A World Upturned

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Enmarch
Keyword(s):  
Reception History ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Human Motivation ◽  
The Core ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Egyptian Literature ◽  
Literary Composition

The Dialogue of Ipuwer and the Lord of All is one of the major works from the golden age of Egyptian literature, the Middle Kingdom (c. 1980–1630 bc). The poem provides one of the most searching explorations of human motivation and divine justice to survive from ancient Egypt, and its stark pessimism questions many of the core ideologies that underpinned the Egyptian state and monarchy. It begins with a series of laments portraying an Egypt overwhelmed by chaos and destruction, and develops into an examination of why these disasters should happen, and who bears responsibility for them: the gods, the king, or humanity. This volume provides the first full literary analysis of this poem for a century. It provides a detailed study of questions such as: its date of composition; its historicity; the identity of its protagonists and setting; its reception history within Egyptian culture; and whether it really is a unified literary composition, or a redacted collection of texts of heterogenous origin.

The Oxford Handbook of the Prophets

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Book Of The Twelve ◽  
Ritual Practices ◽  
Political Disputes

This volume explores historical, literary, and ideological dimensions of the books of the Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve—along with Daniel. The prophetic books comprise oracles, narratives, and vision reports from ancient Israel and Judah spanning several centuries. Analysis of these texts sheds light on the cultural norms, theological convictions, and political disputes of Israelite and Judean communities in the shadow of the empires of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia. ThisHandbookfeatures discussion of ancient Near Eastern social and cultic contexts; exploration of focused topics such as divination and other ritual practices of intermediation; textual criticism of the prophetic books, constructions of the persona of the prophet, and the problem of violence in prophetic rhetoric; historical and literary analysis of key prophetic texts; issues in reception history, from early reinterpretation of prophetic texts at Qumran and readings in rabbinic midrash to medieval ecclesial interpretations and modern Christian homiletical appropriations; and feminist, womanist, materialist, postcolonial, and queer readings of prophetic texts in conversation with contemporary theorists.

Mathematics in Ancient Egypt

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Imhausen
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Knowledge ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Unit Fractions ◽  
Egyptian Culture ◽  
Mathematical Techniques ◽  
Egyptian History

This book traces the development of Egyptian mathematics, from the end of the fourth millennium BC—and the earliest hints of writing and number notation—to the end of the pharaonic period in Greco-Roman times. The book surveys three thousand years of Egyptian history to present an integrated picture of theoretical mathematics in relation to the daily practices of Egyptian life and social structures. It shows that from the earliest beginnings, pharaonic civilization used numerical techniques to efficiently control and use their material resources and labor. Even during the Old Kingdom, a variety of metrological systems had already been devised. By the Middle Kingdom, procedures had been established to teach mathematical techniques to scribes in order to make them proficient administrators for their king. The book looks at counterparts to the notation of zero, suggests an explanation for the evolution of unit fractions, and analyzes concepts of arithmetic techniques. It draws connections and comparisons to Mesopotamian mathematics, examines which individuals in Egyptian society held mathematical knowledge, and considers which scribes were trained in mathematical ideas and why. Of interest to historians of mathematics, mathematicians, Egyptologists, and all those curious about Egyptian culture, the book sheds new light on a civilization's unique mathematical evolution.

The Business of Rhyming: Burma-Shave Poetry and Popular Culture

PMLA ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-47
Author(s):  
Mike Chasar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Advertising Campaign ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
The Core ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Creative Forces

This essay uses the example of the long‐lived and popular Burma‐Shave advertising campaign to argue that literary critics should extend their attention to the vast amounts of poetry written for advertising purposes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Burma‐Shave campaign—which featured sequences of rhyming billboards erected along highways in the United States from 1926 to 1963—not only cultivated characteristics of literary and even avantgarde writing but effectively pressured that literariness into serving the commercial marketplace. At the same time, as the campaign's reception history shows, the spirit of linguistic play and innovation at the core of Burma‐Shave's poetry unintentionally distracted consumers' attention away from the commercial message and toward the creative forces of reading and writing poetry. A striking example of popular reading practices at work, this history shows how poetry created even in the most commercial contexts might resist the commodification that many twentieth‐century poets and critics feared. (MC)

The Practice of Literature

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Eyre
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Formal Structure ◽  
Egyptian Literature ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Contemporary Practice

This chapter discusses the ways in which a literary criticism for Ancient Egypt can be embedded in the contemporary practice of literature. This is distinguished from a criticism rooted in visions of literature as an autonomous artefact of culture. It examines evidence for the practitioners of literature and their audience, modes and occasions of reading, degrees of formal structure (including use of metre), genre, and the nature of publication, to argue that oral and written literature were not separate categories, either of practice or cultural evolution. It is emphasised that criticism of Egyptian literature needs to focus on the manner of its recitation against its survival as a written artefact, and that genres of ritual and rhetoric overlap in form and performance with those of narrative, lyric, and instruction.

Amarna: Urban Manufacture of Luxury Items

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna K. Hodgkinson
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Capital City ◽  
North West ◽  
Far North ◽  
The Core ◽  
The North ◽  
The Far East ◽  
Royal Road ◽  
The City

Little is necessary in terms of an introduction, since Amarna is one of the best-known settlements of ancient Egypt. The city was founded by pharaoh Amenhotep IV, known from his fifth regal year as Akhenaten, on his move away from Thebes and Memphis to found a new religious and administrative capital city. Akhenaten reigned approximately between 1348 and 1331 BC, and his principal wife was Nefertiti. Akhenaten’s direct successor appears to have been a figure named Smenkhare (or Ankhkheperure) who was married to Akhenaten’s daughter Meritaten. Like Nefertiti, Smenkhare/Ankhkheperure held the throne name Nefernefruaten. For this reason it is uncertain whether this individual was Nefertiti, who may have reigned for some years after the death of Akhenaten, possibly even with a brief co-regency, or whether this was a son or younger brother of the latter. The rule of Smenkhare/Ankhkheperure was short, and he or she was eventually succeeded by Tutankhamun. The core city of Amarna was erected on a relatively flat desert plain surrounded by cliffs on the east bank of the Nile, in Middle Egypt, approximately 60km south of the modern city of Minia, surrounded by the villages et- Till to the north and el-Hagg Qandil to the south. The site was defined by at least sixteen boundary stelae, three of which actually stand on the western bank, past the edge of the modern cultivation. In total, the city measures 12.5km north–south on the east bank between stelae X and J, and c.8.2km west–east between the projected line between stelae X and J and stela S to the far east, which also indicates approximately the longitude of the royal tomb. The distance between stelae J and F, to the far south-west, measures c.20km, and between stelae X and A, to the far north-west 19.2km. The core city, which is the part of the settlement examined in this section, was erected along the Nile, on the east bank, and it is defined by the ‘Royal Road’, a major thoroughfare running through the entire core city north–south.

scholarly journals Continuous prayer in Catherine of Siena

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana L. Villegas
Keyword(s):  
Formal Education ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
The Self ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
14Th Century ◽  
The Core

Catherine of Siena offers considerable wisdom regarding continuous prayer. However, this wisdom in not well known because it is scattered among her texts, including over 373 letters, and is expressed in images and metaphors, the product of oral communication by a 14th-century woman with no formal education. Through a literary analysis of original texts, I will show the interconnection among the meanings of her symbolic communications, offering a narrative about continuous prayer. I will explore the meaning of inner cell and time spent in this cell for knowledge of self and God. I will show how this dual knowledge results in transformation of the deepest motivation at the core of the person. Living consciously and for God’s kingdom out of this transformed core of the self constitutes continuous prayer.

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.

Work Organization in the Middle Kingdom, Ancient Egypt

Organization ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 497-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Ezzamel
Keyword(s):  
Work Organization ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Middle Kingdom

scholarly journals Molecular study on human tuberculosis in three geographically distinct and time delineated populations from ancient Egypt

2003 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. R. ZINK ◽  
W. GRABNER ◽  
U. REISCHL ◽  
H. WOLF ◽  
A. G. NERLICH
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Study ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Tuberculous Spondylitis ◽  
Tissue Samples ◽  
Intermediate Period ◽  
Early Dynastic ◽  
Systemic Spread ◽  
Different Populations

We describe the molecular identification of human tuberculosis (TB) from vertebral bone tissue samples from three different populations of ancient Egypt. The specimens were obtained from the predynastic to early dynastic necropolis of Abydos (7 individuals, c. 3500–2650 B.C.), from a Middle Kingdom to Second Intermediate Period tomb of the necropolis of Thebes-West (37, c. 2100–1550 B.C.) and from five further Theban tombs used in the New Kingdom and the Late Period (39, c. 1450–500 B.C.). A total of 18 cases tested positive for the presence of ancient DNA (aDNA) of the M. tuberculosis complex. Out of the 9 cases with typical macromorphological signs of tuberculous spondylitis, 6 were positive for mycobacterial aDNA (66·7%). Of 24 cases with non-specific pathological alterations, 5 provided a positive result (20·8%). In 50 cases of normally appearing vertebral bones 7 tested positive (14·0%). There were only minor differences in the frequencies between the three populations. These data strongly support the notion that tuberculosis was present and prevalent in ancient Egypt since very early periods of this civilization. The unexpectedly high rate of mycobacterial aDNA in normal bone samples is presumably due to a pre- to perimortal systemic spread of the bacteria and indicates a generalized infection by M. tuberculosis.

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