1. Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Ian Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Political Origins

‘Introduction’ provides an overview of ancient Egypt, beginning with the discovery of the Narmer Palette in 1898. The Narmer Palette is one of a few surviving artefacts from the Nile Valley which can act as microcosms of certain aspects of ancient Egyptian culture as a whole. For the next century or so, this object would be variously interpreted by Egyptologists attempting to solve numerous different problems, from the political origins of the Egyptian state to the nature of Egyptian art and writing. It is important to consider Greek and Roman view of Egypt and consider the link between ancient Egypt and the Bible. The emergence of Egyptology is a fascinating area to explore.

The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Current State ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Current Characteristics ◽  
The Many ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Egyptian History

The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology presents a series of articles by colleagues working across the many archaeological, philological and cultural subdisciplines within the study of ancient Egypt from prehistory through to the end of the Roman Period. The volume seeks to place Egyptology within its theoretical, methodological, and historical contexts, both indicating how the subject has evolved and discussing its distinctive contemporary problems, issues and potential. Transcending conventional boundaries between archaeological and ancient textual analysis, it stresses the need for Egyptology to seek multidisciplinary methods and broader collaborations if it is to remain contemporary and relevant. It therefore serves as a reference work not only for those working within the discipline, but also as a gateway into Egyptology for archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists and linguists. The book is organized into ten parts, the first of which examines the many different historical and geographical perspectives that have influenced the development and current characteristics of the discipline. Part II addresses the various environmental aspects of the subject: landscapes, climate, flora, fauna and the mineral world. Part III considers a variety of practical aspects of the ways in which Egyptologists survey, characterize and manage landscapes. Part IV discusses materials and technology, from domestic architecture and artefacts through to religious and funerary items. Part V deals with Egypt’s relations with neighbouring regions and peoples, while Part VI explores the sources and interpretive frameworks that characterize different phases of ancient Egyptian history. Part VII is concerned with textual and iconographic approaches to Egyptian culture, and Part VIII comprises discussions of the key aspects of ancient Egyptian scripts and philology. Part IX presents summaries of the current state of the subject in relation to a variety of textual genres, from letters and autobiographies to socio-economic, magical and mathematical texts. The final section covers different aspects of museology and conservation.

2. Reconstructing ancient Egypt

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Ian Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Amarna Letters ◽  
People’S Perceptions

‘Reconstructing ancient Egypt’ discusses the challenge of reconstructing ancient Egypt. New paradigms have been adopted by different generations of Egyptologists, gradually transforming the accepted picture of ancient Egyptian culture. Moreover, new methods, such as innovative excavation techniques or sophisticated processes of scientific analysis, have, at various times, altered people's perceptions of the surviving evidence from ancient Egypt. An important question to ask is: what can geology and archaeology reveal about the origins of the Narmer Palette? The discoveries of the Avaris frescos and the Amarna Letters, as well as the excavations of Flinders Petrie, are all important parts of this history.

Linear Statecraft along the Nile: Landscapes and the Political Phenomenology of Ancient Egypt

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 101-126
Author(s):  
Monica L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Intensification ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
The Political ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Island States ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Multiple Regions

Abstract States in archaeological and historical parlance generally are large and dynamic entities with continually fluctuating borders and boundaries across large land masses. States also are characterized by multiple nodes of settlement and multiple regions of resource availability within those large land masses, including agricultural fields, animal pastures, raw materials, and labor power. The northeastern African continent however provides a rather different spatial configuration for states’ prerequisites of agricultural intensification and social integration: the ancient Egyptian state—and all subsequent political entities called “Egypt”—have been framed by the valley of the Nile as a long and narrow corridor of human viability. Using “flow” as a phenomenological concept in which experiences are heightened by restraint conditions, this article examines the characteristics of political and social cohesion given geographic limitations on communication, migration and territorial expansion. The constraints of a viable landmass surrounded by uninhabitable desert parallel the conditions experienced by island states, enabling the productive application of island and archipelagic models to the analysis of the ancient Egyptian state.

Egyptology in China

2020 ◽  
pp. 64-78
Author(s):  
Li Xiaodong
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Great Contribution ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Chinese Perspective ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Chinese Scholars

Egyptology as a discipline developed very late in China, in the 1930s, and from this point onwards, the laying of the foundations of Egyptology took another three generations of effort. This late arrival of the discipline has made it difficult for Chinese scholars to make a great contribution to the development of Egyptology, especially since the history of Egyptology has an almost 200-year legacy in Europe and America. However, the Chinese perspective could help towards an understanding of ancient Egypt from a more global and comparative viewpoint. This chapter sets out a comparative study between the two great civilizations of China and Egypt as an important analytical method, focusing particularly on the comparison between the approaches the two writing systems followed when they invented their written characters, an aspect which reveals detailed ideas about ancient Egyptian culture and society.

scholarly journals Sacrifice of God in Ancient Egypt: Myth and Ritual

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 382-394
Author(s):  
T. Sherkova
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Binary Logic ◽  
Twin Brother ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
The Sacrifice

Mythological beliefs about the first victim are archetypal for ancient cultures. According to ancient Egyptian mythology it is the god Osiris — the first mythical king of Egypt — who became the first victim having been killed by his twin brother Seth. Binary logic of the mythological consciousness based on the beliefs about conflicts and reconciliation of opposites has solved the problem of overcoming death through the sacrifice of Osiris. The image of Osiris based on the cult of ancestors, twin motive and sacrifice of bull. Osiris personified the spirit cosmogony of Ancient Egyptian culture.

scholarly journals Effect of Egyptian Culture on the Design of Jewelry (Cultural Design Based on Ancient Egyptian Patterns)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eman Ramadan ◽  
◽  
YuWu ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Cultural Design ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Satellite Channels ◽  
Cultural Subjectivity ◽  
And Behavior

We are now living in an era in which modern media and advanced technology, including satellites, satellite channels, and the information network, are intensifying, all of which are working to dissolve cultural subjectivity and remove popular legacies to replace them with Western cultural values ??and behavior patterns. Hence, the Egyptian researcher sees the necessity of reviving contemporary inspired, where every civilization in history has its own culture and pattern which always reflects civilization and expresses their lives and beliefs. Herein, we will mention about the ancient Egyptian civilization, in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium BCE. It has many achievements, which preserved in its art and monuments. It holds a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. This article focuses on ancient Egyptian culture through the patterns of their beliefs, and how did these patterns affect the designs of the jewelry, and how we can benefit from these patterns in the creation of innovative designs. Here, we focused on the Egyptian pattern because of its great importance in ancient Egypt. Besides, its distinctive shapes enable us to create new modern designs for this era.

scholarly journals Ancient Egypt Focuses on “Cultural Memory”

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 393-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Sherkova
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Symbolic Language ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
The World ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Cultural Texts

The existence of culture is impossible without memory as a supra-individual intellectual and communicative system in synchronous and diachronic dimensions. From semiotics in pre-written (as in unwritten) cultures, all facts, phenomena, events, objects, etc., are natural and cultural texts, as they contain information encrypted in image-symbolic language, which explains the mythological consciousness of the cultures of antiquity. In this context, this article examines the forms of keeping in the collective memory of the basic spiritual values of the culture. The basis of myth-religious ideas was the idea of returning to the origins, of the great-time creation of the world. This sacred time was repeated in rituals, cementing the identity of the population of ancient Egyptian culture through centuries and millennia. The main channels of cultural memory keeping were temples and texts and rituals. The king responsible for the prosperity of society played a key role. The cult of the ruling and deceased king had a cosmogony basis. The notions of the cyclical movement of time, the victory of order over chaos were reflected at all levels and spheres of society. The central model of an orderly world with a dedicated core was a model for social structure, temple buildings, burial complexes of elite necropolises, rites, compositions on ritual objects. Cultural memory kept ancient symbols, placing them in the contexts of subsequent eras, as a reminder of the ancient, eternal foundations of culture.

How Religious were the Ancient Egyptians?

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry J. Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Secular Society

Ancient Egyptian culture was permeated by statements, symbolic and direct, which defined a world of deities and divine power. They amounted to a form of knowledge that was largely divorced from general personal behaviour and which afforded little recognition of individual experience. Furthermore, although practical provision for survival after death was important, life seems not to have offered a quest for enlightenment through enhanced knowledge of the divine. The exemplary life was a career pursued in what was basically a secular society. Our use of the term ‘religion’ for ancient Egypt, whilst justifiable as a convenience, clearly covers a relationship between belief and behaviour which is distinctive for its place and time. In this article, several kinds of evidence for religious behaviour in ancient Egypt are examined in an attempt to assess the nature and strength of the commitment that they represent. The question of whether the populace at large lived by reference to a world of superstitious gesture which has left little evidence behind is only briefly touched upon.

Ancient Egyptian fauna

2015 ◽  
pp. 150-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salima Ikram
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
The Future ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
Key Indicators ◽  
Vast Range

The vast range of animals found in ancient Egypt not only contributed to creating its language and religion, but they were also a mainstay of its economy, and played key roles in daily life, ranging from providers of food to companionship. They are also key indicators in our understanding of the changing environment. The study of Egyptian fauna can thus elucidate many aspects of ancient Egyptian culture. This chapter outlines the sources available for the study of animals in Egypt, such as artistic images, texts, and physical remains. It provides an overview of the history of Egyptian archaeozoology, outlines current methods, and goes on to look at the future of this discipline within Egyptology.

The Use and Misuse of Religious Language: Zionism and the Palestinians

2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Wetherell
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Title Deed ◽  
History Of ◽  
Land Question

Every discipline which deals with the land question in Canaan-Palestine-Israel is afflicted by the problem of specialisation. The political scientist and historian usually discuss the issue of land in Israel purely in terms of interethnic and international relations, biblical scholars concentrate on the historical and archaeological question with virtually no reference to ethics, and scholars of human rights usually evade the question of God. What follows is an attempt, through theology and political history, to understand the history of the Israel-Palestine land question in a way which respects the complexity of the question. From a scrutiny of the language used in the Bible to the development of political Zionism from the late 19th century it is possible to see the way in which a secular movement mobilised the figurative language of religion into a literal ‘title deed’ to the land of Palestine signed by God.

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