The
Egyptian rulers built giant mausoleums called Pyramids,
and other large monumental statues, such as the
Great Sphinx at Giza.
The bigger the pyramid, the more important the deity. As
their Gross National Product reduced, so too did the size of
their mausoleums.
For almost 30
centuries - from its unification around 3100 B.C. to its conquest by
Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.
- ancient Egypt was the preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world.
The main sources of information about ancient Egypt
are the many monuments, objects and artifacts that have been recovered
from archaeological sites, covered with hieroglyphs that have only
recently been deciphered. The picture that emerges is of a culture with
few equals in the beauty of its art, the accomplishment of its
architecture or the richness of its religious traditions.
Ancient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the
desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the
Nile River to support its
agricultural
population. The country’s chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the
Nile
valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the
Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day
Cairo.
Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert
that supported a certain amount of game. The river
Nile was Egypt’s sole
transportation artery.
What
lost treasures might we discover as the mysteries of the
ancients unfold. Televised
documentary programmes have done a great deal to make
history come to life. The search continues for more answers,
digging amongst the sands and diving around the shores.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ANCIENT EGYPT
1. CLEOPATRA WAS NOT EGYPTIAN
Along with King Tut, perhaps no figure is more famously associated with ancient Egypt than
Cleopatra
VII. But while she was born in Alexandria,
Cleopatra was actually part of a long line of Greek Macedonians
originally descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great’s most
trusted lieutenants. The
Ptolemaic Dynasty
ruled Egypt from 323 to 30 B.C., and most of its leaders remained
largely Greek in their culture and sensibilities. In fact, Cleopatra,
Queen
of the Nile, was famous for being one of the first members of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually speak the Egyptian language.
2. SACRED ANIMALS
Cats were considered sacred animals by the Ancient
Egyptians. It’s thought that most families kept a cat as a pet, which
they believed would bring the household good luck. Harming a cat
attracted harsh penalties for the
perpetrator.
3. INNOVATORS
The Ancient Egyptians invented lots of things we
still use today, such as paper, pens, locks and keys and even;
toothpaste. The colour blue was developed by the Egyptians.
Early chemical batteries may have been a thing, but
for what
purpose is not known.
4. THE EARLIEST PEACE TREATY ON RECORD
For over two centuries the Egyptians fought against
the Hittite Empire for control of lands in modern day Syria. The
conflict gave rise to bloody engagements like 1274 B.C.’s Battle of
Kadesh, but by time of the pharaoh Ramses II neither side had emerged as
a clear victor. With both the Egyptians and Hittites facing threats
from other peoples, in 1259 B.C. Ramses II and the Hittite King
Hattusili III negotiated a famous peace treaty. This agreement ended the
conflict and decreed that the two kingdoms would aid each other in the
event of an invasion by a third party. The Egyptian-Hittite treaty is
now recognized as one of the earliest surviving peace accords, and a
copy can even be seen above the entrance to the United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York.
5. THEY LOVED BOARD GAMES
After a long day’s work along the Nile River,
Egyptians often relaxed by playing board games. Several different games
were played, including “Mehen” and “Dogs and Jackals,” but perhaps the
most popular was a game of chance known as “Senet.” This pastime dates
back as far as 3500 B.C. and was played on a long board painted with 30
squares. Each player had a set of pieces that were moved along the board
according to throwing sticks (in the same way we throw dice) to see how
many squares to move your piece forward on the board. Historians still
debate Senet’s exact rules, but there is little doubt of the game’s
popularity. Paintings depict
Queen Nefertari playing Senet, and pharaohs like Tutankhamen even had game boards buried with them in their tombs.
Senet, was played for over 2,000 years!
6. ANCIENT EGYPTIAN WOMEN ENJOYED MANY HUMAN RIGHTS
While they may have been publicly and socially
viewed as inferior to men, Egyptian women enjoyed a great deal of legal
and financial independence. They could buy and sell property, serve on
juries, make wills and even enter into legal contracts. Egyptian women
did not typically work outside the home, but those who did usually
received equal pay for doing the same jobs as men. Unlike the women of
ancient Greece, who were effectively owned by their husbands, Egyptian
women also had the right to divorce and remarry. Egyptian couples were
even known to negotiate an ancient prenuptial agreement. These contracts
listed all the property and wealth the woman had brought into the
marriage and guaranteed that she would be compensated for it in the
event of a divorce.
7. EGYPTIAN WORKERS ORGANIZED LABOUR STRIKES
Even though they regarded the pharaoh as a kind of
living god, Egyptian workers were not afraid to protest for better
working conditions. The most famous example came in the 12th century
B.C. during the reign of the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses III. When
laborers engaged in building the royal necropolis at Deir el-Medina did
not receive their usual payment of grain, they organized one of the
first recorded strikes in history. The protest took the form of a
sit-in: The workers simply entered nearby mortuary temples and refused
to leave until their grievances were heard. The gamble worked, and the
laborers were eventually given their overdue rations.
8. PYRAMIDS WERE TOMBS FOR PHARAOHS
Most Ancient Egyptian pyramids were built as tombs
for pharaohs (rulers of Ancient Egypt) and their families. To date, over
130 pyramids have been discovered in Egypt.
9. THE AFTERLIFE WAS IMPORTANT TO THE EGYPTIANS
Much as with Christianity and going to heaven or
hell. The Egyptians believed that by preserving a dead person’s body –
which they did through the process of
mummification – their soul would live on in the
afterlife forever.
10. PHARAOHS WERE OFTEN OBESE
Egyptian art commonly depicts pharaohs as being trim
and statuesque, but this was most likely not the case. The Egyptian
diet of beer, wine, bread and honey was high in sugar, and studies show
that it may have done a number on royal waistlines. Examinations of
mummies have indicated that many Egyptian rulers were unhealthy and
overweight, and even suffered from diabetes. A notable example is the
legendary
Queen Hatshepsut,
who lived in the 15th century B.C. While her sarcophagus depicts her as
slender and athletic, historians believe she was actually obese and
balding.
11. THE PYRAMIDS WERE NOT BUILT BY SLAVES
The life of a pyramid builder certainly wasn’t easy -
skeletons of workers commonly show signs of
arthritis and other
ailments - but evidence suggests that the massive
tombs were built not by slaves but by paid laborers. These ancient
construction workers were a mix of skilled artisans and temporary hands,
and some appear to have taken great pride in their craft. Graffiti
found near the monuments suggests they often assigned humorous names to
their crews like the “Drunkards of Menkaure” or the “Friends of Khufu.”
The idea that slaves built the pyramids at the crack of a whip was first
conjured by the Greek historian Herodotus in the fifth century B.C.,
but most historians now dismiss it as myth. While the ancient Egyptians
were certainly not averse to keeping slaves, they appear to have mostly
used them as field hands and domestic servants.
In the modern world, many people are financial
slaves to
banks and kleptocrats.
12. KING TUT MAY HAVE DIED IN A HUNTING ACCIDENT
Surprisingly little is known about the life of the boy pharaoh
Tutankhamun,
but some historians believe they know how he died. Scans of the young
king’s body show that he was embalmed without his heart or his chest
wall. This drastic departure from traditional Egyptian burial practice
suggests that he may have suffered a horrific injury prior to his death.
According to a handful of Egyptologists, one of the most likely causes
for this wound would have been a bite from a
hippopotamus.
Evidence indicates that the Egyptians hunted the beasts for sport, and
statues found in King Tut’s tomb even depict him in the act of throwing a harpoon. If the boy pharaoh was indeed fond of stalking dangerous game, then his death might have been the result of a hunt gone wrong.
13. DENTISTS & OPTICIANS
An ancient physician was usually a
jack-of-all-trades, but evidence shows that Egyptian doctors sometimes
focused on healing only one part of the human body. This early form of
medical specialization was first noted in 450 B.C. by the traveler and
historian Herodotus. Discussing Egyptian medicine, he wrote, “Each
physician is a healer of one disease and no
more … some of the eye, some of the teeth, some of
what pertains to the belly.” These specialists even had specific names.
Dentists were known as “doctors of the tooth,” while the term for
proctologists literally translates to “shepherd of the anus.”
14. WEIGHTY STUFF
The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. This incredible structure weighs as much as
sixteen Empire State buildings.
15. IT'S A WRAP
Unwrapped, the bandages of an Ancient Egyptian mummy could stretch for 1.6km.
The cloth was sometimes treated with preservative.
16. HIEROGLYPHICS
The Egyptian alphabet contained more than 700
hieroglyphs, the meaning of some of which is still open to
interpretation.
17. WORSHIP
Ancient Egyptians believed in more than 2,000
deities! They had gods for everything, from dangers to chores! Each had
different responsibilities and needed to be worshipped so that life
could be kept in balance.
18. PETS R US
The Egyptians saw animals as incarnations of the
gods and were one of the first civilizations to keep household pets.
Egyptians were particularly fond of cats, which were associated with the goddess Bastet, but they also had a reverence for
hawks, ibises,
dogs,
lions
and baboons. Many of these animals held a special place in the Egyptian
home, and they were often mummified and buried with their owners after
they died. Other creatures were specially trained to work as helper
animals. Egyptian police officers, for example, were known to use dogs
and even trained monkeys to assist them when out on patrol.
19. UNISEX (HEALING) MAKEUP
Vanity is as old as civilization, and the ancient
Egyptians were no exception. Both men and women were known to wear
copious amounts of makeup, which they believed gave them the protection
of the gods
Horus and
Ra.
These cosmetics were made by grinding ores like malachite and galena
into a substance called kohl. It was then liberally applied around the
eyes with utensils made out of wood, bone and ivory.
The eye paint was usually green (made from copper) or black (made from lead).
Women would also stain their cheeks with red paint
and use henna to color their hands and fingernails, and both sexes wore
perfumes made from oil, myrrh and cinnamon. The Egyptians believed their
makeup had magical healing powers: Research has shown that the
lead-based cosmetics worn along the
Nile actually helped stave off eye
infections.
20. LONGEST RIVER
The river Nile
is the longest river in the
world at 4,132 miles long. It flows from Lake
Victoria in East Africa up north through the Sahara Desert and finally
drains in the Mediterranean
Sea.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EMPIRE?
History shows that even the mightiest empires on planet
earth can
fall and after 1,100 BC, Egypt went into decline. There were several
reasons for this including a loss of military power, lack of natural
resources, and political conflicts.
The reigns of the last great pharaohs Ramses II and
Ramses III (1,189 BC to 1,077 BCE) are characterized by strength and
ability to defend Egypt against invaders. However, it took significant
manpower and resources to ward off these continual attacks and these
defenses left the economy’s empire struggling.
Egypt experienced a civil war and remained split
between two regions. This left it vulnerable to further invasions and
control from the Assyrians in 671 BCE, the Persians in 525 BCE and
finally the Greeks in 332 BCE.
At the end of Egypt’s empire the climate became erratic and unstable. The Egyptians relied on the
water from the Nile floods to help their crops grow, but the Egyptian
climate experienced roughly a hundred of years of dry spells and water became scarce.
There were also periods of unusually cold weather
that further stressed the crops and led to a drastic decrease in
harvests. Crops were also destroyed by sporadic and unpredictable
flooding of the Nile. With little to no food or surplus for long periods
of time, hunger and famine spread.
Economic and political unrest also led to the
weakening of the Ancient Egyptian empire. There were huge inequalities
in the distribution of wealth among the elites and the rest of the
population.
Many people began to distrust the government and religious authority.
The continuous wars created huge expenses and weakened the economic
power of the Pharaoh.
Christianity began to spread through Egypt and
brought the adoption of the alphabet instead of hieroglyphics creating
major changes in Egyptian culture. Many ancient practices such as
mummification
ended, as being too costly.
Our
knowledge of the succession of Egyptian kings is based on kinglists
kept by the ancient Egyptians themselves. The most famous are the
Palermo Stone, which covers the period from the earliest dynasties to
the middle of Dynasty 5; the Abydos Kinglist, which Seti I had carved on
his temple at Abydos; and the Turin Canon, a papyrus that covers the
period from the earliest dynasties to the reign of Ramesses II. All are
incomplete or fragmentary. We also rely on the History of Egypt written
by Manetho in the third century B.C. A priest in the temple at
Heliopolis, Manetho had access to many original sources and it was he
who divided the kings into the thirty dynasties we use today.
It is to this structure of dynasties and listed
kings that we now attempt to link an absolute chronology of dates in
terms of our own calendrical system. The process is made difficult by
the fragmentary condition of the kinglists and by differences in the
calendrical years used at various times. Some astronomical observations
from the ancient Egyptians have survived, allowing us to calculate
absolute dates within a margin of error. Synchronisms with the other
civilizations of the ancient world are also of limited use.
Cleopatra's
tomb had not been discovered at time of writing. Yet she is one of the most
famous Pharaohs, ruling as Queen of Egypt more successfully
than her forebears, but her life was short. She had no fear
of poisoning herself, possibly because she knew, that one
day she would be reincarnated, to resume her imperial
agenda. This presupposes that she would have made
arrangements for her body to be preserved for the afterlife.
Very much like in 1999 film: The
Mummy, where Imhotep returns from being mummified, to resurrect
Anck-su-namun.
NOTABLE KINGS
Djoser
Khufu
Khafre
Ahmose
Amenhotp I
Thutmose I, II, III
Ramesses I, II III, VI, VIII, IX, X, XI
Amenhotep II
Akhenaten
Tutankamun
Seti I & II
Alexander the Great
Ptolemy I Soter I
Ptolemy IV Philopator
Ptolemy VI Philometor
Ptolemy IX Soter II
NOTABLE QUEENS
Arsinoe II
Cleopatra I, II
Hatshepsut
Sobekneferu
(Neferusobek)
Nefertiti,
beautiful ancient Egyptian queen, architect of the sun cult
Cleopatra
VII
last queen of Egypt
Amina, queen for 34 years in Nigeria
Candace,
Ethiopian Empress, fearsome fighter who resisted Alexander the
Great
Semiramis,
female ruler Assyrian empire.