Pyramids
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 at the beginning of the Old Kingdom. The most well-known of these pyramids was built for the pharaoh Khufu. It is known as the 'Great Pyramid'.
There are 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008, Most were built as tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.
The earliest known Egyptian pyramid is the Pyramid of Djoser which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, and are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry.
The best known Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built.
The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence
Life in Ancient Egypt
Agriculture, Industry, Government, Morals, Manners, Letters, Literature, Science, Art, Philosophy, Religion
Agriculture - Life in Ancient Egypt
Behind these kings and queens were pawns; behind these temples, palices and pyramids were the workers of the cities and the peasants of the fields of Ancient Egypt Agriculture.
Industry - Life in Ancient Egypt
Miners
Diodorus Siculus (56 B.C.) describes ancient Egypt miners following with lamp and pick the veins of gold in the earth, children carrying up the heavy ore, stone mortars pounding it to bits, old men and women washing the dirt away.
Manufacturers
In its earliest dynasties Egyptian were great Manufacturers, they learned the art of fusing copper with tin to make bronze: first, bronze weapons swords, helmets and shields; then bronze tools wheels, rollers, levers, pulleys, windlasses, wedges, lathes, screws, drills that bored the toughest diorite stone, saws that cut the massive slabs of the sarcophagi.
Workers
The workers were mostly freemen, partly slaves. In general every trade was a caste, as in modern India, and sons were expected to follow and take over the occupations of their fathers.
Engineers
They were superior to anything known to the Greeks, Romans, or to Europe before the Industrial Revolution; only our time has excelled it, "and we may be mistaken."
Transport, Postal, Commerce and Finance
There was a regular transport and postal service in Ancient Egypt; an ancient papyrus says, "Write to me by the letter-carrier." Communication, however, was difficult; roads were few and bad, except for the military highway through Gaza to the Euphrates; and the serpentine form of the Nile, which was the main highroad of Egypt, doubled the distance from town to town.
Government - Life in Ancient Egypt
Civil and criminal legislation were highly developed, and already in the Fifth Dynasty the law of private property and bequest was intricate and precise. Every visitor to the Louvre has seen the statue of the Egyptian government scribe, squatting on his haunches, almost completely nude, dressed with a pen behind the ear as reserve for the one he holds in his hand.
Religion - Life in Ancient Egypt
For beneath and above everything in Egypt was religion. We find it there in every stage and from totemism to theology; we see its in-fluence in literature, in government, in art, in everything except morality.
Philosophy - Life in Ancient Egypt
Historians of philosophy have been wont to begin their story with the Greeks. The Hindus, who believe that they invented philosophy, and the Chinese, who believe that they perfected it, smile at our provincialism. It may be that we are all mistaken!
All Gizah Pyramids
Cobra Figures and the Step Pyramid, Saqqara, Egypt
Pyramids Egypt
Pyramids Egypt 2
The Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt
White Pyramid of King Snefru, Dahshur, Egypt
Egyptian Evening
Pyramid Sunset Giza Egypt
Mystic Journey Pyramids Giza Egypt
Pyramids Egypt
For high resolution walls 1600x1200 here
Code: http://www.box.net/shared/dnccehuybc
Ancient Egypt Religion
The Gods, Osiris, Isis and Horus, Minor deities, The priests, Immortality, The Book of the Dead, Magic and Corruption
Beneath and above everything, Egypt was religious. We find it there in every stage and form from totemism to theology; we see Ancient Egyupt Religion influence in literature, in government, in art, in everything except morality.
And it is not only varied, it is tropically abundant; only in Rome and India shall we find so plentiful a pantheon.
We cannot understand the Egyptian or man until we study his gods.
In this part we will discover Ancient Egypt religion, gods, customes, influence and more.
Sky God
In the beginning, said the Egyptian, was the sky; and to the end this and the Nile remained his chief divinities.
Sun God
The moon was a god, perhaps the oldest of all that were worshiped in Ancient Egypt Religion; but in the official theology the greatest of the gods was the sun.
Plant Gods
Many plants were sacred in Ancient Egypt Religion and treated as Plant Gods. The palm-tree that shaded them amid the desert, the spring that gave them drink in the oasis, the grove where they could meet and rest, the sycamore flourishing miraculously in the sand; these were, with excellent reason, holy things and Plant Gods.
Animal Gods
More popular in Ancient Egypt Religion were the animal gods; they were so numerous that they filled the Egyptian pantheon like a chattering menagerie. In one nome or another, in one period or another, Egyptians worshiped the bull, the crocodile, the hawk, the cow, the goose, the goat, the ram, the cat, the dog, the chicken, the swallow, the jackal, the serpent.
Human Gods
At last the gods became human or rather, men became gods. Like the deities of Greece, the personal human gods of Egypt were merely superior men and women, made in heroic mould, but composed of bone and muscle, flesh and blood.
Isis, Osiris and Horus
Profound, too, was the myth of Isis, the Great Mother. She was not only the loyal sister and wife of Osiris; in a sense she was greater than he, for like woman in general she had conquered death through love. Nor was she merely the black soil of the Delta, fertilized by the touch of Osiris-Nile, and making all Egypt rich with her fecundity.
The Priests
Hence the priests of Egypt were the necessary props of the throne, and the secret police of the social order. Given a faith of such complexity, a class had to arise adept in magic and ritual, whose skill would make it indispensable in approaching the gods.
Immortality
What distinguished this religion above everything else was its emphasis on immortality. If Osiris, the Nile, and all vegetation, might rise again. so might man.
Book of the Dead
The best way was to buy the Book of the Dead scrolls for which the priests had written prayers, for-mulas and charms calculated to appease, even to deceive, Osiris. When, after a hundred vicissitudes and perils, the dead soul at last reached Osiris, it was to address the great Judge in some such manner as this
Magic and Corruption
The gods themselves used magic and charms against one another. The literature of Egypt is full of magicians of wizards who dry up lakes with a word, or cause severed limbs to jump back into place, or raise the dead. The king had magicians to help or guide him; and he himself was believed to have a magical power to make the rain fall, or the river rise.
Ancient Egypt Pyramid Builders
The Nomes - The First Historic Individual - Cheops - Chephren
Already, by 4000 B.C., these Pyramid Builders of the Nile had forged a form of government.
The fourth dynasty of Ancient Egypt is characterized as a golden age of the Old Kingdom. The fourth dynasty lasted from from 2575 to 2467 B.C. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other countries is documented
Ancient Egypt Engineers
They were superior to anything known to the Greeks, Romans, or to Europe before the Industrial Revolution; only our time has excelled it, "and we may be mistaken."
Senusret III, for example, built a wall twenty-seven miles long to gather into Lake Moeris the waters of the Fayum basin, thereby reclaiming 25,000 acres of marsh land for cultivation, and providing a vast reservoir for irrigation.
Great canals were constructed by engineers , some from the Nile to the Red Sea; the caisson was used for digging, and obelisks weighing a thousand tons were transported over great distances.
If we may credit Herodotus, or judge from later under-takings of the same kind represented in the reliefs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, these immense stones were drawn on greased beams by thousands of slaves, and raised to the desired level on inclined approaches beginning far away.
Machinery was rare because muscle was cheap.
See, in one relief, eight hundred rowers in twenty-seven boats drawing a barge laden with two obelisks; this is the Eden to which our romantic machine-wreckers would return.
Ships a hundred feet long by half a hundred feet wide plied the Nile and the Red Sea, and finally sailed the Mediterranean.
On land goods were transported by human muscle, later by donkeys, later by the horse, which probably the Hyksos brought to Egypt; the camel did not appear till Ptolemaic days.
The poor man walked, or paddled his simple boat; the rich man rode in sedan-chairs carried by slaves, or later in chariots clumsily made with the weight placed entirely in front of the axle.
Abu Simbel, Near Aswan, Egypt
Ancient Egyptian Figures at Temple of Karnak, Luxor, Egypt
Avenue of Sphinxes, Luxor, Egypt
Dromedary Camels, Sahara, Egypt
Great Sphinx, Chephren Pyramid, Giza, Egypt
Statues at the 3rd Terrace, Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el Bahri, Thebes, Luxor, Egypt
The Sphinx, Giza, Near Cairo, Egypt
for high resolution 1600x1200 here
Code: http://www.box.net/shared/myvj7593io
Astronomy In Egypt
Astronomy was very important to the ancient Egyptians, who observed the sky periodically. The astronomers named what they saw in the sky and used their observations to create the Egyptian calendar. The beginning of the Egyptian year was declared when there was a flood, as they noticed that the flood begins with the star Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. This incident represented the beginning of the agricultural year in Egypt. The year had 365 days divided into 12 months and each month had 30 days. They made the remaining five days feast days, called the Epagomenal Days, or the days upon the year, and added them at the end of the year. Months of the year were divided into three seasons, namely: the flood season, the planting season, and the harvest season. The year, the season, the month and the day in which the king assumed power was usually recorded by the Egyptians in their documents.
The ancient Egyptians used instruments or indicators for observing the circumpolar star. They would then draw a north-south axis line on the ground marking its direction, which was required for the proper orientation of important building projects. One of the instruments used was called "Merkhet," which could mean "indicator." It consisted of a horizontal, narrow wooden bar with a hole near one end, through which the astronomer would look to fix the position of the star. The other instrument, called the "bay en imy unut," or palm rib, had a V-shaped slot cut in the wider end through which the priest in charge of the hours looked to fix the star.
Embalming In Ancient Egypt
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.
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.
In the past, when the internal organs were removed from a body they were placed in hollow canopic jars.
Over many years the embalming practices changed and embalmers began returning internal organs to bodies after the organs had been dried in natron. However, solid wood or stone canopic jars were still buried with the mummy to symbolically protect the internal organs.
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 at the beginning of the Old Kingdom. The most well-known of these pyramids was built for the pharaoh Khufu. It is known as the 'Great Pyramid'.
There are 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt as of 2008, Most were built as tombs for the country's Pharaohs and their consorts during the Old and Middle Kingdom periods.
The earliest known Egyptian pyramid is the Pyramid of Djoser which was built during the third dynasty. This pyramid and its surrounding complex were designed by the architect Imhotep, and are generally considered to be the world's oldest monumental structures constructed of dressed masonry.
The best known Egyptian pyramids are those found at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. Several of the Giza pyramids are counted among the largest structures ever built.
The Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest Egyptian pyramid. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence
Life in Ancient Egypt
Agriculture, Industry, Government, Morals, Manners, Letters, Literature, Science, Art, Philosophy, Religion
Agriculture - Life in Ancient Egypt
Behind these kings and queens were pawns; behind these temples, palices and pyramids were the workers of the cities and the peasants of the fields of Ancient Egypt Agriculture.
Industry - Life in Ancient Egypt
Miners
Diodorus Siculus (56 B.C.) describes ancient Egypt miners following with lamp and pick the veins of gold in the earth, children carrying up the heavy ore, stone mortars pounding it to bits, old men and women washing the dirt away.
Manufacturers
In its earliest dynasties Egyptian were great Manufacturers, they learned the art of fusing copper with tin to make bronze: first, bronze weapons swords, helmets and shields; then bronze tools wheels, rollers, levers, pulleys, windlasses, wedges, lathes, screws, drills that bored the toughest diorite stone, saws that cut the massive slabs of the sarcophagi.
Workers
The workers were mostly freemen, partly slaves. In general every trade was a caste, as in modern India, and sons were expected to follow and take over the occupations of their fathers.
Engineers
They were superior to anything known to the Greeks, Romans, or to Europe before the Industrial Revolution; only our time has excelled it, "and we may be mistaken."
Transport, Postal, Commerce and Finance
There was a regular transport and postal service in Ancient Egypt; an ancient papyrus says, "Write to me by the letter-carrier." Communication, however, was difficult; roads were few and bad, except for the military highway through Gaza to the Euphrates; and the serpentine form of the Nile, which was the main highroad of Egypt, doubled the distance from town to town.
Government - Life in Ancient Egypt
Civil and criminal legislation were highly developed, and already in the Fifth Dynasty the law of private property and bequest was intricate and precise. Every visitor to the Louvre has seen the statue of the Egyptian government scribe, squatting on his haunches, almost completely nude, dressed with a pen behind the ear as reserve for the one he holds in his hand.
Religion - Life in Ancient Egypt
For beneath and above everything in Egypt was religion. We find it there in every stage and from totemism to theology; we see its in-fluence in literature, in government, in art, in everything except morality.
Philosophy - Life in Ancient Egypt
Historians of philosophy have been wont to begin their story with the Greeks. The Hindus, who believe that they invented philosophy, and the Chinese, who believe that they perfected it, smile at our provincialism. It may be that we are all mistaken!
All Gizah Pyramids
Cobra Figures and the Step Pyramid, Saqqara, Egypt
Pyramids Egypt
Pyramids Egypt 2
The Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt
White Pyramid of King Snefru, Dahshur, Egypt
Egyptian Evening
Pyramid Sunset Giza Egypt
Mystic Journey Pyramids Giza Egypt
Pyramids Egypt
For high resolution walls 1600x1200 here
Code: http://www.box.net/shared/dnccehuybc
Ancient Egypt Religion
The Gods, Osiris, Isis and Horus, Minor deities, The priests, Immortality, The Book of the Dead, Magic and Corruption
Beneath and above everything, Egypt was religious. We find it there in every stage and form from totemism to theology; we see Ancient Egyupt Religion influence in literature, in government, in art, in everything except morality.
And it is not only varied, it is tropically abundant; only in Rome and India shall we find so plentiful a pantheon.
We cannot understand the Egyptian or man until we study his gods.
In this part we will discover Ancient Egypt religion, gods, customes, influence and more.
Sky God
In the beginning, said the Egyptian, was the sky; and to the end this and the Nile remained his chief divinities.
Sun God
The moon was a god, perhaps the oldest of all that were worshiped in Ancient Egypt Religion; but in the official theology the greatest of the gods was the sun.
Plant Gods
Many plants were sacred in Ancient Egypt Religion and treated as Plant Gods. The palm-tree that shaded them amid the desert, the spring that gave them drink in the oasis, the grove where they could meet and rest, the sycamore flourishing miraculously in the sand; these were, with excellent reason, holy things and Plant Gods.
Animal Gods
More popular in Ancient Egypt Religion were the animal gods; they were so numerous that they filled the Egyptian pantheon like a chattering menagerie. In one nome or another, in one period or another, Egyptians worshiped the bull, the crocodile, the hawk, the cow, the goose, the goat, the ram, the cat, the dog, the chicken, the swallow, the jackal, the serpent.
Human Gods
At last the gods became human or rather, men became gods. Like the deities of Greece, the personal human gods of Egypt were merely superior men and women, made in heroic mould, but composed of bone and muscle, flesh and blood.
Isis, Osiris and Horus
Profound, too, was the myth of Isis, the Great Mother. She was not only the loyal sister and wife of Osiris; in a sense she was greater than he, for like woman in general she had conquered death through love. Nor was she merely the black soil of the Delta, fertilized by the touch of Osiris-Nile, and making all Egypt rich with her fecundity.
The Priests
Hence the priests of Egypt were the necessary props of the throne, and the secret police of the social order. Given a faith of such complexity, a class had to arise adept in magic and ritual, whose skill would make it indispensable in approaching the gods.
Immortality
What distinguished this religion above everything else was its emphasis on immortality. If Osiris, the Nile, and all vegetation, might rise again. so might man.
Book of the Dead
The best way was to buy the Book of the Dead scrolls for which the priests had written prayers, for-mulas and charms calculated to appease, even to deceive, Osiris. When, after a hundred vicissitudes and perils, the dead soul at last reached Osiris, it was to address the great Judge in some such manner as this
Magic and Corruption
The gods themselves used magic and charms against one another. The literature of Egypt is full of magicians of wizards who dry up lakes with a word, or cause severed limbs to jump back into place, or raise the dead. The king had magicians to help or guide him; and he himself was believed to have a magical power to make the rain fall, or the river rise.
Ancient Egypt Pyramid Builders
The Nomes - The First Historic Individual - Cheops - Chephren
Already, by 4000 B.C., these Pyramid Builders of the Nile had forged a form of government.
The fourth dynasty of Ancient Egypt is characterized as a golden age of the Old Kingdom. The fourth dynasty lasted from from 2575 to 2467 B.C. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other countries is documented
Ancient Egypt Engineers
They were superior to anything known to the Greeks, Romans, or to Europe before the Industrial Revolution; only our time has excelled it, "and we may be mistaken."
Senusret III, for example, built a wall twenty-seven miles long to gather into Lake Moeris the waters of the Fayum basin, thereby reclaiming 25,000 acres of marsh land for cultivation, and providing a vast reservoir for irrigation.
Great canals were constructed by engineers , some from the Nile to the Red Sea; the caisson was used for digging, and obelisks weighing a thousand tons were transported over great distances.
If we may credit Herodotus, or judge from later under-takings of the same kind represented in the reliefs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, these immense stones were drawn on greased beams by thousands of slaves, and raised to the desired level on inclined approaches beginning far away.
Machinery was rare because muscle was cheap.
See, in one relief, eight hundred rowers in twenty-seven boats drawing a barge laden with two obelisks; this is the Eden to which our romantic machine-wreckers would return.
Ships a hundred feet long by half a hundred feet wide plied the Nile and the Red Sea, and finally sailed the Mediterranean.
On land goods were transported by human muscle, later by donkeys, later by the horse, which probably the Hyksos brought to Egypt; the camel did not appear till Ptolemaic days.
The poor man walked, or paddled his simple boat; the rich man rode in sedan-chairs carried by slaves, or later in chariots clumsily made with the weight placed entirely in front of the axle.
Abu Simbel, Near Aswan, Egypt
Ancient Egyptian Figures at Temple of Karnak, Luxor, Egypt
Avenue of Sphinxes, Luxor, Egypt
Dromedary Camels, Sahara, Egypt
Great Sphinx, Chephren Pyramid, Giza, Egypt
Statues at the 3rd Terrace, Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir el Bahri, Thebes, Luxor, Egypt
The Sphinx, Giza, Near Cairo, Egypt
for high resolution 1600x1200 here
Code: http://www.box.net/shared/myvj7593io
Astronomy In Egypt
Astronomy was very important to the ancient Egyptians, who observed the sky periodically. The astronomers named what they saw in the sky and used their observations to create the Egyptian calendar. The beginning of the Egyptian year was declared when there was a flood, as they noticed that the flood begins with the star Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky. This incident represented the beginning of the agricultural year in Egypt. The year had 365 days divided into 12 months and each month had 30 days. They made the remaining five days feast days, called the Epagomenal Days, or the days upon the year, and added them at the end of the year. Months of the year were divided into three seasons, namely: the flood season, the planting season, and the harvest season. The year, the season, the month and the day in which the king assumed power was usually recorded by the Egyptians in their documents.
The ancient Egyptians used instruments or indicators for observing the circumpolar star. They would then draw a north-south axis line on the ground marking its direction, which was required for the proper orientation of important building projects. One of the instruments used was called "Merkhet," which could mean "indicator." It consisted of a horizontal, narrow wooden bar with a hole near one end, through which the astronomer would look to fix the position of the star. The other instrument, called the "bay en imy unut," or palm rib, had a V-shaped slot cut in the wider end through which the priest in charge of the hours looked to fix the star.
Embalming In Ancient Egypt
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.
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.
In the past, when the internal organs were removed from a body they were placed in hollow canopic jars.
Over many years the embalming practices changed and embalmers began returning internal organs to bodies after the organs had been dried in natron. However, solid wood or stone canopic jars were still buried with the mummy to symbolically protect the internal organs.
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