Post on 16-Jan-2017
Early Civilisations
Egypt
c. 3000 – 300 BC
Tony Leahy and Eleanor Simmance
This is an introduction to ancient Egypt and
its culture, not just its ‘history’!
Main features of each period…
• Because of the very broad nature of this course,
no single book covers everything. The following
are all good in different ways:
• M. Van de Mieroop, A history of ancient Egypt
• K. Bard, An Introduction to the Archaeology of
Ancient Egypt
• J. Baines and J. Malek, (Cultural) Atlas of
ancient Egypt
• S. Ikram, Ancient Egypt, An Introduction
• I Shaw (ed.), The Oxford history of ancient Egypt
Chronology
• Ancient Egyptian history has been classified by
‘dynasty’ (a family or line of kings) since at least the third century BC (Manetho).
• Modern historians have grouped these dynasties into broader periods for convenience.
• Dates are not exact until 664 BC, and every book you open will give slightly different dates for earlier periods. Do not worry about this.
• For this course, you only need to know which dynasties belong in which period, the order of the periods and approximate dates.
Dynasties, periods and dates • Dynasties Period Approximate dates
• 1-2 Archaic/Early Dynastic c. 3000-2600 BC
• 3-6 Old Kingdom c. 2600-2150 BC
• 7-11 First Intermediate Period c. 2150-2000 BC
• 12-13 Middle Kingdom c. 2000-1650 BC
• 14-17 Second Intermediate Period c. 1650-1550 BC
• 18-20 New Kingdom c. 1550-1070 BC
• 21-25 Third Intermediate Period c. 1070-664 BC
• 26 Saite Period 664-525 BC
• 27 Persian Period 526-404 BC
• 28-30 Late Period 404-332 BC
Herodotus wrote an account of
Egyptian history, c. 450 BC
valuable for foreign
relations from 650 BC but
not before
Manetho an Egyptian priest at Heliopolis wrote a history of Egypt in
Greek in the 3rd century BC.
Only a king-list survives and that only in copies made a thousand years
later.
His is the earliest use of the term ‘dynasty’ and his is the only king-list that
covers the whole pharaonic period.
A Greek from
Halicarnassus in south-
west Turkey, an area
with strong links to
Egypt in previous 200
years
Lack of ancient histories means our understanding has had to
be pieced together from the ancient monuments and artefacts
‘Egypt is the gift of the
Nile’ Herodotus
(5th century BC)
N.B. ‘Upper’ Egypt is the
south of the country!
Nile origins far to the south,
Ethiopian rainfall key to
annual flood that made
ancient Egypt possible
Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean
Middle Egypt
Note immediate transition from ‘Black land’ to ‘Red Land’
The Delta in the north
The first cataract
in the south
The living and the dead
Strong bias in extant evidence towards funerary sphere –
settlements on floodplain much less well preserved/accessible
The power of Hapy,
the annual inundation.
Village on the Nile
Hapy, personification of the Nile
Sunrise and sunset were
crucial times of day
The sun god Ra
(or Ra-Horakhty)
The importance of irrigation
Highly productive but labour-
intensive given limited technology
An abundance of grain
Travel and communication
Mud brick for houses - and palaces
Ancient and modern villages
Metallic wealth and trade imperatives
Gold from the Eastern Desert and from Nubia
- but silver, copper, tin had to be imported
Another reason to trade: poor quality timber
Acacia, sycamore, tamarisk flourish in Egyptian environment, but
building timber (cedar) had to be imported from Lebanon or Cyprus
Papyrus
Building for eternity
e.g. limestone,
sandstone, diorite,
basalt, granite,
quartzite
Egypt was first
society to use stone
extensively for
building and statuary
The enduring record:
king lists and Rosetta stone
Social hierarchy
• Pharaoh
• Elite
• Craftsmen and scribes
• Industrial/agricultural workers (90%?)
• Extant evidence relates mainly to pharaohs
and elite
• Social mobility, e.g. from slave to high official,
was possible (cf. biblical story of Joseph)
The Egyptian world view
Libyan Nubian Asiatic Egyptian
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/galleries/an
cient_egypt/room_61_tomb-chapel_nebamun.aspx
The tomb of Nebamun (18th Dynasty)