Egypt (Egyptian: Kemet; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ Kīmi; Arabic: مصر Miṣr ; Egyptian Arabic: Máṣr), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country in North Africa that includes the Sinai Peninsula, a land bridge to Asia. Covering an area of about 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi), Egypt borders Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. The northern coast borders the Mediterranean Sea and the island of Cyprus; the eastern coast borders the Red Sea.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa. The great majority of its estimated 78 million people (2007) live near the banks of the Nile River in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi) where the only arable agricultural land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with the majority spread across the densely populated centers of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
Egypt is famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Giza pyramid complex and the Great Sphinx. The southern city of Luxor contains numerous ancient artifacts, such as the Karnak Temple and the Valley of the Kings. Egypt is widely regarded as an important political and cultural nation of the Middle East.
Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
3 Identity
4 Politics
4.1 National
4.2 Human rights
4.3 Foreign relations
5 Governorates
6 Economy
7 Demographics
8 Religion
9 Culture
9.1 Renaissance
9.2 Arts
9.3 Literature
9.4 Music
9.5 Festivals
9.6 Sports
10 Military
11 Geography
11.1 Climate
12 See also
12.1 Lists
13 Notes and references
14 External links
Etymology
One of the ancient Egyptian names of the country, Kemet (kṃt), or "black land" (from kem "black"), is derived from the fertile black soils deposited by the Nile floods, distinct from the deshret, or "red land" (dšṛt), of the desert. The name is realized as kīmi and kīmə in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language, and appeared in early Greek as Χημία (Khēmía). Another name was t3-mry "land of the riverbank". The names of Upper and Lower Egypt were Ta-Sheme'aw (t3-šmˁw) "sedgeland" and Ta-Mehew (t3 mḥw) "northland", respectively.
Miṣr, the Arabic and modern official name of Egypt (Egyptian Arabic: Maṣr), is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם (Mitzráyim), literally meaning "the two straits" (a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt).[2] The word originally connoted "metropolis" or "civilization" and also means "country", or "frontier-land".
The English name "Egypt" came via the Latin word Aegyptus derived from the ancient Greek word Aígyptos (Αίγυπτος). The adjective aigýpti, aigýptios was borrowed into Coptic as gyptios, kyptios, and from there into Arabic as qubṭī, back formed into qubṭ, whence English Copt. The term is derived from Late Egyptian Hikuptah "Memphis", a corruption of the earlier Egyptian name Hat-ka-Ptah (ḥwt-k3-ptḥ), meaning "home of the ka (soul) of Ptah", the name of a temple to the god Ptah at Memphis. Strabo provided a folk etymology according to which Aígyptos (Αίγυπτος ) had evolved as a compound from Aegaeon uptiōs (Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως), meaning "below the Aegean".
HistoryMain articles: History of Egypt, Ancient Egypt, and Egyptians
The Nile has been a site of continuous human habitation since at least the Paleolithic era. Evidence of this appears in the form of artifacts and rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in the desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishers replaced a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 8000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.
By about 6000 BC, organized agriculture and large building construction had appeared in the Nile Valley. During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to Dynastic Egyptian civilization. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining somewhat culturally separate, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BC.[4]
A unified kingdom was founded circa 3150 BC by King Menes, giving rise to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia. Egyptians subsequently referred to their unified country as tawy, meaning "two lands", and later kemet (Coptic: kīmi), the "black land", a reference to the fertile black soil deposited by the Nile river. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. The first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the stage for the Old Kingdom period, c.2700−2200 BC., famous for its many pyramids, most notably the Third Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the Fourth Dynasty Giza Pyramids.
The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval for about 150 years. Stronger Nile floods and stabilization of government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country in the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BC, reaching a peak during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the arrival of the first foreign ruling dynasty in Egypt, that of the Semitic Hyksos. The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt around 1650 BC and founded a new capital at Avaris. They were driven out by an Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes.
The New Kingdom (c.1550−1070 BC) began with the Eighteenth Dynasty, marking the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded during its greatest extension to an empire as far south as Jebel Barkal in Nubia, and included parts of the Levant in the east. This period is noted for some of the most well-known Pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The first known self-conscious expression of monotheism came during this period in the form of Atenism. Frequent contacts with other nations brought new ideas to the New Kingdom. The country was later invaded by Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians, but native Egyptians drove them out and regained control of their country.
The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling dynasty during the Pharaonic epoch. It fell to the Persians in 343 BC after the last native Pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated in battle. Later, Egypt fell to the Greeks and Romans, beginning over two thousand years of foreign rule.
Before Egypt became part of the Byzantine realm, Christianity had been brought by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the AD first century. Diocletian's reign marked the transition from the Roman to the Byzantine era in Egypt, when a great number of Egyptian Christians were persecuted. The New Testament had by then been translated into Egyptian. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established.
The Byzantines were able to regain control of the country after a brief Persian invasion early in the seventh century, until in AD 639, Egypt was invaded by the Muslim Arabs. The form of Islam the Arabs brought to Egypt was Sunni. Early in this period, Egyptians began to blend their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices that had survived through Coptic Christianity, giving rise to various Sufi orders that have flourished to this day. Muslim rulers nominated by the Islamic Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries, including a period for which it was the seat of the Caliphate under the Fatimids. With the end of the Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about AD 1250. They continued to govern even after the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Turks in 1517.
The brief French Invasion of Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 had a great social impact on the country and its culture. Native Egyptians became exposed to the principles of the French Revolution and had a chance to exercise self-governance. A series of civil wars took place between the Ottoman Turks, the Mamluks, and Albanian mercenaries following the evacuation of French troops, resulting in the Albanian Muhammad Ali (Kavalali Mehmed Ali Pasha) taking control of Egypt. He was appointed as the Ottoman viceroy in 1805. He led a modernization campaign of public works, including irrigation projects, agricultural reforms and increased industrialization, which were then taken up and further expanded by his grandson and successor Isma'il Pasha.
In 1866, the Assembly of Delegates was founded to serve as an advisory body for the government. Members of the Assembly were elected from across Egypt and came to have an important influence on governmental decisions. Following the completion of the Suez Canal by Khedive Ismail in 1869, Egypt became an important world transportation and trading hub. However, the country fell heavily into debt to European powers. As a result, the United Kingdom seized control of Egypt's government in 1882 to protect its financial interests, especially those in the Suez Canal.
Shortly after its political intervention, Britain sent troops into Alexandria and the Canal Zone, taking advantage of Egypt's weak military. With the defeat of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir, British troops reached Cairo, eliminated the nationalist government and disbanded the Egyptian military. Technically, Egypt remained an Ottoman province until 1914, when Britain formally declared a protectorate over Egypt and deposed Egypt's last khedive, Abbas II. His uncle, Husayn Kamil, was appointed as Sultan in his place.
Between 1882 and 1906, a local nationalist movement for independence, spurred by British actions, was taking shape. The Dinshaway Incident prompted Egyptian opposition to take a stronger stand against British occupation. The first political parties were founded. After the First World War, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement, gaining a majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on March 8, 1919, the country arose in its first modern revolution. Constant revolting by the Egyptian people throughout the country led Great Britain to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt's independence on February 22, 1922
The new Egyptian government drafted and implemented a new constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary representative system. Saad Zaghlul was popularly-elected as Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. In 1936 the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded. Continued instability in the government due to remaining British control and increasing political involvement by the king led to the ouster of the monarchy and the dissolution of the parliament in a military coup d'état known as the 1952 Revolution. The officers, known as the Free Officers Movement, forced King Farouk to abdicate in support of his son Fuad.
On 18 June 1953, the Egyptian Republic was declared, with General Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic. Naguib was forced to resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser – the real architect of the 1952 movement – and was later put under house arrest. Nasser assumed power as President and declared the full independence of Egypt from the United Kingdom on June 18, 1956. His nationalization of the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956 prompted the 1956 Suez Crisis.
Three years after the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel had invaded and occupied Sinai, Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972. He launched the Infitah economic reform policy, while violently clamping down on religious and secular opposition alike.
In 1973, Egypt, along with Syria, launched the October War, a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. It was an attempt to liberate the territory Israel had captured 6 years earlier. Both the US and the USSR intervened and a cease-fire was reached. Despite not being a complete military success, most historians agree that the October War presented Sadat with a political victory that later allowed him to pursue peace with Israel.
Sadat made a historic visit to Israel in 1977, which led to the 1979 peace treaty in exchange for the complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous controversy in the Arab world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League, but it was supported by the vast majority of Egyptians.[11] A fundamentalist military soldier assassinated Sadat in Cairo in 1981. He was succeeded by the incumbent Hosni Mubarak. In 2003, the Egyptian Movement for Change, popularly known as Kefaya, was launched to seek a return to democracy and greater civil liberties.
Identity
Mahmoud Mokhtar's Egypt's Renaissance 1919-1928, Cairo University.The Egyptian Nile Valley was home to one of the oldest cultures in the world, spanning three thousand years of continuous history. When Egypt fell under a series of foreign occupations after 343 BC, each left an indelible mark on the country's cultural landscape. Egyptian identity evolved in the span of this long period of occupation to accommodate, in principle, two new religions, Christianity and Islam; and a new language, Arabic, and its spoken descendant, Egyptian Arabic. The degree to which different groups in Egypt identify with these factors in articulating a sense of collective identity can vary.
Questions of identity came to fore in the last century as Egypt sought to free itself from foreign occupation for the first time in two thousand years. Three chief ideologies came to head: ethno-territorial Egyptian nationalism and by extension Pharaonism, secular Arab nationalism and pan-Arabism, and Islamism. Egyptian nationalism predates its Arab counterpart by many decades, having roots in the nineteenth century and becoming the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian anti-colonial activists of the pre- and inter-war periods. It was nearly always articulated in exclusively Egyptian terms:
“ What is most significant [about Egypt in this period] is the absence of an Arab component in early Egyptian nationalism. The thrust of Egyptian political, economic, and cultural development throughout the nineteenth century worked against, rather than for, an "Arab" orientation... This situation—that of divergent political trajectories for Egyptians and Arabs—if anything increased after 1900.[12] ”
In 1931, following a visit to Egypt, Syrian Arab nationalist Sati' al-Husri remarked that "[Egyptians] did not possess an Arab nationalist sentiment; did not accept that Egypt was a part of the Arab lands, and would not acknowledge that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab nation."[13] The later 1930s would become a formative period for Arab nationalism in Egypt, in large part due to efforts by Syrian/Palestinian/Lebanese intellectuals.[14] Nevertheless, a year after the establishment of the League of Arab States in 1945, to be headquartered in Cairo, Oxford University historian H. S. Deighton was still writing:
“ The Egyptians are not Arabs, and both they and the Arabs are aware of this fact. They are Arabic-speaking, and they are Muslim —indeed religion plays a greater part in their lives than it does in those either of the Syrians or the Iraqi. But the Egyptian, during the first thirty years of the [twentieth] century, was not aware of any particular bond with the Arab East... Egypt sees in the Arab cause a worthy object of real and active sympathy and, at the same time, a great and proper opportunity for the exercise of leadership, as well as for the enjoyment of its fruits. But she is still Egyptian first and Arab only in consequence, and her main interests are still domestic.[15] ”
It was not until the Nasser era more than a decade later that Arab nationalism became a state policy and a means with which to define Egypt's position in the Middle East and the world,[16] usually articulated vis-à-vis Zionism in the neighboring Jewish state.
For a while Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic. When the union was dissolved, the current official name of Egypt was adopted, the Arab Republic of Egypt. Egypt's attachment to Arabism, however, was particularly questioned after its defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. Thousands of Egyptians had lost their lives and the country become disillusioned with Arab politics.[17] Nasser's successor Sadat, both by policy and through his peace initiative with Israel, revived an uncontested Egyptian orientation, unequivocally asserting that only Egypt was his responsibility. The terms "Arab", "Arabism" and "Arab unity", save for the new official name, became conspicuously absent.[18] Indeed, as professor of Egyptian history P. J. Vatikiotis explains:
“ ...the impact of the October 1973 War (also known as the Ramadan or Yom Kippur War) found Egyptians reverting to an earlier sense of national identity, that of Egyptianism. Egypt became their foremost consideration and top priority in contrast to the earlier one, preferred by the Nasser régime, of Egypt's role and primacy in the Arab world. This kind of national 'restoration' was led by the Old Man of Egyptian Nationalism, Tawfiq el-Hakim, who in the 1920s and 1930s was associated with the Pharaonist movement.[19] ”
Egyptian Flag Until 1958.The question of identity continues to be debated today. Many Egyptians feel that Egyptian and Arab identities are linked and not necessarily incompatible. Many others continue to believe that Egypt and Egyptians are simply not Arab. They emphasize indigenous Egyptian heritage, culture and independent polity; point to the failures of Arab nationalist policies; and publicly voice objection to the present official name of the country. Ordinary Egyptians frequently express this sentiment. For example, a foreign tourist said after visiting Egypt,"Although an avowedly Islamic country and now part and parcel of the Arab world, Egyptians are very proud of their distinctiveness and their glorious Pharaonic past dating back to 3500 BC... 'We are not Arabs, we are Egyptians,' said tour guide Shayma, who is a devout Muslim."[20]
In late 2007, el-Masri el-Yom daily newspaper conducted an interview at a bus stop in the working-class district of Imbaba to ask citizens what Arab nationalism (el-qawmeyya el-'arabeyya) represented for them. One Egyptian Muslim youth responded, "Arab nationalism means that the Egyptian Foreign Minister in Jerusalem gets humiliated by the Palestinians, that Arab leaders dance upon hearing of Sadat's death, that Egyptians get humiliated in the Arab Gulf States, and of course that Arab countries get to fight Israel until the last Egyptian soldier."[21] Another felt that,"Arab countries hate Egyptians," and that unity with Israel may even be more of a possibility than Arab nationalism, because he believes that Israelis would at least respect Egyptians.[21]
Some contemporary prominent Egyptians who oppose Arab nationalism or the idea that Egyptians are Arabs include Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawass.[22], popular writer Osama Anwar Okasha, Egyptian-born Harvard University Professor Leila Ahmed, Member of Parliament Suzie Greiss[23], in addition to different local groups and intellectuals.[24][25][26][27][28] This understanding is also expressed in other contexts,[29][30] such as Neil DeRosa's novel Joseph's Seed in his depiction of an Egyptian character "who declares that Egyptians are not Arabs and never will be."[31]
Egyptian critics of Arab nationalism contend that it has worked to erode and/or relegate native Egyptian identity by superimposing only one aspect of Egypt's culture. These views and sources for collective identification in the Egyptian state are captured in the words of a linguistic anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in Cairo:
“ Historically, Egyptians have considered themselves as distinct from 'Arabs' and even at present rarely do they make that identification in casual contexts; il-'arab [the Arabs] as used by Egyptians refers mainly to the inhabitants of the Gulf states... Egypt has been both a leader of pan-Arabism and a site of intense resentment towards that ideology. Egyptians had to be made, often forcefully, into "Arabs" [during the Nasser era] because they did not historically identify themselves as such. Egypt was self-consciously a nation not only before pan-Arabism but also before becoming a colony of the British Empire. Its territorial continuity since ancient times, its unique history as exemplified in its pharaonic past and later on its Coptic language and culture, had already made Egypt into a nation for centuries. Egyptians saw themselves, their history, culture and language as specifically Egyptian and not "Arab."[32] ”
Politics
Main article: Politics of Egypt
National
Egypt has been a republic since 18 June 1953. President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak has been the President of the Republic since October 14, 1981, following the assassination of former-President Mohammed Anwar El-Sadat. Mubarak is currently serving his fifth term in office. He is the leader of the ruling National Democratic Party. Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Nazif was sworn in as Prime Minister on 9 July 2004, following the resignation of Dr. Atef Ebeid from his office.
Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term, was held in September 2005.
In late February 2005, President Mubarak announced in a surprise television broadcast that he had ordered the reform of the country's presidential election law, paving the way for multi-candidate polls in the upcoming presidential election. For the first time since the 1952 movement, the Egyptian people had an apparent chance to elect a leader from a list of various candidates. The President said his initiative came "out of my full conviction of the need to consolidate efforts for more freedom and democracy."[33] However, the new law placed draconian restrictions on the filing for presidential candidacies, designed to prevent well-known candidates such as Ayman Nour from standing against Mubarak, and paved the road for his easy re-election victory.[34] Concerns were once again expressed after the 2005 presidential elections about government interference in the election process through fraud and vote-rigging, in addition to police brutality and violence by pro-Mubarak supporters against opposition demonstrators.[35] After the election, Egypt imprisoned Nour, and the U.S. Government stated the “conviction of Mr. Nour, the runner-up in Egypt's 2005 presidential elections, calls into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.”[36]
As a result, most Egyptians are skeptical about the process of democratization and the role of the elections. Less than 25 percent of the country's 32 million registered voters (out of a population of more than 78 million) turned out for the 2005 elections.[37] A proposed change to the constitution would limit the president to two seven-year terms in office.[38]
Thirty-four constitutional changes voted on by parliament on March 19, 2007 prohibit parties from using religion as a basis for political activity; allow the drafting of a new anti-terrorism law to replace the emergency legislation in place since 1981, giving police wide powers of arrest and surveillance; give the president power to dissolve parliament; and end judicial monitoring of election. [39] As opposition members of parliament withdrew from voting on the proposed changes, it was expected that the referendum will be boycotted by a great number of Egyptians in protest of what has been considered a breach of democratic practices. Eventually it was reported that only 27% of the registered voters went to the polling stations under heavy police presence and tight political control of the ruling National Democratic Party. It was officially announced on March 27,2007 that 75.9% of those who participated in the referendum approved of the constitutional amendments introduced by President Mubarak and was endorsed by opposition free parliament, thus allowing the introduction of laws that curbs the activity of certain opposition elements particularly Islamists.
Human rights
Main article: Human rights in Egypt
Members of the Kefaya democracy movement protesting a fifth term for President Hosni Mubarak. See also video.Several local and international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have for many years criticized Egypt's human rights record as poor. In 2005, President Hosni Mubarak faced unprecedented public criticism when he clamped down on democracy activists challenging his rule. Some of the most serious human rights violations according to HRW's 2006 report on Egypt are routine torture, arbitrary detentions and trials before military and state security courts.[40]
Discriminatory personal status laws governing marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance which put women at a disadvantage have also been cited. Laws concerning Christians which place restrictions on church building and open worship have been recently eased, but major constructions still require governmental approval and persecution of Christianity by underground radical groups remains a problem.[41] In addition, intolerance of Baha'is and unorthodox Muslim sects remains a problem.[40]
In 2005, the Freedom House rated political rights in Egypt as "6" (1 representing the most free and 7 the least free rating), civil liberties as "5" and gave it the freedom rating of "Not Free."[42] It however noted that "Egypt witnessed its most transparent and competitive presidential and legislative elections in more than half a century and an increasingly unbridled public debate on the country's political future in 2005."[43]
In 2007, human rights group Amnesty International released a report criticizing Egypt for torture and illegal detention. The report alleges that Egypt has become an international center for torture, where other nations send suspects for interrogation, often as part of the War on Terror. The report calls on Egypt to bring its anti-terrorism laws into accordance with international human rights statutes and on other nations to stop sending their detainees to Egypt.[44] Egypt's foreign ministry quickly issued a rebuttal to this report, claiming that it was inaccurate and unfair, as well as causing deep offense to the Egyptian government.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is one of the longest-standing bodies for the defence of human rights in Egypt. In 2003, the government established the National Council for Human Rights, headquartered in Cairo and headed by former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali who directly reports to the president. The council has come under heavy criticism by local NGO activists, who contend it undermines human rights work in Egypt by serving as a propaganda tool for the government to excuse its violations[48] and to provide legitimacy to repressive laws such as the recently renewed Emergency Law. Egypt has recently announced that it is in the process of abolishing the Emergency Law. However, in March 2007 President Mubarak approved several constitutional amendments to include "an anti-terrorism clause that appears to enshrine sweeping police powers of arrest and surveillance", suggesting that the Emergency Law is here to stay for the long haul.
The Egyptian legal system only recognizes three religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. When the government moved to computerize identification cards, members of religious minorities, such as Bahá'ís, could not obatin identification documents.[52] An Egyptian court ruled in early 2008 that members of other faiths can obtain identity cards without listing their faiths, and without becoming officially recognized.[53]
Foreign relations
Main article: Foreign relations of Egypt
Egypt's foreign policy operates along moderate lines. Factors such as population size, historical events, military strength, diplomatic expertise and a strategic geographical position give Egypt extensive political influence in Africa and the Middle East. Cairo has been a crossroads of regional commerce and culture for centuries, and its intellectual and Islamic institutions are at the center of the region's social and cultural development.
The permanent Headquarters of the Arab League are located in Cairo and the Secretary General of the Arab League has traditionally been an Egyptian. Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa is the current Secretary General. The Arab League briefly moved from Egypt to Tunis in 1978, as a protest to the signing by Egypt of a peace treaty with Israel, but returned in 1989.
Egypt was the first Arab state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, with the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in 1979. Egypt has a major influence amongst other Arab states, and has historically played an important role as a mediator in resolving disputes between various Arab states, and in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Most Arab states still give credence to Egypt playing that role, though its effects are often limited and recently challenged by Saudi Arabia and oil rich Gulf States. It is also reported that due to Egypt's indulgence in internal problems and its reluctance to play a positive role in regional matters had lost the country great influence in Africa and the neighbouring countries.
Former Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Secretary General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996.
Governorates
Egypt is divided into 26 governorates (in Arabic, called muhafazat, singular muhafazah). The governorates are further divided into regions (markazes).
Each governorate has a capital, often having the same name as the governorate
Economy
Egypt's economy depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum exports, and tourism; there are also more than three million Egyptians working abroad, mainly in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf and Europe. The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1971 and the resultant Lake Nasser have altered the time-honored place of the Nile River in the agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly-growing population, limited arable land, and dependence on the Nile all continue to overtax resources and stress the economy.
The government has struggled to prepare the economy for the new millennium through economic reform and massive investments in communications and physical infrastructure. Egypt has been receiving U.S. foreign aid (since 1979, an average of $2.2 billion per year) and is the third-largest recipient of such funds from the United States following the Iraq war. Its main revenues however come from tourism as well as traffic that goes through the Suez Canal.
Egypt has a developed energy market based on coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro power. Substantial coal deposits are in the north-east Sinai, and are mined at the rate of about 600,000 tonnes (590,000 LT/660,000 ST) per year. Oil and gas are produced in the western desert regions, the Gulf of Suez, and the Nile Delta. Egypt has huge reserves of gas, estimated at over 1,100,000 cubic meters (39,000,000 cu ft) in the 1990s, and LNG is exported to many countries.
Economic conditions have started to improve considerably after a period of stagnation from the adoption of more liberal economic policies by the government, as well as increased revenues from tourism and a booming stock market. In its annual report, the IMF has rated Egypt as one of the top countries in the world undertaking economic reforms. Some major economic reforms taken by the new government since 2003 include a dramatic slashing of customs and tariffs. A new taxation law implemented in 2005 decreased corporate taxes from 40% to the current 20%, resulting in a stated 100% increase in tax revenue by the year 2006.
Tourists ride in dhows down the NileFDI (Foreign Direct Investment) into Egypt has increased considerably in the past few years due to the recent economic liberalization measures taken by minister of investment Mahmoud Mohieddin, exceeding $6 billion in 2006. Egypt is slated to overcome South Africa as the highest earner of FDI on the African continent in 2007.
Although one of the main obstacles still facing the Egyptian economy is the trickle down of the wealth to the average population, many Egyptians criticize their government for higher prices of basic goods while their standards of living or purchasing power remains relatively stagnant. Often corruption is blamed by Egyptians as the main impediment to feeling the benefits of the newly attained wealth. Major reconstruction of the country's infrastructure is promised by the government, with a large portion of the sum paid for the newly acquired 3rd mobile license ($3 billion) by Etisalat. This is slated to be pumped into the country's railroad system, in response to public outrage against the government for disasters in 2006 that claimed more than 100 lives.
The best known examples of Egyptian companies that have expanded regionally and globally are the Orascom Group and Raya. The IT sector has been expanding rapidly in the past few years, with many new start-ups conducting outsourcing business to North America and Europe, operating with companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and other major corporations, as well as numerous SME's. Some of these companies are the Xceed Contact Center, Raya Contact Center, E Group Connections and C3 along with other start ups in that country. The sector has been stimulated by new Egyptian entrepreneurs trying to capitalize on their country's huge potential in the sector, as well as constant government encouragement.
Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of Egypt and Egyptians
Egyptian farmEgypt is the most populated country in the Middle East and the second-most populous on the African continent, with an estimated 78 million people. Almost all the population is concentrated along the banks of the Nile (notably Cairo and Alexandria), in the Delta and near the Suez Canal. Approximately 80-90% of the population adheres to Islam and most of the remainder to Christianity, primarily the Coptic Orthodox denomination.[54] Apart from religious affiliation, Egyptians can be divided demographically into those who live in the major urban centers and the fellahin or farmers of rural villages. The last 40 years have seen a rapid increase in population due to medical advances and massive increase in agricultural productivity,[55] made by the Green Revolution.[56]
Egyptians are by far the largest ethnic group in Egypt at 94% (about 72.5 million) of the total population.[54] Ethnic minorities include the Bedouin Arab tribes living in the eastern deserts and the Sinai Peninsula, the Berber-speaking Siwis (Amazigh) of the Siwa Oasis, and the ancient Nubian communities clustered along the Nile. There are also tribal communities of Beja concentrated in the south-eastern-most corner of the country, and a number of Dom clans mostly in the Nile Delta and Faiyum who are progressively becoming assimilated as urbanization increases.
Egypt also hosts an unknown number of refugees and asylum seekers, but they are estimated to be between 500,000 and 3 million.[57] There are some 70,000 Palestinian refugees,[57] and about 150,000 recently arrived Iraqi refugees,[58] but the number of the largest group, the Sudanese, is contested.[59] The once-vibrant Jewish community in Egypt has virtually disappeared, with only a small number remaining in the country, but many Egyptian Jews visit on religious occasions and for tourism. Several important Jewish archaeological and historical sites are found in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities.
ReligionMain article: Religion in Egypt
Cairo's unique cityscape with its ancient mosquesReligion plays a central role in most Egyptians' lives. The rolling calls to prayer that are heard five times a day have the informal effect of regulating the pace of everything from business to entertainment. Cairo is famous for its numerous mosque minarets and church towers. This religious landscape has been marred by a record of religious extremism.[52] In 2006 a judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of Egypt insisted on a clear demarcation between "recognized religions"—Islam, Christianity and Judaism—and all other religious beliefs—thus effectively delegitimatizing and forbidding practice of all but these aforementioned religions.[60] This judgment led to the requirement for communities to either commit perjury or be subjected to denial of identification cards. Another ruling in 2008 allowed non-recognized religious minorities to obtain birth certificates and identification documents, so long as they omit their religion on court documents.[53]
Egypt is predominantly Muslim, at 80-90% of the population, with the majority being adherents of the Sunni branch of Islam.[54] A significant number of Muslim Egyptians also follow native Sufi orders,[61] and there is a minority of Shi'a.
Christians represent 10-20% of the population,[62] more than 95% of whom belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Other native Egyptian Christians are adherents of the Coptic Catholic Church, the Coptic Evangelical Church and various Coptic Protestant denominations. Non-native Christian communities are largely found in the urban regions of Alexandria and Cairo, and are members of the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Maronite Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, or the Syriac Orthodox Church.
According to the Constitution of Egypt, any new legislation must at least implicitly agree with Islamic laws. The mainstream Hanafi school of Sunni Islam is largely organised by the state, through Wizaret Al-Awkaf (Ministry of Religious Affairs). Al-Awkaf controls all mosques and overviews Muslim clerics. Imams are trained in Imam vocational schools and at Al-Azhar University. The department supports Sunni Islam and has commissions authorised to give Fatwa judgements on Islamic issues.
Egypt hosts two major religious institutions. Al-Azhar University is the oldest Islamic institution of higher studies (founded around 970 A.D) and considered by many to be the oldest extant university. The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, headed by the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, attests to Egypt's strong Christian heritage. It has a following of approximately 15 million Christians worldwide; affiliated sister churches are located in Armenia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Lebanon and Syria.
Religious freedom in Egypt is hampered to varying degrees by extremist Islamist groups and by discriminatory and restrictive government policies. Being the largest religious minority in Egypt, Coptic Christians are the most negatively affected community. Copts have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d'état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches. Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles in building new or repairing existing churches. These obstacles are not found in building mosques.[63][64]
In addition, Copts complain of being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.[65] The Coptic community, as well as several human rights activists and intellectuals (such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Tarek Heggy), maintain that the number of Christians occupying government posts is not proportional to the number of Copts in Egypt, who constitute between 10 and 15% of the population in Egypt. Of the 32 cabinet ministers, two are Copts: Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali and Minister of Environment Magued George; and of the 25 local governors, only one is a Copt (in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena). However, Copts have demonstrated great success in Egypt's private business sector; Naguib Sawiris, an extremely successful businessman and one of the world's wealthiest 100 people is a Copt. In 2002, under the Mubarak government, Coptic Christmas (January 7) was recognized as an official holiday.[66] Nevertheless, the Coptic community has occasionally been the target of hate crimes and physical assaults. The most significant was the 2000-2001 El Kosheh attacks , in which 21 Copts and one Muslim were killed. A 2006 attack on three churches in Alexandria left one dead and 17 injured, although the attacker was not linked to any organisation.[67]
Egypt was once home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Egyptian Jews, who were mostly Karaites, partook of all aspects of Egypt's social, economic and political life; one of the most ardent Egyptian nationalists, Yaqub Sanu' (Abu Naddara), was a Jew, as were famous musician Dawoud Husni, popular singer Leila Mourad, and prominent filmmaker Togo Mizrahi. For a while, Jews from across the Ottoman Empire and Europe were attracted to Egypt due to the relative harmony that characterized the local religious landscape in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the 1956 Suez Crisis, a great number of Jews were expelled by Gamal Abdel Nasser, many of whom holding official Egyptian citizenship. Their Egyptian citizenship was revoked and their property was confiscated. A steady stream of migration of Egyptian Jews followed, reaching a peak after the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967. Today, Jews in Egypt number less than 100.[68]
Over ten million Egyptians follow the Christian faith as members of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.Bahá'ís in Egypt, whose population is estimated to be a couple of thousands, have long been persecuted, having their institutions and community activities banned. Since their faith is not officially recognized by the state, they were not allowed to use it on their national identity cards; a court case in 2008 allowed Bahá'ís to obtain birth certificates and identification documents, so long as they omit their religion on court documents.[53]
There are Egyptians who identify as atheist and agnostic, but their numbers are largely unknown as openly advocating such positions risks legal sanction on the basis of apostasy (if a citizen takes the step of suing the 'apostating' person, though not automatically by the general prosecutor). In 2000, an openly atheist Egyptian writer, who called for the establishment of a local association for atheists, was tried on charges of insulting Islam in four of his books.[69]
While freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution, according to Human Rights Watch, "Egyptians are able to convert to Islam generally without difficulty, but Muslims who convert to Christianity face difficulties in getting new identity papers and some have been arrested for allegedly forging such documents.[70] The Coptic community, however, takes pains to prevent conversions from Christianity to Islam due to the ease with which Christians can often become Muslim. [71] Public officials, being conservative themselves, intensify the complexity of the legal procedures required to recognize the religion change as required by law. Security agencies will sometimes claim that such conversions from Islam to Christianity (or occasionally vice versa) may stir social unrest, and thereby justify themselves in wrongfully detaining the subjects, insisting that they are simply taking steps to prevent likely social troubles from happening.[72] Recently, a Cairo administrative court denied 45 citizens the right to obtain identity papers documenting their reversion to Christianity after converting to Islam.[73]
CultureMain article: Culture of Egypt
Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a commemoration of the ancient Library of Alexandria in Egypt's second largest city.Egyptian culture has five thousand years of recorded history. Ancient Egypt was among the earliest civilizations and for millennia, Egypt maintained a strikingly complex and stable culture that influenced later cultures of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After the Pharaonic era, Egypt itself came under the influence of Hellenism, Christianity, and Islamic culture. Today, many aspects of Egypt's ancient culture exist in interaction with newer elements, including the influence of modern Western culture, itself with roots in ancient Egypt.
Egypt's capital city, Cairo, is Africa's largest city and has been renowned for centuries as a center of learning, culture and commerce. Egypt has the highest number of Nobel Laureates in Africa and the Arab World. Some Egyptian born politicians were or are currently at the helm of major international organizations like Boutros Boutros-Ghali of the United Nations and Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA.
Renaissance
The work of early nineteenth-century scholar Rifa'a et-Tahtawi gave rise to the Egyptian Renaissance, marking the transition from Medieval to Early Modern Egypt. His work renewed interest in Egyptian antiquity and exposed Egyptian society to Enlightenment principles. Tahtawi co-founded with education reformer Ali Mubarak a native Egyptology school that looked for inspiration to medieval Egyptian scholars, such as Suyuti and Maqrizi, who themselves studied the history, language and antiquities of Egypt.[74] Egypt's renaissance peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the work of people like Muhammad Abduh, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, Tawfiq el-Hakim, Louis Awad, Qasim Amin, Salama Moussa, Taha Hussein and Mahmoud Mokhtar. They forged a liberal path for Egypt expressed as a commitment to individual freedom, secularism and faith in science to bring progress.[75]
Arts
Eighteenth dynasty painting from the tomb of Theban governor Ramose in Deir el-Madinah.The Egyptians were one of the first major civilizations to codify design elements in art. The wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. Modern and contemporary Egyptian art can be as diverse as any works in the world art scene. The Cairo Opera House serves as the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital. Egypt's media and arts industry has flourished since the late nineteenth century, today with more than thirty satellite channels and over one hundred motion pictures produced each year. Cairo has long been known as the "Hollywood of the Middle East;" its annual film festival, the Cairo International Film Festival, has been rated as one of 11 festivals with a top class rating worldwide by the International Federation of Film Producers' Associations.[76] To bolster its media industry further, especially with the keen competition from the Persian Gulf Arab States and Lebanon, a large media city was built. Some Egyptian actors, like Omar Sharif, have achieved worldwide fame.
LiteratureLiterature constitutes an important cultural element in the life of Egypt. Egyptian novelists and poets were among the first to experiment with modern styles of Arabic literature, and the forms they developed have been widely imitated throughout the Middle East. The first modern Egyptian novel Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal was published in 1913 in the Egyptian vernacular.[77] Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Egyptian women writers include Nawal El Saadawi, well known for her feminist activism, and Alifa Rifaat who also writes about women and tradition. Vernacular poetry is perhaps the most popular literary genre amongst Egyptians, represented by such luminaries as Ahmed Fuad Nigm (Fagumi), Salah Jaheen and Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi.
Music
Main article: Music of Egypt
Upper Egyptian folk musicians from Kom Ombo.Egyptian music is a rich mixture of indigenous, Mediterranean, African and Western elements. In antiquity, Egyptians were playing harps and flutes, including two indigenous instruments: the ney and the oud. Percussion and vocal music also became an important part of the local music tradition ever since. Contemporary Egyptian music traces its beginnings to the creative work of people such as Abdu-l Hamuli, Almaz and Mahmud Osman, who influenced the later work of Egyptian music giants such as Sayed Darwish, Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Abdel Halim Hafez. These prominent artists were followed later by Amr Diab. He is seen by many as the new age "Musical Legend", whose fan base stretches all over the Middle East and Europe. From the 1970s onwards, Egyptian pop music has become increasingly important in Egyptian culture, while Egyptian folk music continues to be played during weddings and other festivities.
Festivals
Egypt is famous for its many festivals and religious carnivals, also known as mulids or Mawlid. They are usually associated with a particular Coptic or Sufi saint, but are often celebrated by all Egyptians irrespective of creed or religion. Ramadan has a special flavor in Egypt, celebrated with sounds, lights (local lanterns known as fawanees) and much flare that many Muslim tourists from the region flock to Egypt during Ramadan to witness the spectacle. The ancient spring festival of Sham en Nisim (Coptic: Ϭⲱⲙ‘ⲛⲛⲓⲥⲓⲙ shom en nisim) has been celebrated by Egyptians for thousands of years, typically between the Egyptian months of Paremoude (April) and Pashons (May), following Easter Sunday.
Sports
Cairo International Stadium during the 2006 African Cup of NationsFootball (soccer) is the de facto national sport of Egypt. Egyptian Soccer clubs El Ahly and El Zamalek are the two most popular teams and enjoy the reputation of long-time regional champions. The great rivalries keep the streets of Egypt energized as people fill the streets when their favourite team wins. Egypt is rich in soccer history as soccer has been around for over 100 years. The country is home to many African championships such as the African Cup of Nations. However, Egypt's national team has not qualified for the FIFA World Cup since 1990.
Squash and tennis are other favourite sports. The Egyptian squash team has been known for its fierce competition in international championships since the 1930s.
MilitaryMain article: Military of Egypt
The Egyptian Armed forces have a combined troop strength of around 450,000 active personnel.[78] According to the Israeli chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuval Steinitz, the Egyptian Air Force has roughly the same number of modern warplanes as the Israeli Air Force and far more Western tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft batteries and warships than the IDF.[79] The Egyptian military has recently undergone massive military modernization mostly in their Air Force. Other than Israel, Egypt is speculated-by Israel-to be the first country in the region with a spy satellite, EgyptSat 1, and is planning to launch 3 more satellites (DesertSat1, EgyptSat2, DesertSat2) over the next two years.[80]
Geography
Main article: Geography of Egypt
White Desert, FarafraAt 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi),[81] Egypt is the world's 38th-largest country (after Mauritania). It is comparable in size to Tanzania, twice the size of France, four times the size of the United Kingdom, and is more than half the size of the US state of Alaska.
Nevertheless, due to the aridity of Egypt's climate, population centres are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, meaning that approximately 99% of the population uses only about 5.5% of the total land area.[82]
Egypt is bordered by Libya to the west, Sudan to the south, and by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. Egypt's important role in geopolitics stems from its strategic position: a transcontinental nation, it possesses a land bridge (the Isthmus of Suez) between Africa and Asia, which in turn is traversed by a navigable waterway (the Suez Canal) that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea.
Apart from the Nile Valley, the majority of Egypt's landscape is a sandy desert. The winds blowing can create sand dunes over 100 feet (30 m) high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara Desert and of the Libyan Desert. These deserts were referred to as the "red land" in ancient Egypt, and they protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from western threats.
Towns and cities include Alexandria, one of the greatest ancient cities, Aswan, Asyut, Cairo, the modern Egyptian capital, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, Giza, the site of the Pyramid of Khufu, Hurghada, Luxor, Kom Ombo, Port Safaga, Port Said, Sharm el Sheikh, Suez, where the Suez Canal is located, Zagazig, and Al-Minya. Oases include Bahariya, el Dakhla, Farafra, el Kharga and Siwa.
Climate
Egypt receives the least rainfall in the world. South of Cairo, rainfall averages only around 2 to 5 mm (0.1 to 0.2 in) per year and at intervals of many years. On a very thin strip of the northern coast the rainfall can be as high as 170 mm (7 in), all between November and March. Snow falls on Sinai's mountains and some of the north coastal cities such as Damietta, Baltim, Sidi Barrany, etc. and rarely in Alexandria, frost is also known in mid-Sinai and mid-Egypt.
Temperatures average between 80 °F (27 °C) and 90 °F (32 °C) in summer, and up to 109 °F (43 °C) on the Red Sea coast. Temperatures average between 55 °F (13 °C) and 70 °F (21 °C) in winter. A steady wind from the northwest helps hold down the temperature near the Mediterranean coast. The Khamaseen is a wind that blows from the south in Egypt in spring, bringing sand and dust, and sometimes raises the temperature in the desert to more than 100 °F (38 °C).
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Ancient Egyptian architecture
For at least ten thousand years, the Nile valley has been the site of one of the most influential civilizations in the world which developed a vast array of diverse structures which we refer to as Ancient Egyptian architecture. The architectural monuments, which include the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Great Sphinx of Giza, are among the largest and most famous
Contents
1 Characteristics of Egyptian Architecture
2 The Giza pyramid complex
3 Karnak
4 Luxor Temple
5 References
6 See also
7 Gallery
8 External links
Characteristics of Egyptian Architecture
Due to the scarcity of lumber, [1] the two predominant building materials used in ancient Egypt were sunbaked mud brick (adobe) and stone, mainly limestone, but also sandstone and granite in considerable quantities. [2] From the Old Kingdom onward, stone was generally reserved for tombs and temples, while bricks were used even for royal palaces, fortresses, the walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.
Many ancient Egyptian towns have disappeared because they were situated near the cultivated area of the Nile Valley and were flooded as the river bed slowly rose during the millennia or the mud bricks they were built of were used by peasants as fertilizer, others are inaccessible, new buildings having been erected on ancient ones. Fortunately the dry, hot climate of Egypt preserved some mud brick structures. Examples include the village Deir al-Madinah, the Middle Kingdom town at Kahun, [3] and the fortresses at Buhen[4] and Mirgissa. On the other hand, many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on high ground unaffected by the Nile flood and were constructed of stone.
Thus, our impression of ancient Egyptian architecture is based mainly on its religious monuments, [5] massive structures characterized by thick, sloping walls with few openings, possibly echoing a method of construction used to obtain stability in mud walls. In a similar manner, the incised and flatly modeled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Although the use of the arch was developed during the fourth dynasty, all monumental buildings are post and lintel constructions, with flat roofs constructed of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and the closely spaced columns.
Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes and carvings painted in brilliant colors. [6] Many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Other common motifs include palm leaves, the papyrus plant, and the buds and flowers of the lotus. [7] Hieroglyphics were decoration as well as records of historic events that document stories or spells.
The Giza pyramid complex
Main article: Giza pyramid complex
The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. This complex of ancient monuments is located some 8 kilometres (5 mi) inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 20 kilometers (12 mi) southwest of Cairo city center. This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (also known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Kephren), and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus), along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, and the Great Sphinx.
The Pyramids of GizaThe pyramids, which were built in the Fourth Dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and state. The Great Pyramid, which was probably completed c. 2580 BC, is the oldest and largest of the pyramids, and is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The pyramid of Khafre is believed to have been completed around 2532 BC, at the end of Khafre's reign. The date of construction of Menkaure's pyramid is unknown, because Menkaure's reign has not been accurately defined, but it was probably completed sometime during the 26th century BC.
With few openings, the pyramids had complex mazes of tunnels and rooms all hidden by the massive hunks of stone. Nevertheless, grave robbers stubbornly stole from the pyramids, thus forcing the ancient Egyptians to halt construction on these massive structures and build their tombs in the Valley of the Kings instead. In a canyon far from any ancient Egyptian town, the Egyptians began to build inconspicuous tombs dug into the ground, thinking the tombs would go unnoticed by grave robbers.
Karnak
Main article: Karnak
The temple complex of Karnak is located on the banks of the River Nile some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 mi) north of Luxor. It consists of four main parts, the Precinct of Amon-Re, the Precinct of Montu, the Precinct of Mut and the Temple of Amenhotep IV (dismantled), as well as a few smaller temples and sanctuaries located outside the enclosing walls of the four main parts, and several avenues of ram-headed sphinxes connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amon-Re and Luxor Temple.
The hypostyle hall of Karnak TempleThe key difference between Karnak and most of the other temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction work began in the 16th century BC. Approximately 30 pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the individual features of Karnak are unique, but the size and number of features is overwhelming.
Luxor Temple
Main article: Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the River Nile in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes). Construction work on the temple began during the reign of Amenhotep III in the 14th century BC. Horemheb and Tutankhamun added columns, statues, and friezes – and Akhenaten had earlier obliterated his father's cartouches and installed a shrine to the Aten – but the only major expansion effort took place under Ramesses II some 100 years after the first stones were put in place. Luxor is thus unique among the main Egyptian temple complexes in having only two pharaohs leave their mark on its architectural structure.
Luxor Temple, from the east bank of the NileThe temple proper begins with the 24 metre (79 ft) high First Pylon, built by Ramesses II. The pylon was decorated with scenes of Ramesses's military triumphs (particularly the Battle of Qadesh); later pharaohs, particularly those of the Nubian and Ethiopian dynasties, also recorded their victories there. This main entrance to the temple complex was originally flanked by six colossal statues of Ramesses – four seated, and two standing – but only two (both seated) have survived. Modern visitors can also see a 25 metre (82 ft) tall pink granite obelisk: this one of a matching pair until 1835, when the other one was taken to Paris where it now stands in the centre of the Place de la Concorde.
Through the pylon gateway leads into a peristyle courtyard, also built by Ramesses II. This area, and the pylon, were built at an oblique angle to the rest of the temple, presumably to accommodate the three pre-existing barque shrines located in the northwest corner. After the peristyle courtyard comes the processional colonnade built by Amenhotep III – a 100 metre (328 ft) corridor lined by 14 papyrus-capital columns. Friezes on the wall describe the stages in the Opet Festival, from sacrifices at Karnak at the top left, through Ammon's arrival at Luxor at the end of that wall, and concluding with his return on the opposite side. The decorations were put in place by Tutankhamun: the boy pharaoh is depicted, but his names have been replaced with those of Horemheb.
Beyond the colonnade is a peristyle courtyard, which also dates back to Amenhotep's original construction. The best preserved columns are on the eastern side, where some traces of original colour can be seen. The southern side of this courtyard is made up of a 36-column hypostyle court that leads into the inner sanctums of the temple, which begin with a dark chamber not achechamber.
Contents
1 Characteristics of Egyptian Architecture
2 The Giza pyramid complex
3 Karnak
4 Luxor Temple
5 References
6 See also
7 Gallery
8 External links
Characteristics of Egyptian Architecture
Due to the scarcity of lumber, [1] the two predominant building materials used in ancient Egypt were sunbaked mud brick (adobe) and stone, mainly limestone, but also sandstone and granite in considerable quantities. [2] From the Old Kingdom onward, stone was generally reserved for tombs and temples, while bricks were used even for royal palaces, fortresses, the walls of temple precincts and towns, and for subsidiary buildings in temple complexes.
Many ancient Egyptian towns have disappeared because they were situated near the cultivated area of the Nile Valley and were flooded as the river bed slowly rose during the millennia or the mud bricks they were built of were used by peasants as fertilizer, others are inaccessible, new buildings having been erected on ancient ones. Fortunately the dry, hot climate of Egypt preserved some mud brick structures. Examples include the village Deir al-Madinah, the Middle Kingdom town at Kahun, [3] and the fortresses at Buhen[4] and Mirgissa. On the other hand, many temples and tombs have survived because they were built on high ground unaffected by the Nile flood and were constructed of stone.
Thus, our impression of ancient Egyptian architecture is based mainly on its religious monuments, [5] massive structures characterized by thick, sloping walls with few openings, possibly echoing a method of construction used to obtain stability in mud walls. In a similar manner, the incised and flatly modeled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Although the use of the arch was developed during the fourth dynasty, all monumental buildings are post and lintel constructions, with flat roofs constructed of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and the closely spaced columns.
Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes and carvings painted in brilliant colors. [6] Many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Other common motifs include palm leaves, the papyrus plant, and the buds and flowers of the lotus. [7] Hieroglyphics were decoration as well as records of historic events that document stories or spells.
The Giza pyramid complex
Main article: Giza pyramid complex
The Giza Necropolis stands on the Giza Plateau, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt. This complex of ancient monuments is located some 8 kilometres (5 mi) inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, some 20 kilometers (12 mi) southwest of Cairo city center. This Ancient Egyptian necropolis consists of the Pyramid of Khufu (also known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Kephren), and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinus), along with a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, and the Great Sphinx.
The Pyramids of GizaThe pyramids, which were built in the Fourth Dynasty, testify to the power of the pharaonic religion and state. The Great Pyramid, which was probably completed c. 2580 BC, is the oldest and largest of the pyramids, and is the only surviving monument of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The pyramid of Khafre is believed to have been completed around 2532 BC, at the end of Khafre's reign. The date of construction of Menkaure's pyramid is unknown, because Menkaure's reign has not been accurately defined, but it was probably completed sometime during the 26th century BC.
With few openings, the pyramids had complex mazes of tunnels and rooms all hidden by the massive hunks of stone. Nevertheless, grave robbers stubbornly stole from the pyramids, thus forcing the ancient Egyptians to halt construction on these massive structures and build their tombs in the Valley of the Kings instead. In a canyon far from any ancient Egyptian town, the Egyptians began to build inconspicuous tombs dug into the ground, thinking the tombs would go unnoticed by grave robbers.
Karnak
Main article: Karnak
The temple complex of Karnak is located on the banks of the River Nile some 2.5 kilometers (1.5 mi) north of Luxor. It consists of four main parts, the Precinct of Amon-Re, the Precinct of Montu, the Precinct of Mut and the Temple of Amenhotep IV (dismantled), as well as a few smaller temples and sanctuaries located outside the enclosing walls of the four main parts, and several avenues of ram-headed sphinxes connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amon-Re and Luxor Temple.
The hypostyle hall of Karnak TempleThe key difference between Karnak and most of the other temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction work began in the 16th century BC. Approximately 30 pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the individual features of Karnak are unique, but the size and number of features is overwhelming.
Luxor Temple
Main article: Luxor Temple
Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the River Nile in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes). Construction work on the temple began during the reign of Amenhotep III in the 14th century BC. Horemheb and Tutankhamun added columns, statues, and friezes – and Akhenaten had earlier obliterated his father's cartouches and installed a shrine to the Aten – but the only major expansion effort took place under Ramesses II some 100 years after the first stones were put in place. Luxor is thus unique among the main Egyptian temple complexes in having only two pharaohs leave their mark on its architectural structure.
Luxor Temple, from the east bank of the NileThe temple proper begins with the 24 metre (79 ft) high First Pylon, built by Ramesses II. The pylon was decorated with scenes of Ramesses's military triumphs (particularly the Battle of Qadesh); later pharaohs, particularly those of the Nubian and Ethiopian dynasties, also recorded their victories there. This main entrance to the temple complex was originally flanked by six colossal statues of Ramesses – four seated, and two standing – but only two (both seated) have survived. Modern visitors can also see a 25 metre (82 ft) tall pink granite obelisk: this one of a matching pair until 1835, when the other one was taken to Paris where it now stands in the centre of the Place de la Concorde.
Through the pylon gateway leads into a peristyle courtyard, also built by Ramesses II. This area, and the pylon, were built at an oblique angle to the rest of the temple, presumably to accommodate the three pre-existing barque shrines located in the northwest corner. After the peristyle courtyard comes the processional colonnade built by Amenhotep III – a 100 metre (328 ft) corridor lined by 14 papyrus-capital columns. Friezes on the wall describe the stages in the Opet Festival, from sacrifices at Karnak at the top left, through Ammon's arrival at Luxor at the end of that wall, and concluding with his return on the opposite side. The decorations were put in place by Tutankhamun: the boy pharaoh is depicted, but his names have been replaced with those of Horemheb.
Beyond the colonnade is a peristyle courtyard, which also dates back to Amenhotep's original construction. The best preserved columns are on the eastern side, where some traces of original colour can be seen. The southern side of this courtyard is made up of a 36-column hypostyle court that leads into the inner sanctums of the temple, which begin with a dark chamber not achechamber.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Art of ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptian art refers to the style of painting, sculpture, crafts and architecture developed by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from c.5000 BCE to c.300 BCE. Ancient Egyptian art as expressed in painting and sculpture was both highly stylized and symbolic. Much of the surviving art comes from tombs and monuments and thus there is an emphasis on life after death and the preservation of knowledge of the past.
In a more narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical 2nd and 3rd Dynasty art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until the 3rd century. Most elements of Egyptian art remained remarkably stable over that 3000 year period. There wasn't strong outside influence. The same basic conventions and quality of observation started at a high level and remained near that level over the period.
Contents
1 Character and style
2 Symbolism
3 Periods
4 Art forms
4.1 Architecture
4.2 Papyrus
4.3 Pottery
4.4 Sculpture
4.5 Hieroglyphs
4.6 Literature
5 Paintings
6 Evolution
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Character and style
The Pharaoh Akhenaten is shown biger than the rest of his royal family, because he was of greater importanceHomeometric regularity, keen observation and exact representation of actual life and nature, and strict conformity to a set of rules regarding representation of three dimensional forms dominated the character and style of the art of ancient Egypt. The completion and precision of the piece were preferred to cosmetic representation and style. Because of the highly religious nature of ancient Egyptian civilization, many of the great works of ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and Pharaohs, who were also considered divine. Ancient Egyptian art is characterized by the idea of order. Clear and simple lines combined with simple shapes and flat areas of color helped to create a sense of order and balance in the art of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian artists used vertical and horizontal reference lines in order to maintain the correct proportions in their work. Political and religious, as well as artistic order, was also maintained in Egyptian art. In order to clearly define the social hierarchy of a situation, descriptive perspective was used and figures were drawn to sizes based not on their distance from the painter's point of view but on relative importance. For instance, the Pharaoh would be drawn as the largest figure in a painting no matter where he was situated, and a greater God would be drawn larger than a lesser god. The art would never change through the years.
Symbolism
Symbolism also played an important role in establishing a sense of order. Symbolism, ranging from the Pharaoh's regalia (symbolizing his power to maintain order) to the individual symbols of Egyptian gods and goddesses, is omnipresent in Egyptian art. Animals were usually also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Colors were more expressive rather than natural: red skin implied vigorous tanned youth, whereas yellow skin was used for women or middle-aged men who worked indoors; blue or gold indicated divinity because of its unnatural appearance and association with precious materials; the use of black for royal figures expressed the fertility of the Nile from which Egypt was born. Stereotypes were employed to indicate the geographical origins of foreigners[1]
Periods
Miniature Egyptian glassware from the New Kingdom period.Predynastic
Old Kingdom(2680 BC–2258 BC)
Middle Kingdom (2134 BC–1786 BC)
New Kingdom (1570 BC–1085 BC)
Amarna Period (1350 BC–1320 BC)
Late Period
Ptolemaic
Art forms
Sobek, fertility god of ancient Egypt.Ancient Egyptian art forms are characterized by regularity and detailed depiction of human beings and nature, and were intended to provide company to the deceased in the “other world”. Artists endeavored to preserve everything of the present time as clearly and permanently as possible. Completion took precedence over style. Some art forms present an extraordinarily vivid representation of the time and the life, as the ancient Egyptian life was lived thousand of years before.
Egyptian art in all forms obeyed one law: the mode of representing man, nature and the environment remained almost the same for thousands of years and the most admired artists were those who replicated most admired styles of the past.
Architecture
Main article: Ancient Egyptian architecture
Ancient Egyptian architects used pie, sun-dried, and kiln-baked bricks, fine sandstone, limestone and granite. Architects carefully planned all their work. The stones had to fit precisely together. Ramps were used to allow workmen to move up as the height of the construction grew. When the top of the structure was completed, the artists decorated from the top down, removing ramp sand as they went down.
Over a period of time, primitive structures of clay and reeds matured, and there emerged magnificent monumental structures of granites, with very thick walls. The massive sloping exterior walls contained only few small openings. Hieroglyphic and pictorial carvings in brilliant covers were abundantly used to decorate the structures, including many motifs, like the scarab, sacred beetle, the solar disk and the vulture.
The belief in existence of life beyond death resulted in a mammoth and impressive architectural style to house the mummified bodies. Construction of a burial monument commenced as soon a pharaoh was named, and continued until he died. Some constructions are very large and finely decorated, while some are relatively small like King Tutankhamen’s tomb, as he died very young. Another interesting aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture is that no structural support was provided, except the strength and balance of the structure itself, with one exception being the mud brick roofs of common houses that were supported by palm logs.
Papyrus
The Book of the Dead written on papyrusThe word paper is derived from "papyrus", a plant which was cultivated in the Nile delta. Papyrus sheets were derived after processing the papyrus plant. Some rolls of papyrus discovered are lengthy, up to 10 meters. The technique for crafting papyrus was lost over time, but was rediscovered by an Egyptologist in the 1940s.
Papyrus texts illustrate all dimensions of ancient Egyptian life and include literary, religious, historical and administrative documents. The pictorial script used in these texts ultimately provided the model for two most common alphabets in the world, the Roman and the Arabic.
Pottery
Egyptian pot on display at the LouvreAncient Egyptians used steatite (some varieties were called soapstone) and carved small pieces of vases, amulets, images of deities, of animals and several other objects. Ancient Egyptian artists also discovered the art of covering pottery with enamel. Covering by enamel was also applied to some stone works.
Different types of pottery items were deposited in burial chambers of the dead. Some such pottery items represented interior parts of the body, like the heart and the lungs, the liver and smaller intestines, which were removed before embalming. A large number of smaller objects in enamel pottery were also deposited with the dead. It was customary to craft on the walls of the tombs cones of pottery, about six to ten inches tall, on which were engraved or impressed legends relating to the dead occupants of the tombs. These cones usually contained the names of the deceased, their titles, offices which they held, and some expressions appropriate to funeral purposes.
Sculpture
A sculpted head of Amenhotep IIIThe ancient art of Egyptian sculpture evolved to represent the ancient Egyptian gods, Pharaohs,and the kings and queens, in physical form. Massive statues were built to represent gods and famous kings and queens. These statues were suppose to give eternal life to the kings and queens, and to enable the subjects to see them in physical forms.
Very strict conventions were followed while crafting statues: male statues were darker than the female ones; in seated statues, hands were required to be placed on knees and specific rules governed appearance of every Egyptian god. For example, the sky god (Horus) was essentially to be represented with a falcon’s head, the god of funeral rites (Anubis) was to be always shown with a jackal’s head. Artistic works were ranked according to exact compliance with all the conventions, and the conventions were followed so strictly that over three thousand years, very little changed in the appearance of statues. These conventions were intended to convey a timelessness and non aging representation of the figure's ka, or life for an eternal afterlife.
Hieroglyphs
The hieroglyphic script consisted of a variety of pictures and symbols. Some symbols had independent meanings, whereas some symbols were used in combination. In addition, some hieroglyphs were used phonetically, in a similar fashion to the Greek and Roman alphabets. Some symbols also conveyed multiple meanings; for example, legs could mean to walk, to run, to go and to come. The script was written in three directions: from top to bottom, from left to right, and from right to left. This style of writing continued to be used by the ancient Egyptians for nearly 3500 years, from 3300 BC till the third century AD.
Many art works of the period contain hieroglyphs and hieroglyphs themselves constitute an attractive feature of ancient Egyptian art. Knowledge of hieroglyphic script was lost after it was superseded by other scripts. In the 19th century the Frenchman Champollion finally succeeded in deciphering the mysterious script, opening up a wealth of knowledge to archaeologists and Egyptologists.
Literature
Ancient Egyptian literature also contains elements of ancient Egyptian art, as the texts and connected pictures were recorded on papyrus or on wall paintings and so on. They date from the Old Kingdom to the Greco-Roman period.
The subject matter of such literature-related art forms include hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, mortuary texts. Other subject matters were biographical and historical texts, scientific premises, including mathematical and medical texts, wisdom texts dealing with instructive literature, and stories.
Paintings
Wall painting of Queen NefertariAncient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient Egyptians created paintings to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place. Accordingly, beautiful paintings were created. The themes included journey through the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld. Some examples of such paintings are paintings of Osiris and Warriors. Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity.
In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife.
Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view, and a side view of the animal or person. For example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view.
Evolution
A New Kingdom coffin mask made of wood and glassMain article: Amarna art
During the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt the Pharaoh Akhenaten took the throne. He worshiped a monotheistic religion based on the worship of Aten, a sun god. Artistic changes followed political upheaval, although some stylistic changes are apparent before his reign. A new style of art was introduced that was more naturalistic than the stylized frieze favored in Egyptian art for the previous 1700 years. After Akhenaton's death, however, Egyptian artists reverted to their old styles, although there are many traces of this period's style in late art.
In a more narrow sense, Ancient Egyptian art refers to the canonical 2nd and 3rd Dynasty art developed in Egypt from 3000 BC and used until the 3rd century. Most elements of Egyptian art remained remarkably stable over that 3000 year period. There wasn't strong outside influence. The same basic conventions and quality of observation started at a high level and remained near that level over the period.
Contents
1 Character and style
2 Symbolism
3 Periods
4 Art forms
4.1 Architecture
4.2 Papyrus
4.3 Pottery
4.4 Sculpture
4.5 Hieroglyphs
4.6 Literature
5 Paintings
6 Evolution
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Character and style
The Pharaoh Akhenaten is shown biger than the rest of his royal family, because he was of greater importanceHomeometric regularity, keen observation and exact representation of actual life and nature, and strict conformity to a set of rules regarding representation of three dimensional forms dominated the character and style of the art of ancient Egypt. The completion and precision of the piece were preferred to cosmetic representation and style. Because of the highly religious nature of ancient Egyptian civilization, many of the great works of ancient Egypt depict gods, goddesses, and Pharaohs, who were also considered divine. Ancient Egyptian art is characterized by the idea of order. Clear and simple lines combined with simple shapes and flat areas of color helped to create a sense of order and balance in the art of ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian artists used vertical and horizontal reference lines in order to maintain the correct proportions in their work. Political and religious, as well as artistic order, was also maintained in Egyptian art. In order to clearly define the social hierarchy of a situation, descriptive perspective was used and figures were drawn to sizes based not on their distance from the painter's point of view but on relative importance. For instance, the Pharaoh would be drawn as the largest figure in a painting no matter where he was situated, and a greater God would be drawn larger than a lesser god. The art would never change through the years.
Symbolism
Symbolism also played an important role in establishing a sense of order. Symbolism, ranging from the Pharaoh's regalia (symbolizing his power to maintain order) to the individual symbols of Egyptian gods and goddesses, is omnipresent in Egyptian art. Animals were usually also highly symbolic figures in Egyptian art. Colors were more expressive rather than natural: red skin implied vigorous tanned youth, whereas yellow skin was used for women or middle-aged men who worked indoors; blue or gold indicated divinity because of its unnatural appearance and association with precious materials; the use of black for royal figures expressed the fertility of the Nile from which Egypt was born. Stereotypes were employed to indicate the geographical origins of foreigners[1]
Periods
Miniature Egyptian glassware from the New Kingdom period.Predynastic
Old Kingdom(2680 BC–2258 BC)
Middle Kingdom (2134 BC–1786 BC)
New Kingdom (1570 BC–1085 BC)
Amarna Period (1350 BC–1320 BC)
Late Period
Ptolemaic
Art forms
Sobek, fertility god of ancient Egypt.Ancient Egyptian art forms are characterized by regularity and detailed depiction of human beings and nature, and were intended to provide company to the deceased in the “other world”. Artists endeavored to preserve everything of the present time as clearly and permanently as possible. Completion took precedence over style. Some art forms present an extraordinarily vivid representation of the time and the life, as the ancient Egyptian life was lived thousand of years before.
Egyptian art in all forms obeyed one law: the mode of representing man, nature and the environment remained almost the same for thousands of years and the most admired artists were those who replicated most admired styles of the past.
Architecture
Main article: Ancient Egyptian architecture
Ancient Egyptian architects used pie, sun-dried, and kiln-baked bricks, fine sandstone, limestone and granite. Architects carefully planned all their work. The stones had to fit precisely together. Ramps were used to allow workmen to move up as the height of the construction grew. When the top of the structure was completed, the artists decorated from the top down, removing ramp sand as they went down.
Over a period of time, primitive structures of clay and reeds matured, and there emerged magnificent monumental structures of granites, with very thick walls. The massive sloping exterior walls contained only few small openings. Hieroglyphic and pictorial carvings in brilliant covers were abundantly used to decorate the structures, including many motifs, like the scarab, sacred beetle, the solar disk and the vulture.
The belief in existence of life beyond death resulted in a mammoth and impressive architectural style to house the mummified bodies. Construction of a burial monument commenced as soon a pharaoh was named, and continued until he died. Some constructions are very large and finely decorated, while some are relatively small like King Tutankhamen’s tomb, as he died very young. Another interesting aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture is that no structural support was provided, except the strength and balance of the structure itself, with one exception being the mud brick roofs of common houses that were supported by palm logs.
Papyrus
The Book of the Dead written on papyrusThe word paper is derived from "papyrus", a plant which was cultivated in the Nile delta. Papyrus sheets were derived after processing the papyrus plant. Some rolls of papyrus discovered are lengthy, up to 10 meters. The technique for crafting papyrus was lost over time, but was rediscovered by an Egyptologist in the 1940s.
Papyrus texts illustrate all dimensions of ancient Egyptian life and include literary, religious, historical and administrative documents. The pictorial script used in these texts ultimately provided the model for two most common alphabets in the world, the Roman and the Arabic.
Pottery
Egyptian pot on display at the LouvreAncient Egyptians used steatite (some varieties were called soapstone) and carved small pieces of vases, amulets, images of deities, of animals and several other objects. Ancient Egyptian artists also discovered the art of covering pottery with enamel. Covering by enamel was also applied to some stone works.
Different types of pottery items were deposited in burial chambers of the dead. Some such pottery items represented interior parts of the body, like the heart and the lungs, the liver and smaller intestines, which were removed before embalming. A large number of smaller objects in enamel pottery were also deposited with the dead. It was customary to craft on the walls of the tombs cones of pottery, about six to ten inches tall, on which were engraved or impressed legends relating to the dead occupants of the tombs. These cones usually contained the names of the deceased, their titles, offices which they held, and some expressions appropriate to funeral purposes.
Sculpture
A sculpted head of Amenhotep IIIThe ancient art of Egyptian sculpture evolved to represent the ancient Egyptian gods, Pharaohs,and the kings and queens, in physical form. Massive statues were built to represent gods and famous kings and queens. These statues were suppose to give eternal life to the kings and queens, and to enable the subjects to see them in physical forms.
Very strict conventions were followed while crafting statues: male statues were darker than the female ones; in seated statues, hands were required to be placed on knees and specific rules governed appearance of every Egyptian god. For example, the sky god (Horus) was essentially to be represented with a falcon’s head, the god of funeral rites (Anubis) was to be always shown with a jackal’s head. Artistic works were ranked according to exact compliance with all the conventions, and the conventions were followed so strictly that over three thousand years, very little changed in the appearance of statues. These conventions were intended to convey a timelessness and non aging representation of the figure's ka, or life for an eternal afterlife.
Hieroglyphs
The hieroglyphic script consisted of a variety of pictures and symbols. Some symbols had independent meanings, whereas some symbols were used in combination. In addition, some hieroglyphs were used phonetically, in a similar fashion to the Greek and Roman alphabets. Some symbols also conveyed multiple meanings; for example, legs could mean to walk, to run, to go and to come. The script was written in three directions: from top to bottom, from left to right, and from right to left. This style of writing continued to be used by the ancient Egyptians for nearly 3500 years, from 3300 BC till the third century AD.
Many art works of the period contain hieroglyphs and hieroglyphs themselves constitute an attractive feature of ancient Egyptian art. Knowledge of hieroglyphic script was lost after it was superseded by other scripts. In the 19th century the Frenchman Champollion finally succeeded in deciphering the mysterious script, opening up a wealth of knowledge to archaeologists and Egyptologists.
Literature
Ancient Egyptian literature also contains elements of ancient Egyptian art, as the texts and connected pictures were recorded on papyrus or on wall paintings and so on. They date from the Old Kingdom to the Greco-Roman period.
The subject matter of such literature-related art forms include hymns to the gods, mythological and magical texts, mortuary texts. Other subject matters were biographical and historical texts, scientific premises, including mathematical and medical texts, wisdom texts dealing with instructive literature, and stories.
Paintings
Wall painting of Queen NefertariAncient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient Egyptians created paintings to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place. Accordingly, beautiful paintings were created. The themes included journey through the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld. Some examples of such paintings are paintings of Osiris and Warriors. Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity.
In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife.
Egyptian paintings are painted in such a way to show a profile view, and a side view of the animal or person. For example, the painting to the right shows the head from a profile view and the body from a frontal view.
Evolution
A New Kingdom coffin mask made of wood and glassMain article: Amarna art
During the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt the Pharaoh Akhenaten took the throne. He worshiped a monotheistic religion based on the worship of Aten, a sun god. Artistic changes followed political upheaval, although some stylistic changes are apparent before his reign. A new style of art was introduced that was more naturalistic than the stylized frieze favored in Egyptian art for the previous 1700 years. After Akhenaton's death, however, Egyptian artists reverted to their old styles, although there are many traces of this period's style in late art.
Ancient Egyptian burial customs
The ancient Egyptians had an elaborate set of burial customs that they believed were necessary to ensure their immortality after death. These rituals and protocols included mummification, casting of magic spells, and burial with specific grave goods thought to be needed in the afterlife.[1][2]. The burial customs used by the ancient Egyptians evolved throughout time as old customs were discarded and new ones adopted, but several important elements of the process persisted. Although specific details changed over time, the preparation of the body, the magic rituals involved, and the grave goods provided were all essential parts of a proper Egyptian funeral.
Contents
1 Mummification
1.1 Reason
1.2 Practice
2 Burial rituals and funerary literature
3 Burial goods
4 References
Mummification
Reason
Keeping the body of an individual intact after death was necessary so that the soul would have a place to live after death. Shallow burials in hot sand often brought about mummification. But once bodies were buried in tombs they decayed quickly. The ancient Egyptians used mummification to prevent the person's remains from decaying.
Mummification was first used in the Old Kingdom, but not fully developed until the New Kingdom. It continued to be practiced until the demise of the ancient Egyptian religion. Mortuary services were available to anyone who could pay for them, although wealthy members of society could afford more elaborate services.
PracticeAlthough no records exist that document the exact process ancient Egyptians used to mummify humans, documents describing the mummification of the sacred Apis bull, the descriptions of Herodotus combined with thorough examination of existing mummies allow scholars to deduce the most likely course of the mummification process.
The basic process involved laying the body on a flat board, and cutting a slit in the abdomen. In an elaborate mummification, this might be performed by a priest wearing a jackal mask to represent Anubis, the deity associated with mummification and the guardian of the Necropolis. Then the body would be washed inside and out with palm wine. The lungs, liver, intestines, and the stomach were removed, mummified separately, and put into canopic jars. The heart was left intact because Egyptians believed this is where the essence of a person resided. Because the ancient Egyptians did not recognize the cognitive function of the brain, the brain would be removed by breaking the thin bone separating the nasal and cranial cavities. This was accomplished by inserting a hooked rod through the nose, stirring the brain until it turned into a liquid, and pouring it out through the nose. The cranial cavity would then be swabbed with linen and hot resin poured into the cavity to seal it.
The body cavity and the separate parts might then be washed with palm wine again. The body was then placed in natron for about forty days, with packets of natron placed inside the chest cavity. Natron dehydrated the body, which, combined with the high salt concentration, prevented bacterial growth and the decay of the body.
The mummy was then wrapped in many layers of linen strips, sealed to the body by tar or resin. Magic amulets were put in the folds and were believed to protect the body from evil spirits and help the soul on its journey through the afterlife. The entire process was completed in seventy days, after which the mummy was delivered to the deceased person's family for burial.
Burial rituals and funerary literature
The book of the dead was a collection of spells designed to guide the deceased in the afterlife.After the mummy was prepared, it would need to be re-animated, symbolically, by a priest. The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony was conducted by a priest who would utter a spell and touch the mummy or sarcophagus with a ceremonial adze - a copper or stone blade. This ceremony ensured that the mummy could breathe and speak in the afterlife. In a similar fashion, the priest could utter spells to reanimate the mummy's arms, legs, and other body parts.
In addition to the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, many mummies were provided with some form of funerary literature to take with them to the afterlife. Most funerary literature consists of lists of spells and instructions for navigating the afterlife. During the Old Kingdom, only the pharaoh had access to this material, which scholars refer to as the Pyramid Texts. The Pyramid Texts are a collection of spells to help the pharaoh in the afterlife. The Pharaoh Unas was the first to use this collection of spells, as he and a few subsequent pharaohs had them carved on the walls of their pyramids.[3]
In the First Intermediate Period and in the Middle Kingdom, some of the Pyramid Text spells also are found in burial chambers of high officials and on many coffins, where they begin to evolve into what scholars call the Coffin Texts. In this period, the nobles and many non-royal Egyptians began to have access to funerary literature, which later evolved into the well-known Book of the dead. By the time of the New Kingdom, any Egyptian who could afford a Book of the dead was able to take along to the afterlife a list of spells and instructions that would ensure safe passage.[4]
Burial goods
From the earliest periods of Egyptian history, all Egyptians were buried with at least some burial goods which they thought necessary after death. At a minimum, these usually consisted of everyday objects such as bowls, combs, and other trinkets, along with food. Wealthier Egyptians could afford to be buried with jewelry, furniture, and other valuables, which made them targets of tomb robbers.
As burial customs developed in the Old Kingdom, wealthy citizens were buried in wooden coffins and were accompanied by more varied kinds of valuables. Starting in the First Intermediate period, wooden models became very popular burial goods. These wooden models often depict everyday activities that the deceased expected to continue doing in the afterlife. Also, a type of rectangular coffin became the standard, being brightly painted and often including an offering formula.
A selection of shabti statuesIn the New Kingdom, some of the old burial customs changed. For example, an anthropoid coffin shape became standardized, and the deceased were provided with a small shabti statue, which the Egyptians believed would perform work for them in the afterlife. In later burials, the numbers of shabti statues increased; in some burials, numbering more than four hundred statues. In addition to these shabti statues, the deceased could be buried with many different types of magical figurines to protect them from harm. Although the types of burial goods changed throughout ancient Egyptian history, their functions to protect the deceased and provide sustenance in the afterlife remained a common purpose.
Contents
1 Mummification
1.1 Reason
1.2 Practice
2 Burial rituals and funerary literature
3 Burial goods
4 References
Mummification
Reason
Keeping the body of an individual intact after death was necessary so that the soul would have a place to live after death. Shallow burials in hot sand often brought about mummification. But once bodies were buried in tombs they decayed quickly. The ancient Egyptians used mummification to prevent the person's remains from decaying.
Mummification was first used in the Old Kingdom, but not fully developed until the New Kingdom. It continued to be practiced until the demise of the ancient Egyptian religion. Mortuary services were available to anyone who could pay for them, although wealthy members of society could afford more elaborate services.
PracticeAlthough no records exist that document the exact process ancient Egyptians used to mummify humans, documents describing the mummification of the sacred Apis bull, the descriptions of Herodotus combined with thorough examination of existing mummies allow scholars to deduce the most likely course of the mummification process.
The basic process involved laying the body on a flat board, and cutting a slit in the abdomen. In an elaborate mummification, this might be performed by a priest wearing a jackal mask to represent Anubis, the deity associated with mummification and the guardian of the Necropolis. Then the body would be washed inside and out with palm wine. The lungs, liver, intestines, and the stomach were removed, mummified separately, and put into canopic jars. The heart was left intact because Egyptians believed this is where the essence of a person resided. Because the ancient Egyptians did not recognize the cognitive function of the brain, the brain would be removed by breaking the thin bone separating the nasal and cranial cavities. This was accomplished by inserting a hooked rod through the nose, stirring the brain until it turned into a liquid, and pouring it out through the nose. The cranial cavity would then be swabbed with linen and hot resin poured into the cavity to seal it.
The body cavity and the separate parts might then be washed with palm wine again. The body was then placed in natron for about forty days, with packets of natron placed inside the chest cavity. Natron dehydrated the body, which, combined with the high salt concentration, prevented bacterial growth and the decay of the body.
The mummy was then wrapped in many layers of linen strips, sealed to the body by tar or resin. Magic amulets were put in the folds and were believed to protect the body from evil spirits and help the soul on its journey through the afterlife. The entire process was completed in seventy days, after which the mummy was delivered to the deceased person's family for burial.
Burial rituals and funerary literature
The book of the dead was a collection of spells designed to guide the deceased in the afterlife.After the mummy was prepared, it would need to be re-animated, symbolically, by a priest. The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony was conducted by a priest who would utter a spell and touch the mummy or sarcophagus with a ceremonial adze - a copper or stone blade. This ceremony ensured that the mummy could breathe and speak in the afterlife. In a similar fashion, the priest could utter spells to reanimate the mummy's arms, legs, and other body parts.
In addition to the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, many mummies were provided with some form of funerary literature to take with them to the afterlife. Most funerary literature consists of lists of spells and instructions for navigating the afterlife. During the Old Kingdom, only the pharaoh had access to this material, which scholars refer to as the Pyramid Texts. The Pyramid Texts are a collection of spells to help the pharaoh in the afterlife. The Pharaoh Unas was the first to use this collection of spells, as he and a few subsequent pharaohs had them carved on the walls of their pyramids.[3]
In the First Intermediate Period and in the Middle Kingdom, some of the Pyramid Text spells also are found in burial chambers of high officials and on many coffins, where they begin to evolve into what scholars call the Coffin Texts. In this period, the nobles and many non-royal Egyptians began to have access to funerary literature, which later evolved into the well-known Book of the dead. By the time of the New Kingdom, any Egyptian who could afford a Book of the dead was able to take along to the afterlife a list of spells and instructions that would ensure safe passage.[4]
Burial goods
From the earliest periods of Egyptian history, all Egyptians were buried with at least some burial goods which they thought necessary after death. At a minimum, these usually consisted of everyday objects such as bowls, combs, and other trinkets, along with food. Wealthier Egyptians could afford to be buried with jewelry, furniture, and other valuables, which made them targets of tomb robbers.
As burial customs developed in the Old Kingdom, wealthy citizens were buried in wooden coffins and were accompanied by more varied kinds of valuables. Starting in the First Intermediate period, wooden models became very popular burial goods. These wooden models often depict everyday activities that the deceased expected to continue doing in the afterlife. Also, a type of rectangular coffin became the standard, being brightly painted and often including an offering formula.
A selection of shabti statuesIn the New Kingdom, some of the old burial customs changed. For example, an anthropoid coffin shape became standardized, and the deceased were provided with a small shabti statue, which the Egyptians believed would perform work for them in the afterlife. In later burials, the numbers of shabti statues increased; in some burials, numbering more than four hundred statues. In addition to these shabti statues, the deceased could be buried with many different types of magical figurines to protect them from harm. Although the types of burial goods changed throughout ancient Egyptian history, their functions to protect the deceased and provide sustenance in the afterlife remained a common purpose.
Race of ancient Egyptians
The race of ancient Egyptians is a subject that has attracted some controversy, especially within Afrocentric circles. The debate over the racial characteristics of the ancient Egyptians usually occurs outside the field of Egyptology today.[1] Studies have shown that modern Egyptians have genetic affinities primarily with populations of North and East Africa,[2][3][4][5] and to a lesser extent Middle Eastern and European populations.[6] Studies done on ancient Egyptians' remains have shown uniformity and homogeneity among the samples, and cranial/limb ratio similarity with populations from North Africa, Somalia, Nubia, Southwest Asia and Europe.[7][8][9][10][11] Blood typing and DNA sampling on ancient Egyptian mummies is scant; however, blood typing of dynastic mummies found ABO frequencies to be most similar to modern Egyptians[12] and some also to Northern Haratin populations. ABO blood group distribution shows that the Egyptians form a sister group to North African populations, including Berbers, Nubians and Canary Islanders.[13] DNA extraction (namely from the 12th dynasty) indicates multiple lines of descent, including sub-Saharan Africa, while the other lineages were not identified, but may be African in origin as well (according to Keita, 1996).[14][15] Egyptologists generally consider the ancient Egyptians to have been a continuum from the lighter northern population of Lower Egypt to the darker Upper Egyptians.[16]
Historically there have been differing accounts of the appearance of ancient Egyptians as compared to people of other nations. The Egyptians have alternately been described as lighter than the Moors,[17] similar in appearance to northern Indians,[18] and as having brown and black skin.[19] Modern classical scholars and anthropologists dispute the reliability of ancient accounts asserting that the terms used have different meanings from modern concepts of racial characteristics.[20][21] Ancient Egyptians generally noted the difference between themselves and other peoples; however, such differences frequently were based on culture or politics opposed to physical characteristics.[16]
Contents
1 Population characteristics
2 Egyptian self-view
3 Material Culture
4 Language
5 Mummy reconstructions
5.1 Possible difficulties of forensic reconstruction
6 Relations with Nubia
7 Historical perspectives
7.1 Accounts by ancient writers
7.2 Great Sphinx of Giza
7.3 History of Egyptology
7.3.1 Hamitic hypothesis
7.3.2 Mesopotamian influence
8 Controversies
8.1 Afrocentric views
8.2 King Tutankhamun
8.3 Alleged racism in Egyptology
8.4 Kmt
8.5 Cleopatra
9 Other views
9.1 Hamitic hypothesis
9.2 Dynastic race theory
10 See also
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
Population characteristics
Studies performed to determine the population characteristics of ancient Egyptians have used various methods including examining craniometric pattern and variation of skeletal remains. A 2007 study which examined craniometric variation among ancient Egyptians of the predynastic and early dynastic periods found high levels of diversity but concluded that the formation of the Egyptian state was predominantly indigenous in development, with some, but limited migration from elsewhere.[22] A craniofacial study by C. Loring Brace et. al. concluded that; "The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related to each other than to any other population" and that they show ties with North African, Somalian, European, Nubian and, more remotely, Indian populations, but not with Sub-Saharan Africans or populations from other continents.[23] Anthropologist Shomarka Keita and geneticist Rick Kittles have criticized this study because of what they describe as "a socially constructed typological paradigm" in which Sub-Saharan Africans are treated as a monolithic, and biological African groups such as Nubians, Somalians and Egyptians are viewed essentially as non-African for having a craniometic pattern more similar to that of non-African populations.[24] In addition, a 2005 study by Keita of Badarian crania in predynastic upper Egypt in comparison to North and Central European and tropical African crania found "a greater affinity to indigenous Africans while not being identical" than with Europeans.[25] According to Keita, "This affinity is relative and not to be taken as indicating identity" and that the findings can be interpreted as showing "a particular broad similarity" in the samples under study.[26] He adds that, "The dendrograms of Brace et al. (1993) would seem to illustrate in the main a facet of indigenous African diversity observed elsewhere: a subset of African series evincing similarity to non-African groups not primarily due to gene flow..."[27]
Several anthropologists have identified northern and southern craniometric patterns in the Egyptian population of the early predynastic period, which Keita describes as "northern-Egyptian-Maghreb" and "tropical African variant" (overlapping with Nubia/Kush) respectively. He shows that a progressive change in Upper Egypt toward the northern Egyptian pattern takes place through the predynastic period, though the southern pattern continues to predominate in Abydos in Upper Egypt by the First Dynasty but lower Egyptian, Maghreb and European patterns are also observed thus making for a great diversity.[28] A 2006 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows that a continuity extends from the dynastic to the post-dynastic periods, and that the Egyptians exhibit dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans, and to a lesser extent, Southwest Asians. Also all samples particularly the ones from the dynastic are shown to be significantly divergent from neolithic west saharan sample from lower Nubia.[9] Some studies have also shown that Nile Valley populations possessed more tropical body proportions, suggesting that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.[21][7]
In summary, ancient Egypt is thought by many scholars to have been a melting pot of various Nile Valley, North African, Saharan and Levantine peoples since earliest times.[9][22] Some theories have postulated that the ancient Egyptians received significant demographic influence from the Near East[29] while others postulate that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a primarily African descent group, with relatively little significant outside influences from the Near East.[22][30] Recent demographic analysis done by some anthropologists has led to the conclusion that there was an overall population continuity stretching from the Neolithic into dynastic times, with small amounts of foreign admixture.[31] Jared Diamond states:
"local hunter-gatherers simply added Southwest Asian domesticates and farming and herding techniques to their own diet of wild plants and animals, then gradually phased out the wild foods. That is, what arrived to launch food production in Egypt was foreign crops and animals, not foreign peoples"[32][33]
Archaeologist Bruce Trigger cites what he saw as a deliberate obfuscation of racial politics, asserting that the early Nile valley populations (including Egyptians) were all Africans and need not be defined by arbitrary constructs of race, devoid of any contextual significance.[34] Egyptologist Frank Yurco shared a similar sentiment, identifying Egyptian civilization as comprising a mix of North and sub-Saharan African elements that typified Egyptians ever since, and that the Egyptian people were generally coextensive with other Africans in the Nile valley.[16] Many researchers note a wide range of variability in ancient Egypt and the Nile Valley, but assert that many Egyptians, especially southern, would be identified as "black" by American classification standards.[35]
Some genetic studies done on modern Egyptians suggest that most do not have close relations to most tropical Africans,[36] and other studies show that they are mostly related to other North Africans,[37] and to a lesser extent southern European/Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations.[5] A 2004 mtDNA study of upper Egyptians from Gurna found a genetic ancestral heritage to modern East Africans, characterized by a high M1 haplotype frequency, and another study links Egyptians in general with people from modern Eritrea and Ethiopia.[3][38] A 2003 Y chromosome study was performed by Lucotte on modern Egyptians, with haplotypes V, XI, and IV being most common. Haplotype V is common in Berbers and has a low frequency outside Africa. Haplotypes V, XI, and IV are all supra/sub-Saharan horn of Africa haplotypes, and they are far more dominant in Egyptians than in Near Eastern or European groups.[39]
Egyptian self-view
The ancient Egyptians considered themselves part of a distinct group, separate from their neighbors, and viewed themselves simply as Egyptians.[16] In their wall paintings, they distinguished themselves from Nubian, Libyan, Semitic, Berber, and Eurasian peoples. The Egyptians saw themselves as darker than the Asiatics and Libyans but lighter than the Nubians, and with different facial features and body types from the other groups.[1] The Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt in the south as their ancestral homeland.[40][41][42]
Today Egyptians have occasionally voiced their opinion regarding some of the controversies that have erupted over the origins of the ancient Egyptians. A 1993 anthropological study on Egyptian skeletal remains made reference to an incident in 1989 when the Dallas Museum of Natural History sponsored an Egyptian exhibit showcasing Egyptian culture at the time of Ramesses II. When the local Blackology Speaking Committee threatened to boycott the exhibit because Ramesses II was not depicted as "black", the Director of the Cultural Office in the Egyptian Embassy, Latif Aboul-Ela, complained that the event was being distorted by an "American form of 'racial politics'".[43] In an Associated Press release, Aboul-Ela said, "Ramesses II was neither black nor white but Egyptian.... This is an Egyptian heritage and an Egyptian culture 100 percent.... We cannot say by any means we are black or white. We are Egyptians."[44]
Some Egyptians also embrace what they describe as their African heritage, while criticizing some of their fellow compatriots for not doing the same. Egyptian film-maker Yusry Nasrallah claims in a recent publication by "AfricaNews", that he likes his African share and that Egypt owes much to Africa, especially because of the Nile river.[45]
Material Culture
Located in the extreme corner of Northeast Africa, ancient Egyptian society was at a crossroads between African and Near Eastern regions. During the Naqada phase, the predynastic Egyptians of Upper Egypt shared an almost identical culture with A-group peoples of the Lower Sudan.[46] In fact, the cultures were so similar, as indicated by royal tombs at Qustul, along with the earliest examples of what was thought to have been distinct Egyptian iconography, some scholars have even proposed an Egyptian origin in Nubia among the A-group.[47][48] Indeed, in 1996, Lovell and Prowse published a paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology citing evidence for endogamy. They reported the presence of individual rulers buried at Naqada in what was designated as elite, high status tombs, showing them to be related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia, more so than those in Southern Egypt.[49] While others find this prospect intriguing, however, many scholars are not swayed by the evidence and cite the presence of royal tombs that are contemporary with that of Qustul and just as elaborate, while also addressing what they see as difficulty with the dating techniques.[50]
Excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100km west of Abu Simbel, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. There is some speculation that this culture is likely to be the predecessor of the Egyptians, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of Egypt's Old Kingdom.[51][52]
Toby Wilkonson, in his book "Genesis of the Pharaohs", proposes an origin for the Egyptians somewhere in the Eastern Desert.[53] He presents evidence that much of predynastic Egypt was representative of the traditional African cattle-culture, typical of Southern Sudanese and East African pastoralists of today. In addition, Wilkonson cites the iconography on rock art in the region as depicting what he suggests to be the first examples of the royal crowns, even pointing to Qustul in Nubia as a likely candidate for the origins of the white crown, being that the earliest example of it was discovered in this area.
Language
African languages.The Ancient Egyptian language (a language most closely related to Berber, Semitic, and Beja) is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Initially, it was believed that Semitic languages originated in the near east, however, linguists soon began to reveal a connection between them and several African Languages, it was found that they were more related to languages in Africa than to languages in most parts of Asia and Europe. Joseph Greenberg, based on these observations proposed the term Afro-Asiatic(formerly known as Hamito-Semitic) to encompass all of these languages. The origin of Proto-Afro-Asiatic languages is still debated. An African origin is often proposed since five of the six Afro-Asiatic subfamilies are spoken on the African continent and only one in the middle east. Furthermore, some scholars have proposed Ethiopia, because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, often considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Hence, many scholars cite this as evidence of a primarily African origin for the Ancient Egyptians as opposed to a near eastern origin.
Mummy reconstructions
Possible difficulties of forensic reconstruction
King TutSome forensic anthropologists assert that attempts to apply criteria from craniofacial anthropometry sometimes can yield seemingly counterintuitive results, depending upon the weight given to each feature. For example, some contend that their application can result in finding some East and South Indians to have "Negroid" cranial/facial features and others to have "Caucasoid" cranial/facial features. While many East Africans for instance, have "Caucasoid" skulls,[55] and many of the Khoisan who inhabit southwestern Africa have cranial/facial traits that are distinct from many other sub-Saharan Africans and resemble "Mongoloid" characteristics.[56] A recent study of ancient Nubian crania was critical of assigning the traditional racial labels to skeletal remains. The study concluded that the assignment of racial origins to skeletons can sometimes misrepresent fundamental patterns in human biological diversity.[57]
These seeming contradictions, however, are related to the vagaries of racial classification, particularly of ethnically diverse or miscegenated populations, as exist in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Cranial analysis is still used by some forensic scientists to determine the identity and geographic ethnic origin of human remains, even though the accuracy of ethnicity-related conclusions drawn from cranial analysis is not absolute -- particularly when treating populations possessing varying degrees of "racial", or ethnic, admixture. Though modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy based on CT data from his mummy, but due to lack of facial tissue and embalming issues, correctly determining his skin tone,shape of the top part of his nose and eye color is nearly impossible.[58] The problem is not a lack of skill on the part of Ancient Egyptians. Egyptian artisans distinguished accurately among different ethnicities, but sometimes depicted their subjects in totally unreal colors, the purposes for which aren't completely understood. Thus no absolute consensus on the skin tone and various other features of reconstructed mummies such as Tutankhamun is possible.
Relations with Nubia
Nubia (Ethiopia of Greeks) appears often in the history of Egypt. According to Manetho, if the number of years of reigns before the dynasties is in excess, "it must be supposed that perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time; for they say that the rulers were kings of This, of Memphis, of Saïs, of Ethiopia, and of other places at the same time".[59] Diodorus Siculus, in the Volume III of Bibliotheca historica (The Library of History) writes that the Ethiopians consider the Egyptians as one of their colony brought in Egypt by Osiris.[60] In the same book, Diodorus Siculus notes that the Ethiopians have black skin and wooly hair.[61] And Alan Gardiner translates "Tз-Seti", the "Ist nome of Upper Egypt", as "Nubia", and "Styw", its inhabitants, as "Nubians".[62] In fact, Jean-François Champollion has already revealed that ancient Egyptians might have originated either from Abyssinia or from Sennar.[63]
Mayassis states that Isis was considered as a Black and Red goddess, a Nubian,[64] and that the soul of Osiris flies from the left side,[65] which is, according to Plutarch, the south of Egypt.[66]
Nubia was also referred to by the Egyptians as "miserable Kush", and the Nubians as kilt wearers, bow people and blacks. Egypt saw Nubia as a source of slaves and raw materials such as gold. When Pharaoh Thutmose I conquered Nubia his scribe wrote this in the Hymn of Victory:
He hath overthrown the chief of the Nubians, the black is helpless, defenseless in his grasp. He hath united the boundaries of his two sides, there is not a remnant among the curly-haired who can come attack him. There is not a single survivor among them. The Nubian troglodytes fall by the sword and are thrust aside in their lands. Their foulness, it floods their valley and their mouths like a violent flood, the fragments cut from them are too much for the birds,carrying off the prey to another place.[67][68][69]
Historical perspectives
Accounts by ancient writers
Herodotus, the "father of history", wrote that Egyptians had black skin and woolly hair.Many ancient writers commented of the 'racial affinities' of ancient Egyptians. While some held them to be people with 'black skins and woolly hair' similar to 'Kushites', others described them as 'medium toned' or similar to that of northern Indians. Greek historian Herodotus commented on a perceived relationship between the Colchians (from the modern Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus) and the Egyptians. He states that he was told by several Egyptians that the Colchians were descended from the Egyptian soldier Sesostris and further draws a connection from the skin tone and "kinky hair" of the Colchians as well as their practice of circumcision. Herodotus described the Colchians as melanchros, black.[70] Some scholars, such as Yaacov Shavit are of the opinion that since Egyptians were not described as Aethiopes, they were in fact distinguished from "black" Africans.[71] According to Classicist Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Herodotus seems to have been following a Graeco-Roman practice of describing people darker than themselves as melanchros, which did not mean that the people they described were black.[72] Other interpretations have pointed out that Herodotus could have been speaking in relative terms, since the Colchians were noted as residing near the Black Sea, close to modern day Russia where there are virtually no dark skinned, woolly haired people today; There are also others who question whether or not Herodotus ever visited the Black Sea region in the first place.[73] Professor of African Studies at Temple University, Molefi Kete Asante however, cites other examples from Herodotus, one where he asserts that "the flooding of the Nile could not be caused by snow, because the natives of the country (Egypt) are black from the heat".[74]
Other ancient writers testify that there indeed was an ancient population of dark skinned, woolly haired people residing in Colchis, giving at least some support to Herodotus' claim that they were left there by the armies of the legendary Sesostris after initial campaigns in the region. Indeed, there is further description from ancient writers describing the populations of Colchis in this fashion. A Greek poet named Pindar described the Colchians, whom Jason and the Argonauts fought, as being "dark skinned". Also around 350 to 400 AD, Church father Saint Jerome and Sophronius referred to Colchis as the "second Ethiopia" because of its 'black-skinned' population.[75]
Aristotle, who some have questioned whether or not visited Egypt, also commented on the physical traits of the Egyptians and Ethiopians. Aristotle asserts that skin color is somehow correlated to courage, and also gives his impression on why the Egyptians and Ethiopians are bowlegged and 'curly haired' by contending that "too black a hue marks the coward" as well as "too white a complexion" and that courage rests between the two. Aristotle also asserts that the Egyptians are "bandy legged" and asks if this is due to the fact that their bodies became "distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry", he contends that the hair of the Ancient Egyptians supports the theory as it is curlier than that of other nations.[76]
Strabo wrote that the Egyptians resembled the people of northern India.Ammianus Marcellinus (325/330-after 391) was a Greco-Roman historian who also gave his own brief observations. Marcellinus stated that the Egyptians were "mostly brown and black" with a "skinny and desiccated look".[77][78] Marcus Manilius though described the Egyptians as lighter than the Moors, saying "the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields."[79] Ancient writers have also made comparisons between ancient Egyptians and northern Indians of the time. Greek historian, geographer and philosopher Strabo stated that As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.[80] Greek historian Arrian also drew a similarity between northern Indians and ancient Egyptians stating that the appearance of the inhabitants of ancient Egypt was not very different from those in northern India. Arrian further stated that "the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians physically".[81] The writings of Strabo and Arrian were drawn from the earlier accounts of Nearchus, Megasthenes and Eratosthenes.[82]
According to Yaacov Shavit of Tel Aviv University, "[t]he evidence clearly shows that those Graeco-Roman authors who refer to the skin color and other physical traits distinguish sharply between Ethiopians (Nubians) and Egyptians, and rarely do they refer to the Egyptians as black, even though they were described as darker than themselves.... [in addition,] Egyptians and Nubians were both clearly distinguished from the black Africans."[83] However, late professor of classics, Frank Snowden has not made note of any distinction between Nubians, Ethiopians, or modern conceptions of "black African". He concedes that "both Egyptians and Ethiopians were described as black, but only Ethiopians were described as having exceedingly woolly hair".[17]
Classical scholar Frank Snowden cautions that terms used by ancient Greek and Roman writers to describe the physical characteristics of other ancient peoples were different in meaning from modern-day racial terms in the West. Snowden writes:
....the Afrocentrists are mistaken in assuming that the term Afri (Africans) and various color adjectives for dark pigmentation as used by Greeks and Romans are always the classical equivalents of Negroes or blacks in modern usage.... Not all the peoples described by such color terms were blacks or Negroes in the modern sense, but only the inhabitants of the Nile Valley south of Egypt and of the southern fringes of northwestern Africa.... That the pigmentation of the Egyptians was seen as lighter than that of Ethiopians is also attested by the adjective subfusucli {"somewhat dark") which Ammianus Marcellinus (22.16.23) chose to describe the Egyptians.... There was also a mixed Egyptian-Nubian element in the population of Egypt at least a early as the middle of the third millennium B.C.E....[84]
According to the hippocratic text the Egyptians were not unlike the Scythians,though the Scythians were reddened because of cold the Egyptians were reddened due to sun exposure,Also in Hesiod Works and Days it states that black people reside not in the nile valley but in a far off land,by the fountains of the sun,or where it goes to and fro[85]
Keita and Boyce confront this issue in a 1996 article entitled, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians". As anthropologists, they point out the danger in relying on ancient interpretation to reveal for us the biological make up of a population. They contend that the relevant data indicates greater similarity between Egyptians and Ethiopians than the former group with the ancient Greeks. They also state that relying on ancient interpretations are problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology, even though the Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians".[21]
Great Sphinx of Giza
Head of the Giza SphinxOver the centuries, numerous writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Great Sphinx of Giza in relation to its possible racial characteristics. French philosopher Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney visited Egypt between 1783 and 1785 and is one of the earliest known Western scholars to remark upon what he saw as its "typically Negro" countenance. De Volney stated that the Sphinx's appearance was "typically nergro in all its features"[86] Upon visiting Egypt in 1849, French author Gustave Flaubert stated that he had observations. In his travel log chronicling his trip, he wrote of the Sphinx: "it exactly faces the rising sun, its head is grey, ears very large and protruding like a negro’s...the fact that the nose is missing increases the flat, negroid effect. Besides, it was certainly Ethiopian; the lips are thick…."[87] In his work The Negro, published in 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that the great sphinx is similar to other statues of the world and represented "black, full-blooded negros" which he stated were described as having "high cheek bones, flat cheeks,.. a massive nose, firm projecting lips, and thick hair with an austere and almost savage expression of power."[88] According to professor of Jewish history, Yaacov Shavit, most of the European travelers and scholars rejected Volney's views about the sphinx, including British Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge, who wrote that '...all attempts to prove that the Egyptians are of the Negro race are overthrown at the outset by facts which cannot be controverted... the fact, however, remains that the Egyptian fellah is exactly what he was in the earliest dynasties.'"[89]
Even modern observers have noted the sphinx's characteristics. In 1992, the New York Times published a letter to the editor submitted by then Harvard professor of orthodontics[90] Sheldon Peck in which he commented on a study of the Giza sphinx conducted by New York City Police Department senior forensics artist Frank Domingo. Peck Wrote that the "This is an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those of Asian or Indo-European stock."[91]
History of Egyptology
Hamitic hypothesis
Main article: Hamitic hypothesis
The "Hamitic Hypothesis" associated the Ancient Egyptians with Berbers, viz. speakers of Hamitic languages.[92] The postulated "Hamitic race" was sometimes credited with the introduction of more advanced culture, such as certain plant cultivation and particularly the domestication of cattle.[citation needed]
Modern scholarship has moved away from earlier notions of a "Hamitic" race speaking Hamito-Semitic languages, and places the Egyptian language in a more localized context, centered around its general Saharan and Nilotic roots.(F. Yurco "An Egyptological Review", 1996)[93]
Mesopotamian influence
Main article: Dynastic Race Theory
The Dynastic Race Theory was the earliest thesis to attempt to explain how predynastic Egypt developed into the Pharonic monarchy. It argued that the presence of many Mesopotamian influences in Egypt during the late predynastic period and the apparently foreign graves in the Naqada II burials indicated an invasion of Mesopotamians into Upper Egypt, who then conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty
The Dynastic Race Theory is no longer the dominant thesis in the field of Predynastic Archaeology, and has been largely replaced by the theory that Egypt was a Hydraulic empire, on the grounds that such contacts are much older than the Naqada II period,[94] the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period,[95] and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.[96] Some scholars still note that while the Dynastic Race Theory is probably fallacious, the evidence upon which it was based does still indicate significant predynastic Mesopotamian influence;[97] however, recent anthropological studies have also reported biological continuity from the early predynastic, into the dynastic era, suggesting that state formation was a predominantly indigenous process.[22]
Controversies
Afrocentric views
Afrocentric scholars and authors assert that Egyptians were "black" and contend that modern perceptions of ancient Egyptians are due to racial prejudice on the part of early egyptologists.[98] For example, Cheikh Anta Diop wrote that life for the ancient Egyptians was oriented to the south in the direction of Sub-Saharan Africa[99]
King Tutankhamun
A controversial 2005 rendering of Tutankhamun with hazel eyes and "mid-range" skin tone, from National Geographic magazine.
Golden death mask of Tutankhamun.The racial characteristics of King Tutankhamun has caused some controversy. In 2005, three teams of scientists (Egyptian, French and American), in partnership with the National Geographic Society, developed a facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun from 1,700 three-dimensional CT scans of the Pharaoh's skull. The French and American teams worked plastic molds created from these – but the Americans were never told whom they were reconstructing.[100] All three teams created silicone busts of their interpretation of what the young monarch looked like. In the end, Zahi Hawass, head of Cairo's Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the skull as "that of a male, 18 to 20 years old, with Caucasoid features."[100] The French team's reconstruction specifically however, has sparked considerable controversy. In 2005 when a King Tut exhibition was shown in Los Angeles, it was met by black activist demonstrators who protested the exhibition on the grounds that the statues shown portrayed King tut as "white" and demanded that they be removed.[101] Afrocentrists criticize the French team's claim that they selected the skin tone by taking a color from the middle of the range of skin tones found in the population of Egypt today.[102] They claim that these features do not reflect the prevalent eye or skin color of either ancient dynastic Egypt or present-day Egyptians. They further argue that many representations of Tutankhamun portray him with red-brown to dark-brown skin and dark eyes, and that the teams should have used these as references in assigning eye and skin color.[103] In comparison to the 2005 reconstruction, some have commented that the earlier 2002 Discovery Channel reconstruction showed a darker skin tone, among other differences.[104] Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for mission programs, said, in response to criticism of the King Tut reconstructions that "The big variable is skin tone." and "North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.'"
Zahi Hawass has stated that: "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it". Hawass made this statement in light of calls from U.S. black activists demanding egyptologists to recognize that King Tut was black. Hawass also stated that "Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa,". Hawass was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia where protesters demanded a bust of King Tut be removed because it portrayed him as white.[101] Hawass, in a 2007 publication of "Ancient Egypt Magazine", also asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tut, claiming for example that the French reconstruction ended up with a person that looked French, whose features do not resemble any known Egyptians. He asserts that in his opinion, the most accurate representation of the boy king is the mask from his tomb.[106] In addition, according to the LA Times, the archaeological inspector for the Supreme Council of antiquities, Ahmed Saleh, disagrees with some of Hawass' statements, stating that the procedures used in the facial re-creation made Tut look Caucasian, "disrespecting the nation's African roots".
Alleged racism in Egyptology
Senegalese historian and activist Cheikh Anta Diop, in his book Nations Nègres et Culture, denounced colonial Egyptology as prejudiced against black historical accomplishments. Diop himself has come under criticism by mainstream scholars for having distorted some of his sources and as a result falsifying history.[108][109] Diop claims that Egyptologists "knew" that ancient Egyptians were "black", But the fact that Africans were colonized, he argued, made it difficult to admit that they were the creators of the Egyptian civilization. He quoted, for example, Champollion-Figeac who said that “black skin and wholly hair don’t make someone to belong to the Black race”.[110] In his book, Egitto e Nubia, Maurizio Damiano-Appia wrote that for many Egyptologists of the past, and even of today, Egypt was the creation of a "white race." Appia alleges that Eurocentrism, mainly of Anglo Saxon orientation, was at the base of this false idea.[111] Aboubacry Moussa Lam, in his book L’affaire des momies royales. La vérité sur la reine Ahmès-Nefertari, argued that Egyptian mummies were falsely described as being caucasian.[112]
Some other more controversial methods have been used to determine the racial characteristics of Ancient Egyptians. Cheikh Anta Diop performed a series of the tests on Egyptian mummies to determine melanin levels and concluded that Egyptians were dark-skinned and part of the "Negro race".[113] Diop noted criticisms of these results that argue that the skin of most Egyptian mummies, tainted by the embalming material, are no longer susceptible of any analysis. Diop contended the position that although the epidermis is the main site of the melanin, the melanocytes penetrating the dermis at the boundary between it and the epidermis, even where the latter has mostly been destroyed by the embalming materials, show a melanin level which is non-existent in the "white-skinned races". However, Diop did not describe any tests that verify his claims that melanin is "non-existent" among the "white-skinned races", nor provide evidence supporting his assertion that the absence of melanin in the epidermis is due to embalming techniques. Diop innovated the development of the melanin dosage test which was later adopted by forensic investigators to determine the "racial identity" of badly burnt accident victims.[114]
J. D. Walker wrote an article for the Journal of Black Studies in 1995 suggesting that Diop's views had been widely misinterpreted by his critics and that Diop's understanding of race and blackness went beyond the "stereotyped caricatured West African physiognomy described in some literature as the True Negro'" Walker writes that his definition of "black" was sometimes all encompassing those with dark complexions, and at times, even non-Africans.[115]
Kmtkm in Egyptian hieroglyphs km biliteral km.t (place) km.t (people)
One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is km.t (read "Kemet"), meaning "black land". More literally, the word means "something black". The use of km.t in terms of a place is thought generally to be in contrast to the "deshert" or "red land", e.g. the desert west of the Nile valley. Egypt for millennia depended on the flooding of the Nile to bring fertility to the land, and the resulting soil was very black. Likewise, the word kmt could also refer to the people when followed by the people determinatives, as shown on the far right. Raymond Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian translates it into "Egyptians", as do most sources. However, scholar Aboubacry Moussa Lam prefers what he considers to be a more literal translation and suggests that km.t should be translated as meaning, "land of the black/s" or "black nation" when it applies to the country and as meaning "the Blacks" when it applies to the population,[119] a view rejected by most Egyptologists.
Cleopatra
The claim that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, was of Black African origin has been espoused by a few Afrocentric academics.[121] Cleopatra, however, was of Hellenistic origin. Mary Lefkowitz argues that Afrocentric scholars are to blame for the proliferation of the myth of African origin. According to Professor of African American Studies at Temple University, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, the idea that Cleopatra was black is not a major aspect of Afrocentrists' arguments, and he asserts that Afrocentricists do not spend a lot of time arguing such.[122]
Other views
Hamitic hypothesis
Complications have also cropped up in the use of linguistics as a basis for racial categorization. The demise of the famous "Hamitic Hypothesis", which purported to show that certain African languages around the Nile area could be associated with "Caucasoid" peoples is a typical case. Such schemes fell apart when it was demonstrated that so-called 'Negroid' tribes far distant also spoke similar languages, tongues that were supposedly a reserved marker of 'Caucasoid' presence or influence.[123] For work on African languages, see Wiki article Languages of Africa and Joseph Greenberg. Older linguistic classifications are also linked to the notion of a "Hamitic race", a vague grouping thought to exclude 'Negroes', but accommodating a large variety of dark skinned North and East Africans into a broad-based 'Caucasoid' grouping. This "Hamitic race" is sometimes credited with the introduction of more advanced culture, such as certain plant cultivation and particularly the domestication of cattle.
This theory has also been discredited by the work of post-WWII archaeologists such as A. Arkell, who demonstrated that predynastic and Sudanic 'Negroid' elements already possessed cattle and plant domestication, thousands of years before the supposed influx of 'Caucasoid' or 'Hamitic' settlers into the Nile Valley, Nubia and adjoining areas.[124] Modern scholarship has moved away from earlier notions of a "Hamitic" race speaking Hamito-Semitic languages, and places the Egyptian language in a more localized context, centered around its general Saharan and Nilotic roots.(F. Yurco "An Egyptological Review", 1996)[125] Linguistic analysis (Diakanoff 1998) has led most scholars to place the origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages in northeast Africa, while some still lean towards Southwest Asia, with older strands south of Egypt, and newer elements straddling the Nile Delta and Sinai.[126][127] The Semitic languages form the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily extant outside of Africa. Some scholars believe that, in historical or near-historical times, Semitic speakers crossed from South Arabia back into Ethiopia and Eritrea. Others, such as A. Murtonen, dispute this view, and suggest that the Semitic branch may have originated in Ethiopia.
Dynastic race theory
The Dynastic Race Theory was the earliest thesis to attempt to explain how predynastic Egypt developed into the Pharonic monarchy. It argued that the presence of many Mesopotamian influences in Egypt during the late predynastic period and the apparently foreign graves in the Naqada II burials indicated an invasion of Mesopotamians into Upper Egypt, who then conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty
The Dynastic Race Theory is no longer the dominant thesis in the field of Predynastic Archaeology, and has been largely replaced by the theory that Egypt was a Hydraulic empire, on the grounds that such contacts are much older than the Naqada II period,[129] the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period,[130] and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.[131] Some scholars still note that while the Dynastic Race Theory is probably fallacious, the evidence upon which it was based does still indicate significant predynastic Mesopotamian influence;[132] however, recent anthropological studies have also reported biological continuity from the early predynastic, into the dynastic era, suggesting that state formation was a predominantly indigenous process.
Historically there have been differing accounts of the appearance of ancient Egyptians as compared to people of other nations. The Egyptians have alternately been described as lighter than the Moors,[17] similar in appearance to northern Indians,[18] and as having brown and black skin.[19] Modern classical scholars and anthropologists dispute the reliability of ancient accounts asserting that the terms used have different meanings from modern concepts of racial characteristics.[20][21] Ancient Egyptians generally noted the difference between themselves and other peoples; however, such differences frequently were based on culture or politics opposed to physical characteristics.[16]
Contents
1 Population characteristics
2 Egyptian self-view
3 Material Culture
4 Language
5 Mummy reconstructions
5.1 Possible difficulties of forensic reconstruction
6 Relations with Nubia
7 Historical perspectives
7.1 Accounts by ancient writers
7.2 Great Sphinx of Giza
7.3 History of Egyptology
7.3.1 Hamitic hypothesis
7.3.2 Mesopotamian influence
8 Controversies
8.1 Afrocentric views
8.2 King Tutankhamun
8.3 Alleged racism in Egyptology
8.4 Kmt
8.5 Cleopatra
9 Other views
9.1 Hamitic hypothesis
9.2 Dynastic race theory
10 See also
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
Population characteristics
Studies performed to determine the population characteristics of ancient Egyptians have used various methods including examining craniometric pattern and variation of skeletal remains. A 2007 study which examined craniometric variation among ancient Egyptians of the predynastic and early dynastic periods found high levels of diversity but concluded that the formation of the Egyptian state was predominantly indigenous in development, with some, but limited migration from elsewhere.[22] A craniofacial study by C. Loring Brace et. al. concluded that; "The Predynastic of Upper Egypt and the Late Dynastic of Lower Egypt are more closely related to each other than to any other population" and that they show ties with North African, Somalian, European, Nubian and, more remotely, Indian populations, but not with Sub-Saharan Africans or populations from other continents.[23] Anthropologist Shomarka Keita and geneticist Rick Kittles have criticized this study because of what they describe as "a socially constructed typological paradigm" in which Sub-Saharan Africans are treated as a monolithic, and biological African groups such as Nubians, Somalians and Egyptians are viewed essentially as non-African for having a craniometic pattern more similar to that of non-African populations.[24] In addition, a 2005 study by Keita of Badarian crania in predynastic upper Egypt in comparison to North and Central European and tropical African crania found "a greater affinity to indigenous Africans while not being identical" than with Europeans.[25] According to Keita, "This affinity is relative and not to be taken as indicating identity" and that the findings can be interpreted as showing "a particular broad similarity" in the samples under study.[26] He adds that, "The dendrograms of Brace et al. (1993) would seem to illustrate in the main a facet of indigenous African diversity observed elsewhere: a subset of African series evincing similarity to non-African groups not primarily due to gene flow..."[27]
Several anthropologists have identified northern and southern craniometric patterns in the Egyptian population of the early predynastic period, which Keita describes as "northern-Egyptian-Maghreb" and "tropical African variant" (overlapping with Nubia/Kush) respectively. He shows that a progressive change in Upper Egypt toward the northern Egyptian pattern takes place through the predynastic period, though the southern pattern continues to predominate in Abydos in Upper Egypt by the First Dynasty but lower Egyptian, Maghreb and European patterns are also observed thus making for a great diversity.[28] A 2006 bioarchaeological study on the dental morphology of ancient Egyptians by Prof. Joel Irish shows that a continuity extends from the dynastic to the post-dynastic periods, and that the Egyptians exhibit dental traits characteristic of indigenous North Africans, and to a lesser extent, Southwest Asians. Also all samples particularly the ones from the dynastic are shown to be significantly divergent from neolithic west saharan sample from lower Nubia.[9] Some studies have also shown that Nile Valley populations possessed more tropical body proportions, suggesting that the Egyptian Nile Valley was not primarily settled by cold-adapted peoples, such as Europeans.[21][7]
In summary, ancient Egypt is thought by many scholars to have been a melting pot of various Nile Valley, North African, Saharan and Levantine peoples since earliest times.[9][22] Some theories have postulated that the ancient Egyptians received significant demographic influence from the Near East[29] while others postulate that the ancient Egyptians belonged to a primarily African descent group, with relatively little significant outside influences from the Near East.[22][30] Recent demographic analysis done by some anthropologists has led to the conclusion that there was an overall population continuity stretching from the Neolithic into dynastic times, with small amounts of foreign admixture.[31] Jared Diamond states:
"local hunter-gatherers simply added Southwest Asian domesticates and farming and herding techniques to their own diet of wild plants and animals, then gradually phased out the wild foods. That is, what arrived to launch food production in Egypt was foreign crops and animals, not foreign peoples"[32][33]
Archaeologist Bruce Trigger cites what he saw as a deliberate obfuscation of racial politics, asserting that the early Nile valley populations (including Egyptians) were all Africans and need not be defined by arbitrary constructs of race, devoid of any contextual significance.[34] Egyptologist Frank Yurco shared a similar sentiment, identifying Egyptian civilization as comprising a mix of North and sub-Saharan African elements that typified Egyptians ever since, and that the Egyptian people were generally coextensive with other Africans in the Nile valley.[16] Many researchers note a wide range of variability in ancient Egypt and the Nile Valley, but assert that many Egyptians, especially southern, would be identified as "black" by American classification standards.[35]
Some genetic studies done on modern Egyptians suggest that most do not have close relations to most tropical Africans,[36] and other studies show that they are mostly related to other North Africans,[37] and to a lesser extent southern European/Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations.[5] A 2004 mtDNA study of upper Egyptians from Gurna found a genetic ancestral heritage to modern East Africans, characterized by a high M1 haplotype frequency, and another study links Egyptians in general with people from modern Eritrea and Ethiopia.[3][38] A 2003 Y chromosome study was performed by Lucotte on modern Egyptians, with haplotypes V, XI, and IV being most common. Haplotype V is common in Berbers and has a low frequency outside Africa. Haplotypes V, XI, and IV are all supra/sub-Saharan horn of Africa haplotypes, and they are far more dominant in Egyptians than in Near Eastern or European groups.[39]
Egyptian self-view
The ancient Egyptians considered themselves part of a distinct group, separate from their neighbors, and viewed themselves simply as Egyptians.[16] In their wall paintings, they distinguished themselves from Nubian, Libyan, Semitic, Berber, and Eurasian peoples. The Egyptians saw themselves as darker than the Asiatics and Libyans but lighter than the Nubians, and with different facial features and body types from the other groups.[1] The Egyptians viewed the Land of Punt in the south as their ancestral homeland.[40][41][42]
Today Egyptians have occasionally voiced their opinion regarding some of the controversies that have erupted over the origins of the ancient Egyptians. A 1993 anthropological study on Egyptian skeletal remains made reference to an incident in 1989 when the Dallas Museum of Natural History sponsored an Egyptian exhibit showcasing Egyptian culture at the time of Ramesses II. When the local Blackology Speaking Committee threatened to boycott the exhibit because Ramesses II was not depicted as "black", the Director of the Cultural Office in the Egyptian Embassy, Latif Aboul-Ela, complained that the event was being distorted by an "American form of 'racial politics'".[43] In an Associated Press release, Aboul-Ela said, "Ramesses II was neither black nor white but Egyptian.... This is an Egyptian heritage and an Egyptian culture 100 percent.... We cannot say by any means we are black or white. We are Egyptians."[44]
Some Egyptians also embrace what they describe as their African heritage, while criticizing some of their fellow compatriots for not doing the same. Egyptian film-maker Yusry Nasrallah claims in a recent publication by "AfricaNews", that he likes his African share and that Egypt owes much to Africa, especially because of the Nile river.[45]
Material Culture
Located in the extreme corner of Northeast Africa, ancient Egyptian society was at a crossroads between African and Near Eastern regions. During the Naqada phase, the predynastic Egyptians of Upper Egypt shared an almost identical culture with A-group peoples of the Lower Sudan.[46] In fact, the cultures were so similar, as indicated by royal tombs at Qustul, along with the earliest examples of what was thought to have been distinct Egyptian iconography, some scholars have even proposed an Egyptian origin in Nubia among the A-group.[47][48] Indeed, in 1996, Lovell and Prowse published a paper in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology citing evidence for endogamy. They reported the presence of individual rulers buried at Naqada in what was designated as elite, high status tombs, showing them to be related morphologically to populations in Northern Nubia, more so than those in Southern Egypt.[49] While others find this prospect intriguing, however, many scholars are not swayed by the evidence and cite the presence of royal tombs that are contemporary with that of Qustul and just as elaborate, while also addressing what they see as difficulty with the dating techniques.[50]
Excavations from Nabta Playa, located about 100km west of Abu Simbel, suggest that the Neolithic inhabitants of the region were migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. There is some speculation that this culture is likely to be the predecessor of the Egyptians, based on cultural similarities and social complexity which is thought to be reflective of Egypt's Old Kingdom.[51][52]
Toby Wilkonson, in his book "Genesis of the Pharaohs", proposes an origin for the Egyptians somewhere in the Eastern Desert.[53] He presents evidence that much of predynastic Egypt was representative of the traditional African cattle-culture, typical of Southern Sudanese and East African pastoralists of today. In addition, Wilkonson cites the iconography on rock art in the region as depicting what he suggests to be the first examples of the royal crowns, even pointing to Qustul in Nubia as a likely candidate for the origins of the white crown, being that the earliest example of it was discovered in this area.
Language
African languages.The Ancient Egyptian language (a language most closely related to Berber, Semitic, and Beja) is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Initially, it was believed that Semitic languages originated in the near east, however, linguists soon began to reveal a connection between them and several African Languages, it was found that they were more related to languages in Africa than to languages in most parts of Asia and Europe. Joseph Greenberg, based on these observations proposed the term Afro-Asiatic(formerly known as Hamito-Semitic) to encompass all of these languages. The origin of Proto-Afro-Asiatic languages is still debated. An African origin is often proposed since five of the six Afro-Asiatic subfamilies are spoken on the African continent and only one in the middle east. Furthermore, some scholars have proposed Ethiopia, because it includes the majority of the diversity of the Afro-Asiatic language family and has very diverse groups in close geographic proximity, often considered a telltale sign for a linguistic geographic origin. Hence, many scholars cite this as evidence of a primarily African origin for the Ancient Egyptians as opposed to a near eastern origin.
Mummy reconstructions
Possible difficulties of forensic reconstruction
King TutSome forensic anthropologists assert that attempts to apply criteria from craniofacial anthropometry sometimes can yield seemingly counterintuitive results, depending upon the weight given to each feature. For example, some contend that their application can result in finding some East and South Indians to have "Negroid" cranial/facial features and others to have "Caucasoid" cranial/facial features. While many East Africans for instance, have "Caucasoid" skulls,[55] and many of the Khoisan who inhabit southwestern Africa have cranial/facial traits that are distinct from many other sub-Saharan Africans and resemble "Mongoloid" characteristics.[56] A recent study of ancient Nubian crania was critical of assigning the traditional racial labels to skeletal remains. The study concluded that the assignment of racial origins to skeletons can sometimes misrepresent fundamental patterns in human biological diversity.[57]
These seeming contradictions, however, are related to the vagaries of racial classification, particularly of ethnically diverse or miscegenated populations, as exist in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. Cranial analysis is still used by some forensic scientists to determine the identity and geographic ethnic origin of human remains, even though the accuracy of ethnicity-related conclusions drawn from cranial analysis is not absolute -- particularly when treating populations possessing varying degrees of "racial", or ethnic, admixture. Though modern technology can reconstruct Tutankhamun's facial structure with a high degree of accuracy based on CT data from his mummy, but due to lack of facial tissue and embalming issues, correctly determining his skin tone,shape of the top part of his nose and eye color is nearly impossible.[58] The problem is not a lack of skill on the part of Ancient Egyptians. Egyptian artisans distinguished accurately among different ethnicities, but sometimes depicted their subjects in totally unreal colors, the purposes for which aren't completely understood. Thus no absolute consensus on the skin tone and various other features of reconstructed mummies such as Tutankhamun is possible.
Relations with Nubia
Nubia (Ethiopia of Greeks) appears often in the history of Egypt. According to Manetho, if the number of years of reigns before the dynasties is in excess, "it must be supposed that perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time; for they say that the rulers were kings of This, of Memphis, of Saïs, of Ethiopia, and of other places at the same time".[59] Diodorus Siculus, in the Volume III of Bibliotheca historica (The Library of History) writes that the Ethiopians consider the Egyptians as one of their colony brought in Egypt by Osiris.[60] In the same book, Diodorus Siculus notes that the Ethiopians have black skin and wooly hair.[61] And Alan Gardiner translates "Tз-Seti", the "Ist nome of Upper Egypt", as "Nubia", and "Styw", its inhabitants, as "Nubians".[62] In fact, Jean-François Champollion has already revealed that ancient Egyptians might have originated either from Abyssinia or from Sennar.[63]
Mayassis states that Isis was considered as a Black and Red goddess, a Nubian,[64] and that the soul of Osiris flies from the left side,[65] which is, according to Plutarch, the south of Egypt.[66]
Nubia was also referred to by the Egyptians as "miserable Kush", and the Nubians as kilt wearers, bow people and blacks. Egypt saw Nubia as a source of slaves and raw materials such as gold. When Pharaoh Thutmose I conquered Nubia his scribe wrote this in the Hymn of Victory:
He hath overthrown the chief of the Nubians, the black is helpless, defenseless in his grasp. He hath united the boundaries of his two sides, there is not a remnant among the curly-haired who can come attack him. There is not a single survivor among them. The Nubian troglodytes fall by the sword and are thrust aside in their lands. Their foulness, it floods their valley and their mouths like a violent flood, the fragments cut from them are too much for the birds,carrying off the prey to another place.[67][68][69]
Historical perspectives
Accounts by ancient writers
Herodotus, the "father of history", wrote that Egyptians had black skin and woolly hair.Many ancient writers commented of the 'racial affinities' of ancient Egyptians. While some held them to be people with 'black skins and woolly hair' similar to 'Kushites', others described them as 'medium toned' or similar to that of northern Indians. Greek historian Herodotus commented on a perceived relationship between the Colchians (from the modern Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus) and the Egyptians. He states that he was told by several Egyptians that the Colchians were descended from the Egyptian soldier Sesostris and further draws a connection from the skin tone and "kinky hair" of the Colchians as well as their practice of circumcision. Herodotus described the Colchians as melanchros, black.[70] Some scholars, such as Yaacov Shavit are of the opinion that since Egyptians were not described as Aethiopes, they were in fact distinguished from "black" Africans.[71] According to Classicist Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Herodotus seems to have been following a Graeco-Roman practice of describing people darker than themselves as melanchros, which did not mean that the people they described were black.[72] Other interpretations have pointed out that Herodotus could have been speaking in relative terms, since the Colchians were noted as residing near the Black Sea, close to modern day Russia where there are virtually no dark skinned, woolly haired people today; There are also others who question whether or not Herodotus ever visited the Black Sea region in the first place.[73] Professor of African Studies at Temple University, Molefi Kete Asante however, cites other examples from Herodotus, one where he asserts that "the flooding of the Nile could not be caused by snow, because the natives of the country (Egypt) are black from the heat".[74]
Other ancient writers testify that there indeed was an ancient population of dark skinned, woolly haired people residing in Colchis, giving at least some support to Herodotus' claim that they were left there by the armies of the legendary Sesostris after initial campaigns in the region. Indeed, there is further description from ancient writers describing the populations of Colchis in this fashion. A Greek poet named Pindar described the Colchians, whom Jason and the Argonauts fought, as being "dark skinned". Also around 350 to 400 AD, Church father Saint Jerome and Sophronius referred to Colchis as the "second Ethiopia" because of its 'black-skinned' population.[75]
Aristotle, who some have questioned whether or not visited Egypt, also commented on the physical traits of the Egyptians and Ethiopians. Aristotle asserts that skin color is somehow correlated to courage, and also gives his impression on why the Egyptians and Ethiopians are bowlegged and 'curly haired' by contending that "too black a hue marks the coward" as well as "too white a complexion" and that courage rests between the two. Aristotle also asserts that the Egyptians are "bandy legged" and asks if this is due to the fact that their bodies became "distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry", he contends that the hair of the Ancient Egyptians supports the theory as it is curlier than that of other nations.[76]
Strabo wrote that the Egyptians resembled the people of northern India.Ammianus Marcellinus (325/330-after 391) was a Greco-Roman historian who also gave his own brief observations. Marcellinus stated that the Egyptians were "mostly brown and black" with a "skinny and desiccated look".[77][78] Marcus Manilius though described the Egyptians as lighter than the Moors, saying "the land of Egypt, flooded by the Nile, darkens bodies more mildly owing to the inundation of its fields."[79] Ancient writers have also made comparisons between ancient Egyptians and northern Indians of the time. Greek historian, geographer and philosopher Strabo stated that As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.[80] Greek historian Arrian also drew a similarity between northern Indians and ancient Egyptians stating that the appearance of the inhabitants of ancient Egypt was not very different from those in northern India. Arrian further stated that "the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians physically".[81] The writings of Strabo and Arrian were drawn from the earlier accounts of Nearchus, Megasthenes and Eratosthenes.[82]
According to Yaacov Shavit of Tel Aviv University, "[t]he evidence clearly shows that those Graeco-Roman authors who refer to the skin color and other physical traits distinguish sharply between Ethiopians (Nubians) and Egyptians, and rarely do they refer to the Egyptians as black, even though they were described as darker than themselves.... [in addition,] Egyptians and Nubians were both clearly distinguished from the black Africans."[83] However, late professor of classics, Frank Snowden has not made note of any distinction between Nubians, Ethiopians, or modern conceptions of "black African". He concedes that "both Egyptians and Ethiopians were described as black, but only Ethiopians were described as having exceedingly woolly hair".[17]
Classical scholar Frank Snowden cautions that terms used by ancient Greek and Roman writers to describe the physical characteristics of other ancient peoples were different in meaning from modern-day racial terms in the West. Snowden writes:
....the Afrocentrists are mistaken in assuming that the term Afri (Africans) and various color adjectives for dark pigmentation as used by Greeks and Romans are always the classical equivalents of Negroes or blacks in modern usage.... Not all the peoples described by such color terms were blacks or Negroes in the modern sense, but only the inhabitants of the Nile Valley south of Egypt and of the southern fringes of northwestern Africa.... That the pigmentation of the Egyptians was seen as lighter than that of Ethiopians is also attested by the adjective subfusucli {"somewhat dark") which Ammianus Marcellinus (22.16.23) chose to describe the Egyptians.... There was also a mixed Egyptian-Nubian element in the population of Egypt at least a early as the middle of the third millennium B.C.E....[84]
According to the hippocratic text the Egyptians were not unlike the Scythians,though the Scythians were reddened because of cold the Egyptians were reddened due to sun exposure,Also in Hesiod Works and Days it states that black people reside not in the nile valley but in a far off land,by the fountains of the sun,or where it goes to and fro[85]
Keita and Boyce confront this issue in a 1996 article entitled, "The Geographical Origins and Population Relationships of Early Ancient Egyptians". As anthropologists, they point out the danger in relying on ancient interpretation to reveal for us the biological make up of a population. They contend that the relevant data indicates greater similarity between Egyptians and Ethiopians than the former group with the ancient Greeks. They also state that relying on ancient interpretations are problematic since the ancient writers were not doing population biology, even though the Greeks called all groups south of Egypt "Ethiopians".[21]
Great Sphinx of Giza
Head of the Giza SphinxOver the centuries, numerous writers and scholars have recorded their impressions and reactions upon seeing the Great Sphinx of Giza in relation to its possible racial characteristics. French philosopher Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney visited Egypt between 1783 and 1785 and is one of the earliest known Western scholars to remark upon what he saw as its "typically Negro" countenance. De Volney stated that the Sphinx's appearance was "typically nergro in all its features"[86] Upon visiting Egypt in 1849, French author Gustave Flaubert stated that he had observations. In his travel log chronicling his trip, he wrote of the Sphinx: "it exactly faces the rising sun, its head is grey, ears very large and protruding like a negro’s...the fact that the nose is missing increases the flat, negroid effect. Besides, it was certainly Ethiopian; the lips are thick…."[87] In his work The Negro, published in 1915, W.E.B. Du Bois asserted that the great sphinx is similar to other statues of the world and represented "black, full-blooded negros" which he stated were described as having "high cheek bones, flat cheeks,.. a massive nose, firm projecting lips, and thick hair with an austere and almost savage expression of power."[88] According to professor of Jewish history, Yaacov Shavit, most of the European travelers and scholars rejected Volney's views about the sphinx, including British Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge, who wrote that '...all attempts to prove that the Egyptians are of the Negro race are overthrown at the outset by facts which cannot be controverted... the fact, however, remains that the Egyptian fellah is exactly what he was in the earliest dynasties.'"[89]
Even modern observers have noted the sphinx's characteristics. In 1992, the New York Times published a letter to the editor submitted by then Harvard professor of orthodontics[90] Sheldon Peck in which he commented on a study of the Giza sphinx conducted by New York City Police Department senior forensics artist Frank Domingo. Peck Wrote that the "This is an anatomical condition of forward development in both jaws, more frequently found in people of African ancestry than in those of Asian or Indo-European stock."[91]
History of Egyptology
Hamitic hypothesis
Main article: Hamitic hypothesis
The "Hamitic Hypothesis" associated the Ancient Egyptians with Berbers, viz. speakers of Hamitic languages.[92] The postulated "Hamitic race" was sometimes credited with the introduction of more advanced culture, such as certain plant cultivation and particularly the domestication of cattle.[citation needed]
Modern scholarship has moved away from earlier notions of a "Hamitic" race speaking Hamito-Semitic languages, and places the Egyptian language in a more localized context, centered around its general Saharan and Nilotic roots.(F. Yurco "An Egyptological Review", 1996)[93]
Mesopotamian influence
Main article: Dynastic Race Theory
The Dynastic Race Theory was the earliest thesis to attempt to explain how predynastic Egypt developed into the Pharonic monarchy. It argued that the presence of many Mesopotamian influences in Egypt during the late predynastic period and the apparently foreign graves in the Naqada II burials indicated an invasion of Mesopotamians into Upper Egypt, who then conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty
The Dynastic Race Theory is no longer the dominant thesis in the field of Predynastic Archaeology, and has been largely replaced by the theory that Egypt was a Hydraulic empire, on the grounds that such contacts are much older than the Naqada II period,[94] the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period,[95] and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.[96] Some scholars still note that while the Dynastic Race Theory is probably fallacious, the evidence upon which it was based does still indicate significant predynastic Mesopotamian influence;[97] however, recent anthropological studies have also reported biological continuity from the early predynastic, into the dynastic era, suggesting that state formation was a predominantly indigenous process.[22]
Controversies
Afrocentric views
Afrocentric scholars and authors assert that Egyptians were "black" and contend that modern perceptions of ancient Egyptians are due to racial prejudice on the part of early egyptologists.[98] For example, Cheikh Anta Diop wrote that life for the ancient Egyptians was oriented to the south in the direction of Sub-Saharan Africa[99]
King Tutankhamun
A controversial 2005 rendering of Tutankhamun with hazel eyes and "mid-range" skin tone, from National Geographic magazine.
Golden death mask of Tutankhamun.The racial characteristics of King Tutankhamun has caused some controversy. In 2005, three teams of scientists (Egyptian, French and American), in partnership with the National Geographic Society, developed a facial reconstruction of Tutankhamun from 1,700 three-dimensional CT scans of the Pharaoh's skull. The French and American teams worked plastic molds created from these – but the Americans were never told whom they were reconstructing.[100] All three teams created silicone busts of their interpretation of what the young monarch looked like. In the end, Zahi Hawass, head of Cairo's Supreme Council of Antiquities, announced that the skull as "that of a male, 18 to 20 years old, with Caucasoid features."[100] The French team's reconstruction specifically however, has sparked considerable controversy. In 2005 when a King Tut exhibition was shown in Los Angeles, it was met by black activist demonstrators who protested the exhibition on the grounds that the statues shown portrayed King tut as "white" and demanded that they be removed.[101] Afrocentrists criticize the French team's claim that they selected the skin tone by taking a color from the middle of the range of skin tones found in the population of Egypt today.[102] They claim that these features do not reflect the prevalent eye or skin color of either ancient dynastic Egypt or present-day Egyptians. They further argue that many representations of Tutankhamun portray him with red-brown to dark-brown skin and dark eyes, and that the teams should have used these as references in assigning eye and skin color.[103] In comparison to the 2005 reconstruction, some have commented that the earlier 2002 Discovery Channel reconstruction showed a darker skin tone, among other differences.[104] Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for mission programs, said, in response to criticism of the King Tut reconstructions that "The big variable is skin tone." and "North Africans, we know today, had a range of skin tones, from light to dark. In this case, we selected a medium skin tone, and we say, quite up front, 'This is midrange.'"
Zahi Hawass has stated that: "Tutankhamun was not black, and the portrayal of ancient Egyptian civilisation as black has no element of truth to it". Hawass made this statement in light of calls from U.S. black activists demanding egyptologists to recognize that King Tut was black. Hawass also stated that "Egyptians are not Arabs and are not Africans despite the fact that Egypt is in Africa,". Hawass was responding to several demonstrations in Philadelphia where protesters demanded a bust of King Tut be removed because it portrayed him as white.[101] Hawass, in a 2007 publication of "Ancient Egypt Magazine", also asserted that none of the facial reconstructions resemble Tut, claiming for example that the French reconstruction ended up with a person that looked French, whose features do not resemble any known Egyptians. He asserts that in his opinion, the most accurate representation of the boy king is the mask from his tomb.[106] In addition, according to the LA Times, the archaeological inspector for the Supreme Council of antiquities, Ahmed Saleh, disagrees with some of Hawass' statements, stating that the procedures used in the facial re-creation made Tut look Caucasian, "disrespecting the nation's African roots".
Alleged racism in Egyptology
Senegalese historian and activist Cheikh Anta Diop, in his book Nations Nègres et Culture, denounced colonial Egyptology as prejudiced against black historical accomplishments. Diop himself has come under criticism by mainstream scholars for having distorted some of his sources and as a result falsifying history.[108][109] Diop claims that Egyptologists "knew" that ancient Egyptians were "black", But the fact that Africans were colonized, he argued, made it difficult to admit that they were the creators of the Egyptian civilization. He quoted, for example, Champollion-Figeac who said that “black skin and wholly hair don’t make someone to belong to the Black race”.[110] In his book, Egitto e Nubia, Maurizio Damiano-Appia wrote that for many Egyptologists of the past, and even of today, Egypt was the creation of a "white race." Appia alleges that Eurocentrism, mainly of Anglo Saxon orientation, was at the base of this false idea.[111] Aboubacry Moussa Lam, in his book L’affaire des momies royales. La vérité sur la reine Ahmès-Nefertari, argued that Egyptian mummies were falsely described as being caucasian.[112]
Some other more controversial methods have been used to determine the racial characteristics of Ancient Egyptians. Cheikh Anta Diop performed a series of the tests on Egyptian mummies to determine melanin levels and concluded that Egyptians were dark-skinned and part of the "Negro race".[113] Diop noted criticisms of these results that argue that the skin of most Egyptian mummies, tainted by the embalming material, are no longer susceptible of any analysis. Diop contended the position that although the epidermis is the main site of the melanin, the melanocytes penetrating the dermis at the boundary between it and the epidermis, even where the latter has mostly been destroyed by the embalming materials, show a melanin level which is non-existent in the "white-skinned races". However, Diop did not describe any tests that verify his claims that melanin is "non-existent" among the "white-skinned races", nor provide evidence supporting his assertion that the absence of melanin in the epidermis is due to embalming techniques. Diop innovated the development of the melanin dosage test which was later adopted by forensic investigators to determine the "racial identity" of badly burnt accident victims.[114]
J. D. Walker wrote an article for the Journal of Black Studies in 1995 suggesting that Diop's views had been widely misinterpreted by his critics and that Diop's understanding of race and blackness went beyond the "stereotyped caricatured West African physiognomy described in some literature as the True Negro'" Walker writes that his definition of "black" was sometimes all encompassing those with dark complexions, and at times, even non-Africans.[115]
Kmtkm in Egyptian hieroglyphs km biliteral km.t (place) km.t (people)
One of the many names for Egypt in ancient Egyptian is km.t (read "Kemet"), meaning "black land". More literally, the word means "something black". The use of km.t in terms of a place is thought generally to be in contrast to the "deshert" or "red land", e.g. the desert west of the Nile valley. Egypt for millennia depended on the flooding of the Nile to bring fertility to the land, and the resulting soil was very black. Likewise, the word kmt could also refer to the people when followed by the people determinatives, as shown on the far right. Raymond Faulkner's Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian translates it into "Egyptians", as do most sources. However, scholar Aboubacry Moussa Lam prefers what he considers to be a more literal translation and suggests that km.t should be translated as meaning, "land of the black/s" or "black nation" when it applies to the country and as meaning "the Blacks" when it applies to the population,[119] a view rejected by most Egyptologists.
Cleopatra
The claim that Cleopatra, the last Pharaoh of Egypt, was of Black African origin has been espoused by a few Afrocentric academics.[121] Cleopatra, however, was of Hellenistic origin. Mary Lefkowitz argues that Afrocentric scholars are to blame for the proliferation of the myth of African origin. According to Professor of African American Studies at Temple University, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, the idea that Cleopatra was black is not a major aspect of Afrocentrists' arguments, and he asserts that Afrocentricists do not spend a lot of time arguing such.[122]
Other views
Hamitic hypothesis
Complications have also cropped up in the use of linguistics as a basis for racial categorization. The demise of the famous "Hamitic Hypothesis", which purported to show that certain African languages around the Nile area could be associated with "Caucasoid" peoples is a typical case. Such schemes fell apart when it was demonstrated that so-called 'Negroid' tribes far distant also spoke similar languages, tongues that were supposedly a reserved marker of 'Caucasoid' presence or influence.[123] For work on African languages, see Wiki article Languages of Africa and Joseph Greenberg. Older linguistic classifications are also linked to the notion of a "Hamitic race", a vague grouping thought to exclude 'Negroes', but accommodating a large variety of dark skinned North and East Africans into a broad-based 'Caucasoid' grouping. This "Hamitic race" is sometimes credited with the introduction of more advanced culture, such as certain plant cultivation and particularly the domestication of cattle.
This theory has also been discredited by the work of post-WWII archaeologists such as A. Arkell, who demonstrated that predynastic and Sudanic 'Negroid' elements already possessed cattle and plant domestication, thousands of years before the supposed influx of 'Caucasoid' or 'Hamitic' settlers into the Nile Valley, Nubia and adjoining areas.[124] Modern scholarship has moved away from earlier notions of a "Hamitic" race speaking Hamito-Semitic languages, and places the Egyptian language in a more localized context, centered around its general Saharan and Nilotic roots.(F. Yurco "An Egyptological Review", 1996)[125] Linguistic analysis (Diakanoff 1998) has led most scholars to place the origin of the Afro-Asiatic languages in northeast Africa, while some still lean towards Southwest Asia, with older strands south of Egypt, and newer elements straddling the Nile Delta and Sinai.[126][127] The Semitic languages form the only Afro-Asiatic subfamily extant outside of Africa. Some scholars believe that, in historical or near-historical times, Semitic speakers crossed from South Arabia back into Ethiopia and Eritrea. Others, such as A. Murtonen, dispute this view, and suggest that the Semitic branch may have originated in Ethiopia.
Dynastic race theory
The Dynastic Race Theory was the earliest thesis to attempt to explain how predynastic Egypt developed into the Pharonic monarchy. It argued that the presence of many Mesopotamian influences in Egypt during the late predynastic period and the apparently foreign graves in the Naqada II burials indicated an invasion of Mesopotamians into Upper Egypt, who then conquered both Upper and Lower Egypt and founded the First Dynasty
The Dynastic Race Theory is no longer the dominant thesis in the field of Predynastic Archaeology, and has been largely replaced by the theory that Egypt was a Hydraulic empire, on the grounds that such contacts are much older than the Naqada II period,[129] the Naqada II period had a large degree of continuity with the Naqada I period,[130] and the changes which did happen during the Naqada periods happened over significant amounts of time.[131] Some scholars still note that while the Dynastic Race Theory is probably fallacious, the evidence upon which it was based does still indicate significant predynastic Mesopotamian influence;[132] however, recent anthropological studies have also reported biological continuity from the early predynastic, into the dynastic era, suggesting that state formation was a predominantly indigenous process.
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