun, a chaos god from whose body all things were born. The continuous
mission of the daily temple services and strictly followed religious
codes was to keep ordered Egyptian society from returning to the state
of chaos in which it was born. Ma'at, the goddess in charge of law,
balance and order, was one of the principal deities. The two "protectors
of the realm" of Egypt were originally Nekhbet, vulture goddess
of Northern Egypt, and Wadjet, cobra goddess of Lower Egypt. The cobra
and the vulture were chosen by the Egyptians as the royal symbols
because they were thought to be self-producing and therefore creators,
or divine.
Egyptian mythology is a complex collection of often competing stories,
traditions, and practices. This is partly because the culture is so
ancient, and partly because each city had its own set of deities,
whose unique personalities are lost as their cults age. Just as each
city vied for supreme power before Egypt was a unified kingdom, the
cities each tried to establish their gods as the supreme gods. Even
after unification, each time the capital moved, the supreme god of
the new city rose to be the supreme god of the kingdom.
Below, a table listing some of the many gods and goddesses of Egyptian
mythology. The deities are listed as closely as possible to the order
of their appearance in the myths, from oldest to newest.
An Introduction to Ancient Egyptian History |
Life in ancient Egypt was
centered largely on agriculture. The majority of the people were involved
in farming, and the growing season lasted eight-nine months. Wheat,
fruits and vegetables were the principal crops, although there was
some pastoral farming of cattle, sheep, or goats. Farmers in ancient
Egypt worked to reach a level of subsistence so that they could feed
themselves and pay their taxes. During the annual flooding of the
Nile, which typically lasted from July through November, farming was
impossible. But when the waters receded, a thick layer of fertile
silt over the farmlands remained to insure rich soil for their crops
and thick grasses for their grazing animals.
The
country of Egypt consisted of two narrow strips of arable land lining
either bank of the river Nile, from Aswan to the northern Delta. Just
beyond the farmlands lay enormous deserts. The Nile was the lifeblood
of Egypt. Its cycle of flooding -- growth, death, and rebirth to new
growth -- became the cycle of everyday life, and also of Egyptian
religion and understanding of an afterlife. The people of Egypt were
dependent on the river for more than their food. It insured a line
of communication and transportation among the provinces of the kingdom.
The pharaohs took advantage of the Nile as a means to transport their
armies, thus maintaining a strong, unified nation.
By 3100 BC, Egypt had a centralized government controlled by a line
of hereditary rulers. These kings, called pharaohs, kept a royal court
of advisors and nobility, and oversaw the governors of the provinces
of the kingdom. They were also commanders of the Egyptian army. Even
the priests and priestesses who officiated at the complex religious
ceremonies and attended on the gods served the pharaohs. The rule
of the pharaohs is considered dynastic; it can also be considered
absolute in the truest sense of the word. The pharaohs came to be
considered as the representatives of the gods on earth and even as
gods themselves.
The Hieroglyphic Alphabet |
The following table explains the significance
of the hieroglyphs and gives the phonetic equivalent of each in
English.
| Symbol |
Meaning |
English Sound |
|
vulture |
short A, as in cat |
|
forearm |
long A, as in table |
|
leg |
hard B, as in big |
|
basket,hillside |
hard C (K), as in call |
|
hobble rope |
CH, as in children |
|
hand |
hard D, as in dog |
|
two reed leaves |
long E, as in lead |
|
vulture |
short E, as in met |
|
horned viper |
F, as in flower |
|
pot stand |
hard G, as in gap |
|
cobra |
soft G, as in generous |
|
shelter, rope |
H, as in he, who |
|
reed leaf |
short & long I, as in him,
I'm |
|
cobra |
J, as in jelly |
|
basket, hillside |
hard C or K, as in kind, Christmas,
lack |
|
mouth |
L, as in lisp, linger |
|
owl |
M, as in milk, dumb |
|
water |
N, as in none |
|
quail chick |
long O, as in lose, moon |
|
vulture |
short O, as in brought, got |
|
stool |
P, as in pretty |
|
horned viper |
PH, as in pharaoh |
+
|
basket + quail |
Q, as in queen |
|
mouth |
R, as in red |
|
folded linen |
S, (soft C), as in silly, peace |
|
lake |
SH, as in shilling |
|
loaf of bread |
T, as in talk |
|
cow belly |
soft TH, as in moth |
|
(not known) |
hard TH, as in there |
|
quail chick |
short U, as in lull |
+
|
reed + quail |
long U, as in rule |
|
horned viper |
V, as in villain |
|
quail chick |
W, as in will, where, when |
+
|
basket + linen |
X, as in fox |
|
reed leaf |
short Y, as in yes |
|
two reed leaves |
long Y, as in tarry |
|
door fastening |
Z sound, as in xylophone, zany |
A new type of gifts, which the Nile offered
to Egypt at that time, was in the field of writing. Papyrus is a plant
that used to grow on the riverbank of the Nile and now is extinct.
It is one to three meters in height and has a woody, arom creeping
rhizome. Its leaves are long and sharp keeled and the upright flowering
stems are naked, soft and triangular in shape. The lower part of the
stem is as thick as a human arm and at the top is compound umbel of
numerous dropping spikelets with a whorl of eight leaves. This plant
was very important to ancient Egyptians. It was mainly used for production
of papyrus paper.
The special method to prepare this paper is
as follows:
| The stalks
of the papyrus plant are harvested |
 |
| Next the green skin
of the stalks is removed and the inner pith is taken out and cut
into strips. The strips are then pounded and soaked in water for
three days until pliable. |
 |
| The strips are then
cut to the length desired and laid horizontally over the horizontal
strips resulting in the criss-cross pattern in papyrus paper.
Another cotton sheet is placed on top. |
 |
| The sheet is put in
a press and squeezed together, with the cotton sheets being replaced
until all the moisture is removed. Finally, all the strips are
pressed together forming a single sheet of papyrus paper. |
 |
Ancient Egyptian Used
the papyrus as Writing Hieroglyphics on Papyrus Scroll, and Paintings
that are used for decoration.
Today, Papyrus papers are used to replicate some of the Ancient
Egyptian Papyrus art displayed in the Egyptian, Britich and world's
Museums. |
 |
A sheet a papyrus varies between 5 by 9 inches to 9 by 15 inches.
This production of paper factored in affecting the development of
Egyptian societies. Its method of production was kept secret thus
starting to have a monopoly on it. And they transported them and used
them for trade with others. Not only papyrus plants were used for
paper, they were used also in manufacturing boots, sandals, houses
and others.
|
 |