ART AND HISTORY OF EGYPT

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ART AND HISTORY OF EGYPT
BY SUKRIT BHATTACHARYYA XI-B, ROLL No.-11242
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The Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt, "The
Gift of the Nile," and along that life-giving
river, the ancient Egyptians built their amazing
civilization, one they ruled for three millennia.
Conquered by the Persians in 341 B.C., the Greeks
and Romans followed, but it was the Arabs that
introduced Islam and Arabic, and subsequently
dominated this ancient land for many centuries.
In 1517 the Ottoman Turks invaded, and took
control. Besides a brief French incursion
(1798-1806), the Ottomans remained until the
mid-19th century. Following the completion of
the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt developed into a
vital transportation hub, but fell heavily into
debt. To protect its investments, Britain seized
control in 1882. Egypt then became a British
protectorate in 1914, achieving partial
independence in 1922, and full sovereignty in
1945. A rapidly growing population, limited
arable land, and on-going dependence on the Nile
River, all continue to overtax resources. The
Egyptian government still struggles through
economic reforms in the 21st century, and the
pressing need for massive investment in
communications and infrastructure. Regardless,
Egypt remains one of the favorite destinations of
archaeologists, historians and tourists from
around the world.
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GEOGRAPHY
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FEATURES AT A GLANCE Official Name Arab
Republic of Egypt, Population 81,731,000,
Capital City Cairo (13.2 million), Largest
Cities Cairo, Alexandria, El Qahira Currency
Egyptian Pound, Latitude/Longitude 30º06 N,
31º25 E Languages Arabic (official), English,
French National Day 23 July Revolution Day
, Religions Muslim (94)
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At 1,001,450 square kilometers (386,660 sq mi),
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. Situated
in the Northeastern corner of Africa, 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. Egypt enjoys a
unique, strategic location at the crossroads
between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
Throughout its history, Egypt has been a country
where various cultures met and interacted.
Egypt's total area is over one million square
kilometers, yet only a narrow strip in the Nile
Valley and the Delta is cultivated land. The
Nile, which traverses over 1,000 miles within
Egypt, from Wadi Halfa in the South to the
Mediterranean in the north, divides the country
into four broad regions the Western Desert which
occupies almost two-thirds of the total area, the
Eastern Desert, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Nile
Valley and Delta, which is the most densely
populated region of the country. The vast
majority of the remaining land is made up of
sparsely inhabited, arid desert. Extensive land
reclamation efforts since 1947 have aimed at
increasing the area of cultivable land. Cairo,
the capital of Egypt, is the largest city in
Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East. It is
also the industrial and commercial center of
Egypt. Other major towns include Alexandria,
Egypt's chief port, Port Said, Luxor, Aswan,
Zagazig and Assiut .
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HISTORY
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Egypt is home to one of the richest and most
ancient civilizations in the world extending to
several millennia BC it was the Pharaoh MENES who
united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt,
inaugurating what came to be known as the Ancient
Empire (3200-2270 BC). RAMSES II (1279 to 1212
BC) is another Pharaoh who deserves mentioning.
He is known for his prodigious buildings, rising
temples, statues and other monuments throughout
Egypt. Among his major achievements was the
signing of the first Peace Treaty to be recorded
in history, concluded between Egypt and the
Hitites.Another great Pharaoh is Akhnaton(1379 to
1362 BC). He was originally called AMENOPHIS IV,
but changed his name in honor of Aten, the Sun
God. Akhnaton is considered to have heralded the
concept of monotheism in the history of
religion.  Alexander the Great arrived to Egypt
in the late autumn of 332 BC. He founded
Alexandria in 331 BC as a gateway to his
motherland, Greece. Alexandria became a major
center for trading. Its Library became a cultural
center that made an important contribution to
civilization. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt until 30
BC, Romans until 642 AD when the Arabs arrived.
The Arabs were followed by the Mamlukes, who were
magnificent warriors and who ruled Egypt from
1250-1517 AD when their reign ended with the
Ottoman conquest of Egypt under Sultan Selim. The
arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt on July
2nd 1798, initiated a new phase in Egypt's
history. August 12th 1882, British troops landed
at Alexandria marking the beginning of British
occupation which lasted for 74 years. On the 28th
of February 1922, Britain unilaterally declared
the termination of the British Protectorate and
declared Egypt an independent state. In 1923, the
first Constitution was promulgated and Sa'ad
Zaghloul formed the first representative
GOVERNMENT OF EGYPT.
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Egypt is important for papyrus in two respects.
First, papyrus plants grew almost exclusively in
the region of the Nile delta. Secondly, the dry
climate of Egypt made it possible for papyri to
endure, in many cases, for over 2 millennia. As
the ancient Egyptians moved from prehistory to
history by developing a written language, they
discovered the need for a medium other than stone
to transcribe upon. They found this in their
papyrus plant, a triangular reed which symbolized
ancient lower Egypt. It was light, strong, thin,
durable and easy to carry, and for thousands of
years, there was nothing better for the purpose
of writing. The earliest extant documented
papyrus comes from Egypt's 1st Dynasty, but we
believe it may have been used as early as 4,000
BC. It's use continued until about the 11th
century AD. Besides its use for producing a
medium for writing purposes, papyrus was also
used for mattresses on beds, for building chairs,
tables, and other furniture as well as for mats,
baskets, boxes, sandals, utensils, rope and
boats. Furthermore, the papyrus root was a source
of food, medicine and perfume.
FAME
A PAPYRUS GROOVE
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In Egypt, papyrus was recycled in the form of
mummy cartonnage. In the mummification process,
the ancient Egyptians first prepared the corpses
and wrapped them in linen. Then they covered the
deceased with pieces of cartonnage covered with
plaster and painted in bright colors. This
cartonnage, at least in certain periods of
Egyptian history, consisted of several layers of
papyrus usually discarded by administrative
offices. Papyrus making was not revived until
around 1969. An Egyptian scientist named Dr.
Hassan Ragab reintroduced the papyrus plant to
Egypt from the Sudan and started a papyrus
plantation near Cairo on Jacob Island. He also
had to research the method of production.
Unfortunately, the ancient Egyptians left little
evidence about the manufacturing process. There
are no extant texts or wall paintings and
archaeologists have failed to uncover any
manufacturing centers. Most of our knowledge
about the actual manufacturing process is derived
from its description in Pliny the elder's Natural
History and modern experimentation. Dr. Ragab
finally figured out how it was done, and now
papyrus making is back in Egypt after a very long
absence.
Text scribbled on a PAPYRUS SHEET
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Egyptians used a system that combined phonograms,
that is, sound-signs that spelt out the word in
an alphabetic system, and ideograms, sense-signs
that were added to the spelled-out word to depict
its meaning, and this language had its own
syntax, grammar and vocabularyne words
Hieroglyphs were primarily used for religious and
formal secular purposes. Early in the historical
period, a simpler cursive script was developed,
in which each character was a simplified version
of a hieroglyph. This script is today known as
hieratic and was widely used until about 800 BCE
for business, literary and religious texts. By
about 700 BCE another script today called demotic
had evolved from the hieratic. Business, legal
and literary inscriptions were written in
demotic. The belief that the hieroglyphs were
somehow symbolic and imbued with secret meaning,
rather than simply being a popular script, had
become well-rooted before Diodorus Siculus
visited Egypt in the first centiry BCE. He wrote
"their writing does not express the intended
concept by means of syllables joined to one
another, but by means of the significance of the
objects which have been copied, and by its
figurative meaning which has been impressed upon
the memory by practice."
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• A pyramid is a building where the upper surfaces
  are triangular and converge on one point. The
  base of pyramids are usually quadrilateral or
  trilateral (but generally may be of any polygon
  shape), meaning that a pyramid usually has three
  or four sides.
• A pyramid's design, with the majority of the
  weight closer to the ground, means that less
  material higher up on the pyramid will be pushing
  down from above. This allowed early civilizations
  to create stable monumental structures. For
  thousands of years, the largest structures on
  Earth were pyramids first the Red Pyramid in the
  Dashur Necropolis and then the Great Pyramid of
  Khufu, the only remaining Wonder of the World.
• The ancient Egyptians built pyramids as tombs for
  the pharaohs and their queens. The pharaohs were
  buried in pyramids of many different shapes and
  sizes from before the beginning of the Old
  Kingdom to the end of the Middle Kingdom.
• There are about eighty pyramids known today from
  ancient Egypt. The three largest and
  best-preserved of these were built at Giza, A
  town located near Cairo in northern Egypt. The
  most well-known of these pyramids was built for
  the pharaoh Khufu. It is known as the 'Great
  Pyramid'.
• Egyptologists have developed many theories about
  why the tombs of the early pharaohs were built in
  the pyramid shape. Here are three different
  ideas
• The pyramid represented the first land to appear
  at the beginning of time- a hill called
  'Ben-Ben'.
• The pyramid had sloping sides so that the dead
  pharaoh could climb to the sky and live forever.
• The pyramid represented the rays of the sun.

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STEP PYRAMID In the third dynasty, a pharaoh
named Djoser had a large stone pyramid built at
Saqqara. This pyramid has many layers and looks
like several stacked on top of each other.
The Entrance colonnade in the Djoser Step Pyramid
Complex
Overall view of Djoser Step Pyramid
Pyramid text inside the Pyramid
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BENT PYRAMID The bent pyramid at Dahshur (An
area on the west bank of the Nile where the
ancient Egyptians built pyramids. It is located
south of modern Cairo) shows us that the ancient
Egyptians experimented a lot with the slope of
the pyramids. In the middle of construction the
builders must have decided that the slope of the
building was too steep to continue. Thus, the top
half of the pyramid has a different slope. The
angle at Maidoun was 52 degrees as is the base of
the Bent Pyramid. At the bend, the angle is
changed to 43.5 degrees up to the peak. The slope
that was used for the upper section of this
pyramid was later used by the builders of the
Giza pyramids.
The Bent Pyramid of Snofru in Dahshur
Descending passageway of the Bent Pyramid
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THE GIZA PYRAMIDS In the fourth dynasty, three
large stone pyramids were built at Giza. The
design of these pyramids was based on the
pyramids that had been built before. These are
the largest and sturdiest pyramids that were ever
built in ancient Egypt. The first and largest
pyramid was built for the pharaoh Khufu (also
known as Cheops). The second largest pyramid was
built for Khufu's son, Khafra (also known as
Chephren). In addition to the usual parts of a
pyramid complex, Khafra's pyramid is guarded by a
huge sphinx. (An imaginary animal with the body
of a lion and the head of a person or sometimes a
falcon). Finally, the third largest pyramid was
built for the pharaoh Menkaure (also known as
Mycerinus). The ancient Egyptians continued to
build pyramids for their pharaohs after the Giza
pyramids were built. However they were never as
big or well-designed as the Giza pyramids.
Overall view of Giza Pyramids
Sphinx at Giza Pyramid
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GREAT SPHINX The Great Sphinx is a large
human-headed lion that was carved from a mound of
natural rock. It is located in Giza where it
guards the front of Khafra's pyramid. Legends
have been told for many years about the Great
Sphinx. These stories tell about the powers and
mysteries of this sphinx. Some people even
believe that there are hidden passageways or
rooms underneath the Great Sphinx, but nothing
has been found yet. The story reads that one
day, a young prince fell asleep next to the Great
Sphinx. He had been hunting all day, and was very
tired. He dreamt that the Great Sphinx promised
that he would become the ruler of Upper and Lower
Egypt if he cleared away the sand covering its
body (the Great Sphinx was covered up to its
neck). This stele was put up by the pharaoh
Thutmosis IV who lived around 1400 B.C.
Main transport to reach Giza Pyramid
The Great Sphinx at Giza
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MUMMIFICATION
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The earliest ancient Egyptians buried their dead
in small pits in the desert. The heat and dryness
of the sand dehydrated the bodies quickly,
creating lifelike and natural 'mummies'. Later,
the ancient Egyptians began burying their dead in
coffins to protect them from wild animals in the
desert. However, they realised that bodies placed
in coffins decayed when they were not exposed to
the hot, dry sand of the desert. Over many
centuries, the ancient Egyptians developed a
method of preserving bodies so they would remain
lifelike. The process included embalming the
bodies and wrapping them in strips of linen.
Today we call this process mummification. An
important man has died and his body needs to be
prepared for burial. The process of mummification
has two stages. First, the embalming of the body.
Then, the wrapping and burial of the body
KING-TUT-MUMMY
KING-TUT-COFFIN
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Embalming the body First, his body is taken to
the tent known as 'ibu' or the 'place of
purification'. There the embalmers wash his body
with good-smelling palm wine and rinse it with
water from the Nile. One of the embalmer's men
makes a cut in the left side of the body and
removes many of the internal organs. It is
important to remove these because they are the
first part of the body to decompose. The liver,
lungs, stomach and intestines are washed and
packed in natron which will dry them out. The
heart is not taken out of the body because it is
the centre of intelligence and feeling and the
man will need it in the afterlife. A long hook is
used to smash the brain and pull it out through
the nose.
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The body is now covered and stuffed with natron
which will dry it out. All of the fluids, and
rags from the embalming process will be saved and
buried along with the body.
After forty days the body is washed again with
water from the Nile. Then it is covered with oils
to help the skin stay elastic. The dehydrated
internal organs are wrapped in linen and returned
to the body. The body is stuffed with dry
materials such as sawdust, leaves and linen so
that it looks lifelike. Finally the body is
covered again with good-smelling oils. It is now
ready to be wrapped in linen.
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The body has been cleaned, dried and rubbed with
good-smelling oils. Now it is ready to be wrapped
in linen. First the head and neck are wrapped
with strips of fine linen. Then the fingers and
the toes are individually wrapped. The arms and
legs are wrapped separately. Between the layers
of wrapping, the embalmers place amulets (A small
trinket or charm that was meant to protect the
owner from evil spells or actions.) to protect
the body in its journey through the underworld. A
priest reads spells out loud while the mummy is
being wrapped. These spells will help ward off
evil spirits and help the deceased make the
journey to the afterlife. The arms and legs are
tied together. A papyrus scroll with spells from
the Book of the Dead is placed between the
wrapped hands. More linen strips are wrapped
around the body. At every layer, the bandages are
painted with liquid resin that helps to glue the
bandages together. A cloth is wrapped around the
body and a picture of the god Osiris is painted
on its surface. Finally, a large cloth is wrapped
around the entire mummy. It is attached with
strips of linen that run from the top to the
bottom of the mummy, and around its middle. A
board of painted wood is placed on top of the
mummy before the mummy is lowered into its
coffin. The first coffin is then put inside a
second coffin.
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Funeral proceedings The funeral is held for the
deceased and his family mourns his death. A
ritual (A religious ceremony) called the 'Opening
of the Mouth' is performed, allowing the deceased
to eat and drink again. Finally, the body and
its coffins are placed inside a large stone
sarcophagus (A large stone or wood box in which
coffins) were placed for burial. in the tomb.
Furniture, clothing, valuable objects, food and
drink are arranged in the tomb for the deceased.
Now his body is ready for its journey through
the underworld. There his heart will be judged by
his good deeds on earth. If his heart is found to
be pure he will be sent to live for all eternity
in the beautiful 'Field of Reeds'
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Tutankhamun (bc. 1346-1328 bc)
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The most famous Egyptian pharaoh today is,
without doubt, Tutankhamen. However, before the
spectacular discovery of his almost intact tomb
in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922,
Tutankhamen was only a little known figure of the
late 18th Dynasty. Tutankhamun was probably born
at Akhetaten which was the capital city of Egypt.
He was born in about the year 1346 BC He became
pharaoh at the tender age of nine in 1337 BC and
reigned during the 18th Dynasty when the Egyptian
Empire was at its height. He reigned from about
1337 to 1328 BC. Tutankhamun reigned for around 9
years, making him about 18 when he died. His tomb
was discovered by a team of British
archaeologists in 1922, nearly 3000 years after
his death The reason that Tutankhamun is so well
known today is that his tomb, containing fabulous
treasures, was found early this century (1922) by
British archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord
Carnarvon Several finds made in the Valley of the
Kings over the years led Howard Carter to believe
that the king was still somewhere in the Valley.
Carter believed he found clues to Tutankhamun in
the discoveries made by Theodore Davis. Davis had
found a cup and other fragments bearing the name
of Tutankhamen and his queen. He was buried in a
hastily prepared tomb in the Valley of the Kings
at Thebes, the traditional burial place of his
predecessors. The person responsible for his
burial, and shown on one of the walls in
Tutankhamun's tomb, was Ay who succeeded him on
the Egyptian throne.
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The Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt contains
many of the tombs of pharaohs from the New
Kingdom, including Tutankhamun and Ramesses the
Great. The small tomb contained hundreds of
objects (now housed in the Egyptian Museum in
Cairo), many richly decorated and covered in
gold, that would be needed by the king in his
afterlife. Over 3,000 treasures were placed in
the tomb to help Tutankhamen in his afterlife,
and the walls of the burial chamber were painted
with scenes of his voyage to the afterworld.
There is no positive evidence on Tutankhamun's
mummy as to how he met his death. During an
x-ray of the mummy in 1968, scientists found bone
fragments in Tut's skull, prompting a sensational
theory that the boy king had been bludgeoned to
death. Another recent theory is that King
Tutankhamun wasn't murdered after all, but died
from a broken leg. According to National
Geographic (December 2006) a new CT scan of King
Tutankhamun's mummy "showed a thin coating of
embalming resin around the leg break, suggesting
that Tut broke his leg just before he died and
that his death may have resulted from an
infection or other complications."
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THE TUTANKHAMUN COLLECTION
Gold Head of Staff in Tutankhamun's Image
Lion Head Formingthe Sides of a Bed
Alabaster Unguent Jar in the Form of a Lion
Unguent Vase in the Form of an Ibex
Stained Ivory Headrest
Openwork Gold Buckle
Gold Falcon Pendant
Floral Collar of Faience Beads
Tutankhamun's Throne Name
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