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How Ancient Egypt Shaped the Modern World [Infographic]

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The knowledge of ancient Egyptian civilization not only had a powerful impact on other early civilizations but also helped on shaping our modern world.

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Ancient Egypt was a civilization that lasted from 3300 to 525 B.C.E. This is probably where the concept of health started. Some of the earliest records of medical care come from ancient Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians believed in prayer as a solution to health problems, but they also had natural, or practical, remedies, such as herbs.

It was a structured society with tools such as written language and mathematics, which enabled them to record and develop ideas, and it meant that others could learn from them.

Share on Pinterest
The ancient Egyptians had basic medical equipment, and they also believed that the gods controlled life and health. This picture shows Isis on a birthing stool,

The ancient Egyptians thought that gods, demons, and spirits played a key role in causing diseases.

Doctors believed that spirits blocked channels in the body and that this affected the way the body worked. They looked for ways to unblock these channels. They used a combination of prayer and natural - or non-spiritual - remedies.

Most healers were also priests, but, in time, the profession of a "doctor of medicine" emerged.

The fact that ancient Egyptians had systems of letters and numbers meant they were able to record and develop ideas and make calculations. Documented ancient Egyptian medical literature is among the oldest in existence today.

The ancient Egyptians had an organized economy and system of government, a settled population, social conventions, and properly enforced laws. Before this, the local people mainly lived a nomadic life.

This stability allowed medical research to develop.

In addition, there were also relatively wealthy individuals in ancient Egyptian society. They could afford some health care and also had time to ponder and study.

The ancient Egyptians were also traders. They traveled long distances, coming back with herbs and spices from faraway lands.

Research and learning

The ancient Egyptians' practice of preserving deceased people as mummies meant that they learned something about how the human body works.

In one process, the priest-doctor inserted a long, hooked implement through the nostril and broke the thin bone of the brain case to remove the brain.

Kings and queens from faraway lands sought Egyptian doctors because of their reputation for excellence.

Archaeologists have found a number of written records that describe ancient Egyptian medical practice, including the Ebers papyrus.

Share on Pinterest
The ancient Egyptians probably learned something about the human body through mummification.

This document contains over 700 remedies and magical formulas and scores of incantations aimed at repelling demons that cause disease.

The authors probably wrote them around 1500 B.C.E., but the document may contain copies of material dating back to 3400 B.C.E. They are among the oldest preserved medical documents in existence.

The scroll provides evidence of some sound scientific procedures.

Doctors appear to have had fairly good knowledge about bone structure and some awareness of how the brain and liver worked.

The heart: According to the Ebers Papyrus, the center of the body's blood supply is the heart, and every corner of the body is attached to vessels. The heart was the meeting point for vessels that carried tears, urine, semen, and blood. Researchers writing in 2014 described ancient Egyptian understanding of the cardiovascular system as "surprisingly sophisticated, if not accurate.

Mental illness: The document describes in detail the characteristics, causes, and treatment for mental disorders such as dementia and depression. The ancient Egyptians appear to have seen mental diseases as a combination of blocked channels and the influence of evil spirits and angry Gods.

Family planning: The scroll contains a section on birth control, how to tell if a person is pregnant, and some other gynecological issues.

There is also advice about:

skin problems

dental problems

diseases related to the eyes

intestinal disease

parasites

how to surgically treat an abscess or a tumor

In addition, there is evidence that doctors knew how to set broken bones and treat burns.

Medical advice

Some recommendations that physicians made then seem fairly sound to us now.

They advised people to wash and shave their bodies to prevent infections, to eat carefully, and to avoid unclean animals and raw fish.

Some, however, are less familiar. Putting a plug of crocodile dung into the entrance of the vagina, for example, was a method of birth control. People also used dung to disperse evil spirits.

Dentistry

The Egyptians also practiced dentistry. Caries and tooth decay appear to have been common.

Remedies included:

cumin, incense, and onion to treat swollen gums

opium, possibly, to treat pain pain

drilling holes into the jaw to drain an abscess

However, they do not seem to have extracted teeth.

Everyday life in Egypt involved beliefs and fear of magic, gods, demons, evils spirits, and so on. They believed that the gods created and controlled life.

Heka was the goddess of magic and medicine, while Bes, another god, protected women during pregnancy. People called upon Serket if they had a scorpion bite.

Angry gods or evil forces caused bad luck and disaster, so people used magic and religion to deal with these forces and to treat people.

Priests and doctors were often one and the same. Many healers were priests of Sekhmet, an Egyptian warrior goddess and the goddess of healing, curses, and threats.

As well as science, treatment involved the use of magic, incantations, amulets, aromas, offerings, tattoos, and statues.

The religious and magic rituals and procedures probably had a powerful placebo effect, so they may have resulted in healing.

The "channel theory" came from observing farmers who dug out irrigations channels for their crops. It allowed medicine to move from entirely spiritual cures towards practical, natural ones.

The doctors believed that, as in irrigation, channels provide the body with routes for good health. If blockages occurred, they used laxatives to unblock them.

The heart was the center of 46 channels, seen as types of tubes.

It is true that human veins, arteries, and intestines are types of tubes. However, the Egyptians did not understand that these channels had different functions.

Blockages in the human channels were thought to result from the doings of Wekhedu, an evil spirit. When Wekhedu came to the surface of the body, it showed as pus.

This idea that bodily function played a role in health was a breakthrough in the history of medicine.

Channels and the heart

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body consisted of a system of channels, or "Metu."

One researcher notes that they believed that bodily fluids could enter this system, including feces. This would have a negative effect, and enemas became an important method of treatment for many conditions, including malaria and smallpox.

The Ebers Papyrus notes that vessels run from the heart to all four limbs and every part of the body.

When a doctor, Sekmet priest, or exorcist places their hands on any part of the body, they are examining the heart, because all vessels come from the heart.

Channel theory holds that:

The heart is the source. It speaks out to each part of the body.

When people breathe in through the nose, the air enters their heart, lungs, and then the belly.

The nostrils have four vessels, two of which provide mucus and two provide blood.

The human body has four vessels, which lead to two ears. The "breath of life" enters the right ear and "breath of death" enters the left ear.

Four vessels that lead to the head cause baldness.

All eye diseases come from four vessels in the forehead, which supply blood to the eyes.

Two vessels enter the testicles and provide semen.

Two vessels in the buttocks supply them with vital nutrients.

Six vessels reach the soles of the feet and six lead down the arms to the fingers.

Two vessels supply the bladder with urine.

Four vessels supply the liver with liquid and air. When they overfill the liver with blood, they cause diseases.

Four vessels also supply the lungs and spleen with liquid and air.

The liquid and air that come out of the anus come from four vessels.

The anus is also exposed to all the vessels in the arms and legs when they overflow with waste.

Egyptian physicians underwent training and could successfully fix broken bones and dislocated joints.

Basic surgery - meaning procedures close to the surface of the skin or on the skin - was a common skill, and doctors knew how to stitch wounds effectively.

They used bandages and would bind certain plant products, such as willow leaves, into the bandages to treat inflammation.

However, they did not perform surgery deep inside the body, probably because there were no anesthetics or antiseptics.

Circumcision of baby boys was common practice. It is hard to tell whether female circumcision existed. There is one mention, but this may be a mistranslation.

Surgeons had an array of instruments, such as pincers, forceps, spoons, saws, containers with burning incense, hooks, and knives.

Prosthetics existed, but they were probably not very practical. People may have used them to make deceased people look more presentable during funerals or simply for decorative purposes.

Egyptian doctors said there were three types of injuries:

Treatable injuries: They dealt with these immediately.

Contestable injuries: The doctor believed these were not life-threatening and that the person could survive without intervention. The doctor would observe the patient. If they survived, the doctor would decide in time whether to intervene.

Untreatable ailments: The doctor would not intervene.

Common complaints included:

A remedy for headaches, mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, appears to advise the following:

Mash together flour, incense, wood of wa, waneb plant, mint, a horn of a stag, sycamore seeds, mason's plaster, seeds of zart, water. Apply to the head.

People used aloe vera in ancient Egyptian times to heal burns and skin diseases.

Another remedy is to use poppy seeds or aloe.

Asthma: Honey and milk, sesame, frankincense

Burns and skin disease: Aloe

Pain: Thyme

Digestive problems: Juniper, mint, garlic, and sandalwood

Bad breath: Mint, caraway

Epilepsy: Camphor

Vomiting: Mint to stop it and mustard seeds to cause it

Other conditions and treatments include:

The cure for a cold was an incantation.

Early concepts of homeopathy

Some treatments used products or herbs or plants that looked similar to the illness they were treating, a practice known as simila similibus, or similar with similar.

Today, homeopathy follows a similar principle.

In Egyptian times, people used ostrich eggs to treat a fractured skull.

Cleanliness was an important part of Egyptian life, and homes had rudimentary baths and toilets. Appearance and the use of make-up were important.

The main aim was to meet social and religious requirements, although many people wore make-up around their eyes to protect them from disease.

People used mosquito nets during the hot months, whether to protect against malaria and other diseases or to avoid bites. Malaria was a common problem.

Priests washed themselves, their clothing, and their eating utensils regularly. This helped to protect their health, although they did it for religious reasons.

There was no public health infrastructure as we know of today. There were no sewage systems, systematic medical care, or public hygiene.

The ancient Egyptians were probably the first people to have professional doctors, and it was a respected occupation.

According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, they had to be literate and clean in body and spirit. There were doctors all over Egypt.

The earliest ever record of a male physician was Hesy-Ra in 2700 B.C.E. He was was "Chief of Dentists and Doctors" to King Dioser.

The first record of a female doctor was probably Peseshet in 2400 B.C.E., the supervisor of all female doctors, but there may have been female doctors as early as 3000 B.C.E.

The top doctors worked in the royal court. Below them, inspectors would supervise the work of other doctors. There were specialists, such as dentists, proctologists, gastroenterologists, and ophthalmologists.

A proctologist - or possibly the giver of enemas - was called "nery phuyt," which translates as the "shepherd of the anus," according to an article published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

The ancient Egyptians had sophisticated methods of practicing medicine that combined the supernatural with the natural, such as herbal remedies and surgery.

Their written records have allowed their knowledge to pass down through the ages. While not always accurate, some of their theories and practices were not very different from those in use today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egyptian medicine: Influences, practice, magic, and religion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient Egyptian documents are probably the earliest records of healthcare practice. The ancient Egyptians knew something about the human body and they sought healing through both herbal medicine and incantations. They also practiced basic surgery. Both male and female doctors were important. Find out more.

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marquis m.

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Modern architecture has grown and developed from centuries of innovation and invention from past civilizations. And while new technology has meant for dramatic changes in how we live and function as a society, many of the basic concepts of architecture still draw on how ancient civilizations operated. Dating back to the dawn of humankind, architecture has had to serve similar basic functions but in dramatically different ways, and looking into our past could help us create and design our future.

1. Prehistoric architecture

Though not much prehistoric architecture has survived into the modern era, there's no denying that mankind's first attempts to manipulate their surroundings has heavily influenced architecture throughout the centuries.

It's hard to imagine how humans viewed the world over 10,000 years ago, but even then - before there was even writing to record their efforts - prehistoric man constructed stone circles, megaliths, and structures that still confuse archeologists to this day. From the giant slabs of Stonehenge to cliff dwellings and even thatch and mud structures, there are a few patterns that ancient man conceived of even then.
Prehistoric geometric forms
The very limited scope of prehistoric architecture mainly centres on geometric forms, possibly drawing inspiration from the most influential and god-like forms around them: the sun and the moon. Circular shapes are at the heart of most of the prehistoric architecture that has been uncovered, including simple circular earth mounds to the layout of the monolithic Stonehenge.

Stonehenge shows a prehistoric appreciation of geometric forms. Image source

Though very simplistic in comparison to the civilizations that followed, the geometric forms and structures that have been found at the very least raise the question, what is architecture?

2. Egyptian architecture

Though there were other civilizations that were emerging and developing their own architectural style around a similar time - such as the Sumerians in Mesopotamia and Persia (c.3200-323 BCE) - it was the ancient Egyptians who had the biggest influence on modern architecture.

As well as creating one of the first written languages and a society of religion and a dynastic ruling class, ancient Egyptians used their unparalleled resources to create structures on a scale never before seen.
Ancient Egyptian pyramids
The Egyptian pyramids were the first monuments to be constructed on that scale. Image source

Though not especially complex, Egyptian pyramids used posts and lintels and a system of distributing weight that allowed for monumental palaces and tombs to be constructed that are still iconic structures thousands of years later in modern times.

In addition to the size of their structures, ancient Egyptian architects were among the first to employ materials such as stone; a fact that greatly influenced later Greek architecture and of course remains popular today.

3. Greek architecture

Greek architecture was the start of what is referred to as the Classical period of architecture which shaped the way we approach architecture and construction in Western colonies around the world to this day.

Greek architecture's biggest influence on modern architecture was its creation of a set of standardised rules. This led to an aesthetically-pleasing uniformity throughout ancient Greece which was later adopted by Roman architecture.
Phases of Greek architecture
The Temple of Concordia has classical Greek architecture. Image source

Greek architecture had three main phases, the latter of which somewhat merges with subsequent Roman design: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. The Doric and Ionic styles were prominent from 700 to 323 BCE and heralded the introduction of columns in major structures. Developed in mainland Greece, and then used in Greek colonies in Italy, the Doric style was formal and austere and the Ionic was less restrained and more decorative. Finally, the Corinthian style represented a more ornate development of the Ionic order, one that was heavily adopted by the Romans.

4. Roman architecture

There are many ways in which Roman architecture influenced modern architecture, and though Roman architects borrowed heavily from earlier Greek styles, their buildings were more highly ornate and they developed numerous concepts that were the very foundation of modern architecture.
The function of Roman architecture
Roman architects needed to create structures that impressed and entertained the public. Image source

The innovations in architecture developed by Romans were often prompted by the needs of an ever-expanding empire. Few civilizations had ever created an empire on the size and scale of the Romans, thus prompted a need for creative thinking on the part of the city planners and architects of the time. Roads, aqueducts, and sewer systems were all invented in order to service the needs of the Roman empire, and without them modern society could not function.

There was also a need for the Roman state to impress, entertain, and cater to their growing population, all within relatively confined urban areas. So in addition to roads, water, and sewers, the public required stadiums and religious temples to keep them entertained and complacent. This, together with Rome's growing desire to increase its power and majesty throughout Italy and beyond, required public buildings to be imposing, large-scale and highly functional.

This heralded further innovations such as the use of arches and concrete to create larger indoor space within palaces and temples, and huge venues like the Coliseum which still stands today.

5. Byzantine architecture

As many prominent architects moved from Italy to the new capital of the Roman empire Byzantium (now known as Istanbul in Turkey), Roman architecture evolved into something new. The growing influence of Christianity had a significant influence on Byzantine architecture, especially the way in which religious spaces were decorated.

Icons in Byzantine architecture

Byzantine churches had intricate mosaic decorations that related religious iconography. Image source

During the Byzantine period, Christian art was only allowed to be depicted in flat images, theoretically claiming a more modest appreciation of religious divinity rather than the human form. Therefore, iconography developed in a highly stylised manner in order to make the teachings of Christianity easily accessible, even to those who could not read.

This led to new decorative methods such as mosaics made from glass rather than stone, gilding, murals and relief sculptures. The style, use of colour, techniques, and use of materials have heavily influenced all manner of modern civilization, from interior decorating style to the icons at the top of your screen.

Inspired by the past or keen to design the future? Take part in one of our upcoming architecture competitions and push your creativity to its limit.

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5 strongest historical architecture influences to architecture

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Modern architecture has grown and developed from centuries of innovation and invention from past civilizations. And while new technology has meant for dramatic changes in how we live and function as a society, many of the basic concepts of architecture still draw on how ancient civilizations operated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancient Egypt was a civilization that lasted from 3300 to 525 B.C.E. This is probably where the concept of health started. Some of the earliest records of medical care come from ancient Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians believed in prayer as a solution to health problems, but they also had natural, or practical, remedies, such as herbs.

It was a structured society with tools such as written language and mathematics, which enabled them to record and develop ideas, and it meant that others could learn from them.

Share on Pinterest
The ancient Egyptians had basic medical equipment, and they also believed that the gods controlled life and health. This picture shows Isis on a birthing stool,

The ancient Egyptians thought that gods, demons, and spirits played a key role in causing diseases.

Doctors believed that spirits blocked channels in the body and that this affected the way the body worked. They looked for ways to unblock these channels. They used a combination of prayer and natural - or non-spiritual - remedies.

Most healers were also priests, but, in time, the profession of a "doctor of medicine" emerged.

The fact that ancient Egyptians had systems of letters and numbers meant they were able to record and develop ideas and make calculations. Documented ancient Egyptian medical literature is among the oldest in existence today.

The ancient Egyptians had an organized economy and system of government, a settled population, social conventions, and properly enforced laws. Before this, the local people mainly lived a nomadic life.

This stability allowed medical research to develop.

In addition, there were also relatively wealthy individuals in ancient Egyptian society. They could afford some health care and also had time to ponder and study.

The ancient Egyptians were also traders. They traveled long distances, coming back with herbs and spices from faraway lands.

Research and learning

The ancient Egyptians' practice of preserving deceased people as mummies meant that they learned something about how the human body works.

In one process, the priest-doctor inserted a long, hooked implement through the nostril and broke the thin bone of the brain case to remove the brain.

Kings and queens from faraway lands sought Egyptian doctors because of their reputation for excellence.

Archaeologists have found a number of written records that describe ancient Egyptian medical practice, including the Ebers papyrus.

Share on Pinterest
The ancient Egyptians probably learned something about the human body through mummification.

This document contains over 700 remedies and magical formulas and scores of incantations aimed at repelling demons that cause disease.

The authors probably wrote them around 1500 B.C.E., but the document may contain copies of material dating back to 3400 B.C.E. They are among the oldest preserved medical documents in existence.

The scroll provides evidence of some sound scientific procedures.

Doctors appear to have had fairly good knowledge about bone structure and some awareness of how the brain and liver worked.

The heart: According to the Ebers Papyrus, the center of the body's blood supply is the heart, and every corner of the body is attached to vessels. The heart was the meeting point for vessels that carried tears, urine, semen, and blood. Researchers writing in 2014 described ancient Egyptian understanding of the cardiovascular system as "surprisingly sophisticated, if not accurate.

Mental illness: The document describes in detail the characteristics, causes, and treatment for mental disorders such as dementia and depression. The ancient Egyptians appear to have seen mental diseases as a combination of blocked channels and the influence of evil spirits and angry Gods.

Family planning: The scroll contains a section on birth control, how to tell if a person is pregnant, and some other gynecological issues.

There is also advice about:

skin problems

dental problems

diseases related to the eyes

intestinal disease

parasites

how to surgically treat an abscess or a tumor

In addition, there is evidence that doctors knew how to set broken bones and treat burns.

Medical advice

Some recommendations that physicians made then seem fairly sound to us now.

They advised people to wash and shave their bodies to prevent infections, to eat carefully, and to avoid unclean animals and raw fish.

Some, however, are less familiar. Putting a plug of crocodile dung into the entrance of the vagina, for example, was a method of birth control. People also used dung to disperse evil spirits.

Dentistry

The Egyptians also practiced dentistry. Caries and tooth decay appear to have been common.

Remedies included:

cumin, incense, and onion to treat swollen gums

opium, possibly, to treat pain pain

drilling holes into the jaw to drain an abscess

However, they do not seem to have extracted teeth.

Everyday life in Egypt involved beliefs and fear of magic, gods, demons, evils spirits, and so on. They believed that the gods created and controlled life.

Heka was the goddess of magic and medicine, while Bes, another god, protected women during pregnancy. People called upon Serket if they had a scorpion bite.

Angry gods or evil forces caused bad luck and disaster, so people used magic and religion to deal with these forces and to treat people.

Priests and doctors were often one and the same. Many healers were priests of Sekhmet, an Egyptian warrior goddess and the goddess of healing, curses, and threats.

As well as science, treatment involved the use of magic, incantations, amulets, aromas, offerings, tattoos, and statues.

The religious and magic rituals and procedures probably had a powerful placebo effect, so they may have resulted in healing.

The "channel theory" came from observing farmers who dug out irrigations channels for their crops. It allowed medicine to move from entirely spiritual cures towards practical, natural ones.

The doctors believed that, as in irrigation, channels provide the body with routes for good health. If blockages occurred, they used laxatives to unblock them.

The heart was the center of 46 channels, seen as types of tubes.

It is true that human veins, arteries, and intestines are types of tubes. However, the Egyptians did not understand that these channels had different functions.

Blockages in the human channels were thought to result from the doings of Wekhedu, an evil spirit. When Wekhedu came to the surface of the body, it showed as pus.

This idea that bodily function played a role in health was a breakthrough in the history of medicine.

Channels and the heart

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body consisted of a system of channels, or "Metu."

One researcher notes that they believed that bodily fluids could enter this system, including feces. This would have a negative effect, and enemas became an important method of treatment for many conditions, including malaria and smallpox.

The Ebers Papyrus notes that vessels run from the heart to all four limbs and every part of the body.

When a doctor, Sekmet priest, or exorcist places their hands on any part of the body, they are examining the heart, because all vessels come from the heart.

Channel theory holds that:

The heart is the source. It speaks out to each part of the body.

When people breathe in through the nose, the air enters their heart, lungs, and then the belly.

The nostrils have four vessels, two of which provide mucus and two provide blood.

The human body has four vessels, which lead to two ears. The "breath of life" enters the right ear and "breath of death" enters the left ear.

Four vessels that lead to the head cause baldness.

All eye diseases come from four vessels in the forehead, which supply blood to the eyes.

Two vessels enter the testicles and provide semen.

Two vessels in the buttocks supply them with vital nutrients.

Six vessels reach the soles of the feet and six lead down the arms to the fingers.

Two vessels supply the bladder with urine.

Four vessels supply the liver with liquid and air. When they overfill the liver with blood, they cause diseases.

Four vessels also supply the lungs and spleen with liquid and air.

The liquid and air that come out of the anus come from four vessels.

The anus is also exposed to all the vessels in the arms and legs when they overflow with waste.

Egyptian physicians underwent training and could successfully fix broken bones and dislocated joints.

Basic surgery - meaning procedures close to the surface of the skin or on the skin - was a common skill, and doctors knew how to stitch wounds effectively.

They used bandages and would bind certain plant products, such as willow leaves, into the bandages to treat inflammation.

However, they did not perform surgery deep inside the body, probably because there were no anesthetics or antiseptics.

Circumcision of baby boys was common practice. It is hard to tell whether female circumcision existed. There is one mention, but this may be a mistranslation.

Surgeons had an array of instruments, such as pincers, forceps, spoons, saws, containers with burning incense, hooks, and knives.

Prosthetics existed, but they were probably not very practical. People may have used them to make deceased people look more presentable during funerals or simply for decorative purposes.

Egyptian doctors said there were three types of injuries:

Treatable injuries: They dealt with these immediately.

Contestable injuries: The doctor believed these were not life-threatening and that the person could survive without intervention. The doctor would observe the patient. If they survived, the doctor would decide in time whether to intervene.

Untreatable ailments: The doctor would not intervene.

Common complaints included:

A remedy for headaches, mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, appears to advise the following:

Mash together flour, incense, wood of wa, waneb plant, mint, a horn of a stag, sycamore seeds, mason's plaster, seeds of zart, water. Apply to the head.

People used aloe vera in ancient Egyptian times to heal burns and skin diseases.

Another remedy is to use poppy seeds or aloe.

Asthma: Honey and milk, sesame, frankincense

Burns and skin disease: Aloe

Pain: Thyme

Digestive problems: Juniper, mint, garlic, and sandalwood

Bad breath: Mint, caraway

Epilepsy: Camphor

Vomiting: Mint to stop it and mustard seeds to cause it

Other conditions and treatments include:

The cure for a cold was an incantation.

Early concepts of homeopathy

Some treatments used products or herbs or plants that looked similar to the illness they were treating, a practice known as simila similibus, or similar with similar.

Today, homeopathy follows a similar principle.

In Egyptian times, people used ostrich eggs to treat a fractured skull.

Cleanliness was an important part of Egyptian life, and homes had rudimentary baths and toilets. Appearance and the use of make-up were important.

The main aim was to meet social and religious requirements, although many people wore make-up around their eyes to protect them from disease.

People used mosquito nets during the hot months, whether to protect against malaria and other diseases or to avoid bites. Malaria was a common problem.

Priests washed themselves, their clothing, and their eating utensils regularly. This helped to protect their health, although they did it for religious reasons.

There was no public health infrastructure as we know of today. There were no sewage systems, systematic medical care, or public hygiene.

The ancient Egyptians were probably the first people to have professional doctors, and it was a respected occupation.

According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, they had to be literate and clean in body and spirit. There were doctors all over Egypt.

The earliest ever record of a male physician was Hesy-Ra in 2700 B.C.E. He was was "Chief of Dentists and Doctors" to King Dioser.

The first record of a female doctor was probably Peseshet in 2400 B.C.E., the supervisor of all female doctors, but there may have been female doctors as early as 3000 B.C.E.

The top doctors worked in the royal court. Below them, inspectors would supervise the work of other doctors. There were specialists, such as dentists, proctologists, gastroenterologists, and ophthalmologists.

A proctologist - or possibly the giver of enemas - was called "nery phuyt," which translates as the "shepherd of the anus," according to an article published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

The ancient Egyptians had sophisticated methods of practicing medicine that combined the supernatural with the natural, such as herbal remedies and surgery.

Their written records have allowed their knowledge to pass down through the ages. While not always accurate, some of their theories and practices were not very different from those in use today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ancient Egyptian medicine: Influences, practice, magic, and religion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient Egyptian documents are probably the earliest records of healthcare practice. The ancient Egyptians knew something about the human body and they sought healing through both herbal medicine and incantations. They also practiced basic surgery. Both male and female doctors were important. Find out more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Medical practice in ancient Egypt was so advanced that many of their observations, policies, and commonplace procedures would not be surpassed in the west for centuries after the fall of Rome and their practices would inform both Greek and Roman medicine. They understood that disease could be treated by pharmaceuticals, recognized the healing potential in massage and aromas, had male and female doctors who specialized in certain specific areas, and understood the importance of cleanliness in treating patients.

In the modern day it is recognized that disease and infection can be caused by germs and one might think people have always believed so but this is a relatively late innovation in human understanding. It was not until the 19th century CE that the germ theory of disease was confirmed by Louis Pasteur and proven by the work of British surgeon Joseph Lister.

Before either of them, the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865 CE) offered the then outlandish proposal to the medical community that they could cut mortality rates in their practices simply by washing their hands. He was mocked by doctors, who saw no reason to wash their hands before even the most invasive surgical procedures, and grew increasingly frustrated and bitter. Semmelweis was committed to a mental institution in 1865 CE where he died, after being severely beaten by guards, for suggesting a practice recognized as common sense today.

The mortality rate following medical procedures in ancient Egypt was probably less than that of any European hospital in the Christian era until the mid-20th century CE.

The ancient Egyptians would have accepted Semmelweis' proposal without hesitation; not because they understood the concept of germs, but because they valued cleanliness. The mortality rate following medical procedures in ancient Egypt was probably less than that of any European hospital in the Christian era until the mid-20th century CE when personal cleanliness and the sterilization of instruments became common practice.

Egyptologist Barbara Watterson notes that " medicine in ancient Egypt was relatively advanced and Egyptian doctors, who were all, with one or two exceptions, male, were skilled (46). Even so, for a civilization which regularly dissected the dead for embalming, doctors had little understanding of how most of the internal organs worked and blamed disease on supernatural forces.

Injury & Disease

Injuries were easy to understand in ancient Egypt; disease was a bit more difficult. When someone was injured there was a plain cause and an effect which could then be treated; when a person was sick, however, the cause was less clear and so diagnosis more problematic.

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The cause of disease was usually understood as the consequence of sin and, when that seemed not the case, that the patient was under a demonic attack, was being plagued by an angry ghost, or that some god felt they needed to learn a lesson. Disease, therefore, was commonly treated through recitation by a doctor of magical spells. Watterson notes, "the earliest 'doctor' was a magician, for the Egyptians believed that disease and sickness were caused by an evil force entering the body" (65).

The types of diseases Egyptians suffered from were as numerous and varied as they are in the present day and included bilharsiasis (a disease contracted and spread through contaminated water); trachoma (an infection of the eye); malaria; dysentery; smallpox; pneumonia; cancer; heart disease; dementia; typhoid; arthritis; high blood pressure; bronchitis; tuberculosis; appendicitis; kidney stones; liver disease; curvature of the spine; the common cold, and ovarian cysts.

Besides magical spells, ancient Egyptians used incantations, amulets, offerings, aromas, tattoos, and statuary to either drive away the ghost or demon, placate the god or gods who had sent the illness, or invoke protection from a higher power as a preventative. The spells and incantations were written down on papyrus scrolls which became the medical texts of the day.

The Medical Texts

Although there were no doubt many more texts available in ancient Egypt, only a few have survived to the present. These few, however, provide a wealth of information on how the Egyptians saw disease and what they believed would alleviate a patient's symptoms or lead to a cure. They are named for the individual who owned them or the institution which houses them. All of them, to greater or lesser degrees, rely on sympathetic magic as well as practical technique.

The Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus, dated c. 1200 BCE, prescribes treatment for anorectal disease (problems associated with the anus and rectum) and prescribes cannabis for cancer patients (pre-dating the mention of cannabis in Herodotus, long thought to be the earliest mention of the drug). The Berlin Medical Papyrus (also known as the Brugsch Papyrus, dated to the New Kingdom, c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE) deals with contraception, fertility, and includes the earliest known pregnancy tests. The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) treats cancer (for which, it says, there is no treatment), heart disease, diabetes, birth control, and depression. The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) is the oldest work on surgical techniques. The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden (c. 3rd century CE) is devoted entirely to magical spells and divination. The Hearst Medical Papyrus (dated to the New Kingdom) treats urinary tract infections and digestive problems. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (c. 1800 BCE) deals with conception and pregnancy issues as well as contraception. The London Medical Papyrus (c. 1782-1570 BCE) offers prescriptions for issues related to the eyes, skin, burns, and pregnancy. These are only the papyrii recognized as focusing entirely on medicine. There are many more which touch on the subject but are not generally accepted as medical texts.

All of these works, at one time or another, were consulted by practicing doctors who routinely made house calls. The Egyptians called the science of medicine the "necessary art" for obvious reasons. Doctors were considered priests of the , the House of Life, a kind of library/school attached to a temple, but the concept of the 'house of life' was also considered the healing knowledge of the individual doctors.

Doctors, Midwives, Nurses, & Dentists

Physicians in ancient Egypt could be male or female. The "first physician", later deified as a god of medicine and healing, was the architect Imhotep (c. 2667-2600 BCE) best known for designing the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. Imhotep is also remembered for initiating "secular medicine" through his treatises arguing that disease occurred naturally and was not a punishment from the gods. Women in the medical profession in Egypt go back to the Early Dynastic Period when Merit-Ptah was the royal court's chief physician c. 2700 BCE. Merit-Ptah is the first female doctor known by name in world history but evidence suggests a medical school at the Temple of Neith in Sais in Lower Egypt run by a woman whose name is unknown c. 3000 BCE.

Pesehet (c. 2500 BCE), another female physician often cited as the first, was the "Lady Overseer of Female Physicians", possibly associated with the school at Sais, attesting to the presence of women in medical practice at this time. The famous legend of Agnodice of Athens (c. 4th century BCE) relates how, denied entrance to the medical profession because she was a woman, she went to Egypt where women were respected in the field. How and where doctors received their training is not known although it has been established there was an important school in Alexandria as well as the one at Sais.

A doctor not only needed to be literate but also pure in body and spirit. Doctors were referred to as wabau, ritually pure, and were expected to bathe as frequently and carefully as a high priest. Each doctor had his or her speciality but there were also swnw, general practitioners, and sau, whose speciality was in the use of magic. Midwives, masseurs, nurses, attendants, and seers also assisted the doctor. Doctors are not thought to have had anything to do with births, however, which were handled entirely by midwives and the women of the house. Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown writes:

Midwifery appears to have been a solely female profession in ancient Egypt. That this was so is suggested by medical texts, which include gynaecological information, but do not discuss obstetrics. Additionally, men are never shown in birthing scenes, and in the Papyrus Westcar, the mother is assisted in birth by four goddesses. (82)

There is no evidence for medical training of midwives. In the Old Kingdom the word for 'midwife' is associated with the word for 'nurse', one who assisted a doctor, but this association ends after that period. Midwives could be female relatives, friends, or neighbors and do not seem to have been regarded as medical professionals.

The nurse could be female or male and was a highly respected medical professional although, as with midwives, there is no evidence of a school or professional training. The most essential kind of nurse was the wet nurse. Graves-Brown notes, "with the probable likelihood of high mortality of mothers, wet nurses would have been particularly important" (83). Women regularly died in childbirth and legal documents show agreements between wet nurses and families to care for the newborn in the event of the mother's death. The dry nurse, who would assist in procedures, was accorded such respect that he or she was represented during the time of the New Kingdom as linked with the divine. The association of the nurse with the doctor seems well established but not so much their link with the dentist.

Dentistry grew out of the established medical profession but never developed as widely. The ancient Egyptians suffered from dental problems throughout the entire history of the civilization so why dentists were not more plentiful, or better documented, is unclear. Doctors also practiced dentistry but there were dentists as far back as the Early Dynastic Period. The first dentist known by name in the world, in fact, is Hesyre (c. 2600 BCE), Chief of Dentists and Physician to the King under the reign of Djoser (c. 2700 BCE). Dental problems were especially prevalent owing to the Egyptian diet of coarse bread and their inability to keep sand out of their food. Egyptologist and historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Egyptians of all eras had terrible teeth and peridontal problems. By the New Kingdom, however, dental decay was critical. Physicians packed some teeth with honey and herbs, perhaps to stem infection or to ease pain. Some mummies were also provided with bridges and gold teeth. It is not known if these dental materials were used by the wearer while alive or inserted in the embalming process. (158)

Queen Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE) of the New Kingdom died from an abscessed tooth as did many others. Toothaches and dental problems were thought to be caused by a tooth-worm which needed to be driven out by magical spells and incantations. This belief no doubt originated in Mesopotamia, specifically Sumer, where incantations against the tooth-worm have been found in ancient cuneiform inscriptions.

Healing Gods, Medicines, & Implements

As with doctors, dentists used magical incantations to drive the tooth-worm from the patient and then applied what medicines they had to ease the pain. Doctors and dentists frequently used herbs and spices medicinally. A cure for chronic bad breath, for example, was chewing a gum ball of honey, cinnamon, myrrh, frankincense, and pignon. There is evidence of tooth extraction and false teeth with opium used as an anaesthetic. The importance of diet was recognized and changes in one's diet for improved health were suggested. Practical, hands-on, remedies were always applied first in cases of obvious physical injury but with toothaches or gum disease, as with any disease, a supernatural cause was assumed.

A belief in magic was deeply ingrained in the Egyptian culture and was considered as natural and normal as any other aspect of existence. The god of magic was also a god of medicine, Heka, who carried a staff entwined with two serpents. This symbol was passed on to the Greeks who associated it with their god of healing, Asclepius, and which is recognizable today as the caduceus of the medical profession. Although the caduceus no doubt traveled from Egypt to Greece it originated in Sumer as the staff of Ninazu, son of the Sumerian goddess of healing Gula.

Besides Heka, there were a number of other important healing deities such as Sekhmet, Serket (also known as Selket), Sobek, and Nefertum. The priests of Serket were all doctors, though not every doctor was a member of her cult. Serket and Sekhmet were regularly invoked in magical spells and incantations along with Heka and, in certain cases, other deities such as Bes or Tawawret (usually dealing with fertility/children's diseases). Sobek, the crocodile god, seems to have been largely invoked for surgeries and invasive procedures. Nefertum, the god of perfumes associated with the lotus and healing, was invoked in procedures which today would be recognized as aromatherapy. In the Kahun Papyrus a course regularly prescribed for women is to fumigate them with incense to drive out an evil spirit and Nefertum would have been called upon in these instances.

Along with spells and incantations, the Egyptian doctors used naturally occurring herbs and spices as well as their own creations. Bunson writes:

The pharmaceuticals of the ancient Egyptian priest-physicians included antacids, copper salts, turpentine, alum, astringents, alkaline laxatives, diuretics, sedatives, antispasmodics, calcium carbonates, and magnesia. They also employed many exotic herbs. All dispensing of medicines carefully stipulated in the medical papyri, with explicit instructions as to the exact dosage, the manner in which the medicine was to be taken internally (as with wine or food), and external applications. (158)

Surgical procedures were common and many instruments have been identified which are still in use today. The Egyptians had a flint and a metal scalpel, dental pliers, a bone saw, probes, the catheter, clamps for stopping blood flow, specula, forceps, lancets for opening veins, sponges, scissors, phials, bandages of linen, and scales for weighing the proper amount of raw materials to mix for medicines. Surgeries were frequently successful as evidenced by mummies and other remains found who survived amputations and even brain surgery for years. Prosthetic limbs, made usually of wood, have also been found.

Conclusion

Not all of the medical practices in Egypt were so successful, however. Circumcision was a religious ritual performed on boys between the ages of 10 and 14 marking the transition from adolescence to manhood. It was performed by a doctor who also served as a temple priest, using a flint blade and reciting incantations, but in spite of their precautions this procedure still sometimes resulted in infection. Since the nature of the infection was unknown to them, it was considered the result of a supernatural influence and dealt with through magic spells; this most likely resulted in the deaths of many young men.

Because of their belief in the womb as connected to all parts of a woman's body, fumigation of the womb was a common prescription, accompanied by incantations, which would miss the actual cause of the problem. Eye problems were treated with a dose of bat's blood because it was thought the night-vision of the bat would be transferred to the patient; no evidence suggests this was effective.

Although the embalmers of Egypt no doubt came to understand how the organs they removed from the body worked with each other, this knowledge was never shared with doctors. These two professions moved in completely different spheres and what each did within their own job description was not considered relevant to the other. It is for this reason that, even though the Egyptians had the means of exploring internal medicine, they never did.

The heart, though recognized as a pump, was also thought to be the center of emotion, personality, and intellect; the heart was preserved in the deceased while the brain was scraped out and discarded as worthless. Although they recognized liver disease they had no understanding of the function of the liver and while regularly dealing with miscarriages and infertility, had no understanding of obstetrics. The culture's reliance on supernatural assistance from the gods prevented them from exploring more immediate and practical solutions to the medical problems they encountered daily.

Still, the Egyptian physician was widely respected for their skill and knowledge and was called upon by the kings and nobility of other nations. The Greeks especially admired the Egyptian medical profession and adopted a number of their beliefs and techniques. Later famous physicians of Rome and Greece - like Galen and Hippocrates ("father of modern medicine") - studied the Egyptian texts and symbols and so passed down the traditions to the present day.

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Medical practice in ancient Egypt was so advanced that many of their observations, policies, and commonplace procedures would not be surpassed in the west for centuries after the fall of Rome and their practices would inform both Greek and Roman medicine.

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AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HAIRDRESSER on JSTOR

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ELIZABETH RIEFSTAHL, AN ANCIENT EGYPTIAN HAIRDRESSER, Brooklyn Museum Bulletin, Vol. 13, No. 4 (SUMMER 1952), pp. 7-16

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Ancient Egypt was a civilization that lasted from 3300 to 525 B.C.E. This is probably where the concept of health started. Some of the earliest records of medical care come from ancient Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians believed in prayer as a solution to health problems, but they also had natural, or practical, remedies, such as herbs.

It was a structured society with tools such as written language and mathematics, which enabled them to record and develop ideas, and it meant that others could learn from them.

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The ancient Egyptians had basic medical equipment, and they also believed that the gods controlled life and health. This picture shows Isis on a birthing stool,

The ancient Egyptians thought that gods, demons, and spirits played a key role in causing diseases.

Doctors believed that spirits blocked channels in the body and that this affected the way the body worked. They looked for ways to unblock these channels. They used a combination of prayer and natural - or non-spiritual - remedies.

Most healers were also priests, but, in time, the profession of a "doctor of medicine" emerged.

The fact that ancient Egyptians had systems of letters and numbers meant they were able to record and develop ideas and make calculations. Documented ancient Egyptian medical literature is among the oldest in existence today.

The ancient Egyptians had an organized economy and system of government, a settled population, social conventions, and properly enforced laws. Before this, the local people mainly lived a nomadic life.

This stability allowed medical research to develop.

In addition, there were also relatively wealthy individuals in ancient Egyptian society. They could afford some health care and also had time to ponder and study.

The ancient Egyptians were also traders. They traveled long distances, coming back with herbs and spices from faraway lands.

Research and learning

The ancient Egyptians' practice of preserving deceased people as mummies meant that they learned something about how the human body works.

In one process, the priest-doctor inserted a long, hooked implement through the nostril and broke the thin bone of the brain case to remove the brain.

Kings and queens from faraway lands sought Egyptian doctors because of their reputation for excellence.

Archaeologists have found a number of written records that describe ancient Egyptian medical practice, including the Ebers papyrus.

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The ancient Egyptians probably learned something about the human body through mummification.

This document contains over 700 remedies and magical formulas and scores of incantations aimed at repelling demons that cause disease.

The authors probably wrote them around 1500 B.C.E., but the document may contain copies of material dating back to 3400 B.C.E. They are among the oldest preserved medical documents in existence.

The scroll provides evidence of some sound scientific procedures.

Doctors appear to have had fairly good knowledge about bone structure and some awareness of how the brain and liver worked.

The heart: According to the Ebers Papyrus, the center of the body's blood supply is the heart, and every corner of the body is attached to vessels. The heart was the meeting point for vessels that carried tears, urine, semen, and blood. Researchers writing in 2014 described ancient Egyptian understanding of the cardiovascular system as "surprisingly sophisticated, if not accurate.

Mental illness: The document describes in detail the characteristics, causes, and treatment for mental disorders such as dementia and depression. The ancient Egyptians appear to have seen mental diseases as a combination of blocked channels and the influence of evil spirits and angry Gods.

Family planning: The scroll contains a section on birth control, how to tell if a person is pregnant, and some other gynecological issues.

There is also advice about:

skin problems

dental problems

diseases related to the eyes

intestinal disease

parasites

how to surgically treat an abscess or a tumor

In addition, there is evidence that doctors knew how to set broken bones and treat burns.

Medical advice

Some recommendations that physicians made then seem fairly sound to us now.

They advised people to wash and shave their bodies to prevent infections, to eat carefully, and to avoid unclean animals and raw fish.

Some, however, are less familiar. Putting a plug of crocodile dung into the entrance of the vagina, for example, was a method of birth control. People also used dung to disperse evil spirits.

Dentistry

The Egyptians also practiced dentistry. Caries and tooth decay appear to have been common.

Remedies included:

cumin, incense, and onion to treat swollen gums

opium, possibly, to treat pain pain

drilling holes into the jaw to drain an abscess

However, they do not seem to have extracted teeth.

Everyday life in Egypt involved beliefs and fear of magic, gods, demons, evils spirits, and so on. They believed that the gods created and controlled life.

Heka was the goddess of magic and medicine, while Bes, another god, protected women during pregnancy. People called upon Serket if they had a scorpion bite.

Angry gods or evil forces caused bad luck and disaster, so people used magic and religion to deal with these forces and to treat people.

Priests and doctors were often one and the same. Many healers were priests of Sekhmet, an Egyptian warrior goddess and the goddess of healing, curses, and threats.

As well as science, treatment involved the use of magic, incantations, amulets, aromas, offerings, tattoos, and statues.

The religious and magic rituals and procedures probably had a powerful placebo effect, so they may have resulted in healing.

The "channel theory" came from observing farmers who dug out irrigations channels for their crops. It allowed medicine to move from entirely spiritual cures towards practical, natural ones.

The doctors believed that, as in irrigation, channels provide the body with routes for good health. If blockages occurred, they used laxatives to unblock them.

The heart was the center of 46 channels, seen as types of tubes.

It is true that human veins, arteries, and intestines are types of tubes. However, the Egyptians did not understand that these channels had different functions.

Blockages in the human channels were thought to result from the doings of Wekhedu, an evil spirit. When Wekhedu came to the surface of the body, it showed as pus.

This idea that bodily function played a role in health was a breakthrough in the history of medicine.

Channels and the heart

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body consisted of a system of channels, or "Metu."

One researcher notes that they believed that bodily fluids could enter this system, including feces. This would have a negative effect, and enemas became an important method of treatment for many conditions, including malaria and smallpox.

The Ebers Papyrus notes that vessels run from the heart to all four limbs and every part of the body.

When a doctor, Sekmet priest, or exorcist places their hands on any part of the body, they are examining the heart, because all vessels come from the heart.

Channel theory holds that:

The heart is the source. It speaks out to each part of the body.

When people breathe in through the nose, the air enters their heart, lungs, and then the belly.

The nostrils have four vessels, two of which provide mucus and two provide blood.

The human body has four vessels, which lead to two ears. The "breath of life" enters the right ear and "breath of death" enters the left ear.

Four vessels that lead to the head cause baldness.

All eye diseases come from four vessels in the forehead, which supply blood to the eyes.

Two vessels enter the testicles and provide semen.

Two vessels in the buttocks supply them with vital nutrients.

Six vessels reach the soles of the feet and six lead down the arms to the fingers.

Two vessels supply the bladder with urine.

Four vessels supply the liver with liquid and air. When they overfill the liver with blood, they cause diseases.

Four vessels also supply the lungs and spleen with liquid and air.

The liquid and air that come out of the anus come from four vessels.

The anus is also exposed to all the vessels in the arms and legs when they overflow with waste.

Egyptian physicians underwent training and could successfully fix broken bones and dislocated joints.

Basic surgery - meaning procedures close to the surface of the skin or on the skin - was a common skill, and doctors knew how to stitch wounds effectively.

They used bandages and would bind certain plant products, such as willow leaves, into the bandages to treat inflammation.

However, they did not perform surgery deep inside the body, probably because there were no anesthetics or antiseptics.

Circumcision of baby boys was common practice. It is hard to tell whether female circumcision existed. There is one mention, but this may be a mistranslation.

Surgeons had an array of instruments, such as pincers, forceps, spoons, saws, containers with burning incense, hooks, and knives.

Prosthetics existed, but they were probably not very practical. People may have used them to make deceased people look more presentable during funerals or simply for decorative purposes.

Egyptian doctors said there were three types of injuries:

Treatable injuries: They dealt with these immediately.

Contestable injuries: The doctor believed these were not life-threatening and that the person could survive without intervention. The doctor would observe the patient. If they survived, the doctor would decide in time whether to intervene.

Untreatable ailments: The doctor would not intervene.

Common complaints included:

A remedy for headaches, mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, appears to advise the following:

Mash together flour, incense, wood of wa, waneb plant, mint, a horn of a stag, sycamore seeds, mason's plaster, seeds of zart, water. Apply to the head.

People used aloe vera in ancient Egyptian times to heal burns and skin diseases.

Another remedy is to use poppy seeds or aloe.

Asthma: Honey and milk, sesame, frankincense

Burns and skin disease: Aloe

Pain: Thyme

Digestive problems: Juniper, mint, garlic, and sandalwood

Bad breath: Mint, caraway

Epilepsy: Camphor

Vomiting: Mint to stop it and mustard seeds to cause it

Other conditions and treatments include:

The cure for a cold was an incantation.

Early concepts of homeopathy

Some treatments used products or herbs or plants that looked similar to the illness they were treating, a practice known as simila similibus, or similar with similar.

Today, homeopathy follows a similar principle.

In Egyptian times, people used ostrich eggs to treat a fractured skull.

Cleanliness was an important part of Egyptian life, and homes had rudimentary baths and toilets. Appearance and the use of make-up were important.

The main aim was to meet social and religious requirements, although many people wore make-up around their eyes to protect them from disease.

People used mosquito nets during the hot months, whether to protect against malaria and other diseases or to avoid bites. Malaria was a common problem.

Priests washed themselves, their clothing, and their eating utensils regularly. This helped to protect their health, although they did it for religious reasons.

There was no public health infrastructure as we know of today. There were no sewage systems, systematic medical care, or public hygiene.

The ancient Egyptians were probably the first people to have professional doctors, and it was a respected occupation.

According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, they had to be literate and clean in body and spirit. There were doctors all over Egypt.

The earliest ever record of a male physician was Hesy-Ra in 2700 B.C.E. He was was "Chief of Dentists and Doctors" to King Dioser.

The first record of a female doctor was probably Peseshet in 2400 B.C.E., the supervisor of all female doctors, but there may have been female doctors as early as 3000 B.C.E.

The top doctors worked in the royal court. Below them, inspectors would supervise the work of other doctors. There were specialists, such as dentists, proctologists, gastroenterologists, and ophthalmologists.

A proctologist - or possibly the giver of enemas - was called "nery phuyt," which translates as the "shepherd of the anus," according to an article published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

The ancient Egyptians had sophisticated methods of practicing medicine that combined the supernatural with the natural, such as herbal remedies and surgery.

Their written records have allowed their knowledge to pass down through the ages. While not always accurate, some of their theories and practices were not very different from those in use today.

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Ancient Egyptian medicine: Influences, practice, magic, and religion

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Ancient Egyptian documents are probably the earliest records of healthcare practice. The ancient Egyptians knew something about the human body and they sought healing through both herbal medicine and incantations. They also practiced basic surgery. Both male and female doctors were important. Find out more.

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The introduction of writing in Egypt in the predynastic period ( c. 3000 bce) brought with it the formation of a special class of literate professionals, the scribes. By virtue of their writing skills, the scribes took on all the duties of a civil service: record keeping, tax accounting, the management of public works (building projects and the like), even the prosecution of war through overseeing military supplies and payrolls. Young men enrolled in scribal schools to learn the essentials of the trade, which included not only reading and writing but also the basics of mathematics.

One of the texts popular as a copy exercise in the schools of the New Kingdom (13th century bce) was a satiric letter in which one scribe, Hori, taunts his rival, Amen-em-opet, for his incompetence as an adviser and manager. "You are the clever scribe at the head of the troops," Hori chides at one point,

a ramp is to be built, 730 cubits long, 55 cubits wide, with 120 compartments-it is 60 cubits high, 30 cubits in the middle...and the generals and the scribes turn to you and say, "You are a clever scribe, your name is famous. Is there anything you don't know? Answer us, how many bricks are needed?" Let each compartment be 30 cubits by 7 cubits.

This problem, and three others like it in the same letter, cannot be solved without further data. But the point of the humour is clear, as Hori challenges his rival with these hard, but typical, tasks.

What is known of Egyptian mathematics tallies well with the tests posed by the scribe Hori. The information comes primarily from two long papyrus documents that once served as textbooks within scribal schools. The Rhind papyrus (in the British Museum) is a copy made in the 17th century bce of a text two centuries older still. In it is found a long table of fractional parts to help with division, followed by the solutions of 84 specific problems in arithmetic and geometry. The Golenishchev papyrus (in the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts), dating from the 19th century bce, presents 25 problems of a similar type. These problems reflect well the functions the scribes would perform, for they deal with how to distribute beer and bread as wages, for example, and how to measure the areas of fields as well as the volumes of pyramids and other solids.

The Egyptians, like the Romans after them, expressed numbers according to a decimal scheme, using separate symbols for 1, 10, 100, 1,000, and so on; each symbol appeared in the expression for a number as many times as the value it represented occurred in the number itself. For example, stood for 24. This rather cumbersome notation was used within the hieroglyphic writing found in stone inscriptions and other formal texts, but in the papyrus documents the scribes employed a more convenient abbreviated script, called hieratic writing, where, for example, 24 was written .

In such a system, addition and subtraction amount to counting how many symbols of each kind there are in the numerical expressions and then rewriting with the resulting number of symbols. The texts that survive do not reveal what, if any, special procedures the scribes used to assist in this. But for multiplication they introduced a method of successive doubling. For example, to multiply 28 by 11, one constructs a table of multiples of 28 like the following:

The several entries in the first column that together sum to 11 (i.e., 8, 2, and 1) are checked off. The product is then found by adding up the multiples corresponding to these entries; thus, 224 + 56 + 28 = 308, the desired product.

To divide 308 by 28, the Egyptians applied the same procedure in reverse. Using the same table as in the multiplication problem, one can see that 8 produces the largest multiple of 28 that is less then 308 (for the entry at 16 is already 448), and 8 is checked off. The process is then repeated, this time for the remainder (84) obtained by subtracting the entry at 8 (224) from the original number (308). This, however, is already smaller than the entry at 4, which consequently is ignored, but it is greater than the entry at 2 (56), which is then checked off. The process is repeated again for the remainder obtained by subtracting 56 from the previous remainder of 84, or 28, which also happens to exactly equal the entry at 1 and which is then checked off. The entries that have been checked off are added up, yielding the quotient: 8 + 2 + 1 = 11. (In most cases, of course, there is a remainder that is less than the divisor.)

For larger numbers this procedure can be improved by considering multiples of one of the factors by 10, 20,...or even by higher orders of magnitude (100, 1,000,...), as necessary (in the Egyptian decimal notation, these multiples are easy to work out). Thus, one can find the product of 28 by 27 by setting out the multiples of 28 by 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 20. Since the entries 1, 2, 4, and 20 add up to 27, one has only to add up the corresponding multiples to find the answer.

Computations involving fractions are carried out under the restriction to unit parts (that is, fractions that in modern notation are written with 1 as the numerator). To express the result of dividing 4 by 7, for instance, which in modern notation is simply 4/7, the scribe wrote 1/2 + 1/14. The procedure for finding quotients in this form merely extends the usual method for the division of integers, where one now inspects the entries for 2/3, 1/3, 1/6, etc., and 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc., until the corresponding multiples of the divisor sum to the dividend. (The scribes included 2/3, one may observe, even though it is not a unit fraction.) In practice the procedure can sometimes become quite complicated (for example, the value for 2/29 is given in the Rhind papyrus as 1/24 + 1/58 + 1/174 + 1/232) and can be worked out in different ways (for example, the same 2/29 might be found as 1/15 + 1/435 or as 1/16 + 1/232 + 1/464, etc.). A considerable portion of the papyrus texts is devoted to tables to facilitate the finding of such unit-fraction values.

These elementary operations are all that one needs for solving the arithmetic problems in the papyri. For example, "to divide 6 loaves among 10 men" (Rhind papyrus, problem 3), one merely divides to get the answer 1/2 + 1/10. In one group of problems an interesting trick is used: "A quantity ( a h a) and its 7th together make 19-what is it?" (Rhind papyrus, problem 24). Here one first supposes the quantity to be 7: since 1 ¹/ ₇ of it becomes 8, not 19, one takes 19/8 (that is, 2 + 1/4 + 1/8), and its multiple by 7 (16 + 1/2 + 1/8) becomes the required answer. This type of procedure (sometimes called the method of "false position" or "false assumption") is familiar in many other arithmetic traditions (e.g., the Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, and Renaissance European), although they appear to have no direct link to the Egyptian.

The geometric problems in the papyri seek measurements of figures, like rectangles and triangles of given base and height, by means of suitable arithmetic operations. In a more complicated problem, a rectangle is sought whose area is 12 and whose height is 1/2 + 1/4 times its base (Golenishchev papyrus, problem 6). To solve the problem, the ratio is inverted and multiplied by the area, yielding 16; the square root of the result (4) is the base of the rectangle, and 1/2 + 1/4 times 4, or 3, is the height. The entire process is analogous to the process of solving the algebraic equation for the problem ( x × ³/ ₄ x = 12), though without the use of a letter for the unknown. An interesting procedure is used to find the area of the circle (Rhind papyrus, problem 50): 1/9 of the diameter is discarded, and the result is squared. For example, if the diameter is 9, the area is set equal to 64. The scribe recognized that the area of a circle is proportional to the square of the diameter and assumed for the constant of ¹/ ₇ , first proposed by proportionality (that is, π/4) the value 64/81. This is a rather good estimate, being about 0.6 percent too large. (It is not as close, however, as the now common estimate of 3 Archimedes, which is only about 0.04 percent too large.) But there is nothing in the papyri indicating that the scribes were aware that this rule was only approximate rather than exact.

A remarkable result is the rule for the volume of the truncated pyramid (Golenishchev papyrus, problem 14). The scribe assumes the height to be 6, the base to be a square of side 4, and the top a square of side 2. He multiplies one-third the height times 28, finding the volume to be 56; here 28 is computed from 2 × 2 + 2 × 4 + 4 × 4. Since this is correct, it can be assumed that the scribe also knew the general rule: A = ( h/3)( a ² + a b + b ²). How the scribes actually derived the rule is a matter for debate, but it is reasonable to suppose that they were aware of related rules, such as that for the volume of a pyramid: one-third the height times the area of the base.

The Egyptians employed the equivalent of similar triangles to measure distances. For instance, the seked of a pyramid is stated as the number of palms in the horizontal corresponding to a rise of one cubit (seven palms). Thus, if the seked is 5 ¹/ ¹/ ₃ cubits (Rhind papyrus, problem 57). The Greek sage ₄ and the base is 140 cubits, the height becomes 93 Thales of Miletus (6th century bce) is said to have measured the height of pyramids by means of their shadows (the report derives from Hieronymus, a disciple of Aristotle in the 4th century bce). In light of the seked computations, however, this report must indicate an aspect of Egyptian surveying that extended back at least 1,000 years before the time of Thales.

Egyptian seked Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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Mathematics - Mathematics in ancient Egypt

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Mathematics - Mathematics - Mathematics in ancient Egypt: The introduction of writing in Egypt in the predynastic period (c. 3000 bce) brought with it the formation of a special class of literate professionals, the scribes.

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Architecture (Latin architectura, from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων arkhitekton "architect", from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "creator") is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other structures. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements.

The practice, which began in the prehistoric era, has been used as a way of expressing culture for civilizations on all seven continents. For this reason, architecture is considered to be a form of art. Texts on architecture have been written since ancient time. The earliest surviving text on architectural theory is the 1st century AD treatise De architectura by the Roman architect Vitruvius, according to whom a good building embodies firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (durability, utility, and beauty). Centuries later, Leon Battista Alberti developed his ideas further, seeing beauty as an objective quality of buildings to be found in their proportions. Giorgio Vasari wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects and put forward the idea of style in the Western arts in the 16th century. In the 19th century, Louis Sullivan declared that " form follows function". "Function" began to replace the classical "utility" and was understood to include not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural dimensions. The idea of sustainable architecture was introduced in the late 20th century.

Architecture began as rural, oral vernacular architecture that developed from trial and error to successful replication. Ancient urban architecture was preoccupied with building religious structures and buildings symbolizing the political power of rulers until Greek and Roman architecture shifted focus to civic virtues. Indian and Chinese architecture influenced forms all over Asia and Buddhist architecture in particular took diverse local flavors. During the European Middle Ages, pan-European styles of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and abbeys emerged while the Renaissance favored Classical forms implemented by architects known by name. Later, the roles of architects and engineers became separated. Modern architecture began after World War I as an avant-garde movement that sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. Emphasis was put on modern techniques, materials, and simplified geometric forms, paving the way for high-rise superstructures. Many architects became disillusioned with modernism which they perceived as ahistorical and anti-aesthetic, and postmodern and contemporary architecture developed.

Over the years, the field of architectural construction has branched out to include everything from ship design to interior decorating.

Definitions

Architecture can mean:

A general term to describe buildings and other physical structures.

The art and science of designing buildings and (some) nonbuilding structures.

The style of design and method of construction of buildings and other physical structures.

A unifying or coherent form or structure.

Knowledge of art, science, technology, and humanity.

The design activity of the architect, from the macro-level (urban design, landscape architecture) to the micro-level (construction details and furniture). The practice of the architect, where architecture means offering or rendering professional services in connection with the design and construction of buildings, or built environments.

Theory of architecture

The philosophy of architecture is a branch of philosophy of art, dealing with aesthetic value of architecture, its semantics and relations with development of culture. Many philosophers and theoreticians from Plato to Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Robert Venturi and Ludwig Wittgenstein have concerned themselves with the nature of architecture and whether or not architecture is distinguished from building.

Historic treatises

The earliest surviving written work on the subject of architecture is De architectura by the Roman architect Vitruvius in the early 1st century AD. According to Vitruvius, a good building should satisfy the three principles of firmitas, utilitas, venustas, commonly known by the original translation - firmness, commodity and delight. An equivalent in modern English would be:

Durability - a building should stand up robustly and remain in good condition

Utility - it should be suitable for the purposes for which it is used

Beauty - it should be aesthetically pleasing

According to Vitruvius, the architect should strive to fulfill each of these three attributes as well as possible. Leon Battista Alberti, who elaborates on the ideas of Vitruvius in his treatise, De re aedificatoria, saw beauty primarily as a matter of proportion, although ornament also played a part. For Alberti, the rules of proportion were those that governed the idealised human figure, the Golden mean. The most important aspect of beauty was, therefore, an inherent part of an object, rather than something applied superficially, and was based on universal, recognisable truths. The notion of style in the arts was not developed until the 16th century, with the writing of Giorgio Vasari. By the 18th century, his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects had been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, and English.

In the 16th century, Italian Mannerist architect, painter and theorist Sebastiano Serlio wrote Tutte L'Opere D'Architettura et Prospetiva ( Complete Works on Architecture and Perspective). This treatise exerted immense influence throughout Europe, being the first handbook that emphasized the practical rather than the theoretical aspects of architecture, and it was the first to catalog the five orders.

In the early 19th century, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin wrote Contrasts (1836) that, as the titled suggested, contrasted the modern, industrial world, which he disparaged, with an idealized image of neo-medieval world. Gothic architecture, Pugin believed, was the only "true Christian form of architecture." The 19th-century English art critic, John Ruskin, in his Seven Lamps of Architecture, published 1849, was much narrower in his view of what constituted architecture. Architecture was the "art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by men ... that the sight of them" contributes "to his mental health, power, and pleasure". For Ruskin, the aesthetic was of overriding significance. His work goes on to state that a building is not truly a work of architecture unless it is in some way "adorned". For Ruskin, a well-constructed, well-proportioned, functional building needed string courses or rustication, at the very least.

On the difference between the ideals of architecture and mere construction, the renowned 20th-century architect Le Corbusier wrote: "You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials you build houses and palaces: that is construction. Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good. I am happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is Architecture". Le Corbusier's contemporary Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said "Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins."

Modern concepts

The notable 19th-century architect of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan, promoted an overriding precept to architectural design: " Form follows function". While the notion that structural and aesthetic considerations should be entirely subject to functionality was met with both popularity and skepticism, it had the effect of introducing the concept of "function" in place of Vitruvius' "utility". "Function" came to be seen as encompassing all criteria of the use, perception and enjoyment of a building, not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural.

Nunzia Rondanini stated, "Through its aesthetic dimension architecture goes beyond the functional aspects that it has in common with other human sciences. Through its own particular way of expressing values, architecture can stimulate and influence social life without presuming that, in and of itself, it will promote social development.... To restrict the meaning of (architectural) formalism to art for art's sake is not only reactionary; it can also be a purposeless quest for perfection or originality which degrades form into a mere instrumentality".

Among the philosophies that have influenced modern architects and their approach to building design are Rationalism, Empiricism, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction and Phenomenology.

In the late 20th century a new concept was added to those included in the compass of both structure and function, the consideration of sustainability, hence sustainable architecture. To satisfy the contemporary ethos a building should be constructed in a manner which is environmentally friendly in terms of the production of its materials, its impact upon the natural and built environment of its surrounding area and the demands that it makes upon non-sustainable power sources for heating, cooling, water and waste management, and lighting.

Origins and vernacular architecture

Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security, worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills). As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through oral traditions and practices, building became a craft, and "architecture" is the name given to the most highly formalized and respected versions of that craft. It is widely assumed that architectural success was the product of a process of trial and error, with progressively less trial and more replication as the results of the process proved increasingly satisfactory. What is termed vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world.

Prehistoric architecture

Miniature of a regular Cucuteni-Trypillian house, full of ceramic vessels

Early human settlements were mostly rural. Expending economies resulted in the creation of urban areas which in some cases grew and evolved very rapidly, such as that of Çatal Höyük in Anatolia and Mohenjo Daro of the Indus Valley Civilization in modern-day Pakistan.

Neolithic settlements and "cities" include Göbekli Tepe and Çatalhöyük in Turkey, Jericho in the Levant, Mehrgarh in Pakistan, Knap of Howar and Skara Brae, Orkney Islands, Scotland, and the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture settlements in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.

Ancient architecture

In many ancient civilizations such as those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, architecture and urbanism reflected the constant engagement with the divine and the supernatural, and many ancient cultures resorted to monumentality in architecture to represent symbolically the political power of the ruler, the ruling elite, or the state itself.

The architecture and urbanism of the Classical civilizations such as the Greek and the Roman evolved from civic ideals rather than religious or empirical ones and new building types emerged. Architectural "style" developed in the form of the Classical orders. Roman architecture was influenced by Greek architecture as they incorporated many Greek elements into their building practices.

Texts on architecture have been written since ancient time. These texts provided both general advice and specific formal prescriptions or canons. Some examples of canons are found in the writings of the 1st-century BCE Roman Architect Vitruvius. Some of the most important early examples of canonic architecture are religious.

Asian architecture

The architecture of different parts of Asia developed along different lines from that of Europe; Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh architecture each having different characteristics. Indian and Chinese architecture have had great influence on the surrounding regions, while Japanese architecture has not. Buddhist architecture, in particular, showed great regional diversity. Hindu temple architecture, which developed from around the 5th century CE, is in theory governed by concepts laid down in the Shastras, and is concerned with expressing the macrocosm and the microcosm. In many Asian countries, pantheistic religion led to architectural forms that were designed specifically to enhance the natural landscape.

In many parts of Asia, even the grandest houses were relatively lightweight structures mainly using wood until recent times, and there are few survivals of great age. Buddhism was associated with a move to stone and brick religious structures, probably beginning as rock-cut architecture, which has often survived very well.

Early Asian writings on architecture include the Kao Gong Ji of China from the 7th-5th centuries BCE; the Shilpa Shastras of ancient India; Manjusri Vasthu Vidya Sastra of Sri Lanka and Araniko of Nepal .

Islamic architecture

Islamic architecture began in the 7th century CE, incorporating architectural forms from the ancient Middle East and Byzantium, but also developing features to suit the religious and social needs of the society. Examples can be found throughout the Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, the Indian Sub-continent and in parts of Europe, such as Spain, Albania, and the Balkan States, as the result of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

Middle Ages

In Europe during the Medieval period, guilds were formed by craftsmen to organize their trades and written contracts have survived, particularly in relation to ecclesiastical buildings. The role of architect was usually one with that of master mason, or Magister lathomorum as they are sometimes described in contemporary documents.

The major architectural undertakings were the buildings of abbeys and cathedrals. From about 900 CE onward, the movements of both clerics and tradesmen carried architectural knowledge across Europe, resulting in the pan-European styles Romanesque and Gothic.

Also, a significant part of the Middle Ages architectural heritage is numerous fortifications across the continent. From Balkans to Spain, and from Malta to Estonia, these buildings represent an important part of European heritage.

Renaissance and the architect

In Renaissance Europe, from about 1400 onwards, there was a revival of Classical learning accompanied by the development of Renaissance humanism, which placed greater emphasis on the role of the individual in society than had been the case during the Medieval period. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects - Brunelleschi, Alberti, Michelangelo, Palladio - and the cult of the individual had begun. There was still no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations, and the appellation was often one of regional preference.

A revival of the Classical style in architecture was accompanied by a burgeoning of science and engineering, which affected the proportions and structure of buildings. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved was within the scope of the generalist.

Early modern and the industrial age

With the emerging knowledge in scientific fields and the rise of new materials and technology, architecture and engineering began to separate, and the architect began to concentrate on aesthetics and the humanist aspects, often at the expense of technical aspects of building design. There was also the rise of the "gentleman architect" who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes, typified by the many country houses of Great Britain that were created in the Neo Gothic or Scottish baronial styles. Formal architectural training in the 19th century, for example at École des Beaux-Arts in France, gave much emphasis to the production of beautiful drawings and little to context and feasibility.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass production and consumption. Aesthetics became a criterion for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftsmanship, became cheaper under machine production.

Vernacular architecture became increasingly ornamental. Housebuilders could use current architectural design in their work by combining features found in pattern books and architectural journals.

Around the beginning of the 20th century, general dissatisfaction with the emphasis on revivalist architecture and elaborate decoration gave rise to many new lines of thought that served as precursors to Modern architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine-made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Weimar, Germany in 1919, redefined the architectural bounds prior set throughout history, viewing the creation of a building as the ultimate synthesis-the apex-of art, craft, and technology.

When modern architecture was first practised, it was an avant-garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Immediately after World War I, pioneering modernist architects sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order, focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. They rejected the architectural practice of the academic refinement of historical styles which served the rapidly declining aristocratic order. The approach of the Modernist architects was to reduce buildings to pure forms, removing historical references and ornament in favor of functional details. Buildings displayed their functional and structural elements, exposing steel beams and concrete surfaces instead of hiding them behind decorative forms. Architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright developed organic architecture, in which the form was defined by its environment and purpose, with an aim to promote harmony between human habitation and the natural world with prime examples being Robie House and Fallingwater.

Architects such as Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson and Marcel Breuer worked to create beauty based on the inherent qualities of building materials and modern construction techniques, trading traditional historic forms for simplified geometric forms, celebrating the new means and methods made possible by the Industrial Revolution, including steel-frame construction, which gave birth to high-rise superstructures. Fazlur Rahman Khan's development of the tube structure was a technological break-through in building ever higher. By mid-century, Modernism had morphed into the International Style, an aesthetic epitomized in many ways by the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center designed by Minoru Yamasaki.

Postmodernism

Many architects resisted modernism, finding it devoid of the decorative richness of historical styles. As the first generation of modernists began to die after World War II, the second generation of architects including Paul Rudolph, Marcel Breuer, and Eero Saarinen tried to expand the aesthetics of modernism with Brutalism, buildings with expressive sculptural façades made of unfinished concrete. But an even new younger postwar generation critiqued modernism and Brutalism for being too austere, standardized, monotone, and not taking into account the richness of human experience offered in historical buildings across time and in different places and cultures.

One such reaction to the cold aesthetic of modernism and Brutalism is the school of metaphoric architecture, which includes such things as biomorphism and zoomorphic architecture, both using nature as the primary source of inspiration and design. While it is considered by some to be merely an aspect of postmodernism, others consider it to be a school in its own right and a later development of expressionist architecture.

Beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s, architectural phenomenology emerged as an important movement in the early reaction against modernism, with architects like Charles Moore in the United States, Christian Norberg-Schulz in Norway, and Ernesto Nathan Rogers and Vittorio Gregotti, Michele Valori, Bruno Zevi in Italy, who collectively popularized an interest in a new contemporary architecture aimed at expanding human experience using historical buildings as models and precedents. Postmodernism produced a style that combined contemporary building technology and cheap materials, with the aesthetics of older pre-modern and non-modern styles, from high classical architecture to popular or vernacular regional building styles. Robert Venturi famously defined postmodern architecture as a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) and upheld it against modernist and brutalist "ducks" (buildings with unnecessarily expressive tectonic forms).

Architecture today

Since the 1980s, as the complexity of buildings began to increase (in terms of structural systems, services, energy and technologies), the field of architecture became multi-disciplinary with specializations for each project type, technological expertise or project delivery methods. Moreover, there has been an increased separation of the 'design' architect from the 'project' architect who ensures that the project meets the required standards and deals with matters of liability. The preparatory processes for the design of any large building have become increasingly complicated, and require preliminary studies of such matters as durability, sustainability, quality, money, and compliance with local laws. A large structure can no longer be the design of one person but must be the work of many. Modernism and Postmodernism have been criticised by some members of the architectural profession who feel that successful architecture is not a personal, philosophical, or aesthetic pursuit by individualists; rather it has to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to create liveable environments, with the design process being informed by studies of behavioral, environmental, and social sciences.

Environmental sustainability has become a mainstream issue, with a profound effect on the architectural profession. Many developers, those who support the financing of buildings, have become educated to encourage the facilitation of environmentally sustainable design, rather than solutions based primarily on immediate cost. Major examples of this can be found in passive solar building design, greener roof designs, biodegradable materials, and more attention to a structure's energy usage. This major shift in architecture has also changed architecture schools to focus more on the environment. There has been an acceleration in the number of buildings that seek to meet green building sustainable design principles. Sustainable practices that were at the core of vernacular architecture increasingly provide inspiration for environmentally and socially sustainable contemporary techniques. The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system has been instrumental in this.[quantify ]

Concurrently, the recent movements of New Urbanism, Metaphoric architecture, Complementary architecture and New Classical architecture promote a sustainable approach towards construction that appreciates and develops smart growth, architectural tradition and classical design. This in contrast to modernist and globally uniform architecture, as well as leaning against solitary housing estates and suburban sprawl. Glass curtain walls, which were the hallmark of the ultra modern urban life in many countries surfaced even in developing countries like Nigeria where international styles had been represented since the mid 20th Century mostly because of the leanings of foreign-trained architects.

Other types of architecture

Landscape architecture

Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor public areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and soil conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions that will produce the desired outcome. The scope of the profession includes landscape design; site planning; stormwater management; environmental restoration; parks and recreation planning; visual resource management; green infrastructure planning and provision; and private estate and residence landscape master planning and design; all at varying scales of design, planning and management. A practitioner in the profession of landscape architecture is called a landscape architect.

Interior architecture

Interior architecture is the design of a space which has been created by structural boundaries and the human interaction within these boundaries. It can also be the initial design and plan for use, then later redesigned to accommodate a changed purpose, or a significantly revised design for adaptive reuse of the building shell. The latter is often part of sustainable architecture practices, conserving resources through "recycling" a structure by adaptive redesign. Generally referred to as the spatial art of environmental design, form and practice, interior architecture is the process through which the interiors of buildings are designed, concerned with all aspects of the human uses of structural spaces. Put simply, interior architecture is the design of an interior in architectural terms.

Naval architecture, also known as naval engineering, is an engineering discipline dealing with the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and operation of marine vessels and structures. Naval architecture involves basic and applied research, design, development, design evaluation and calculations during all stages of the life of a marine vehicle. Preliminary design of the vessel, its detailed design, construction, trials, operation and maintenance, launching and dry-docking are the main activities involved. Ship design calculations are also required for ships being modified (by means of conversion, rebuilding, modernization, or repair). Naval architecture also involves the formulation of safety regulations and damage control rules and the approval and certification of ship designs to meet statutory and non-statutory requirements.

Urban design

Urban design is the process of designing and shaping the physical features of cities, towns, and villages. In contrast to architecture, which focuses on the design of individual buildings, urban design deals with the larger scale of groups of buildings, streets and public spaces, whole neighborhoods and districts, and entire cities, with the goal of making urban areas functional, attractive, and sustainable.

Urban design is an interdisciplinary field that utilizes elements of many built environment professions, including landscape architecture, urban planning, architecture, civil engineering and municipal engineering. It is common for professionals in all these disciplines to practice urban design. In more recent times different sub-subfields of urban design have emerged such as strategic urban design, landscape urbanism, water-sensitive urban design, and sustainable urbanism.

"Architecture" is used as a metaphor for many modern techniques or fields for structuring abstractions. These include:

Seismic architecture

The term ' seismic architecture' or 'earthquake architecture' was first introduced in 1985 by Robert Reitherman. The phrase "earthquake architecture" is used to describe a degree of architectural expression of earthquake resistance or implication of architectural configuration, form or style in earthquake resistance. It is also used to describe buildings in which seismic design considerations impacted its architecture. It may be considered a new aesthetic approach in designing structures in seismic prone areas. The wide breadth of expressive possibilities ranges from metaphorical uses of seismic issues, to the more straightforward exposure of seismic technology. While outcomes of an earthquake architecture can be very diverse in their physical manifestations, architectural expression of seismic principles can also take many forms and levels of sophistication.

References

External links

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Architecture (Latin architectura , from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων arkhitekton "architect", from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "creator") is both the process and the product of planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other structures. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art.

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sabria carter yo dont steal this im just adding this so i can remember

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The great temples and monuments of ancient Egypt continue to fascinate and amaze people in the modern day. The sheer size and scope of structures like the Great Pyramid at Giza or the Temple of Amun...

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The introduction of writing in Egypt in the predynastic period ( c. 3000 bce) brought with it the formation of a special class of literate professionals, the scribes. By virtue of their writing skills, the scribes took on all the duties of a civil service: record keeping, tax accounting, the management of public works (building projects and the like), even the prosecution of war through overseeing military supplies and payrolls. Young men enrolled in scribal schools to learn the essentials of the trade, which included not only reading and writing but also the basics of mathematics.

One of the texts popular as a copy exercise in the schools of the New Kingdom (13th century bce) was a satiric letter in which one scribe, Hori, taunts his rival, Amen-em-opet, for his incompetence as an adviser and manager. "You are the clever scribe at the head of the troops," Hori chides at one point,

a ramp is to be built, 730 cubits long, 55 cubits wide, with 120 compartments-it is 60 cubits high, 30 cubits in the middle...and the generals and the scribes turn to you and say, "You are a clever scribe, your name is famous. Is there anything you don't know? Answer us, how many bricks are needed?" Let each compartment be 30 cubits by 7 cubits.

This problem, and three others like it in the same letter, cannot be solved without further data. But the point of the humour is clear, as Hori challenges his rival with these hard, but typical, tasks.

What is known of Egyptian mathematics tallies well with the tests posed by the scribe Hori. The information comes primarily from two long papyrus documents that once served as textbooks within scribal schools. The Rhind papyrus (in the British Museum) is a copy made in the 17th century bce of a text two centuries older still. In it is found a long table of fractional parts to help with division, followed by the solutions of 84 specific problems in arithmetic and geometry. The Golenishchev papyrus (in the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts), dating from the 19th century bce, presents 25 problems of a similar type. These problems reflect well the functions the scribes would perform, for they deal with how to distribute beer and bread as wages, for example, and how to measure the areas of fields as well as the volumes of pyramids and other solids.

The Egyptians, like the Romans after them, expressed numbers according to a decimal scheme, using separate symbols for 1, 10, 100, 1,000, and so on; each symbol appeared in the expression for a number as many times as the value it represented occurred in the number itself. For example, stood for 24. This rather cumbersome notation was used within the hieroglyphic writing found in stone inscriptions and other formal texts, but in the papyrus documents the scribes employed a more convenient abbreviated script, called hieratic writing, where, for example, 24 was written .

In such a system, addition and subtraction amount to counting how many symbols of each kind there are in the numerical expressions and then rewriting with the resulting number of symbols. The texts that survive do not reveal what, if any, special procedures the scribes used to assist in this. But for multiplication they introduced a method of successive doubling. For example, to multiply 28 by 11, one constructs a table of multiples of 28 like the following:

The several entries in the first column that together sum to 11 (i.e., 8, 2, and 1) are checked off. The product is then found by adding up the multiples corresponding to these entries; thus, 224 + 56 + 28 = 308, the desired product.

To divide 308 by 28, the Egyptians applied the same procedure in reverse. Using the same table as in the multiplication problem, one can see that 8 produces the largest multiple of 28 that is less then 308 (for the entry at 16 is already 448), and 8 is checked off. The process is then repeated, this time for the remainder (84) obtained by subtracting the entry at 8 (224) from the original number (308). This, however, is already smaller than the entry at 4, which consequently is ignored, but it is greater than the entry at 2 (56), which is then checked off. The process is repeated again for the remainder obtained by subtracting 56 from the previous remainder of 84, or 28, which also happens to exactly equal the entry at 1 and which is then checked off. The entries that have been checked off are added up, yielding the quotient: 8 + 2 + 1 = 11. (In most cases, of course, there is a remainder that is less than the divisor.)

For larger numbers this procedure can be improved by considering multiples of one of the factors by 10, 20,...or even by higher orders of magnitude (100, 1,000,...), as necessary (in the Egyptian decimal notation, these multiples are easy to work out). Thus, one can find the product of 28 by 27 by setting out the multiples of 28 by 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, and 20. Since the entries 1, 2, 4, and 20 add up to 27, one has only to add up the corresponding multiples to find the answer.

Computations involving fractions are carried out under the restriction to unit parts (that is, fractions that in modern notation are written with 1 as the numerator). To express the result of dividing 4 by 7, for instance, which in modern notation is simply 4/7, the scribe wrote 1/2 + 1/14. The procedure for finding quotients in this form merely extends the usual method for the division of integers, where one now inspects the entries for 2/3, 1/3, 1/6, etc., and 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, etc., until the corresponding multiples of the divisor sum to the dividend. (The scribes included 2/3, one may observe, even though it is not a unit fraction.) In practice the procedure can sometimes become quite complicated (for example, the value for 2/29 is given in the Rhind papyrus as 1/24 + 1/58 + 1/174 + 1/232) and can be worked out in different ways (for example, the same 2/29 might be found as 1/15 + 1/435 or as 1/16 + 1/232 + 1/464, etc.). A considerable portion of the papyrus texts is devoted to tables to facilitate the finding of such unit-fraction values.

These elementary operations are all that one needs for solving the arithmetic problems in the papyri. For example, "to divide 6 loaves among 10 men" (Rhind papyrus, problem 3), one merely divides to get the answer 1/2 + 1/10. In one group of problems an interesting trick is used: "A quantity ( a h a) and its 7th together make 19-what is it?" (Rhind papyrus, problem 24). Here one first supposes the quantity to be 7: since 1 ¹/ ₇ of it becomes 8, not 19, one takes 19/8 (that is, 2 + 1/4 + 1/8), and its multiple by 7 (16 + 1/2 + 1/8) becomes the required answer. This type of procedure (sometimes called the method of "false position" or "false assumption") is familiar in many other arithmetic traditions (e.g., the Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, and Renaissance European), although they appear to have no direct link to the Egyptian.

The geometric problems in the papyri seek measurements of figures, like rectangles and triangles of given base and height, by means of suitable arithmetic operations. In a more complicated problem, a rectangle is sought whose area is 12 and whose height is 1/2 + 1/4 times its base (Golenishchev papyrus, problem 6). To solve the problem, the ratio is inverted and multiplied by the area, yielding 16; the square root of the result (4) is the base of the rectangle, and 1/2 + 1/4 times 4, or 3, is the height. The entire process is analogous to the process of solving the algebraic equation for the problem ( x × ³/ ₄ x = 12), though without the use of a letter for the unknown. An interesting procedure is used to find the area of the circle (Rhind papyrus, problem 50): 1/9 of the diameter is discarded, and the result is squared. For example, if the diameter is 9, the area is set equal to 64. The scribe recognized that the area of a circle is proportional to the square of the diameter and assumed for the constant of ¹/ ₇ , first proposed by proportionality (that is, π/4) the value 64/81. This is a rather good estimate, being about 0.6 percent too large. (It is not as close, however, as the now common estimate of 3 Archimedes, which is only about 0.04 percent too large.) But there is nothing in the papyri indicating that the scribes were aware that this rule was only approximate rather than exact.

A remarkable result is the rule for the volume of the truncated pyramid (Golenishchev papyrus, problem 14). The scribe assumes the height to be 6, the base to be a square of side 4, and the top a square of side 2. He multiplies one-third the height times 28, finding the volume to be 56; here 28 is computed from 2 × 2 + 2 × 4 + 4 × 4. Since this is correct, it can be assumed that the scribe also knew the general rule: A = ( h/3)( a ² + a b + b ²). How the scribes actually derived the rule is a matter for debate, but it is reasonable to suppose that they were aware of related rules, such as that for the volume of a pyramid: one-third the height times the area of the base.

The Egyptians employed the equivalent of similar triangles to measure distances. For instance, the seked of a pyramid is stated as the number of palms in the horizontal corresponding to a rise of one cubit (seven palms). Thus, if the seked is 5 ¹/ ¹/ ₃ cubits (Rhind papyrus, problem 57). The Greek sage ₄ and the base is 140 cubits, the height becomes 93 Thales of Miletus (6th century bce) is said to have measured the height of pyramids by means of their shadows (the report derives from Hieronymus, a disciple of Aristotle in the 4th century bce). In light of the seked computations, however, this report must indicate an aspect of Egyptian surveying that extended back at least 1,000 years before the time of Thales.

Egyptian seked Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

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Mathematics - Mathematics in ancient Egypt

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Mathematics - Mathematics - Mathematics in ancient Egypt: The introduction of writing in Egypt in the predynastic period (c. 3000 bce) brought with it the formation of a special class of literate professionals, the scribes.

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How ancient Egyptian cosmetics influenced our beauty rituals | CNN

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Cosmetics from thousands of years ago still influence our rituals today.

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How ancient Egyptian cosmetics influenced our beauty rituals | CNN

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Cosmetics from thousands of years ago still influence our rituals today.

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Medical practice in ancient Egypt was so advanced that many of their observations, policies, and commonplace procedures would not be surpassed in the west for centuries after the fall of Rome and their practices would inform both Greek and Roman medicine. They understood that disease could be treated by pharmaceuticals, recognized the healing potential in massage and aromas, had male and female doctors who specialized in certain specific areas, and understood the importance of cleanliness in treating patients.

In the modern day it is recognized that disease and infection can be caused by germs and one might think people have always believed so but this is a relatively late innovation in human understanding. It was not until the 19th century CE that the germ theory of disease was confirmed by Louis Pasteur and proven by the work of British surgeon Joseph Lister.

Before either of them, the Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865 CE) offered the then outlandish proposal to the medical community that they could cut mortality rates in their practices simply by washing their hands. He was mocked by doctors, who saw no reason to wash their hands before even the most invasive surgical procedures, and grew increasingly frustrated and bitter. Semmelweis was committed to a mental institution in 1865 CE where he died, after being severely beaten by guards, for suggesting a practice recognized as common sense today.

The mortality rate following medical procedures in ancient Egypt was probably less than that of any European hospital in the Christian era until the mid-20th century CE.

The ancient Egyptians would have accepted Semmelweis' proposal without hesitation; not because they understood the concept of germs, but because they valued cleanliness. The mortality rate following medical procedures in ancient Egypt was probably less than that of any European hospital in the Christian era until the mid-20th century CE when personal cleanliness and the sterilization of instruments became common practice.

Egyptologist Barbara Watterson notes that " medicine in ancient Egypt was relatively advanced and Egyptian doctors, who were all, with one or two exceptions, male, were skilled (46). Even so, for a civilization which regularly dissected the dead for embalming, doctors had little understanding of how most of the internal organs worked and blamed disease on supernatural forces.

Injury & Disease

Injuries were easy to understand in ancient Egypt; disease was a bit more difficult. When someone was injured there was a plain cause and an effect which could then be treated; when a person was sick, however, the cause was less clear and so diagnosis more problematic.

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The cause of disease was usually understood as the consequence of sin and, when that seemed not the case, that the patient was under a demonic attack, was being plagued by an angry ghost, or that some god felt they needed to learn a lesson. Disease, therefore, was commonly treated through recitation by a doctor of magical spells. Watterson notes, "the earliest 'doctor' was a magician, for the Egyptians believed that disease and sickness were caused by an evil force entering the body" (65).

The types of diseases Egyptians suffered from were as numerous and varied as they are in the present day and included bilharsiasis (a disease contracted and spread through contaminated water); trachoma (an infection of the eye); malaria; dysentery; smallpox; pneumonia; cancer; heart disease; dementia; typhoid; arthritis; high blood pressure; bronchitis; tuberculosis; appendicitis; kidney stones; liver disease; curvature of the spine; the common cold, and ovarian cysts.

Besides magical spells, ancient Egyptians used incantations, amulets, offerings, aromas, tattoos, and statuary to either drive away the ghost or demon, placate the god or gods who had sent the illness, or invoke protection from a higher power as a preventative. The spells and incantations were written down on papyrus scrolls which became the medical texts of the day.

The Medical Texts

Although there were no doubt many more texts available in ancient Egypt, only a few have survived to the present. These few, however, provide a wealth of information on how the Egyptians saw disease and what they believed would alleviate a patient's symptoms or lead to a cure. They are named for the individual who owned them or the institution which houses them. All of them, to greater or lesser degrees, rely on sympathetic magic as well as practical technique.

The Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus, dated c. 1200 BCE, prescribes treatment for anorectal disease (problems associated with the anus and rectum) and prescribes cannabis for cancer patients (pre-dating the mention of cannabis in Herodotus, long thought to be the earliest mention of the drug). The Berlin Medical Papyrus (also known as the Brugsch Papyrus, dated to the New Kingdom, c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE) deals with contraception, fertility, and includes the earliest known pregnancy tests. The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE) treats cancer (for which, it says, there is no treatment), heart disease, diabetes, birth control, and depression. The Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) is the oldest work on surgical techniques. The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden (c. 3rd century CE) is devoted entirely to magical spells and divination. The Hearst Medical Papyrus (dated to the New Kingdom) treats urinary tract infections and digestive problems. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (c. 1800 BCE) deals with conception and pregnancy issues as well as contraception. The London Medical Papyrus (c. 1782-1570 BCE) offers prescriptions for issues related to the eyes, skin, burns, and pregnancy. These are only the papyrii recognized as focusing entirely on medicine. There are many more which touch on the subject but are not generally accepted as medical texts.

All of these works, at one time or another, were consulted by practicing doctors who routinely made house calls. The Egyptians called the science of medicine the "necessary art" for obvious reasons. Doctors were considered priests of the , the House of Life, a kind of library/school attached to a temple, but the concept of the 'house of life' was also considered the healing knowledge of the individual doctors.

Doctors, Midwives, Nurses, & Dentists

Physicians in ancient Egypt could be male or female. The "first physician", later deified as a god of medicine and healing, was the architect Imhotep (c. 2667-2600 BCE) best known for designing the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. Imhotep is also remembered for initiating "secular medicine" through his treatises arguing that disease occurred naturally and was not a punishment from the gods. Women in the medical profession in Egypt go back to the Early Dynastic Period when Merit-Ptah was the royal court's chief physician c. 2700 BCE. Merit-Ptah is the first female doctor known by name in world history but evidence suggests a medical school at the Temple of Neith in Sais in Lower Egypt run by a woman whose name is unknown c. 3000 BCE.

Pesehet (c. 2500 BCE), another female physician often cited as the first, was the "Lady Overseer of Female Physicians", possibly associated with the school at Sais, attesting to the presence of women in medical practice at this time. The famous legend of Agnodice of Athens (c. 4th century BCE) relates how, denied entrance to the medical profession because she was a woman, she went to Egypt where women were respected in the field. How and where doctors received their training is not known although it has been established there was an important school in Alexandria as well as the one at Sais.

A doctor not only needed to be literate but also pure in body and spirit. Doctors were referred to as wabau, ritually pure, and were expected to bathe as frequently and carefully as a high priest. Each doctor had his or her speciality but there were also swnw, general practitioners, and sau, whose speciality was in the use of magic. Midwives, masseurs, nurses, attendants, and seers also assisted the doctor. Doctors are not thought to have had anything to do with births, however, which were handled entirely by midwives and the women of the house. Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown writes:

Midwifery appears to have been a solely female profession in ancient Egypt. That this was so is suggested by medical texts, which include gynaecological information, but do not discuss obstetrics. Additionally, men are never shown in birthing scenes, and in the Papyrus Westcar, the mother is assisted in birth by four goddesses. (82)

There is no evidence for medical training of midwives. In the Old Kingdom the word for 'midwife' is associated with the word for 'nurse', one who assisted a doctor, but this association ends after that period. Midwives could be female relatives, friends, or neighbors and do not seem to have been regarded as medical professionals.

The nurse could be female or male and was a highly respected medical professional although, as with midwives, there is no evidence of a school or professional training. The most essential kind of nurse was the wet nurse. Graves-Brown notes, "with the probable likelihood of high mortality of mothers, wet nurses would have been particularly important" (83). Women regularly died in childbirth and legal documents show agreements between wet nurses and families to care for the newborn in the event of the mother's death. The dry nurse, who would assist in procedures, was accorded such respect that he or she was represented during the time of the New Kingdom as linked with the divine. The association of the nurse with the doctor seems well established but not so much their link with the dentist.

Dentistry grew out of the established medical profession but never developed as widely. The ancient Egyptians suffered from dental problems throughout the entire history of the civilization so why dentists were not more plentiful, or better documented, is unclear. Doctors also practiced dentistry but there were dentists as far back as the Early Dynastic Period. The first dentist known by name in the world, in fact, is Hesyre (c. 2600 BCE), Chief of Dentists and Physician to the King under the reign of Djoser (c. 2700 BCE). Dental problems were especially prevalent owing to the Egyptian diet of coarse bread and their inability to keep sand out of their food. Egyptologist and historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Egyptians of all eras had terrible teeth and peridontal problems. By the New Kingdom, however, dental decay was critical. Physicians packed some teeth with honey and herbs, perhaps to stem infection or to ease pain. Some mummies were also provided with bridges and gold teeth. It is not known if these dental materials were used by the wearer while alive or inserted in the embalming process. (158)

Queen Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE) of the New Kingdom died from an abscessed tooth as did many others. Toothaches and dental problems were thought to be caused by a tooth-worm which needed to be driven out by magical spells and incantations. This belief no doubt originated in Mesopotamia, specifically Sumer, where incantations against the tooth-worm have been found in ancient cuneiform inscriptions.

Healing Gods, Medicines, & Implements

As with doctors, dentists used magical incantations to drive the tooth-worm from the patient and then applied what medicines they had to ease the pain. Doctors and dentists frequently used herbs and spices medicinally. A cure for chronic bad breath, for example, was chewing a gum ball of honey, cinnamon, myrrh, frankincense, and pignon. There is evidence of tooth extraction and false teeth with opium used as an anaesthetic. The importance of diet was recognized and changes in one's diet for improved health were suggested. Practical, hands-on, remedies were always applied first in cases of obvious physical injury but with toothaches or gum disease, as with any disease, a supernatural cause was assumed.

A belief in magic was deeply ingrained in the Egyptian culture and was considered as natural and normal as any other aspect of existence. The god of magic was also a god of medicine, Heka, who carried a staff entwined with two serpents. This symbol was passed on to the Greeks who associated it with their god of healing, Asclepius, and which is recognizable today as the caduceus of the medical profession. Although the caduceus no doubt traveled from Egypt to Greece it originated in Sumer as the staff of Ninazu, son of the Sumerian goddess of healing Gula.

Besides Heka, there were a number of other important healing deities such as Sekhmet, Serket (also known as Selket), Sobek, and Nefertum. The priests of Serket were all doctors, though not every doctor was a member of her cult. Serket and Sekhmet were regularly invoked in magical spells and incantations along with Heka and, in certain cases, other deities such as Bes or Tawawret (usually dealing with fertility/children's diseases). Sobek, the crocodile god, seems to have been largely invoked for surgeries and invasive procedures. Nefertum, the god of perfumes associated with the lotus and healing, was invoked in procedures which today would be recognized as aromatherapy. In the Kahun Papyrus a course regularly prescribed for women is to fumigate them with incense to drive out an evil spirit and Nefertum would have been called upon in these instances.

Along with spells and incantations, the Egyptian doctors used naturally occurring herbs and spices as well as their own creations. Bunson writes:

The pharmaceuticals of the ancient Egyptian priest-physicians included antacids, copper salts, turpentine, alum, astringents, alkaline laxatives, diuretics, sedatives, antispasmodics, calcium carbonates, and magnesia. They also employed many exotic herbs. All dispensing of medicines carefully stipulated in the medical papyri, with explicit instructions as to the exact dosage, the manner in which the medicine was to be taken internally (as with wine or food), and external applications. (158)

Surgical procedures were common and many instruments have been identified which are still in use today. The Egyptians had a flint and a metal scalpel, dental pliers, a bone saw, probes, the catheter, clamps for stopping blood flow, specula, forceps, lancets for opening veins, sponges, scissors, phials, bandages of linen, and scales for weighing the proper amount of raw materials to mix for medicines. Surgeries were frequently successful as evidenced by mummies and other remains found who survived amputations and even brain surgery for years. Prosthetic limbs, made usually of wood, have also been found.

Conclusion

Not all of the medical practices in Egypt were so successful, however. Circumcision was a religious ritual performed on boys between the ages of 10 and 14 marking the transition from adolescence to manhood. It was performed by a doctor who also served as a temple priest, using a flint blade and reciting incantations, but in spite of their precautions this procedure still sometimes resulted in infection. Since the nature of the infection was unknown to them, it was considered the result of a supernatural influence and dealt with through magic spells; this most likely resulted in the deaths of many young men.

Because of their belief in the womb as connected to all parts of a woman's body, fumigation of the womb was a common prescription, accompanied by incantations, which would miss the actual cause of the problem. Eye problems were treated with a dose of bat's blood because it was thought the night-vision of the bat would be transferred to the patient; no evidence suggests this was effective.

Although the embalmers of Egypt no doubt came to understand how the organs they removed from the body worked with each other, this knowledge was never shared with doctors. These two professions moved in completely different spheres and what each did within their own job description was not considered relevant to the other. It is for this reason that, even though the Egyptians had the means of exploring internal medicine, they never did.

The heart, though recognized as a pump, was also thought to be the center of emotion, personality, and intellect; the heart was preserved in the deceased while the brain was scraped out and discarded as worthless. Although they recognized liver disease they had no understanding of the function of the liver and while regularly dealing with miscarriages and infertility, had no understanding of obstetrics. The culture's reliance on supernatural assistance from the gods prevented them from exploring more immediate and practical solutions to the medical problems they encountered daily.

Still, the Egyptian physician was widely respected for their skill and knowledge and was called upon by the kings and nobility of other nations. The Greeks especially admired the Egyptian medical profession and adopted a number of their beliefs and techniques. Later famous physicians of Rome and Greece - like Galen and Hippocrates ("father of modern medicine") - studied the Egyptian texts and symbols and so passed down the traditions to the present day.

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Medical practice in ancient Egypt was so advanced that many of their observations, policies, and commonplace procedures would not be surpassed in the west for centuries after the fall of Rome and their practices would inform both Greek and Roman medicine.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is never more true than seen over time and between different cultures. Over time, our concept of beauty seems to fluctuate, particularly concerning people, sometimes favoring rather heavy individuals and at other times very skinny ones. In different cultures, parts of the body may be purposefully exaggerated in the name of beauty, the effects of which might even seem grotesque to those of another culture. For example, various tribes throughout the world use different methods to lengthen necks, exaggerate mouths, ears and even the shape of the head.

Nevertheless, there does appear to be certain classical concepts of beauty that are not inconsistent with many of our modern views, and it would seem that the ancient Egyptian concepts of beauty are not very different, at least in regards to the human form. At the same time, Egyptians seem to have been just as influenced by beauty, if not more so, than we are in our modern world. Indeed, it seems at time that beauty may have even been a part concept related to ma'at, the order that Egyptian's saw in their world.

For example, foreign lands were considered by the ancient Egyptians to be a part of chaos, the opposite of ma'at, and foreigners are very often depicted in a form very different than the ancient Egyptians themselves, and in a very different artistic style. Frequently, they may even be represented in a more realistic, and much less idealistic style. A classical example is that of the Queen of Punt recorded during the reign of Hatshepsut, but prisoners were very often represented in very less than ideal forms.

Our evidence on how the ancient Egyptians viewed beauty comes from many different sources, including pictorial, sculptures in the round and various textual. Much of it affirms a specific model of beauty, particularly in individuals and perhaps even more specifically in females.
Foreigners from Ramesses III Temple at Medinet Habu, depicted almost in the style of Egyptian women
Sometimes, ancient Egyptians did not have specific words that relate to modern conceptual ideas. For example, there seems to have been no real term that referred to art in general. At other times, they developed a number of conceptual terms for certain ideas. An example of this is the concept of beauty. In studying the ancient Egyptian's idea of beauty, it is useful to examine the many words they used for this concept.

There were two adjectives that were used to describe beautiful things, or beautiful people, consisting of "n" and "nfr". The term nfr, which is usually written as nefer in modern Egyptological works, was one of the most common, used in names and even sometimes used up until the present day. There are also substantives and even verbs related to this term. The verbs derived from nfr include snfr, which means beautifully or embellished. nfrw or nfr, and later bw nfr, may also be used as an abstract concept of beauty. And while the term nfr or nfrt may be used to describe a man or a woman, the term appears to have more significance than simply meaning a beautiful person. In fact, these terms often refer to a specific category of individual, and they can reveal something of what the Egyptians regarded as beautiful. For example, a young women referred to as nfrwt is sometimes described as "never having been opened in childbirth" as in the Westcar Papyrus. We find at Ramesses III's palace at Medinet Habu on the West Bank of Luxor (ancient Thebes) a list of captured foreigners including a reference to nfrwt as a category of female between child and mature woman. Nfrw, the masculine version of the same word, is found in several instances when it clearly refers to young men or young people. In one instance, it can even be translated as "recruits". Certain cows are even referenced as nfrwt.

We might also examine a number of phrases or terms that include the adjective nfr. Imntt nfrt, for example, meaning "the Beautiful West", is found often in tombs and funerary texts to describe the city of the dead. Hdt refers to the White Crown of Upper Egypt, but sometimes we see the phrase hdt nfrt and sometimes even nfrt. The king is very often described as the ntr nfr, an epithet which is generally translated as "the Good God," but the "Beautiful God" is also an accurate meaning. However, in a coregency, the term ntr nfr is used to designate the more youthful ruler. In this situation, the older ruler, usually the father, is referred to as ntr'3, meaning the "Great God." In this regard, even though the younger ruler may not be so young, the younger of the two is referred to as nfr.

Indeed. the connection that seems to exist between youth and the descriptive term nfr may be an important clue to understanding the ancient Egyptian concept of beauty. In Egyptian art, the ideal form is a youthful and slim figure with narrow hips, which anthropometric studies of pharaonic mummies have revealed is a fair representation of reality, at least in the case of Egyptian women. Furthermore, their hip to shoulder proportions are not greatly different from those found in male Egyptian mummies. While both sexes may be depicted in this way, representations of males are more likely to vary from the ideal.

In fact, age, when women are depicted, is most often represented subtly, in the form of a slightly drooping derriere, subtly sagging breasts or pouching cheeks, occasionally with horizontal lines across the torso, indicating an increased weight. Usually, the artistic elements are detectable only by close examination and comparison of with other representations. One of the most famous and explicit representations of youth and age in a woman's body is that of the funerals of Nebamun and Ipuky, who both married the same woman. The two funerals are depicted as taking place simultaneously. The representations of the widow show her with bared breasts both firm, and then drooping with a change in profile to suggest a sagging chin in the older version of the woman.

However, representations of the king are often particularly subtle. One must look for almost imperceptible clues that may suggest advancing age of a ruler. For example, in studying numerous depictions of Amenhotep III and his family, it was discovered that the king's torso was depicted as being somewhat thicker than that of other men.

Yet, during various periods of Egyptian history, wealthy tomb owners sometimes wished to emphasize their sagacity, and therefore actually had themselves represented as older men. Tomb scenes could show aged courtiers, who were depicted with toothless faces and heavy sagging bellies. In fact, during the Amarna Period, bowing elderly court functionaries appear in many of the scenes behind the figure of the king and queen. Note however that wrinkles are rarely shown on either sex, and gray hair is very rare. In fact, the Ebers Papyrus contains remedies not only for wrinkles, but also for baldness and graying hair, indicating that the ancient Egyptians, like their modern counterparts, at least attempted to retain the appearance of youth during their lifetimes.

Clearly, the attributes of youth were considered beautiful in ancient Egypt, but we may also examine more precise elements that were considered beautiful in an individual. In love poetry, as well as hymns to Hathor, the goddess of beauty, some sense of what was considered physically beautiful in people may be found. For example, in many poems, Hathor is defined as "golden," which might be a reference to her complexion. Indeed, the skin of gods was often represented in gold.

In the Papyrus of Chester Beatty I, the writer is explicit, mentioning his beloved scent, her hair, her eyes and her buttocks. From the same papyrus, another romantic poem describes the object of his affection as being ""bright" of skin, her arm "more brilliant than gold," long-necked and "white-breasted," hair of "genuine lapis lazuli," (blue?) and fingers like lotus blooms. It also mentions her beautiful thighs and heavy buttocks. He also admired her swift walk, sweet voice and, an age old compliment from men, her ability to know when to stop talking.

Scent and color both seem important elements in many erotic texts, where the lover might desire to see the color of his beloved's limbs. In a Third Intermediate Period ( 25th Dynasty) hymn, recorded on the Louvre stela C100, there is a description of the priestess Mutirdis, who has locks of hair black as night and dark as "wine-grapes," "brilliant" arms, firm breasts and a complexion "like jasper."

Females are referred to much more in terms of beauty than are men. However, in the " Blinding of Truth by falsehood," a woman desires Truth, a man more handsome than anyone else in the country. She bears his child, who looks like a young god. Hatshepsut also tells us, at Deir el-Bahri, that when the god Amun appears in the bedroom of her mother, Queen Ahmes, her mother is awakened by his divine fragrance, which permeates the whole palace as they make love. Hatshepsut herself is described as appearing before her subjects with skin like electrum (a silver-gold alloy) and smelling like all the perfumes of Punt. Clearly, an alluring scent is connected in the ancient Egyptian mind with divine beauty.

At other times, beauty is described indirectly by analogy or simile. For example, in Papyrus Harris 500, a poem written fairly late in Egypt's pharaonic history (about 500 BC) with a female narrator describes herself as being like a field planted with sweet-smelling herbs. She also compares her love's voice to pomegranate wine. This is reminiscent of an amazing talking pomegranate tree mentioned in Papyrus Turin 1966, which compares a beloved's teeth to pomegranate seeds and her breasts to the whole fruit. We are not so sure why the teeth would be compared to pomegranate seeds, however.

Similarly, a male of Cairo Vase 25218 says that he feels immersed in perfume when he embraces his beloved, as if he were in the land of incense. He also claims to be drunk "without beer" when he kisses her.

Color is also important in nonliterary depictions of the ideal form. Men are almost universally shown with red or reddish-brown skin. Women are frequently shown with paler skins, although the color used by artists varies over time. In Old Kingdom representations, we see women with pinkish white skin. During the Middle and early New Kingdom, their skin is often yellowish. Later in the New Kingdom, the shades returned to pink or were pale orange. Goddesses, on the other hand, had yellow or "golden" skin throughout the New Kingdom.

Only during the Amarna Period do we sometimes find male and female with the same, darker reddish skin color. Some Egyptologists have attempted to explain this color variation as the work of the sun. Hence, upper class women remained indoors while men were out in the sun, so that a lighter-skinned woman appeared more aristocratic. Indeed, men depicted with newly shaved heads are often represented with a paler scalp than the rest of their skin, and elderly men are sometimes also shown with paler skin. However, there was also doubtless symbolic meaning. Certainly this is true for the skin of goddesses.

Beauty in humans as well as in other animals or objects may also have included symmetry as a necessary component. In both art and architecture the ancient Egyptians favored the rectilinear geometric outline over the curved. Therefore the ideal male body may be summarized as being bounded by two triangles. One is that of the torso, consisting of broad shoulders exaggerated in two-dimensional images by frontal positioning and a narrow waist, shown in three quarter view. The other is the striding legs. The bodies of women were tailored to fit within a long rectangle. Their shoulders were of course narrower than the male's and the feet were together or with one slightly advanced. Only during the Amarna Period does this ideal symmetry vary, but that period's art is so profoundly different than the remainder of Egyptian history as to be a subject unto itself. It is also likely that, though royal depictions and even those of common people varied considerably during this period reflecting a new form of official royal beauty, the idea of real beauty probably did not change among the general population. In fact, the royal bust of Nefertiti, the wife of Akhenaten (founder of the Amarna Period) was, and is considered to be a classical example of female beauty (or at least of facial features).
The Bust of Nefertiti, now in Berlin
The elite who commissioned tombs are depicted in much the same way as those of royalty, for the most part. Drastic departures from the slim, youthful and healthy norm are seen primarily in those of lower status. For example, pattern baldness is depicted in representations of herdsmen and other lower class males. Even for the lower classes, age and obesity are rarely shown in women.

Sculptures in the round also seem to portray what the Egyptians believed to be beautiful. Kings are frequently depicted as very powerful humans, with well formed and well toned muscles. Women, on the other hand, or represented in the round as slender, graceful forms. On the other hand those, particularly non-royal statuary, may at times be more realistic. We find many touching statues of more common people who do not exactly fit the ideal form, and so therefore it may seem that statuary was less of an indication of perfect beauty than that of paintings and reliefs.

It is not only people who may be described as beautiful. In Papyrus Turin 1966, a sycamore fig is described as being beautiful. It has leaves greener than turquoise, branches like faience, wood the color of feldspar and fruits as red as jasper. The beautiful jewel-like colors of the tree are an integral part of its beauty. There are many other instances of descriptions related to beautiful inanimate objects, including that of the Nile, the Western mountains and even Egypt itself. It is also clear that Egyptians saw beauty in many other objects that are even to this day beautiful to us. This obviously includes many items of jewelry, ornate boxes and items made of pottery and various stone, and these items that we see today in museums speak to us of the ancient Egyptian's love of beauty.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is never more true than seen over time and between different cultures. Over time, our concept of beauty seems to fluctuate, particularly concerning people, sometimes favoring rather heavy individuals and at other times very skinny ones.

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt. The pyramids at Giza remain impressive monuments thousands of years after they were built and the knowledge and skill required to construct them was gathered over the many centuries prior to their construction. Yet the pyramids are not the apex of ancient Egyptian architecture; they are only the earliest and best known expressions of a culture which would go on to create buildings, monuments, and temples just as intriguing.

6,000 Years of History

Ancient Egyptian history begins prior to the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) and continues through the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Artifacts and evidence of overgrazing of cattle, in the area now known as the Sahara Desert, date human habitation in the area to c. 8000 BCE. The Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (c. 3150 - 2613 BCE) built upon the knowledge of those who had gone before and Predynastic art and architecture was improved on. The first pyramid in Egypt, Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara, comes from the end of this Early Dynastic Period and a comparison of this monument and its surrounding complex with the mastaba tombs of earlier centuries show how far the Egyptians had advanced in their understanding of architectural design and construction. Equally impressive, however, is the link between these great monuments and those which came after them.

The pyramids at Giza date from the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 - 2181 BCE) and represent the pinnacle of talent and skill acquired at that time. Ancient Egyptian history, however, still had a long and illustrious path before it and as the pyramid form was abandoned the Egyptians focused their attention on temples. Many of these whose ruins are still extant, such as the temple complex of Amun-Ra at Karnak, inspire as much genuine awe as the pyramids at Giza but all of them, however great or modest, show an attention to detail and an awareness of aesthetic beauty and practical functionality which makes them masterpieces of architecture. These structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, and raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, & raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian Architecture & the Creation Of The World

At the beginning of time, according to the Egyptian religion, there was nothing but swirling waters of dark chaos. From these primordial waters rose a mound of dry land, known as the ben-ben, around which the waters rolled. Upon the mound lighted the god Atum who looked out over the darkness and felt lonely; so he mated with himself and creation began.

Atum was responsible for the unknowable universe, the sky above, and the earth below. Through his children he was also the creator of human beings (though in some versions the goddess Neith plays a part in this). The world and all that human beings knew came from water, from dampness, moistness, from the kind of environment familiar to the Egyptians from the Nile Delta. Everything had been created by the gods and these gods were ever-present in one's life through nature.

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The lives of the gods mirrored those of the people and the Egyptians honored them in their lives and through their works. The gods were thought to have provided the most perfect of worlds for the people of ancient Egypt; so perfect, in fact, that it would last forever. The afterlife was simply a continuation of the life one had been living. It is not surprising, then, that when these people constructed their great monuments they would reflect this belief system. The architecture of ancient Egypt tells this story of the people's relationship with their land and their gods. The symmetry of the structures, the inscriptions, the interior design, all reflect the concept of harmony ( ma'at) which was central to the ancient Egyptian value system.

The Predynastic & Early Dynastic Periods

The homes and tombs of the Predynastic Period were built of mud-brick which was dried in the sun (a practice which would continue throughout Egypt's history). Homes were thatched structures of reeds which were daubed with mud for walls prior to the discovery of brick making. These early buildings were circular or oval before bricks were used and, after, became square or rectangular. Communities gathered together for protection from the elements, wild animals, and strangers and grew into cities which encircled themselves with walls.

As civilization advanced, so did the architecture with the appearance of windows and doors braced and adorned by wooden frames. Wood was more plentiful in Egypt at this time but still not in the quantity to suggest itself as a building material on any large scale. The mud brick oval home became the rectangular house with a vaulted roof, a garden, and courtyard. Work in mud brick is also evidenced in the construction of tombs which, during the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt, become more elaborate and intricate in design. These early oblong tombs (mastabas) continued to be built of mud brick but already at this time people were working in stone to create temples to their gods. Stone monuments (stelae) begin to appear, along with these temples, by the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BCE).

Obelisks, large upright stone monuments with four sides and a tapered top, began to appear in the city of Heliopolis at about this time. The Egyptian obelisk (known to them as tekhenu, "obelisk" being the Greek name) is among the most perfect examples of Egyptian architecture reflecting the relationship between the gods and the people as they were always raised in pairs and it was thought that the two created on earth were mirrored by two identical pieces raised in the heavens at the same time. Quarrying, carving, transporting, and raising the obelisks required enormous skill and labor and taught the Egyptians well how to work in stone and move immensely heavy objects over many miles. Mastering stonework set the stage for the next great leap in Egyptian architecture: the pyramid.

Djoser's mortuary complex at Saqqara was conceived by his vizier and chief architect Imhotep (c. 2667 - c. 2600 BCE) who imagined a great mastaba tomb for his king built of stone. Djoser's pyramid is not a "true pyramid" but a series of stacked mastabas known as a "step pyramid". Even so, it was an incredibly impressive feat which had never been achieved before. Historian Desmond Stewart comments on this:

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara marks one of those developments that afterward seem inevitable but that would have been impossible without an experimenting genius. That the royal official Imhotep was such a genius we know, not from Greek legend, which identified him with Aesculapius, the god of medicine, but from what archaeologists have discovered from his still impressive pyramid. Investigation has shown that, at every stage, he was prepared to experiment along new lines. His first innovation was to construct a mastaba that was not oblong, but square. His second concerned the material from which it was built (cited in Nardo, 125).

Temple construction, albeit on a modest level, had already acquainted the Egyptians with stonework. Imhotep imagined the same on a grand scale. The early mastabas had been decorated with inscriptions and engravings of reeds, flowers, and other nature imagery; Imhotep wanted to continue that tradition in a more durable material. His great, towering mastaba pyramid would have the same delicate touches and symbolism as the more modest tombs which had preceded it and, better yet, these would all be worked in stone instead of dried mud. Historian Mark van de Mieroop comments on this:

Imhotep reproduced in stone what had been previously built of other materials. The facade of the enclosure wall had the same niches as the tombs of mud brick, the columns resembled bundles of reed and papyrus, and stone cylinders at the lintels of doorways represented rolled-up reed screens. Much experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex. It had several plans with mastaba forms before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six mastaba-like levels on top of one another...The weight of the enormous mass was a challenge to the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to prevent the monument breaking up (56).

When completed, the Step Pyramid rose 204 feet (62 meters) high and was the tallest structure of its time. The surrounding complex included a temple, courtyards, shrines, and living quarters for the priests covering an area of 40 acres (16 hectares) and surrounded by a wall 30 feet (10.5 meters) high. The wall had 13 false doors cut into it with only one true entrance cut in the south-east corner; the entire wall was then ringed by a trench 2,460 feet (750 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide. The actual tomb of Djoser was located beneath the pyramid at the bottom of a shaft 92 feet (28 meters) long. The tomb chamber itself was encased in granite but, to reach it, one had to traverse a maze of hallways, all brightly painted with reliefs and inlaid with tiles, leading to other rooms or dead ends filled with stone vessels carved with the names of earlier kings. This labyrinth was created, of course, to protect the tomb and grave goods of the king but, unfortunately, it failed to keep out ancient grave robbers and the tomb was looted at some point in antiquity.

Djoser's Step Pyramid incorporates all of the elements most resonant in Egyptian architecture: symmetry, balance, and grandeur which reflected the core values of the culture. Egyptian civilization was based upon the concept of ma'at(harmony, balance) which was decreed by their gods. The architecture of ancient Egypt, whether on a small or large scale, always represented these ideals. Palaces were even built with two entrances, two throne rooms, two receiving halls in order to maintain symmetry and balance in representing both Upper and Lower Egypt in the design

The innovations of Imhotep were carried further by the kings of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. The last king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, Huni (c. 2630 - 2613 BCE), was long thought to have initiated the massive building projects of the Old Kingdom in constructing the pyramid at Meidum but that honor is due the first king of the 4th Dynasty, Sneferu (c. 2613 - 2589 BCE). Egyptologist Barbara Watterson writes, "Sneferu initiated the golden age of the Old Kingdom, his most notable achievements being the two pyramids built for him at Dahshur" (50-51). Sneferu began his work with the pyramid at Meidum now referred to as the "collapsed pyramid" or, locally, as the "false pyramid" because of its shape: it resembles a tower more than a pyramid and its outer casing rests around it in a gigantic heap of gravel.

The pyramid of Meidum is the first true pyramid constructed in Egypt. A "true pyramid" is defined as a perfectly symmetrical monument whose steps have been filled in to create seamless sides tapering toward a point at the top. Originally, any pyramid began as a step pyramid. The Meidum pyramid did not last, however, because modifications were made to Imhotep's original pyramid design which resulted in the outer casing resting on a sand foundation rather than rock, causing it to collapse. Scholars are divided on whether the collapse occurred during construction or over a longer period of time.

Sneferu's experiments with the stone pyramid form served his successor well. Khufu (2589 - 2566 BCE) learned from his father's experiments and directed his administration in constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Contrary to the popular belief that his monument was built by Hebrew slaves, Egyptian workers on the Great Pyramid were well cared for and performed their duties as part of a community service, as paid laborers, or during the time when the Nile's flood made farming impossible. Scholars Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs note:

Were it not for the two months every year when the Nile's water covered Egypt's farmland, idling virtually the entire workforce, none of this construction would have been possible. During such times, a pharaoh offered food for work and the promise of a favored treatment in the afterworld where he would rule just as he did in this world. For two months annually, workmen gathered by the tens of thousands from all over the country to transport the blocks a permanent crew had quarried during the rest of the year. Overseers organized the men into teams to transport the stones on sleds, devices better suited than wheeled vehicles to moving weighty objects over shifting sand. A causeway, lubricated by water, smoothed the uphill pull. No mortar was used to hold the blocks in place, only a fit so exact that these towering structures have survived for 4,000 years - the only Wonders of the Ancient World still standing today (17-18).

There is no evidence whatsoever that Hebrew slaves, or any kind of slave labor, went into the construction of the pyramids at Giza, the city of Per-Ramesses, or any other important site in Egypt. The practice of slavery certainly existed in Egypt throughout its history, as it did in every ancient culture, but it was not the kind of slavery popularly depicted in fiction and film based on the biblical Book of Exodus. Slaves in the ancient world could be tutors and teachers of the young, accountants, nursemaids, dance instructors, brewers, even philosophers. Slaves in Egypt were either captives from military campaigns or those who could not pay their debts and these people usually worked in the mines and quarries.

The men and women who worked on the Great Pyramid lived in state-provided housing on the site (as discovered by Lehner and Hawass in 1979 CE) and were well compensated for their efforts. The more skilled a worker was, the higher their compensation. The result of their work still amazes people in the modern day. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder left of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and justifiably so: until the Eifel Tower was completed in 1889 CE, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on earth built by human hands. Historian Marc van de Mieroop writes:

The size boggles the mind: it was 146 meters high (479 feet) by 230 meters at the base (754 feet). We estimate that it contained 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2 and 3/4 tons some weighing up to 16 tons. Khufu ruled 23 years according to the Turin Royal Canon, which would mean that throughout his reign annually 100,000 blocks - daily about 285 blocks or one every two minutes of daylight - had to be quarried, transported, dressed, and put in place...The construction was almost faultless in design. The sides were oriented exactly toward the cardinal points and were at precise 90-degree angles (58).

The second pyramid constructed at Giza belongs to Khufu's successor Khafre (2558 - 2532 BCE) who is also credited with creating the Great Sphinx of Giza. The third pyramid belongs to his successor Menkaure (2532 - 2503 BCE). An inscription from c. 2520 BCE relates how Menkaure came to inspect his pyramid and assigned 50 of the workers to the new task of building a tomb for his official, Debhen. Part of the inscription reads, "His majesty commanded that no man should be taken for any forced labour" and that rubbish should be cleared from the site for construction (Lewis, 9). This was a fairly common practice at Giza where the kings would commission tombs for their friends and favored officials.

The Giza plateau today presents a very different image from what it would have looked like in the time of the Old Kingdom. It was not the lonely site at the edge of the desert it is today but a sizeable necropolis which had shops, factories, markets, temples, housing, public gardens, and numerous monuments. The Great Pyramid was sheathed in an outer casing of gleaming white limestone and rose from the center of the small city, visible from miles around. Giza was a self-sustaining community whose people were government workers but the construction of the enormous monuments there in the 4th Dynasty was very costly. Khafre's pyramid and complex are a little smaller than Khufu's and Menkaure's smaller than Khafre's and this is because, as 4th Dynasty pyramid building continued, resources dwindled. Menkaure's successor, Shepsekhaf (2503 - 2498 BCE) was buried in a modest mastaba at Saqqara.

The cost of the pyramids was not only financial but political. Giza was not the only necropolis in Egypt at the time and all of these sites required maintenance and administration which was carried out by priests. As these sites grew, so did the wealth and power of the priests and the regional governors (nomarchs) who presided over the different districts the sites were in. The later rulers of the Old Kingdom built temples (or pyramids on a much smaller scale) as these were more affordable. The shift from the pyramid monument to the temple signaled a deeper shift in sensibilities which had to do with the growing power of the priesthood: monuments were no longer being built to honor a certain king but for a specific god.

The power of the priests and nomarchs, along with other factors, brought about the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Egypt then entered the era known as the First Intermediate Period (2181 - 2040 BCE) in which individual regions essentially governed themselves. The kings still ruled from Memphis but they were ineffectual.

The First Intermediate Period of Egypt has traditionally been depicted as a time of decline because no great monuments were raised and the quality of the art is considered inferior to that of the Old Kingdom. Actually, though, the artwork and architecture is simply different, not sub-par. In the Old Kingdom, architectural works were state-sponsored, as was artwork, and so was more or less uniform to reflect the tastes of royalty. In the First Intermediate Period, regional artists and architects were free to explore different forms and styles. Historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Under the nomarchs, architecture survived the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Their patronage continued into the Middle Kingdom, resulting in such remarkable sites as Beni Hassan (c. 1900 BC) with its rock carved tombs and large chapels complete with columned porticos and painted walls (32).

When Mentuhotep II (c. 2061 - 2010 BCE) united Egypt under Theban rule, royal commissioning of art and architecture resumed but, unlike in the Old Kingdom, variety and personal expression was encouraged. Middle Kingdom architecture, beginning with Mentuhotep's grand mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahri near Thebes, is at once grand and personal in scope.

Under the reign of king Senusret I (c. 1971 - 1926 BCE), the great Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak was begun when this monarch erected a modest structure at the site. This temple, like all Middle Kingdom temples, was constructed with an outer courtyard, columned courts which led to halls and ritual chambers, and an inner sanctum which housed a god's statue. Sacred lakes were created at these sites and the entire effect was a symbolic representation of the beginning of the world and the harmonious operation of the universe. Bunson writes:

Temples were religious structures considered the "horizon" of a divine being, the point at which the god came into existence during creation. Thus, each temple had a link to the past, and the rituals conducted within its court were formulas handed down for generations. The temple was also a mirror of the universe and a representation of the Primeval Mound where creation began (258).

Homes and other buildings continued to be made from mud brick during the Middle Kingdom; stone was only used for temples and monuments and this was usually limestone, sandstone or, in some cases, granite which required the greatest skill to work in. A little known masterpiece of the Middle Kingdom, long ago lost, was the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III (c. 1860 - 1815 BCE) at the city of Hawara.

This complex was enormous, featuring twelve great separate courts which faced one another across an expanse of columned halls and interior hallways so intricate that it was called "the labyrinth" by Herodotus. The courts and hallways were further connected by corridors and colonnades and shafts so that a visitor might walk down a familiar hall but take an unfamiliar turn and wind up in a completely different area of the complex than the one they had intended. Criss-crossing alleys and false doors sealed by stone plugs served to confuse and disorient a visitor to protect the central burial chamber of the pyramid of the king. This chamber is said to have been cut from a single block of granite and to have weighed 110 tons. Herodotus claimed it was more impressive than any of the wonders he had ever seen.

The rulers of the New Kingdom built on a grand scale in keeping with Egypt's new elevated status as an empire. Egypt had never known a foreign power like the Hyksos taking control of their land and, after Ahmose I drove them out, he initiated military campaigns to create buffer zones around Egypt's borders. These areas were expanded by his successors, most notably Thutmose III (1458 - 1425 BCE), until Egypt ruled an empire which stretched from Syria, down the Levant, across to Libya, and down through Nubia. Egypt became immensely wealthy during this time and that wealth was lavished on temples, mortuary complexes, and monuments.

The greatest of these is the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. As with all the other temples in Egypt, this one told the story of the past, the people's lives, and honored the gods but was an immense work-in-progress with every ruler of the New Kingdom adding to it. The site covers over 200 acres and is comprised of a series of pylons (monumental gateways which taper towards the top to cornices), leading into courtyards, halls, and smaller temples. The first pylon opens onto a wide court which invites the visitor further. The second pylon opens onto the Hypostyle Court which measures 337 feet (103 meters) by 170 feet (52 meters). The hall is supported by 134 columns 72 feet (22 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) around in diameter. Scholars estimate one could fit three structures the size of Notre Dame Cathedral inside the main temple alone. Bunson comments:

Karnak remains the most remarkable religious complex ever built on earth. Its 250 acres of temples and chapels, obelisks, columns, and statues built over 2,000 years incorporate the finest aspects of Egyptian art and architecture into a great historical monument of stone (133).

As with all other temples, Karnak is a paragon of symmetrical architecture which seems to rise organically from the earth toward the sky. The great difference between this structure and any other is its grand scale and the scope of the vision. Each ruler who contributed to the building made greater advances than their predecessors but acknowledged those who had gone before. When Thutmose III built his festival hall there he may have removed monuments and buildings of earlier kings whom he then acknowledged with an inscription. Every temple symbolizes Egyptian culture and belief but Karnak does so in large letters and, quite literally, through inscriptions. Thousands of years of history may be read on the walls and columns of the Karnak temple.

Hatshepsut (1479 - 1458 BCE) contributed to Karnak like every other ruler but also commissioned buildings of such beauty and splendor that later kings claimed them as their own. Among her grandest is her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri near Luxor which incorporates every aspect of New Kingdom temple architecture on a grand scale: a landing stage at the water's edge, flagstaffs (relics of the past), pylons, forecourts, hypostyle halls, and a sanctuary. The temple is constructed in three tiers reaching 97 feet (29.5 meters) and visitors are still amazed by the building in the present day.

Long before the author of Exodus ever came up with his story, however, Ramesses II was famous for his military exploits, efficient rule, and magnificent building projects. His city of Per-Ramesses ("City of Ramesses") in Lower Egypt was widely praised by Egyptian scribes and foreign visitors but his temple at Abu Simbel is his masterpiece. The temple, cut from solid rock cliffs, stands 98 feet (30 meters) high and 115 feet (35 meters) long with four seated colossi flanking the entrance, two to each side, depicting Ramesses II on his throne; each one 65 feet (20 meters) tall. Beneath these giant figures are smaller statues (still larger than life) depicting Ramesses' conquered enemies, the Nubians, Libyans, and Hittites. Further statues represent his family members and various protecting gods and symbols of power. Passing between the colossi, through the central entrance, the interior of the temple is decorated with engravings showing Ramesses and Nefertari paying homage to the gods.

Abu Simbel is perfectly aligned with the east so that, twice a year on 21 February and 21 October, the sun shines directly into the inner sanctum to illuminate statues of Ramesses II and the god Amun. This is another aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture which characterizes most, if not all, of the great temples and monuments: celestial alignment. From the pyramids at Giza to the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the Egyptians oriented their buildings according to the cardinal points and in keeping with celestial events. The Egyptian name for a pyramid was Mer, meaning "Place of Ascension" (the name "pyramid" comes from the Greek word pyramis meaning "wheat cake" which is what they thought the structures looked like) as it was believed that the shape of the structure itself would enable the dead king to rise toward the horizon and more easily begin the next phase of his existence in the afterlife. In this same way, temples were oriented to invite the god to the inner sanctum and also, of course, provide access for when they wanted to ascend back to their own higher realms.

Late Period & Ptolemaic Dynasty

The New Kingdom declined as the priests of Amun at Thebes acquired greater power and wealth than the pharaoh while, at the same time, Egypt came to be ruled by weaker and weaker kings. By the time of the reign of Ramesses XI (c. 1107 - 1077 BCE) the central government at Per-Ramesses was completely ineffective and the high priests at Thebes held all the real power.

The city has magnificent public precincts and royal palaces which cover a fourth or even a third of the entire area. For just as each of the kings would, from a love of splendour, add some ornament to the public monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a residence in addition to those already standing (1).

Alexandria became the impressive city Strabo praises during the time of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Ptolemy I (323 - 285 BCE) began the great Library of Alexandria and the temple known as the Serapeum which was completed by Ptolemy II (285 - 246 BCE) who also built the famous Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The early rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty continued the traditions of Egyptian architecture, blending them with their own Greek practices, to create impressive buildings, monuments, and temples. The dynasty ended with the death of the last queen, Cleopatra VII (69 - 30 BCE), and the country was annexed by Rome. The legacy of the Egyptian architects lives on, however, through the monuments they left behind. The imposing pyramids, temples, and monuments of Egypt continue to inspire and intrigue visitors in the present day. Imhotep and those who followed after him envisioned monuments in stone which would defy the passage of time and keep their memory alive. The enduring popularity of these structures today rewards that early vision and accomplishes their goal.

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt.

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How ancient Egypt shaped our idea of beauty

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Pop culture is steeped in images of smoky-eyed pharaohs and their queens. Were the ancient Egyptians insufferably vain – or are we simply projecting our own values onto them?

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Ancient Egypt was a civilization that lasted from 3300 to 525 B.C.E. This is probably where the concept of health started. Some of the earliest records of medical care come from ancient Egypt.

The ancient Egyptians believed in prayer as a solution to health problems, but they also had natural, or practical, remedies, such as herbs.

It was a structured society with tools such as written language and mathematics, which enabled them to record and develop ideas, and it meant that others could learn from them.

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The ancient Egyptians had basic medical equipment, and they also believed that the gods controlled life and health. This picture shows Isis on a birthing stool,

The ancient Egyptians thought that gods, demons, and spirits played a key role in causing diseases.

Doctors believed that spirits blocked channels in the body and that this affected the way the body worked. They looked for ways to unblock these channels. They used a combination of prayer and natural - or non-spiritual - remedies.

Most healers were also priests, but, in time, the profession of a "doctor of medicine" emerged.

The fact that ancient Egyptians had systems of letters and numbers meant they were able to record and develop ideas and make calculations. Documented ancient Egyptian medical literature is among the oldest in existence today.

The ancient Egyptians had an organized economy and system of government, a settled population, social conventions, and properly enforced laws. Before this, the local people mainly lived a nomadic life.

This stability allowed medical research to develop.

In addition, there were also relatively wealthy individuals in ancient Egyptian society. They could afford some health care and also had time to ponder and study.

The ancient Egyptians were also traders. They traveled long distances, coming back with herbs and spices from faraway lands.

Research and learning

The ancient Egyptians' practice of preserving deceased people as mummies meant that they learned something about how the human body works.

In one process, the priest-doctor inserted a long, hooked implement through the nostril and broke the thin bone of the brain case to remove the brain.

Kings and queens from faraway lands sought Egyptian doctors because of their reputation for excellence.

Archaeologists have found a number of written records that describe ancient Egyptian medical practice, including the Ebers papyrus.

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The ancient Egyptians probably learned something about the human body through mummification.

This document contains over 700 remedies and magical formulas and scores of incantations aimed at repelling demons that cause disease.

The authors probably wrote them around 1500 B.C.E., but the document may contain copies of material dating back to 3400 B.C.E. They are among the oldest preserved medical documents in existence.

The scroll provides evidence of some sound scientific procedures.

Doctors appear to have had fairly good knowledge about bone structure and some awareness of how the brain and liver worked.

The heart: According to the Ebers Papyrus, the center of the body's blood supply is the heart, and every corner of the body is attached to vessels. The heart was the meeting point for vessels that carried tears, urine, semen, and blood. Researchers writing in 2014 described ancient Egyptian understanding of the cardiovascular system as "surprisingly sophisticated, if not accurate.

Mental illness: The document describes in detail the characteristics, causes, and treatment for mental disorders such as dementia and depression. The ancient Egyptians appear to have seen mental diseases as a combination of blocked channels and the influence of evil spirits and angry Gods.

Family planning: The scroll contains a section on birth control, how to tell if a person is pregnant, and some other gynecological issues.

There is also advice about:

skin problems

dental problems

diseases related to the eyes

intestinal disease

parasites

how to surgically treat an abscess or a tumor

In addition, there is evidence that doctors knew how to set broken bones and treat burns.

Medical advice

Some recommendations that physicians made then seem fairly sound to us now.

They advised people to wash and shave their bodies to prevent infections, to eat carefully, and to avoid unclean animals and raw fish.

Some, however, are less familiar. Putting a plug of crocodile dung into the entrance of the vagina, for example, was a method of birth control. People also used dung to disperse evil spirits.

Dentistry

The Egyptians also practiced dentistry. Caries and tooth decay appear to have been common.

Remedies included:

cumin, incense, and onion to treat swollen gums

opium, possibly, to treat pain pain

drilling holes into the jaw to drain an abscess

However, they do not seem to have extracted teeth.

Everyday life in Egypt involved beliefs and fear of magic, gods, demons, evils spirits, and so on. They believed that the gods created and controlled life.

Heka was the goddess of magic and medicine, while Bes, another god, protected women during pregnancy. People called upon Serket if they had a scorpion bite.

Angry gods or evil forces caused bad luck and disaster, so people used magic and religion to deal with these forces and to treat people.

Priests and doctors were often one and the same. Many healers were priests of Sekhmet, an Egyptian warrior goddess and the goddess of healing, curses, and threats.

As well as science, treatment involved the use of magic, incantations, amulets, aromas, offerings, tattoos, and statues.

The religious and magic rituals and procedures probably had a powerful placebo effect, so they may have resulted in healing.

The "channel theory" came from observing farmers who dug out irrigations channels for their crops. It allowed medicine to move from entirely spiritual cures towards practical, natural ones.

The doctors believed that, as in irrigation, channels provide the body with routes for good health. If blockages occurred, they used laxatives to unblock them.

The heart was the center of 46 channels, seen as types of tubes.

It is true that human veins, arteries, and intestines are types of tubes. However, the Egyptians did not understand that these channels had different functions.

Blockages in the human channels were thought to result from the doings of Wekhedu, an evil spirit. When Wekhedu came to the surface of the body, it showed as pus.

This idea that bodily function played a role in health was a breakthrough in the history of medicine.

Channels and the heart

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body consisted of a system of channels, or "Metu."

One researcher notes that they believed that bodily fluids could enter this system, including feces. This would have a negative effect, and enemas became an important method of treatment for many conditions, including malaria and smallpox.

The Ebers Papyrus notes that vessels run from the heart to all four limbs and every part of the body.

When a doctor, Sekmet priest, or exorcist places their hands on any part of the body, they are examining the heart, because all vessels come from the heart.

Channel theory holds that:

The heart is the source. It speaks out to each part of the body.

When people breathe in through the nose, the air enters their heart, lungs, and then the belly.

The nostrils have four vessels, two of which provide mucus and two provide blood.

The human body has four vessels, which lead to two ears. The "breath of life" enters the right ear and "breath of death" enters the left ear.

Four vessels that lead to the head cause baldness.

All eye diseases come from four vessels in the forehead, which supply blood to the eyes.

Two vessels enter the testicles and provide semen.

Two vessels in the buttocks supply them with vital nutrients.

Six vessels reach the soles of the feet and six lead down the arms to the fingers.

Two vessels supply the bladder with urine.

Four vessels supply the liver with liquid and air. When they overfill the liver with blood, they cause diseases.

Four vessels also supply the lungs and spleen with liquid and air.

The liquid and air that come out of the anus come from four vessels.

The anus is also exposed to all the vessels in the arms and legs when they overflow with waste.

Egyptian physicians underwent training and could successfully fix broken bones and dislocated joints.

Basic surgery - meaning procedures close to the surface of the skin or on the skin - was a common skill, and doctors knew how to stitch wounds effectively.

They used bandages and would bind certain plant products, such as willow leaves, into the bandages to treat inflammation.

However, they did not perform surgery deep inside the body, probably because there were no anesthetics or antiseptics.

Circumcision of baby boys was common practice. It is hard to tell whether female circumcision existed. There is one mention, but this may be a mistranslation.

Surgeons had an array of instruments, such as pincers, forceps, spoons, saws, containers with burning incense, hooks, and knives.

Prosthetics existed, but they were probably not very practical. People may have used them to make deceased people look more presentable during funerals or simply for decorative purposes.

Egyptian doctors said there were three types of injuries:

Treatable injuries: They dealt with these immediately.

Contestable injuries: The doctor believed these were not life-threatening and that the person could survive without intervention. The doctor would observe the patient. If they survived, the doctor would decide in time whether to intervene.

Untreatable ailments: The doctor would not intervene.

Common complaints included:

A remedy for headaches, mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, appears to advise the following:

Mash together flour, incense, wood of wa, waneb plant, mint, a horn of a stag, sycamore seeds, mason's plaster, seeds of zart, water. Apply to the head.

People used aloe vera in ancient Egyptian times to heal burns and skin diseases.

Another remedy is to use poppy seeds or aloe.

Asthma: Honey and milk, sesame, frankincense

Burns and skin disease: Aloe

Pain: Thyme

Digestive problems: Juniper, mint, garlic, and sandalwood

Bad breath: Mint, caraway

Epilepsy: Camphor

Vomiting: Mint to stop it and mustard seeds to cause it

Other conditions and treatments include:

The cure for a cold was an incantation.

Early concepts of homeopathy

Some treatments used products or herbs or plants that looked similar to the illness they were treating, a practice known as simila similibus, or similar with similar.

Today, homeopathy follows a similar principle.

In Egyptian times, people used ostrich eggs to treat a fractured skull.

Cleanliness was an important part of Egyptian life, and homes had rudimentary baths and toilets. Appearance and the use of make-up were important.

The main aim was to meet social and religious requirements, although many people wore make-up around their eyes to protect them from disease.

People used mosquito nets during the hot months, whether to protect against malaria and other diseases or to avoid bites. Malaria was a common problem.

Priests washed themselves, their clothing, and their eating utensils regularly. This helped to protect their health, although they did it for religious reasons.

There was no public health infrastructure as we know of today. There were no sewage systems, systematic medical care, or public hygiene.

The ancient Egyptians were probably the first people to have professional doctors, and it was a respected occupation.

According to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, they had to be literate and clean in body and spirit. There were doctors all over Egypt.

The earliest ever record of a male physician was Hesy-Ra in 2700 B.C.E. He was was "Chief of Dentists and Doctors" to King Dioser.

The first record of a female doctor was probably Peseshet in 2400 B.C.E., the supervisor of all female doctors, but there may have been female doctors as early as 3000 B.C.E.

The top doctors worked in the royal court. Below them, inspectors would supervise the work of other doctors. There were specialists, such as dentists, proctologists, gastroenterologists, and ophthalmologists.

A proctologist - or possibly the giver of enemas - was called "nery phuyt," which translates as the "shepherd of the anus," according to an article published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.

The ancient Egyptians had sophisticated methods of practicing medicine that combined the supernatural with the natural, such as herbal remedies and surgery.

Their written records have allowed their knowledge to pass down through the ages. While not always accurate, some of their theories and practices were not very different from those in use today.

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Ancient Egyptian medicine: Influences, practice, magic, and religion

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Ancient Egyptian documents are probably the earliest records of healthcare practice. The ancient Egyptians knew something about the human body and they sought healing through both herbal medicine and incantations. They also practiced basic surgery. Both male and female doctors were important. Find out more.

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Life in ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt can be thought of as an oasis in the desert of northeastern Africa, dependent on the annual inundation of the Nile River to support its agricultural population. The country's chief wealth came from the fertile floodplain of the Nile valley, where the river flows between bands of limestone hills, and the Nile delta, in which it fans into several branches north of present-day Cairo. Between the floodplain and the hills is a variable band of low desert that supported a certain amount of game. The Nile was Egypt's sole transportation artery.

The First Cataract at Aswān, where the riverbed is turned into rapids by a belt of granite, was the country's only well-defined boundary within a populated area. To the south lay the far less hospitable area of Nubia, in which the river flowed through low sandstone hills that in most regions left only a very narrow strip of cultivable land. Nubia was significant for Egypt's periodic southward expansion and for access to products from farther south. West of the Nile was the arid Sahara, broken by a chain of oases some 125 to 185 miles (200 to 300 km) from the river and lacking in all other resources except for a few minerals. The eastern desert, between the Nile and the Red Sea, was more important, for it supported a small nomadic population and desert game, contained numerous mineral deposits, including gold, and was the route to the Red Sea.

To the northeast was the Isthmus of Suez. It offered the principal route for contact with Sinai, from which came turquoise and possibly copper, and with southwestern Asia, Egypt's most important area of cultural interaction, from which were received stimuli for technical development and cultivars for crops. Immigrants and ultimately invaders crossed the isthmus into Egypt, attracted by the country's stability and prosperity. From the late 2nd millennium bce onward, numerous attacks were made by land and sea along the eastern Mediterranean coast.

At first, relatively little cultural contact came by way of the Mediterranean Sea, but from an early date Egypt maintained trading relations with the Lebanese port of Byblos (present-day Jbail). Egypt needed few imports to maintain basic standards of living, but good timber was essential and not available within the country, so it usually was obtained from Lebanon. Minerals such as obsidian and lapis lazuli were imported from as far afield as Anatolia and Afghanistan.

Agriculture centred on the cultivation of cereal crops, chiefly emmer wheat ( Triticum dicoccum) and barley ( Hordeum vulgare). The fertility of the land and general predictability of the inundation ensured very high productivity from a single annual crop. This productivity made it possible to store large surpluses against crop failures and also formed the chief basis of Egyptian wealth, which was, until the creation of the large empires of the 1st millennium bce, the greatest of any state in the ancient Middle East.

Basin irrigation was achieved by simple means, and multiple cropping was not feasible until much later times, except perhaps in the lakeside area of Al-Fayyūm. As the river deposited alluvial silt, raising the level of the floodplain, and land was reclaimed from marsh, the area available for cultivation in the Nile valley and delta increased, while pastoralism declined slowly. In addition to grain crops, fruit and vegetables were important, the latter being irrigated year-round in small plots. Fish was also vital to the diet. Papyrus, which grew abundantly in marshes, was gathered wild and in later times was cultivated. It may have been used as a food crop, and it certainly was used to make rope, matting, and sandals. Above all, it provided the characteristic Egyptian writing material, which, with cereals, was the country's chief export in Late period Egyptian and then Greco-Roman times.

Cattle may have been domesticated in northeastern Africa. The Egyptians kept many as draft animals and for their various products, showing some of the interest in breeds and individuals that is found to this day in the Sudan and eastern Africa. The donkey, which was the principal transport animal (the camel did not become common until Roman times), was probably domesticated in the region. The native Egyptian breed of sheep became extinct in the 2nd millennium bce and was replaced by an Asiatic breed. Sheep were primarily a source of meat; their wool was rarely used. Goats were more numerous than sheep. Pigs were also raised and eaten. Ducks and geese were kept for food, and many of the vast numbers of wild and migratory birds found in Egypt were hunted and trapped. Desert game, principally various species of antelope and ibex, were hunted by the elite; it was a royal privilege to hunt lions and wild cattle. Pets included dogs, which were also used for hunting, cats, and monkeys. In addition, the Egyptians had a great interest in, and knowledge of, most species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fish in their environment.

Most Egyptians were probably descended from settlers who moved to the Nile valley in prehistoric times, with population increase coming through natural fertility. In various periods there were immigrants from Nubia, Libya, and especially the Middle East. They were historically significant and also may have contributed to population growth, but their numbers are unknown. Most people lived in villages and towns in the Nile valley and delta. Dwellings were normally built of mud brick and have long since disappeared beneath the rising water table or beneath modern town sites, thereby obliterating evidence for settlement patterns. In antiquity, as now, the most favoured location of settlements was on slightly raised ground near the riverbank, where transport and water were easily available and flooding was unlikely. Until the 1st millennium bce, Egypt was not urbanized to the same extent as Mesopotamia. Instead, a few centres, notably Memphis and Thebes, attracted population and particularly the elite, while the rest of the people were relatively evenly spread over the land. The size of the population has been estimated as having risen from 1 to 1.5 million in the 3rd millennium bce to perhaps twice that number in the late 2nd millennium and 1st millennium bce. (Much higher levels of population were reached in Greco-Roman times.)

Nearly all of the people were engaged in agriculture and were probably tied to the land. In theory all the land belonged to the king, although in practice those living on it could not easily be removed and some categories of land could be bought and sold. Land was assigned to high officials to provide them with an income, and most tracts required payment of substantial dues to the state, which had a strong interest in keeping the land in agricultural use. Abandoned land was taken back into state ownership and reassigned for cultivation. The people who lived on and worked the land were not free to leave and were obliged to work it, but they were not slaves; most paid a proportion of their produce to major officials. Free citizens who worked the land on their own behalf did emerge; terms applied to them tended originally to refer to poor people, but these agriculturalists were probably not poor. Slavery was never common, being restricted to captives and foreigners or to people who were forced by poverty or debt to sell themselves into service. Slaves sometimes even married members of their owners' families, so that in the long term those belonging to households tended to be assimilated into free society. In the New Kingdom (from about 1539 to 1075 bce), large numbers of captive slaves were acquired by major state institutions or incorporated into the army. Punitive treatment of foreign slaves or of native fugitives from their obligations included forced labour, exile (in, for example, the oases of the western desert), or compulsory enlistment in dangerous mining expeditions. Even nonpunitive employment such as quarrying in the desert was hazardous. The official record of one expedition shows a mortality rate of more than 10 percent.

Just as the Egyptians optimized agricultural production with simple means, their crafts and techniques, many of which originally came from Asia, were raised to extraordinary levels of perfection. The Egyptians' most striking technical achievement, massive stone building, also exploited the potential of a centralized state to mobilize a huge labour force, which was made available by efficient agricultural practices. Some of the technical and organizational skills involved were remarkable. The construction of the great pyramids of the 4th dynasty ( c. 2575- c. 2465 bce) has yet to be fully explained and would be a major challenge to this day. This expenditure of skill contrasts with sparse evidence of an essentially neolithic way of living for the rural population of the time, while the use of flint tools persisted even in urban environments at least until the late 2nd millennium bce. Metal was correspondingly scarce, much of it being used for prestige rather than everyday purposes.

In urban and elite contexts, the Egyptian ideal was the nuclear family, but, on the land and even within the central ruling group, there is evidence for extended families. Egyptians were monogamous, and the choice of partners in marriage, for which no formal ceremony or legal sanction is known, did not follow a set pattern. Consanguineous marriage was not practiced during the Dynastic period, except for the occasional marriage of a brother and sister within the royal family, and that practice may have been open only to kings or heirs to the throne. Divorce was in theory easy, but it was costly. Women had a legal status only marginally inferior to that of men. They could own and dispose of property in their own right, and they could initiate divorce and other legal proceedings. They hardly ever held administrative office but increasingly were involved in religious cults as priestesses or "chantresses." Married women held the title "mistress of the house," the precise significance of which is unknown. Lower down the social scale, they probably worked on the land as well as in the house.

The uneven distribution of wealth, labour, and technology was related to the only partly urban character of society, especially in the 3rd millennium bce. The country's resources were not fed into numerous provincial towns but instead were concentrated to great effect around the capital-itself a dispersed string of settlements rather than a city-and focused on the central figure in society, the king. In the 3rd and early 2nd millennia, the elite ideal, expressed in the decoration of private tombs, was manorial and rural. Not until much later did Egyptians develop a more pronouncedly urban character.

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Ancient Egypt | History, Government, Culture, Map, & Facts

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Ancient Egypt, civilization in northeastern Africa that dates from the 4th millennium BCE. Its many achievements, preserved in its art and monuments, hold a fascination that continues to grow as archaeological finds expose its secrets. Learn more about ancient Egypt in this article.

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Ancient Egyptian Writing is known as hieroglyphics ('sacred carvings') and developed at some point prior to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150 -2613 BCE). According to some scholars, the concept of the written word was first developed in Mesopotamia and came to Egypt through trade. While there certainly was cross-cultural exchange between the two regions, Egyptian hieroglyphics are completely Egyptian in origin; there is no evidence of early writings which describe non-Egyptian concepts, places, or objects, and early Egyptian pictographs have no correlation to early Mesopotamian signs. The designation 'hieroglyphics' is a Greek word; the Egyptians referred to their writing as medu-netjer, 'the god's words,' as they believed writing had been given to them by the great god Thoth.

According to one ancient Egyptian tale, in the beginning of time Thoth created himself and, in the form of an ibis, lay the cosmic egg which held all of creation. In another story, Thoth emerged from the lips of the sun god Ra at the dawn of time, and in another, he was born of the contendings of the gods Horus and Set, representing the forces of order and chaos. In all of these, however, the constant is that Thoth was born with an immense breadth of knowledge and, among the most important, the knowledge of the power of words.

Thoth gave human beings this knowledge freely, but it was a responsibility he expected them to take seriously. Words could hurt, heal, elevate, destroy, condemn, and even raise someone from death to life. Egyptologist Rosalie David comments on this:

The main purpose of writing was not decorative, and it was not originally intended for literary or commercial use. Its most important function was to provide a means by which certain concepts or events could be brought into existence. The Egyptians believed that if something were committed to writing it could be repeatedly "made to happen" by means of magic. (199)

This concept is not as strange as it might first appear. Any writer knows that one often has no idea what one wants to say until the end of the first draft, and every avid reader understands the "magic" of discovering unknown worlds between the covers of a book and making that magic happen again each time the book is opened. David's reference to "concepts or events" coming into existence through writing is a common understanding among writers. American author William Faulkner stated in his Nobel Prize address that he wrote "to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before" (1). This same motivation has been expressed in different words by many writers over the centuries, but before any of them even existed the ancient Egyptians understood this concept well. The great gift of Thoth was the ability not only to express one's self but to literally be able to change the world through the power of words. Before that could happen, however, before the gift could be put to its full use, it had to be understood.

The Creation of Writing

However much Thoth had to do with giving humans their system of writing (and, to the Egyptians, 'humanity' equaled 'Egyptian'), the ancient Egyptians had to work out for themselves what this gift was and how to use it. Sometime in the latter part of the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000 - c. 3150 BCE), they began to use symbols to represent simple concepts. Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim writes how this early script "was limited to the briefest notations designed to identify a person or a place, an event or a possession" (3). Most likely the earliest purpose writing served was in trade, to convey information about goods, prices, purchases, between one point and another. The first actual extant evidence of Egyptian writing, however, comes from tombs in the form of Offering Lists in the Early Dynastic Period.

Death was not the end of life for the ancient Egyptians; it was only a transition from one state to another. The dead lived on in the afterlife and relied upon the living to remember them and present them with offerings of food and drink. An Offering List was an inventory of the gifts due to a particular person and inscribed on the wall of their tomb. Someone who had performed great deeds, held a high position of authority, or led troops to victory in battle were due greater offerings than another who had done relatively little with their lives. Along with the list was a brief epitaph stating who the person was, what they had done, and why they were due such offerings. These lists and epitaphs might sometimes be quite brief but most of the time were not and became longer as this practice continued. Lichtheim explains:

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The Offering List grew to enormous length till the day on which an inventive mind realized that a short Prayer for Offerings would be an effective substitute for the unwieldy list. Once the prayer, which may already have existed in spoken form, was put into writing, it became the basic element around which tomb-texts and representations were organized. Similarly, the ever lengthening lists of an official's ranks and titles were infused with life when the imagination began to flesh them out with narration, and the Autobiography was born. (3)

The autobiography and the prayer became the first forms of Egyptian literature and were created using the hieroglyphic script.

Development & Use of Hieroglyphic Script

Hieroglyphics developed out of the early pictographs. People used symbols, pictures to represent concepts such as a person or event. The problem with a pictogram, however, is that the information it contains is quite limited. One may draw a picture of a woman and a temple and a sheep but has no way of relaying their connection. Is the woman coming from or going to the temple? Is the sheep an offering she is leading to the priests or a gift to her from them? Is the woman even going to the temple at all or is she merely walking a sheep in the vicinity? Are the woman and sheep even related at all? The early pictographic writing lacked any ability to answer these questions.

The Egyptians developed the same system as the Sumerians but added logograms (symbols representing words) and ideograms to their script.

The Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia had already come upon this problem in writing and created an advanced script c. 3200 BCE in the city of Uruk. The theory that Egyptian script developed from Mesopotamian writing is most sharply challenged by this development, in fact, because if the Egyptians had learned the art of writing from the Sumerians, they would have bypassed the stage of pictograms and begun with the Sumerian creation of phonograms - symbols which represent sound. The Sumerians learned to expand their written language through symbols directly representing that language so that if they wished to relay some specific information regarding a woman, a temple, and a sheep, they could write, "The woman took the sheep as an offering to the temple," and the message was clear.

The Egyptians developed this same system but added logograms (symbols representing words) and ideograms to their script. An ideogram is a 'sense sign' that conveys a certain message clearly through a recognizable symbol. The best example of an ideogram is probably a minus sign: one recognizes that it means subtraction. The emoji is a modern example familiar to anyone acquainted with texting; placing the image of a laughing face at the end of one's sentence lets a reader know that one is joking or finds the subject funny. The phonogram, logogram, and ideogram made up the basis for hieroglyphic script. Rosalie David explains:

There are three types of phonograms in hieroglypics: uniliteral or alphabetic signs, where one hieroglyph (picture) represents a single consonant or sound value; biliteral signs, where one hieroglyph represents two consonants; and triliteral signs where one hieroglyph represents three consonants. There are twenty-four hieroglyphic signs in the Egyptian alphabet and these are the phonograms most commonly used. But since there was never a purely alphabetic system, these signs were placed alongside other phonograms (biliterals and triliterals) and ideograms. Ideograms were often placed at the end of a word (spelled out in phonograms) to clarify the meaning of that word and, when used in this way, we refer to them as "determinatives." This assists in two ways: the addition of a determinative helps to clarify the meaning of a particular word, since some words look similar or identical to each other when spelled out and written down only in the phonograms; and beacuse determinatives stand at the end of the word they can indicate where one word ends and another begins. (193)

A modern-day example of how hieroglyphics were written would be a text message in which an emoji of an angry face is placed after an image of a school. Without having to use any words one could convey the concept of "I hate school" or "I am angry about school." If one wanted to make one's problem clearer, one could place an image of a teacher or fellow student before the angry-face-ideogram or a series of pictures telling a story of a problem one had with a teacher. Determinatives were important in the script, especially because hieroglyphics could be written left-to-right or right-to-left or down-to-up or up-to-down. Inscriptions over temple doors, palace gates, and tombs go in whatever direction was best served for that message. The beauty of the final work was the only consideration in which direction the script was to be read. Egyptologist Karl-Theodor Zauzich notes:

The placement of hieroglyphs in relation to one another was governed by aesthetic rules. The Egyptians always tried to group signs in balanced rectangles. For example, the word for "health" was written with the three consonants s-n-b. These would not be written [in a linear fashion] by an Egyptian because the group would look ugly, it would be considered "incorrect". The "correct" writing would be the grouping of the signs into a rectangle...The labor of construction was lightened somewhat by the fact that individual hieroglyphs could be enlarged or shrunk as the grouping required and that some signs could be placed either horizontally or vertically. Scribes would even reverse the order of signs if it seemed that a more balanced rectangle could be obtained by writing them in the wrong order. (4)

The script could easily be read by recognizing the direction the phonograms were facing. Images in any inscription always face the beginning of the line of text; if the text is to be read left-to-right then the faces of the people, birds, and animals will be looking to the left. These sentences were easy enough to read for those who knew the Egyptian language but not for others. Zauzich notes how "nowhere among all the hieroglyphs is there a single sign that represents the sound of a vowel" (6). Vowels were placed in a sentence by the reader who understood the spoken language. Zauzich writes:

This is less complicated than it sounds. For example, any of us can read an advertisement that consists almost entirely of consonants:

3rd flr apt in hse, 4 lg rms, exclnt loc nr cntr, prkg, w-b-frpl, hdwd flrs, skylts, ldry, $600 incl ht (6).

In this same way, the ancient Egyptians would be able to read hieroglyphic script by recognizing what 'letters' were missing in a sentence and applying them.

Other Scripts

Hieroglyphics were comprised of an 'alphabet' of 24 basic consonants which would convey meaning but over 800 different symbols to express that meaning precisely which all had to be memorized and used correctly. Zauzich answers the question which may immediately come to mind:

It may well be asked why the Egyptians developed a complicated writing system that used several hundred signs when they could have used their alphabet of some thirty signs and made their language much easier to read and write. This puzzling fact probably has a historical explanation: the one-consonant signs were not "discovered" until after the other signs were in use. Since by that time the entire writing system was established, it could not be discarded, for specific religious reasons. Hieroglyphics were regarded as a precious gift of Thoth, the god of wisdom. To stop using many of these signs and to change the entire system of writing would have been considered both a sacrilege and an immense loss, not to mention the fact that such a change would make all the older texts meaningless at a single blow. (11)

Even so, hieroglyphics were obviously quite labor-intensive for a scribe and so another faster script was developed shortly after known as hieratic ('sacred writing'). Hieratic script used characters which were simplified versions of hieroglyphic symbols. Hieratic appeared in the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt after hieroglyphic writing was already firmly developed.

Hieroglyphics continued to be used throughout Egypt's history in all forms of writing but came primarily to be the script of monuments and temples. Hieroglyphics, grouped in their beautifully formed rectangles, leant themselves to the grandeur of monumental inscriptions. Hieratic came to be used first in religious texts but then in other areas such as business administration, magical texts, personal and business letters, and legal documents such as wills and court records. Hieratic was written on papyrus or ostraca and practiced on stone and wood. It developed into a cursive script around 800 BCE (known as 'abnormal hieratic') and then was replaced c. 700 BCE by demotic script.

Demotic script ('popular writing') was used in every kind of writing while hieroglyphics continued to be the script of monumental inscriptions in stone. The Egyptians called demotic sekh-shat, 'writing for documents,' and it became the most popular for the next 1,000 years in all kinds of written works. Demotic script seems to have originated in the Delta region of Lower Egypt and spread south during the 26th Dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1069-525 BCE). Demotic continued in use through the Late Period of Ancient Egypt (525-332 BCE) and the Ptolemaic Dynasty (332-30 BCE) into Roman Egypt when it was replaced by Coptic script.Coptic was the script of the Copts, Egyptian Christians, who spoke Egyptian dialects but wrote in the Greek alphabet with some additions from demotic script. Since the Greek language had vowels, the Copts incorporated them in their script to make the meaning clear to anyone reading it, no matter what their native language. Coptic script was used to copy and preserve a number of important documents, most notably the books of the Christian New Testament, and also served to provide the key to later generations for understanding hieroglyphics.

Loss & Discovery

It has been argued that the meaning of hieroglyphics was lost throughout the later periods of Egyptian history as people forgot how to read and write the symbols. Actually, hieroglyphics were still in use as late as the Ptolemaic Dynasty and only fell out of favor with the rise of the new religion of Christianity during the early Roman Period. There were lapses throughout the country's history in the use of hieroglyphics, but the art was not lost until the world the script represented changed. As Coptic script continued to be used in the new paradigm of Egyptian culture; hieroglyphic writing faded into memory. By the time of the Arab Invasion of the 7th century CE, no one living in Egypt knew what the hieroglyphic inscriptions meant.

When the European nations began exploring the country in the 17th century CE, they had no more of an idea that the hieroglyphics were a written language than the Muslims had. In the 17th century CE, hieroglyphics were firmly claimed to be magical symbols and this understanding was primarily encouraged through the work of the German scholar and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1620-1680 CE). Kircher followed the lead of ancient Greek writers who had also failed to understand the meaning of hieroglyphics and believed they were symbols. Taking their interpretation as fact instead of conjecture, Kircher insisted on an interpretation where each symbol represented a concept, much in the way the modern peace sign would be understood. His attempts to decipher Egyptian writing failed, therefore, because he was operating from a wrong model.

Many other scholars would attempt to decipher the meaning of the ancient Egyptian symbols without success between Kircher's work and the 19th century CE but had no basis for understanding what they were working with. Even when it seemed as though the symbols suggested a certain pattern such as one would find in a writing system, there was no way to recognize what those patterns translated to. In 1798 CE, however, when Napoleon's army invaded Egypt, the Rosetta Stone was discovered by one of his lieutenants, who recognized its potential importance and had it sent to Napoleon's institute for study in Cairo. The Rosetta Stone is a proclamation in Greek, hieroglyphics, and demotic from the reign of Ptolemy V (204-181 BCE). All three texts relay the same information in keeping with the Ptolemaic ideal of a multi-cultural society; whether one read Greek, hieroglyphic, or demotic, one would be able to understand the message on the stone.

Work on deciphering hieroglyphics with the help of the stone was delayed until the English defeated the French in the Napoleonic Wars and the stone was brought from Cairo to England. Once there, scholars set about trying to understand the ancient writing system but were still working from the earlier understanding Kircher had so convincingly advanced. The English polymath and scholar Thomas Young (1773-1829 CE) came to believe that the symbols represented words and that hieroglyphics were closely related to demotic and later Coptic scripts. His work was built upon by his sometimes-colleague-sometimes-rival, the philologist and scholar Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832 CE).

Champollion's name is forever linked with the Rosetta Stone and the decipherment of hieroglyphics because of the famous publication of his work in 1824 CE which conclusively showed that Egyptian hieroglyphics were a writing system composed of phonograms, logograms, and ideograms. Contention between Young and Champollion over who made the more significant discoveries and who deserves the greater credit is reflected in the same ongoing debate in the present day by scholars. It seems quite clear, however, that Young's work lay the foundation on which Champollion was able to build but it was Champollion's breakthrough which finally deciphered the ancient writing system and opened up Egyptian culture and history for the world.

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Ancient Egyptian Writing is known as hieroglyphics ('sacred carvings') and developed at some point prior to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150 -2613 BCE). According to some scholars, the concept of the written word was first developed in Mesopotamia and came to Egypt through trade.

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Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they've all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

However, there's more to ancient Egypt than the amazing stories we hear about the pharaohs and the dynasties that have ruled the land of sand and pyramids for thousands of years. Egyptians left us a valuable legacy through their inventions and discoveries that changed the course of history and led to the development of the modern world. So, let's take a trip through Egypt's history and explore the most notable creations that ancient Egyptians gave us.
Medical science
Ancient Egyptians were quite knowledgeable when it came to understanding different ailments and they were quite skilled at treating them as well. Several medical texts have been discovered, describing medical procedures and recipes in great detail. They used herbs and animal parts to cure wounds and other health issues, so they didn't rely on magical powers or unearthly forces to ensure their good health and wellbeing. But what's even more impressive is that they also performed surgeries. The bronze surgical tools and the papyrus logs that have been discovered stand proof of their advanced medical skills, so Egyptians can be considered the precursors to modern medicine.
Mathematics
Egyptians were also great mathematicians, knowing how to perform calculations such as additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions in effective ways, and there's evidence proving they were the first to come up with the concept of basic fractions. They also had knowledge in geometry and they made use of these skills to help them take accurate measurements and build their impressive monuments. Just think about the Great Pyramids and the level of mathematical and geometrical knowledge this civilization had to possess in order to build such massive structures.
Written language
Although the Egyptian alphabet is no longer in use today, they were the first civilization to use symbols to represent individual sounds, thus developing written language. Egyptians initially used hieroglyphs to express their ideas in written form, but over the course of time they invented 24 alphabets. They also took one step further by leaving behind the common practice of carving these symbols into stone and started using papyrus for their writings, crafted from the plant with the same name that grew on the banks of Nile. This inspired other civilizations to develop similar materials such as parchments and then the Chinese finally invented the paper in 100 BC.
Art and architecture
It's quite obvious that ancient Egyptians excelled in both art and architecture. Numerous structures and art pieces have stood the test of time and still amaze us today with their beauty and intricacy. It remains a mystery how such an ancient civilization could create these mesmerizing monuments. Archaeologists have discovered countless art pieces from different dynasties which make the object of fasciation to this day. So much so that people even try to replicate the style and artistry of ancient Egyptians, searching for Egyptian antiquities for sale to decorate their homes and bring an unique accent to their space.
Makeup and wigs
In ancient Egypt, both men and women were equally interested in makeup and enhancing their physical appearance. For them, beauty was related to sacredness, and people from all classes indulged in the art of makeup. We all know the stories about queen Cleopatra's ravishing beauty, so for Egyptians outward appearance was a matter of no small importance. Women from upper classes would use creams and powders to make their skin look lighter, but the most popular beauty trend was of course the use of heavy eye makeup. Egyptians would use either grepond eye-paint or black kohl to contour their eyes. Another widespread beauty trend in ancient Egypt was wearing wigs. It was a sign of nobility as most nobles would shave their heads and cover their heads with wigs made from natural hair.
The calendar
The Egyptian calendar is amongst the first dating systems known to mankind. The Egyptians who were skilled astronomers discovered the lunar year and created a calendar based on the phases of the moon, but they later introduced a civil calendar that very much resembles the one we use today. According to the Egyptian civil calendar, the year had 365 days and consisted of three seasons of 120 days each. The seasons would have four months of 30 days and at the end of each year there would be 5 epagomenal days added. So, we can all thank ancient Egyptians for forming the basis of the modern-day calendar.
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How ancient Egyptian civilization influenced the modern world - Reader's Digest

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Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they’ve all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

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How ancient Egypt shaped our idea of beauty

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Pop culture is steeped in images of smoky-eyed pharaohs and their queens. Were the ancient Egyptians insufferably vain – or are we simply projecting our own values onto them?

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt. The pyramids at Giza remain impressive monuments thousands of years after they were built and the knowledge and skill required to construct them was gathered over the many centuries prior to their construction. Yet the pyramids are not the apex of ancient Egyptian architecture; they are only the earliest and best known expressions of a culture which would go on to create buildings, monuments, and temples just as intriguing.

6,000 Years of History

Ancient Egyptian history begins prior to the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) and continues through the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Artifacts and evidence of overgrazing of cattle, in the area now known as the Sahara Desert, date human habitation in the area to c. 8000 BCE. The Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (c. 3150 - 2613 BCE) built upon the knowledge of those who had gone before and Predynastic art and architecture was improved on. The first pyramid in Egypt, Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara, comes from the end of this Early Dynastic Period and a comparison of this monument and its surrounding complex with the mastaba tombs of earlier centuries show how far the Egyptians had advanced in their understanding of architectural design and construction. Equally impressive, however, is the link between these great monuments and those which came after them.

The pyramids at Giza date from the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 - 2181 BCE) and represent the pinnacle of talent and skill acquired at that time. Ancient Egyptian history, however, still had a long and illustrious path before it and as the pyramid form was abandoned the Egyptians focused their attention on temples. Many of these whose ruins are still extant, such as the temple complex of Amun-Ra at Karnak, inspire as much genuine awe as the pyramids at Giza but all of them, however great or modest, show an attention to detail and an awareness of aesthetic beauty and practical functionality which makes them masterpieces of architecture. These structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, and raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, & raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian Architecture & the Creation Of The World

At the beginning of time, according to the Egyptian religion, there was nothing but swirling waters of dark chaos. From these primordial waters rose a mound of dry land, known as the ben-ben, around which the waters rolled. Upon the mound lighted the god Atum who looked out over the darkness and felt lonely; so he mated with himself and creation began.

Atum was responsible for the unknowable universe, the sky above, and the earth below. Through his children he was also the creator of human beings (though in some versions the goddess Neith plays a part in this). The world and all that human beings knew came from water, from dampness, moistness, from the kind of environment familiar to the Egyptians from the Nile Delta. Everything had been created by the gods and these gods were ever-present in one's life through nature.

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The lives of the gods mirrored those of the people and the Egyptians honored them in their lives and through their works. The gods were thought to have provided the most perfect of worlds for the people of ancient Egypt; so perfect, in fact, that it would last forever. The afterlife was simply a continuation of the life one had been living. It is not surprising, then, that when these people constructed their great monuments they would reflect this belief system. The architecture of ancient Egypt tells this story of the people's relationship with their land and their gods. The symmetry of the structures, the inscriptions, the interior design, all reflect the concept of harmony ( ma'at) which was central to the ancient Egyptian value system.

The Predynastic & Early Dynastic Periods

The homes and tombs of the Predynastic Period were built of mud-brick which was dried in the sun (a practice which would continue throughout Egypt's history). Homes were thatched structures of reeds which were daubed with mud for walls prior to the discovery of brick making. These early buildings were circular or oval before bricks were used and, after, became square or rectangular. Communities gathered together for protection from the elements, wild animals, and strangers and grew into cities which encircled themselves with walls.

As civilization advanced, so did the architecture with the appearance of windows and doors braced and adorned by wooden frames. Wood was more plentiful in Egypt at this time but still not in the quantity to suggest itself as a building material on any large scale. The mud brick oval home became the rectangular house with a vaulted roof, a garden, and courtyard. Work in mud brick is also evidenced in the construction of tombs which, during the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt, become more elaborate and intricate in design. These early oblong tombs (mastabas) continued to be built of mud brick but already at this time people were working in stone to create temples to their gods. Stone monuments (stelae) begin to appear, along with these temples, by the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BCE).

Obelisks, large upright stone monuments with four sides and a tapered top, began to appear in the city of Heliopolis at about this time. The Egyptian obelisk (known to them as tekhenu, "obelisk" being the Greek name) is among the most perfect examples of Egyptian architecture reflecting the relationship between the gods and the people as they were always raised in pairs and it was thought that the two created on earth were mirrored by two identical pieces raised in the heavens at the same time. Quarrying, carving, transporting, and raising the obelisks required enormous skill and labor and taught the Egyptians well how to work in stone and move immensely heavy objects over many miles. Mastering stonework set the stage for the next great leap in Egyptian architecture: the pyramid.

Djoser's mortuary complex at Saqqara was conceived by his vizier and chief architect Imhotep (c. 2667 - c. 2600 BCE) who imagined a great mastaba tomb for his king built of stone. Djoser's pyramid is not a "true pyramid" but a series of stacked mastabas known as a "step pyramid". Even so, it was an incredibly impressive feat which had never been achieved before. Historian Desmond Stewart comments on this:

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara marks one of those developments that afterward seem inevitable but that would have been impossible without an experimenting genius. That the royal official Imhotep was such a genius we know, not from Greek legend, which identified him with Aesculapius, the god of medicine, but from what archaeologists have discovered from his still impressive pyramid. Investigation has shown that, at every stage, he was prepared to experiment along new lines. His first innovation was to construct a mastaba that was not oblong, but square. His second concerned the material from which it was built (cited in Nardo, 125).

Temple construction, albeit on a modest level, had already acquainted the Egyptians with stonework. Imhotep imagined the same on a grand scale. The early mastabas had been decorated with inscriptions and engravings of reeds, flowers, and other nature imagery; Imhotep wanted to continue that tradition in a more durable material. His great, towering mastaba pyramid would have the same delicate touches and symbolism as the more modest tombs which had preceded it and, better yet, these would all be worked in stone instead of dried mud. Historian Mark van de Mieroop comments on this:

Imhotep reproduced in stone what had been previously built of other materials. The facade of the enclosure wall had the same niches as the tombs of mud brick, the columns resembled bundles of reed and papyrus, and stone cylinders at the lintels of doorways represented rolled-up reed screens. Much experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex. It had several plans with mastaba forms before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six mastaba-like levels on top of one another...The weight of the enormous mass was a challenge to the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to prevent the monument breaking up (56).

When completed, the Step Pyramid rose 204 feet (62 meters) high and was the tallest structure of its time. The surrounding complex included a temple, courtyards, shrines, and living quarters for the priests covering an area of 40 acres (16 hectares) and surrounded by a wall 30 feet (10.5 meters) high. The wall had 13 false doors cut into it with only one true entrance cut in the south-east corner; the entire wall was then ringed by a trench 2,460 feet (750 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide. The actual tomb of Djoser was located beneath the pyramid at the bottom of a shaft 92 feet (28 meters) long. The tomb chamber itself was encased in granite but, to reach it, one had to traverse a maze of hallways, all brightly painted with reliefs and inlaid with tiles, leading to other rooms or dead ends filled with stone vessels carved with the names of earlier kings. This labyrinth was created, of course, to protect the tomb and grave goods of the king but, unfortunately, it failed to keep out ancient grave robbers and the tomb was looted at some point in antiquity.

Djoser's Step Pyramid incorporates all of the elements most resonant in Egyptian architecture: symmetry, balance, and grandeur which reflected the core values of the culture. Egyptian civilization was based upon the concept of ma'at(harmony, balance) which was decreed by their gods. The architecture of ancient Egypt, whether on a small or large scale, always represented these ideals. Palaces were even built with two entrances, two throne rooms, two receiving halls in order to maintain symmetry and balance in representing both Upper and Lower Egypt in the design

The innovations of Imhotep were carried further by the kings of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. The last king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, Huni (c. 2630 - 2613 BCE), was long thought to have initiated the massive building projects of the Old Kingdom in constructing the pyramid at Meidum but that honor is due the first king of the 4th Dynasty, Sneferu (c. 2613 - 2589 BCE). Egyptologist Barbara Watterson writes, "Sneferu initiated the golden age of the Old Kingdom, his most notable achievements being the two pyramids built for him at Dahshur" (50-51). Sneferu began his work with the pyramid at Meidum now referred to as the "collapsed pyramid" or, locally, as the "false pyramid" because of its shape: it resembles a tower more than a pyramid and its outer casing rests around it in a gigantic heap of gravel.

The pyramid of Meidum is the first true pyramid constructed in Egypt. A "true pyramid" is defined as a perfectly symmetrical monument whose steps have been filled in to create seamless sides tapering toward a point at the top. Originally, any pyramid began as a step pyramid. The Meidum pyramid did not last, however, because modifications were made to Imhotep's original pyramid design which resulted in the outer casing resting on a sand foundation rather than rock, causing it to collapse. Scholars are divided on whether the collapse occurred during construction or over a longer period of time.

Sneferu's experiments with the stone pyramid form served his successor well. Khufu (2589 - 2566 BCE) learned from his father's experiments and directed his administration in constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Contrary to the popular belief that his monument was built by Hebrew slaves, Egyptian workers on the Great Pyramid were well cared for and performed their duties as part of a community service, as paid laborers, or during the time when the Nile's flood made farming impossible. Scholars Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs note:

Were it not for the two months every year when the Nile's water covered Egypt's farmland, idling virtually the entire workforce, none of this construction would have been possible. During such times, a pharaoh offered food for work and the promise of a favored treatment in the afterworld where he would rule just as he did in this world. For two months annually, workmen gathered by the tens of thousands from all over the country to transport the blocks a permanent crew had quarried during the rest of the year. Overseers organized the men into teams to transport the stones on sleds, devices better suited than wheeled vehicles to moving weighty objects over shifting sand. A causeway, lubricated by water, smoothed the uphill pull. No mortar was used to hold the blocks in place, only a fit so exact that these towering structures have survived for 4,000 years - the only Wonders of the Ancient World still standing today (17-18).

There is no evidence whatsoever that Hebrew slaves, or any kind of slave labor, went into the construction of the pyramids at Giza, the city of Per-Ramesses, or any other important site in Egypt. The practice of slavery certainly existed in Egypt throughout its history, as it did in every ancient culture, but it was not the kind of slavery popularly depicted in fiction and film based on the biblical Book of Exodus. Slaves in the ancient world could be tutors and teachers of the young, accountants, nursemaids, dance instructors, brewers, even philosophers. Slaves in Egypt were either captives from military campaigns or those who could not pay their debts and these people usually worked in the mines and quarries.

The men and women who worked on the Great Pyramid lived in state-provided housing on the site (as discovered by Lehner and Hawass in 1979 CE) and were well compensated for their efforts. The more skilled a worker was, the higher their compensation. The result of their work still amazes people in the modern day. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder left of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and justifiably so: until the Eifel Tower was completed in 1889 CE, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on earth built by human hands. Historian Marc van de Mieroop writes:

The size boggles the mind: it was 146 meters high (479 feet) by 230 meters at the base (754 feet). We estimate that it contained 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2 and 3/4 tons some weighing up to 16 tons. Khufu ruled 23 years according to the Turin Royal Canon, which would mean that throughout his reign annually 100,000 blocks - daily about 285 blocks or one every two minutes of daylight - had to be quarried, transported, dressed, and put in place...The construction was almost faultless in design. The sides were oriented exactly toward the cardinal points and were at precise 90-degree angles (58).

The second pyramid constructed at Giza belongs to Khufu's successor Khafre (2558 - 2532 BCE) who is also credited with creating the Great Sphinx of Giza. The third pyramid belongs to his successor Menkaure (2532 - 2503 BCE). An inscription from c. 2520 BCE relates how Menkaure came to inspect his pyramid and assigned 50 of the workers to the new task of building a tomb for his official, Debhen. Part of the inscription reads, "His majesty commanded that no man should be taken for any forced labour" and that rubbish should be cleared from the site for construction (Lewis, 9). This was a fairly common practice at Giza where the kings would commission tombs for their friends and favored officials.

The Giza plateau today presents a very different image from what it would have looked like in the time of the Old Kingdom. It was not the lonely site at the edge of the desert it is today but a sizeable necropolis which had shops, factories, markets, temples, housing, public gardens, and numerous monuments. The Great Pyramid was sheathed in an outer casing of gleaming white limestone and rose from the center of the small city, visible from miles around. Giza was a self-sustaining community whose people were government workers but the construction of the enormous monuments there in the 4th Dynasty was very costly. Khafre's pyramid and complex are a little smaller than Khufu's and Menkaure's smaller than Khafre's and this is because, as 4th Dynasty pyramid building continued, resources dwindled. Menkaure's successor, Shepsekhaf (2503 - 2498 BCE) was buried in a modest mastaba at Saqqara.

The cost of the pyramids was not only financial but political. Giza was not the only necropolis in Egypt at the time and all of these sites required maintenance and administration which was carried out by priests. As these sites grew, so did the wealth and power of the priests and the regional governors (nomarchs) who presided over the different districts the sites were in. The later rulers of the Old Kingdom built temples (or pyramids on a much smaller scale) as these were more affordable. The shift from the pyramid monument to the temple signaled a deeper shift in sensibilities which had to do with the growing power of the priesthood: monuments were no longer being built to honor a certain king but for a specific god.

The power of the priests and nomarchs, along with other factors, brought about the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Egypt then entered the era known as the First Intermediate Period (2181 - 2040 BCE) in which individual regions essentially governed themselves. The kings still ruled from Memphis but they were ineffectual.

The First Intermediate Period of Egypt has traditionally been depicted as a time of decline because no great monuments were raised and the quality of the art is considered inferior to that of the Old Kingdom. Actually, though, the artwork and architecture is simply different, not sub-par. In the Old Kingdom, architectural works were state-sponsored, as was artwork, and so was more or less uniform to reflect the tastes of royalty. In the First Intermediate Period, regional artists and architects were free to explore different forms and styles. Historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Under the nomarchs, architecture survived the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Their patronage continued into the Middle Kingdom, resulting in such remarkable sites as Beni Hassan (c. 1900 BC) with its rock carved tombs and large chapels complete with columned porticos and painted walls (32).

When Mentuhotep II (c. 2061 - 2010 BCE) united Egypt under Theban rule, royal commissioning of art and architecture resumed but, unlike in the Old Kingdom, variety and personal expression was encouraged. Middle Kingdom architecture, beginning with Mentuhotep's grand mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahri near Thebes, is at once grand and personal in scope.

Under the reign of king Senusret I (c. 1971 - 1926 BCE), the great Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak was begun when this monarch erected a modest structure at the site. This temple, like all Middle Kingdom temples, was constructed with an outer courtyard, columned courts which led to halls and ritual chambers, and an inner sanctum which housed a god's statue. Sacred lakes were created at these sites and the entire effect was a symbolic representation of the beginning of the world and the harmonious operation of the universe. Bunson writes:

Temples were religious structures considered the "horizon" of a divine being, the point at which the god came into existence during creation. Thus, each temple had a link to the past, and the rituals conducted within its court were formulas handed down for generations. The temple was also a mirror of the universe and a representation of the Primeval Mound where creation began (258).

Homes and other buildings continued to be made from mud brick during the Middle Kingdom; stone was only used for temples and monuments and this was usually limestone, sandstone or, in some cases, granite which required the greatest skill to work in. A little known masterpiece of the Middle Kingdom, long ago lost, was the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III (c. 1860 - 1815 BCE) at the city of Hawara.

This complex was enormous, featuring twelve great separate courts which faced one another across an expanse of columned halls and interior hallways so intricate that it was called "the labyrinth" by Herodotus. The courts and hallways were further connected by corridors and colonnades and shafts so that a visitor might walk down a familiar hall but take an unfamiliar turn and wind up in a completely different area of the complex than the one they had intended. Criss-crossing alleys and false doors sealed by stone plugs served to confuse and disorient a visitor to protect the central burial chamber of the pyramid of the king. This chamber is said to have been cut from a single block of granite and to have weighed 110 tons. Herodotus claimed it was more impressive than any of the wonders he had ever seen.

The rulers of the New Kingdom built on a grand scale in keeping with Egypt's new elevated status as an empire. Egypt had never known a foreign power like the Hyksos taking control of their land and, after Ahmose I drove them out, he initiated military campaigns to create buffer zones around Egypt's borders. These areas were expanded by his successors, most notably Thutmose III (1458 - 1425 BCE), until Egypt ruled an empire which stretched from Syria, down the Levant, across to Libya, and down through Nubia. Egypt became immensely wealthy during this time and that wealth was lavished on temples, mortuary complexes, and monuments.

The greatest of these is the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. As with all the other temples in Egypt, this one told the story of the past, the people's lives, and honored the gods but was an immense work-in-progress with every ruler of the New Kingdom adding to it. The site covers over 200 acres and is comprised of a series of pylons (monumental gateways which taper towards the top to cornices), leading into courtyards, halls, and smaller temples. The first pylon opens onto a wide court which invites the visitor further. The second pylon opens onto the Hypostyle Court which measures 337 feet (103 meters) by 170 feet (52 meters). The hall is supported by 134 columns 72 feet (22 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) around in diameter. Scholars estimate one could fit three structures the size of Notre Dame Cathedral inside the main temple alone. Bunson comments:

Karnak remains the most remarkable religious complex ever built on earth. Its 250 acres of temples and chapels, obelisks, columns, and statues built over 2,000 years incorporate the finest aspects of Egyptian art and architecture into a great historical monument of stone (133).

As with all other temples, Karnak is a paragon of symmetrical architecture which seems to rise organically from the earth toward the sky. The great difference between this structure and any other is its grand scale and the scope of the vision. Each ruler who contributed to the building made greater advances than their predecessors but acknowledged those who had gone before. When Thutmose III built his festival hall there he may have removed monuments and buildings of earlier kings whom he then acknowledged with an inscription. Every temple symbolizes Egyptian culture and belief but Karnak does so in large letters and, quite literally, through inscriptions. Thousands of years of history may be read on the walls and columns of the Karnak temple.

Hatshepsut (1479 - 1458 BCE) contributed to Karnak like every other ruler but also commissioned buildings of such beauty and splendor that later kings claimed them as their own. Among her grandest is her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri near Luxor which incorporates every aspect of New Kingdom temple architecture on a grand scale: a landing stage at the water's edge, flagstaffs (relics of the past), pylons, forecourts, hypostyle halls, and a sanctuary. The temple is constructed in three tiers reaching 97 feet (29.5 meters) and visitors are still amazed by the building in the present day.

Long before the author of Exodus ever came up with his story, however, Ramesses II was famous for his military exploits, efficient rule, and magnificent building projects. His city of Per-Ramesses ("City of Ramesses") in Lower Egypt was widely praised by Egyptian scribes and foreign visitors but his temple at Abu Simbel is his masterpiece. The temple, cut from solid rock cliffs, stands 98 feet (30 meters) high and 115 feet (35 meters) long with four seated colossi flanking the entrance, two to each side, depicting Ramesses II on his throne; each one 65 feet (20 meters) tall. Beneath these giant figures are smaller statues (still larger than life) depicting Ramesses' conquered enemies, the Nubians, Libyans, and Hittites. Further statues represent his family members and various protecting gods and symbols of power. Passing between the colossi, through the central entrance, the interior of the temple is decorated with engravings showing Ramesses and Nefertari paying homage to the gods.

Abu Simbel is perfectly aligned with the east so that, twice a year on 21 February and 21 October, the sun shines directly into the inner sanctum to illuminate statues of Ramesses II and the god Amun. This is another aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture which characterizes most, if not all, of the great temples and monuments: celestial alignment. From the pyramids at Giza to the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the Egyptians oriented their buildings according to the cardinal points and in keeping with celestial events. The Egyptian name for a pyramid was Mer, meaning "Place of Ascension" (the name "pyramid" comes from the Greek word pyramis meaning "wheat cake" which is what they thought the structures looked like) as it was believed that the shape of the structure itself would enable the dead king to rise toward the horizon and more easily begin the next phase of his existence in the afterlife. In this same way, temples were oriented to invite the god to the inner sanctum and also, of course, provide access for when they wanted to ascend back to their own higher realms.

Late Period & Ptolemaic Dynasty

The New Kingdom declined as the priests of Amun at Thebes acquired greater power and wealth than the pharaoh while, at the same time, Egypt came to be ruled by weaker and weaker kings. By the time of the reign of Ramesses XI (c. 1107 - 1077 BCE) the central government at Per-Ramesses was completely ineffective and the high priests at Thebes held all the real power.

The city has magnificent public precincts and royal palaces which cover a fourth or even a third of the entire area. For just as each of the kings would, from a love of splendour, add some ornament to the public monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a residence in addition to those already standing (1).

Alexandria became the impressive city Strabo praises during the time of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Ptolemy I (323 - 285 BCE) began the great Library of Alexandria and the temple known as the Serapeum which was completed by Ptolemy II (285 - 246 BCE) who also built the famous Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The early rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty continued the traditions of Egyptian architecture, blending them with their own Greek practices, to create impressive buildings, monuments, and temples. The dynasty ended with the death of the last queen, Cleopatra VII (69 - 30 BCE), and the country was annexed by Rome. The legacy of the Egyptian architects lives on, however, through the monuments they left behind. The imposing pyramids, temples, and monuments of Egypt continue to inspire and intrigue visitors in the present day. Imhotep and those who followed after him envisioned monuments in stone which would defy the passage of time and keep their memory alive. The enduring popularity of these structures today rewards that early vision and accomplishes their goal.

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt.

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The government of ancient Egypt was a theocratic monarchy as the king ruled by a mandate from the gods, initially was seen as an intermediary between human beings and the divine, and was supposed to represent the gods' will through the laws passed and policies approved.

A central government in Egypt is evident by c. 3150 BCE when King Narmer unified the country, but some form of government existed prior to this date. The Scorpion Kings of the Predynastic Period in Egypt (c. 6000-c. 3150 BCE) obviously had a form of monarchial government, but exactly how it operated is not known.

Egyptologists of the 19th century CE divided the country's history into periods in order to clarify and manage their field of study. Periods in which there was a strong central government are called 'kingdoms' while those in which there was disunity or no central government are called 'intermediate periods.' In examining Egyptian history one needs to understand that these are modern designations; the ancient Egyptians did not recognize any demarcations between time periods by these terms. Scribes of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2040-1782 BCE) might look back on the time of the First Intermediate Period (2181-2040 BCE) as a "time of woe" but the period had no official name.

Egypt's form of government lasted, with little modification, from c. 3150 BCE to 30 BCE.

The way in which the government worked changed slightly over the centuries, but the basic pattern was set in the First Dynasty of Egypt (c. 3150 - c. 2890 BCE). The king ruled over the country with a vizier as second-in-command, government officials, scribes, regional governors (known as nomarchs), mayors of the town, and, following the Second Intermediate Period (c. 1782 - c.1570 BCE), a police force. From his palace at the capital, the king would make his pronouncements, decree laws, and commission building projects, and his word would then be implemented by the bureaucracy which became necessary to administer rule in the country. Egypt's form of government lasted, with little modification, from c. 3150 BCE to 30 BCE when the country was annexed by Rome.

The ruler was known as a 'king' up until the New Kingdom of Egypt (1570-1069 BCE) when the term ' pharaoh' (meaning 'Great House,' a reference to the royal residence) came into use. The first king was Narmer (also known as Menes) who established a central government after uniting the country, probably by military means. The economy of Egypt was based on agriculture and used a barter system. The lower-class peasants farmed the land, gave the wheat and other produce to the noble landowner (keeping a modest portion for themselves), and the landowner then turned the produce over to the government to be used in trade or in distribution to the wider community.

Under the reign of Narmer's successor, Hor-Aha (c. 3100-3050 BCE) an event was initiated known as Shemsu Hor (Following of Horus) which would become standard practice for later kings. The king and his retinue would travel through the country and thus make the king's presence and power visible to his subjects. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson comments:

The Shemsu Hor would have served several purposes at once. It allowed the monarch to be a visible presence in the life of his subjects, enabled his officials to keep a close eye on everything that was happening in the country at large, implementing policies, resolving disputes, and dispensing justice; defrayed the costs of maintaining the court and removed the burden of supporting it year-round in one location; and, last but by no means least, facilitated the systematic assessment and levying of taxes. A little later, in the Second Dynasty, the court explicitly recognized the actuarial potential of the Following of Horus. Thereafter, the event was combined with a formal census of the country's agricultural wealth. (44-45)

The Shemsu Hor (better known today as the Egyptian Cattle Count) became the means whereby the government assessed individual wealth and levied taxes. Each district ( nome) was divided into provinces with a nomarch administering overall operation of the nome, and then lesser provincial officials, and then mayors of the towns. Rather than trust a nomarch to accurately report his wealth to the king, he and his court would travel to assess that wealth personally. The Shemsu Hor thus became an important annual (later bi-annual) event in the lives of the Egyptians and, much later, would provide Egyptologists with at least approximate reigns of the kings since the Shemsu Hor was always recorded by reign and year.

Tax collectors would follow the appraisal of the officials in the king's retinue and collect a certain amount of produce from each nome, province, and town, which went to the central government. The government, then, would use that produce in trade. Throughout the Early Dynastic Period, this system worked so well that by the time of the Third Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2670-2613 BCE) building projects requiring substantial costs and an efficient labor force were initiated, the best-known and longest-lasting being The Step Pyramid of King Djoser. During the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2613-2181 BCE) the government was wealthy enough to build even larger monuments such as the pyramids of Giza.

The most powerful person in the country after the king was the vizier. There were sometimes two viziers, one for Upper and one for Lower Egypt. The vizier was the voice of the king and his representative and was usually a relative or someone very close to the monarch. The vizier managed the bureaucracy of the government and delegated the responsibilities as per the orders of the king. During the Old Kingdom, the viziers would have been in charge of the building projects as well as managing other affairs.

Toward the end of the Old Kingdom, the viziers became less vigilant as their position became more comfortable. The enormous wealth of the government was going out to these massive building projects at Giza, at Abusir, Saqqara, and Abydos and the priests who administered the temple complexes at these sites, as well as the nomarchs and provincial governors, were becoming more and more wealthy. As their wealth grew, so did their power, and as their power grew, they were less and less inclined to care very much what the king thought or what his vizier may or may not have demanded of them. The rise in the power of the priests and nomarchs meant a decline in that of the central government which, combined with other factors, brought about the collapse of the Old Kingdom.

The kings still ruled from their capital of Memphis at the beginning of the First Intermediate Period, but they had very little actual power. The nomarchs administered their own regions, collected their own taxes, built their own temples and monuments in their honor, and commissioned their own tombs. The early kings of the First Intermediate Period (7th-10th dynasties) were so ineffectual that their names are hardly remembered and their dates are often confused. The nomarchs, on the other hand, grew steadily in power. Historian Margaret Bunson explains their traditional role prior to the First Intermediate Period:

The power of such local rulers was modified in times of strong pharaohs, but generally they served the central government, accepting the traditional role of being First Under The King. This rank denoted an official's right to administer a particular nome or province on behalf of the pharaoh. Such officials were in charge of the region's courts, treasury, land offices, conservation programs, militia, archives, and store-houses. They reported to the vizier and to the royal treasury on affairs within their jurisdiction. (103)

During the First Intermediate Period, however, the nomarchs used their growing resources to serve themselves and their communities. The kings of Memphis, perhaps in an attempt to regain some of their lost prestige, moved the capital to the city of Herakleopolis but were no more successful there than at the old capital.
C. 2125 BCE an overlord known as Intef I rose to power at a provincial city called Thebes in Upper Egypt and inspired his community to rebel against the kings of Memphis. His actions would inspire those who succeeded him and finally result in the victory of Mentuhotep II over the kings of Herakleopolis c. 2040 BCE, initiating the Middle Kingdom.

Mentuhotep II reigned from Thebes. Although he had ousted the old kings and begun a new dynasty, he patterned his rule on that of the Old Kingdom. The Old Kingdom was looked back on as a great age in Egypt's history, and the pyramids and expansive complexes at Giza and elsewhere were potent reminders of the glory of the past. One of the old patterns he kept, which had been neglected during the latter part of the Old Kingdom, was duplication of agencies for Upper and Lower Egypt as Bunson explains:

In general, the administrative offices of the central government were exact duplicates of the traditional provincial agencies, with one significant difference. In most periods the offices were doubled, one for Upper Egypt and one for Lower Egypt. This duality was carried out in architecture as well, providing palaces with two entrances, two throne rooms, etc. The nation viewed itself as a whole, but there were certain traditions dating back to the legendary northern and southern ancestors, the semi-divine kings of the predynastic period, and to the concept of symmetry. (103)

The duplication of agencies not only honored the north and the south of Egypt equally but, more importantly for the king, kept tighter control of both regions. Mentuhotep II's successor, Amenemhat I (c. 1991 - c.1962 BCE), moved the capital to the city of Iti-tawy near Lisht and continued the old policies, enriching the government quickly enough to begin his own building projects. His shifting of the capital from Thebes to Lisht may have been an attempt at further unifying Egypt by centering the government in the middle of the country instead of toward the south. In an effort which curbed the power of the nomarchs, Amenemhat I created the first standing army in Egypt directly under the king's control. Prior to this, armies were raised by conscription in the different districts and the nomarch then sent his men to the king. This gave the nomarchs a great degree of power as the men's loyalties lay with their community and regional ruler. A standing army, loyal first to the king, encouraged nationalism and stronger unity. Amenemhat I's successor, Senusret I (c. 1971 - c. 1926 BCE) continued his policies and further enriched the country through trade. It is Senusret I who first builds a temple to Amun at the site of Karnak and initiates the construction of one of the greatest structures of Egyptian religion ever built. The funds the government needed for such massive projects came from trade, and in order to trade the officials taxed the people of Egypt. Wilkinson explains how this worked:

When it came to collecting taxes, in the form of a proportion of farm produce, we must assume a network of officials operated on behalf of the state throughout Egypt. There can be no doubt that their efforts were backed up by coercive measures. The inscriptions left by some of these government officials, mostly in the form of seal impressions, allow us to re-create the workings of the treasury, which was by far the most important department from the very beginning of Egyptian history. Agricultural produce collected as a government revenue was treated in one of two ways. A certain proportion went directly to state workshops for the manufacture of secondary products - for example, tallow and leather from cattle; pork from pigs; linen from flax; bread, beer, and basketry from grain. Some of these value-added products were then traded and exchanged at a profit, producing further government income; other were redistributed as payment to state employees, thereby funding the court and its projects. The remaining portion of agricultural produce (mostly grain) was put into storage in government granaries, probably located throughout Egypt in important regional centers. Some of the stored grain was used in its raw state to finance court activities, but a significant share was put aside as emergency stock, to be used in the event of a poor harvest to help prevent wide-spread famine. (45-46)

The nomarchs of the Middle Kingdom cooperated fully with the king in sending resources, and this was largely because their autonomy was now respected by the throne in a way it had not been previously. Egyptian art during the Middle Kingdom period shows a much greater variation than that of the Old Kingdom which suggests a greater value placed on regional tastes and distinct styles rather than only court-approved and -regulated expression. Further, letters from the time make clear that the nomarchs were accorded a respect by the 12th Dynasty kings, which they had not known during the Old Kingdom. Under the reign of Senusret III (c. 1878-1860 BCE) the power of the nomarchs was decreased and the nomes were reorganized. The title of nomarch disappears completely from the official records during Senusret III's reign suggesting that it was abolished. Provincial rulers no longer had the freedoms they had enjoyed earlier but still benefitted from their position; they were now just more firmly under the control of the central government.

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The 12th Dynasty of Egypt's Middle Kingdom (c. 2040-1802 BCE) is considered the 'golden age' of government, art, and Egyptian culture when some of the most significant literary and artistic works were created, the economy was robust, and a strong central government empowered trade and production. Mass production of artifacts such as statuary (shabti dolls, for example) and jewelry during the First Intermediate Period had led to the rise of mass consumerism which continued during this time of the Middle Kingdom but with greater skill producing works of higher quality. The 13th Dynasty (c. 1802-c. 1782 BCE) was weaker than the 12th. The comfort and high standard of living of the Middle Kingdom declined as regional governors again assumed more power, priests amassed more wealth, and the central government became increasingly ineffective. In the far north of Egypt, at Avaris, a Semitic people had settled around a trading center and, during the 13th Dynasty, these people grew in power until they were able to assert their own autonomy and then expand their control of the region. These were the Hyksos ('foreign kings') whose rise signals the end of the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt.

SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD & NEW KINGDOM

The later Egyptian writers characterized the time of the Hyksos as chaotic and claimed they invaded and destroyed the country. Actually, the Hyksos admired Egyptian culture and adopted it as their own. Although they did conduct raids on Egyptian cities such as Memphis, carrying statuary and monuments back to Avaris, they dressed as Egyptians, worshiped Egyptian gods, and incorporated elements of Egyptian government in their own.

The Egyptian government at Itj-tawi near Lisht could no longer control the region and abandoned Lower Egypt to the Hyksos, moving the capital back to Thebes. As the Hyksos gained power in the north, the Kushites advanced in the south and took back lands Egypt had conquered under Senusret III. The Egyptians at Thebes tolerated this situation until c. 1580 BCE when the Egyptian king Seqenenra Taa (also known as Ta'O) felt he had been insulted and challenged by the Hyksos king Apepi and attacked. This initiative was picked up and furthered by his son Kamose (c. 1575 BCE) and finally by his brother Ahmose I (c. 1570-c. 1544 BCE), who defeated the Hyksos and drove them out of Egypt.

The victory of Ahmose I begins the period known as the New Kingdom of Egypt, the best-known and most well-documented era in Egyptian history. At this time, the Egyptian government was reorganized and reformed slightly so that now the hierarchy ran from the pharaoh at the top, to the vizier, the royal treasurer, the general of the military, overseers (supervisors of government locations like worksites) and scribes who kept the records and relayed correspondence.

The New Kingdom also saw the institutionalization of the police force which was begun under Amenemhet I. His early police units were members of the Bedouin tribes who guarded the borders but had little to do with keeping domestic peace. The New Kingdom police were Medjay, Nubian warriors who had fought the Hyksos with Ahmose I and were rewarded with the new position. The police were organized by the vizier under the direction of the pharaoh. The vizier would then delegate authority to lower officials who managed the various patrols of State Police. Police guarded temples and mortuary complexes, secured the borders and monitored immigration, stood watch outside royal tombs and cemeteries, and oversaw the workers and slaves at the mines and rock quarries. Under the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) the Medjay were his personal bodyguards. For most of their tenure, though, they kept the peace along the borders and intervened in citizen's affairs at the direction of a higher official. In time, some of these positions came to be held by priests as Bunson explains:

The temple police units were normally composed of priests who were charged with maintaining the sanctity of the temple complexes. The regulations concerning sex, behavior, and attitude during and before all ritual ceremonies demanded a certain vigilance and the temples kept their own people available to ensure a harmonious spirit. (207)

The temple police would have been kept especially busy during religious festivals, many of which (such as that of Bastet or Hathor) encouraged drinking to excess and letting go of one's inhibitions.

The New Kingdom also saw the reformation and expansion of the military. Egypt's experience with the Hyksos had shown them how easily a foreign power could dominate their country, and they were not interested in experiencing that a second time. Ahmose I had first conceived the idea of buffer zones around Egypt's borders to keep the country secure, but this idea was taken further by his son and successor Amenhotep I (c. 1541-1520 BCE).

The army Ahmose I led against the Hyksos was made up of Egyptian regulars, conscripts, and foreign mercenaries like the Medjay. Amenhotep I trained an Egyptian army of professionals and led them into Nubia to complete his father's campaigns and regain the lands lost during the 13th Dynasty. His successors continued the expansion of Egypt's borders but none more than Tuthmosis III (1458-1425 BCE), who established the Egyptian Empire conquering lands from Syria to Libya and down through Nubia.

By the time of Amenhotep III (1386-1353 BCE), Egypt was a vast empire with diplomatic and trade agreements with other great nations such as the Hittites, Mitanni, the Assyrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Babylon. Amenhotep III ruled over so vast and secure a country that he was able to occupy himself primarily with building monuments. He built so many in fact that early Egyptologists credited him with an exceptionally long reign.

His son would largely undo all the great accomplishments of the New Kingdom through religious reform which undercut the authority of the pharaoh, destroyed the economy, and soured relationships with other nations. Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE), perhaps in an attempt to neutralize the political power of the priests of Amun, banned all religious cults in the country except that of his personal god Aten. He closed the temples and moved the capital from Thebes to a new city he built in the Amarna region called Akhetaten where he sequestered himself with his wife Nefertiti and his family and neglected affairs of state.

The position of the pharaoh was legitimized by his adherence to the will of the gods. The temples throughout Egypt were not just places of worship but factories, dispensaries, workshops, counseling centers, houses of healing, educational and cultural centers. In closing them down, Akhenaten brought the forward momentum of the New Kingdom to a halt while he commissioned new temples and shrines built according to his monotheistic belief in the one god Aten. His successor, Tutankhamun (1336-1327 BCE) reversed his policies, returned the capital to Thebes, and reopened the temples but did not live long enough to complete the process. This was accomplished by the pharaoh Horemheb (1320-1295 BCE) who tried to erase any evidence that Akhenaten had ever existed. Horemheb brought Egypt back some social standing with other nations, improved the economy, and rebuilt the temples that had been destroyed, but the country never reached the heights it had known under Amenhotep III.

The government of the New Kingdom began at Thebes, but Ramesses II moved it north to a new city he built on the site of ancient Avaris, Per Ramesses. Thebes continued as an important religious center primarily because of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak to which every pharaoh of the New Kingdom contributed. The reasons for Ramesses II's move are unclear but one of the results was that, with the capital of the government far away in Per Ramesses, the priests of Amun at Thebes were free to do as they pleased. These priests increased their power to the point where they rivaled the pharaoh and the New Kingdom ended when the high priests of Thebes ruled from that city while the last of the New Kingdom pharaohs struggled to maintain control from Per Ramesses.

Egypt was again divided as it now entered the Third Intermediate Period (1069-525 BCE). The government at Thebes claimed supremacy while recognizing the legitimacy of the rulers at Per Ramesses and intermarrying with them. The division of the government weakened Egypt which began to degenerate into civil wars during the Late Period (c. 664-332 BCE). At this time, the would-be rulers of Egypt fought each other using Greek mercenaries who, in time, lost interest in the fight and started their own communities in the Nile River Valley.

In 671 and 666 BCE the Assyrians invaded and took control of the country, and in 525 BCE the Persians invaded. Under Persian rule Egypt became a satrapy with the capital at Memphis and, like the Assyrians before them, Persians were placed in all positions of power. When Alexander the Great conquered Persia, he took Egypt in 331 BCE, had himself crowned pharaoh at Memphis, and placed his Macedonians in power.

After Alexander's death, his general Ptolemy (323-285 BCE) founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt which lasted from 323-30 BCE. The Ptolemies, like the Hyksos before them, greatly admired Egyptian culture and incorporated it into their rule. Ptolemy I tried to blend the cultures of Greece and Egypt together to create a harmonious, multinational country - and he succeeded - but it did not last long beyond the reign of Ptolemy V (204-181 BCE). Under Ptolemy V's reign, the country was again in rebellion and the central government was weak. The last Ptolemaic pharaoh of Egypt was Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE), and after her death the country was annexed by Rome.

Legacy

The monarchial theocracy of Egypt lasted over 3,000 years, creating and maintaining one of the world's greatest ancient cultures. Many of the devices, artifacts, and practices of the modern day originated in Egypt's more stable periods of the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms when there was a strong central government which provided the stability necessary for the creation of art and culture.

The Egyptians invented paper and colored ink, advanced the art of writing, were the first people to widely use cosmetics, invented the toothbrush, toothpaste, and breath mints, advanced medical knowledge and practices such as fixing broken bones and performing surgery, created water clocks and calendars (originating the 365-day calendar in use today), as well as perfecting the art of brewing beer, agricultural advances like the ox-drawn plough, and even the practice of wearing wigs.

The kings and later pharaohs of ancient Egypt began their reigns by offering themselves to the service of the goddess of truth, Ma'at, who personified universal harmony and balance and embodied the concept of ma'at which was so important to Egyptian culture. By maintaining harmony, the king of Egypt provided the people with a culture that encouraged creativity and innovation. Each king would begin his reign by 'presenting Ma'at' to the other gods of the Egyptian pantheon as a way of assuring them that he would follow her precepts and encourage his people to do likewise during his reign. The government of ancient Egypt, for the most part, kept to this divine bargain with their gods and the result was the grand civilization of ancient Egypt.

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The government of ancient Egypt was a theocratic monarchy as the king ruled by a mandate from the gods, initially was seen as an intermediary between human beings and the divine, and was supposed to...

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt. The pyramids at Giza remain impressive monuments thousands of years after they were built and the knowledge and skill required to construct them was gathered over the many centuries prior to their construction. Yet the pyramids are not the apex of ancient Egyptian architecture; they are only the earliest and best known expressions of a culture which would go on to create buildings, monuments, and temples just as intriguing.

6,000 Years of History

Ancient Egyptian history begins prior to the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) and continues through the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Artifacts and evidence of overgrazing of cattle, in the area now known as the Sahara Desert, date human habitation in the area to c. 8000 BCE. The Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (c. 3150 - 2613 BCE) built upon the knowledge of those who had gone before and Predynastic art and architecture was improved on. The first pyramid in Egypt, Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara, comes from the end of this Early Dynastic Period and a comparison of this monument and its surrounding complex with the mastaba tombs of earlier centuries show how far the Egyptians had advanced in their understanding of architectural design and construction. Equally impressive, however, is the link between these great monuments and those which came after them.

The pyramids at Giza date from the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 - 2181 BCE) and represent the pinnacle of talent and skill acquired at that time. Ancient Egyptian history, however, still had a long and illustrious path before it and as the pyramid form was abandoned the Egyptians focused their attention on temples. Many of these whose ruins are still extant, such as the temple complex of Amun-Ra at Karnak, inspire as much genuine awe as the pyramids at Giza but all of them, however great or modest, show an attention to detail and an awareness of aesthetic beauty and practical functionality which makes them masterpieces of architecture. These structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, and raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, & raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian Architecture & the Creation Of The World

At the beginning of time, according to the Egyptian religion, there was nothing but swirling waters of dark chaos. From these primordial waters rose a mound of dry land, known as the ben-ben, around which the waters rolled. Upon the mound lighted the god Atum who looked out over the darkness and felt lonely; so he mated with himself and creation began.

Atum was responsible for the unknowable universe, the sky above, and the earth below. Through his children he was also the creator of human beings (though in some versions the goddess Neith plays a part in this). The world and all that human beings knew came from water, from dampness, moistness, from the kind of environment familiar to the Egyptians from the Nile Delta. Everything had been created by the gods and these gods were ever-present in one's life through nature.

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The lives of the gods mirrored those of the people and the Egyptians honored them in their lives and through their works. The gods were thought to have provided the most perfect of worlds for the people of ancient Egypt; so perfect, in fact, that it would last forever. The afterlife was simply a continuation of the life one had been living. It is not surprising, then, that when these people constructed their great monuments they would reflect this belief system. The architecture of ancient Egypt tells this story of the people's relationship with their land and their gods. The symmetry of the structures, the inscriptions, the interior design, all reflect the concept of harmony ( ma'at) which was central to the ancient Egyptian value system.

The Predynastic & Early Dynastic Periods

The homes and tombs of the Predynastic Period were built of mud-brick which was dried in the sun (a practice which would continue throughout Egypt's history). Homes were thatched structures of reeds which were daubed with mud for walls prior to the discovery of brick making. These early buildings were circular or oval before bricks were used and, after, became square or rectangular. Communities gathered together for protection from the elements, wild animals, and strangers and grew into cities which encircled themselves with walls.

As civilization advanced, so did the architecture with the appearance of windows and doors braced and adorned by wooden frames. Wood was more plentiful in Egypt at this time but still not in the quantity to suggest itself as a building material on any large scale. The mud brick oval home became the rectangular house with a vaulted roof, a garden, and courtyard. Work in mud brick is also evidenced in the construction of tombs which, during the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt, become more elaborate and intricate in design. These early oblong tombs (mastabas) continued to be built of mud brick but already at this time people were working in stone to create temples to their gods. Stone monuments (stelae) begin to appear, along with these temples, by the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BCE).

Obelisks, large upright stone monuments with four sides and a tapered top, began to appear in the city of Heliopolis at about this time. The Egyptian obelisk (known to them as tekhenu, "obelisk" being the Greek name) is among the most perfect examples of Egyptian architecture reflecting the relationship between the gods and the people as they were always raised in pairs and it was thought that the two created on earth were mirrored by two identical pieces raised in the heavens at the same time. Quarrying, carving, transporting, and raising the obelisks required enormous skill and labor and taught the Egyptians well how to work in stone and move immensely heavy objects over many miles. Mastering stonework set the stage for the next great leap in Egyptian architecture: the pyramid.

Djoser's mortuary complex at Saqqara was conceived by his vizier and chief architect Imhotep (c. 2667 - c. 2600 BCE) who imagined a great mastaba tomb for his king built of stone. Djoser's pyramid is not a "true pyramid" but a series of stacked mastabas known as a "step pyramid". Even so, it was an incredibly impressive feat which had never been achieved before. Historian Desmond Stewart comments on this:

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara marks one of those developments that afterward seem inevitable but that would have been impossible without an experimenting genius. That the royal official Imhotep was such a genius we know, not from Greek legend, which identified him with Aesculapius, the god of medicine, but from what archaeologists have discovered from his still impressive pyramid. Investigation has shown that, at every stage, he was prepared to experiment along new lines. His first innovation was to construct a mastaba that was not oblong, but square. His second concerned the material from which it was built (cited in Nardo, 125).

Temple construction, albeit on a modest level, had already acquainted the Egyptians with stonework. Imhotep imagined the same on a grand scale. The early mastabas had been decorated with inscriptions and engravings of reeds, flowers, and other nature imagery; Imhotep wanted to continue that tradition in a more durable material. His great, towering mastaba pyramid would have the same delicate touches and symbolism as the more modest tombs which had preceded it and, better yet, these would all be worked in stone instead of dried mud. Historian Mark van de Mieroop comments on this:

Imhotep reproduced in stone what had been previously built of other materials. The facade of the enclosure wall had the same niches as the tombs of mud brick, the columns resembled bundles of reed and papyrus, and stone cylinders at the lintels of doorways represented rolled-up reed screens. Much experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex. It had several plans with mastaba forms before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six mastaba-like levels on top of one another...The weight of the enormous mass was a challenge to the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to prevent the monument breaking up (56).

When completed, the Step Pyramid rose 204 feet (62 meters) high and was the tallest structure of its time. The surrounding complex included a temple, courtyards, shrines, and living quarters for the priests covering an area of 40 acres (16 hectares) and surrounded by a wall 30 feet (10.5 meters) high. The wall had 13 false doors cut into it with only one true entrance cut in the south-east corner; the entire wall was then ringed by a trench 2,460 feet (750 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide. The actual tomb of Djoser was located beneath the pyramid at the bottom of a shaft 92 feet (28 meters) long. The tomb chamber itself was encased in granite but, to reach it, one had to traverse a maze of hallways, all brightly painted with reliefs and inlaid with tiles, leading to other rooms or dead ends filled with stone vessels carved with the names of earlier kings. This labyrinth was created, of course, to protect the tomb and grave goods of the king but, unfortunately, it failed to keep out ancient grave robbers and the tomb was looted at some point in antiquity.

Djoser's Step Pyramid incorporates all of the elements most resonant in Egyptian architecture: symmetry, balance, and grandeur which reflected the core values of the culture. Egyptian civilization was based upon the concept of ma'at(harmony, balance) which was decreed by their gods. The architecture of ancient Egypt, whether on a small or large scale, always represented these ideals. Palaces were even built with two entrances, two throne rooms, two receiving halls in order to maintain symmetry and balance in representing both Upper and Lower Egypt in the design

The innovations of Imhotep were carried further by the kings of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. The last king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, Huni (c. 2630 - 2613 BCE), was long thought to have initiated the massive building projects of the Old Kingdom in constructing the pyramid at Meidum but that honor is due the first king of the 4th Dynasty, Sneferu (c. 2613 - 2589 BCE). Egyptologist Barbara Watterson writes, "Sneferu initiated the golden age of the Old Kingdom, his most notable achievements being the two pyramids built for him at Dahshur" (50-51). Sneferu began his work with the pyramid at Meidum now referred to as the "collapsed pyramid" or, locally, as the "false pyramid" because of its shape: it resembles a tower more than a pyramid and its outer casing rests around it in a gigantic heap of gravel.

The pyramid of Meidum is the first true pyramid constructed in Egypt. A "true pyramid" is defined as a perfectly symmetrical monument whose steps have been filled in to create seamless sides tapering toward a point at the top. Originally, any pyramid began as a step pyramid. The Meidum pyramid did not last, however, because modifications were made to Imhotep's original pyramid design which resulted in the outer casing resting on a sand foundation rather than rock, causing it to collapse. Scholars are divided on whether the collapse occurred during construction or over a longer period of time.

Sneferu's experiments with the stone pyramid form served his successor well. Khufu (2589 - 2566 BCE) learned from his father's experiments and directed his administration in constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Contrary to the popular belief that his monument was built by Hebrew slaves, Egyptian workers on the Great Pyramid were well cared for and performed their duties as part of a community service, as paid laborers, or during the time when the Nile's flood made farming impossible. Scholars Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs note:

Were it not for the two months every year when the Nile's water covered Egypt's farmland, idling virtually the entire workforce, none of this construction would have been possible. During such times, a pharaoh offered food for work and the promise of a favored treatment in the afterworld where he would rule just as he did in this world. For two months annually, workmen gathered by the tens of thousands from all over the country to transport the blocks a permanent crew had quarried during the rest of the year. Overseers organized the men into teams to transport the stones on sleds, devices better suited than wheeled vehicles to moving weighty objects over shifting sand. A causeway, lubricated by water, smoothed the uphill pull. No mortar was used to hold the blocks in place, only a fit so exact that these towering structures have survived for 4,000 years - the only Wonders of the Ancient World still standing today (17-18).

There is no evidence whatsoever that Hebrew slaves, or any kind of slave labor, went into the construction of the pyramids at Giza, the city of Per-Ramesses, or any other important site in Egypt. The practice of slavery certainly existed in Egypt throughout its history, as it did in every ancient culture, but it was not the kind of slavery popularly depicted in fiction and film based on the biblical Book of Exodus. Slaves in the ancient world could be tutors and teachers of the young, accountants, nursemaids, dance instructors, brewers, even philosophers. Slaves in Egypt were either captives from military campaigns or those who could not pay their debts and these people usually worked in the mines and quarries.

The men and women who worked on the Great Pyramid lived in state-provided housing on the site (as discovered by Lehner and Hawass in 1979 CE) and were well compensated for their efforts. The more skilled a worker was, the higher their compensation. The result of their work still amazes people in the modern day. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder left of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and justifiably so: until the Eifel Tower was completed in 1889 CE, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on earth built by human hands. Historian Marc van de Mieroop writes:

The size boggles the mind: it was 146 meters high (479 feet) by 230 meters at the base (754 feet). We estimate that it contained 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2 and 3/4 tons some weighing up to 16 tons. Khufu ruled 23 years according to the Turin Royal Canon, which would mean that throughout his reign annually 100,000 blocks - daily about 285 blocks or one every two minutes of daylight - had to be quarried, transported, dressed, and put in place...The construction was almost faultless in design. The sides were oriented exactly toward the cardinal points and were at precise 90-degree angles (58).

The second pyramid constructed at Giza belongs to Khufu's successor Khafre (2558 - 2532 BCE) who is also credited with creating the Great Sphinx of Giza. The third pyramid belongs to his successor Menkaure (2532 - 2503 BCE). An inscription from c. 2520 BCE relates how Menkaure came to inspect his pyramid and assigned 50 of the workers to the new task of building a tomb for his official, Debhen. Part of the inscription reads, "His majesty commanded that no man should be taken for any forced labour" and that rubbish should be cleared from the site for construction (Lewis, 9). This was a fairly common practice at Giza where the kings would commission tombs for their friends and favored officials.

The Giza plateau today presents a very different image from what it would have looked like in the time of the Old Kingdom. It was not the lonely site at the edge of the desert it is today but a sizeable necropolis which had shops, factories, markets, temples, housing, public gardens, and numerous monuments. The Great Pyramid was sheathed in an outer casing of gleaming white limestone and rose from the center of the small city, visible from miles around. Giza was a self-sustaining community whose people were government workers but the construction of the enormous monuments there in the 4th Dynasty was very costly. Khafre's pyramid and complex are a little smaller than Khufu's and Menkaure's smaller than Khafre's and this is because, as 4th Dynasty pyramid building continued, resources dwindled. Menkaure's successor, Shepsekhaf (2503 - 2498 BCE) was buried in a modest mastaba at Saqqara.

The cost of the pyramids was not only financial but political. Giza was not the only necropolis in Egypt at the time and all of these sites required maintenance and administration which was carried out by priests. As these sites grew, so did the wealth and power of the priests and the regional governors (nomarchs) who presided over the different districts the sites were in. The later rulers of the Old Kingdom built temples (or pyramids on a much smaller scale) as these were more affordable. The shift from the pyramid monument to the temple signaled a deeper shift in sensibilities which had to do with the growing power of the priesthood: monuments were no longer being built to honor a certain king but for a specific god.

The power of the priests and nomarchs, along with other factors, brought about the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Egypt then entered the era known as the First Intermediate Period (2181 - 2040 BCE) in which individual regions essentially governed themselves. The kings still ruled from Memphis but they were ineffectual.

The First Intermediate Period of Egypt has traditionally been depicted as a time of decline because no great monuments were raised and the quality of the art is considered inferior to that of the Old Kingdom. Actually, though, the artwork and architecture is simply different, not sub-par. In the Old Kingdom, architectural works were state-sponsored, as was artwork, and so was more or less uniform to reflect the tastes of royalty. In the First Intermediate Period, regional artists and architects were free to explore different forms and styles. Historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Under the nomarchs, architecture survived the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Their patronage continued into the Middle Kingdom, resulting in such remarkable sites as Beni Hassan (c. 1900 BC) with its rock carved tombs and large chapels complete with columned porticos and painted walls (32).

When Mentuhotep II (c. 2061 - 2010 BCE) united Egypt under Theban rule, royal commissioning of art and architecture resumed but, unlike in the Old Kingdom, variety and personal expression was encouraged. Middle Kingdom architecture, beginning with Mentuhotep's grand mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahri near Thebes, is at once grand and personal in scope.

Under the reign of king Senusret I (c. 1971 - 1926 BCE), the great Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak was begun when this monarch erected a modest structure at the site. This temple, like all Middle Kingdom temples, was constructed with an outer courtyard, columned courts which led to halls and ritual chambers, and an inner sanctum which housed a god's statue. Sacred lakes were created at these sites and the entire effect was a symbolic representation of the beginning of the world and the harmonious operation of the universe. Bunson writes:

Temples were religious structures considered the "horizon" of a divine being, the point at which the god came into existence during creation. Thus, each temple had a link to the past, and the rituals conducted within its court were formulas handed down for generations. The temple was also a mirror of the universe and a representation of the Primeval Mound where creation began (258).

Homes and other buildings continued to be made from mud brick during the Middle Kingdom; stone was only used for temples and monuments and this was usually limestone, sandstone or, in some cases, granite which required the greatest skill to work in. A little known masterpiece of the Middle Kingdom, long ago lost, was the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III (c. 1860 - 1815 BCE) at the city of Hawara.

This complex was enormous, featuring twelve great separate courts which faced one another across an expanse of columned halls and interior hallways so intricate that it was called "the labyrinth" by Herodotus. The courts and hallways were further connected by corridors and colonnades and shafts so that a visitor might walk down a familiar hall but take an unfamiliar turn and wind up in a completely different area of the complex than the one they had intended. Criss-crossing alleys and false doors sealed by stone plugs served to confuse and disorient a visitor to protect the central burial chamber of the pyramid of the king. This chamber is said to have been cut from a single block of granite and to have weighed 110 tons. Herodotus claimed it was more impressive than any of the wonders he had ever seen.

The rulers of the New Kingdom built on a grand scale in keeping with Egypt's new elevated status as an empire. Egypt had never known a foreign power like the Hyksos taking control of their land and, after Ahmose I drove them out, he initiated military campaigns to create buffer zones around Egypt's borders. These areas were expanded by his successors, most notably Thutmose III (1458 - 1425 BCE), until Egypt ruled an empire which stretched from Syria, down the Levant, across to Libya, and down through Nubia. Egypt became immensely wealthy during this time and that wealth was lavished on temples, mortuary complexes, and monuments.

The greatest of these is the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. As with all the other temples in Egypt, this one told the story of the past, the people's lives, and honored the gods but was an immense work-in-progress with every ruler of the New Kingdom adding to it. The site covers over 200 acres and is comprised of a series of pylons (monumental gateways which taper towards the top to cornices), leading into courtyards, halls, and smaller temples. The first pylon opens onto a wide court which invites the visitor further. The second pylon opens onto the Hypostyle Court which measures 337 feet (103 meters) by 170 feet (52 meters). The hall is supported by 134 columns 72 feet (22 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) around in diameter. Scholars estimate one could fit three structures the size of Notre Dame Cathedral inside the main temple alone. Bunson comments:

Karnak remains the most remarkable religious complex ever built on earth. Its 250 acres of temples and chapels, obelisks, columns, and statues built over 2,000 years incorporate the finest aspects of Egyptian art and architecture into a great historical monument of stone (133).

As with all other temples, Karnak is a paragon of symmetrical architecture which seems to rise organically from the earth toward the sky. The great difference between this structure and any other is its grand scale and the scope of the vision. Each ruler who contributed to the building made greater advances than their predecessors but acknowledged those who had gone before. When Thutmose III built his festival hall there he may have removed monuments and buildings of earlier kings whom he then acknowledged with an inscription. Every temple symbolizes Egyptian culture and belief but Karnak does so in large letters and, quite literally, through inscriptions. Thousands of years of history may be read on the walls and columns of the Karnak temple.

Hatshepsut (1479 - 1458 BCE) contributed to Karnak like every other ruler but also commissioned buildings of such beauty and splendor that later kings claimed them as their own. Among her grandest is her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri near Luxor which incorporates every aspect of New Kingdom temple architecture on a grand scale: a landing stage at the water's edge, flagstaffs (relics of the past), pylons, forecourts, hypostyle halls, and a sanctuary. The temple is constructed in three tiers reaching 97 feet (29.5 meters) and visitors are still amazed by the building in the present day.

Long before the author of Exodus ever came up with his story, however, Ramesses II was famous for his military exploits, efficient rule, and magnificent building projects. His city of Per-Ramesses ("City of Ramesses") in Lower Egypt was widely praised by Egyptian scribes and foreign visitors but his temple at Abu Simbel is his masterpiece. The temple, cut from solid rock cliffs, stands 98 feet (30 meters) high and 115 feet (35 meters) long with four seated colossi flanking the entrance, two to each side, depicting Ramesses II on his throne; each one 65 feet (20 meters) tall. Beneath these giant figures are smaller statues (still larger than life) depicting Ramesses' conquered enemies, the Nubians, Libyans, and Hittites. Further statues represent his family members and various protecting gods and symbols of power. Passing between the colossi, through the central entrance, the interior of the temple is decorated with engravings showing Ramesses and Nefertari paying homage to the gods.

Abu Simbel is perfectly aligned with the east so that, twice a year on 21 February and 21 October, the sun shines directly into the inner sanctum to illuminate statues of Ramesses II and the god Amun. This is another aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture which characterizes most, if not all, of the great temples and monuments: celestial alignment. From the pyramids at Giza to the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the Egyptians oriented their buildings according to the cardinal points and in keeping with celestial events. The Egyptian name for a pyramid was Mer, meaning "Place of Ascension" (the name "pyramid" comes from the Greek word pyramis meaning "wheat cake" which is what they thought the structures looked like) as it was believed that the shape of the structure itself would enable the dead king to rise toward the horizon and more easily begin the next phase of his existence in the afterlife. In this same way, temples were oriented to invite the god to the inner sanctum and also, of course, provide access for when they wanted to ascend back to their own higher realms.

Late Period & Ptolemaic Dynasty

The New Kingdom declined as the priests of Amun at Thebes acquired greater power and wealth than the pharaoh while, at the same time, Egypt came to be ruled by weaker and weaker kings. By the time of the reign of Ramesses XI (c. 1107 - 1077 BCE) the central government at Per-Ramesses was completely ineffective and the high priests at Thebes held all the real power.

The city has magnificent public precincts and royal palaces which cover a fourth or even a third of the entire area. For just as each of the kings would, from a love of splendour, add some ornament to the public monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a residence in addition to those already standing (1).

Alexandria became the impressive city Strabo praises during the time of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Ptolemy I (323 - 285 BCE) began the great Library of Alexandria and the temple known as the Serapeum which was completed by Ptolemy II (285 - 246 BCE) who also built the famous Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The early rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty continued the traditions of Egyptian architecture, blending them with their own Greek practices, to create impressive buildings, monuments, and temples. The dynasty ended with the death of the last queen, Cleopatra VII (69 - 30 BCE), and the country was annexed by Rome. The legacy of the Egyptian architects lives on, however, through the monuments they left behind. The imposing pyramids, temples, and monuments of Egypt continue to inspire and intrigue visitors in the present day. Imhotep and those who followed after him envisioned monuments in stone which would defy the passage of time and keep their memory alive. The enduring popularity of these structures today rewards that early vision and accomplishes their goal.

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt.

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Ancient Greece - Government, Facts & Timeline

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Ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy, was the source of some of the greatest literature, architecture, science and philosophy in Western civilization, and home to stunning historical sites like the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

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Ancient Greece, a civilization that never as no other before has given so much importance to the research of beauty and harmony, to the discover of ideal beauty and of the agreement that there is between it and the moral. In fact, in the Greek culture the aesthetic appearance has always had great consideration, and it has been associated, for several times, to the moral and other values such as justice and measure.

"THE FAIREST IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL" - Oracle of Delphi

So, since in Ancient Greece the concept of beauty was associated to the idea of good, it is not so surprising see how the heroes and divinity of the Greek mythology were often characterized by a overwhelming beauty. Beauty that, especially in literature texts, was stereotyped to splendid candid complexion, crystalline blue eyes and golden blonde hair.

Not only, there were stereotypes about aesthetic beauty also in art and sculpture. The female body was represented with soft shapes, round buttocks, long legs, long and wavy hair and gentle face; and in the same way, also, the male body followed well defined standards of beauty: athletic physique, six-pack, muscular legs and omnipresent Greek nose. These were the aesthetic ideals of Greek beauty that were always been considered immortal and unchangeable. An example is the neoclassical art that brings back to light the elegant and sober exemplars of beauty belonging to Ancient Greek. But is it true that the aesthetic canons of that era are immortal?

Today's society shows us how not many things are changed from the past, that the Greek ideal of beauty survives also in our days and it still have strong roots in our minds and in our civilization. There are still the same stereotypes. The male body is considered beautiful and handsome if it is slim and muscular, and a man that has vigorous physique is considered virile and attractive. Same for the female body, today as in the Ancient Greece, the beauty of a woman is appreciated if she has firm buttocks and bosoms, a face characterized by childish traits and mature features. The only thing that change, talking about the ideal female body, is the size. The rounded, soft and prosperous shapes of the antiquity are now replaced by a size two.

ANDY : So none of the girls here eat anything?

NIGEL : Not since two became new four and zero became the new two.

-"THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA"

Old and new standards of beauty come together and, even if today the Greek world and its beauty ideal, especially for women, seams too far away from us, it is not like this.

We just have to considered that, according to Pythagoras the ideal of beauty was associated to ideas of symmetry and proportions, as today we think that a body to be perfect has to follow certain measures and ideal body basis.

What is mutated is the concept of "kalòs kài agathòs", that means the combination between beauty and goodness that have characterized the Homer heroes of the Greek mythology.

Plato, returning to what Pythagoras said about mathematical concepts, amplify the prospective and classify the beauty following a hierarchy where: at the bottom there was the physical beauty and at the top the beauty itself. The physical beauty was the one which he criticized, defining it as pure appearance; the body was for him a prison for the soul. For the philosopher the beauty did not refer just to the beauty of the bodies, that he rejected, but he extended it also to other moral and civic virtues. And, if we look at it, what he condemned is what condemn us today; everyone of us is imprisoned in its own body. Only what appears is taken into account, and as a consequence, it is what we really care about. The physical aspect takes over the rest and make us slaves of a society that always tries to find the perfect beauty.

So why can't we stop to look back at ancient Greek world to understand that beauty is not just a quality of the body but also of the soul: it is an harmonious mix between aesthetic and moral.

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Standards of beauty in the Ancient Greece - KalonJournal

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Ancient Greece, a civilization that never as no other before has given so much importance to the research of beauty and harmony, to the discover of ideal beauty and of the agreement that there is between it and the moral. In fact, in the Greek culture the aesthetic appearance has always had great consideration, and ...

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Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often roughly divided into the Archaic period (9th to 6th centuries BC), Classical period (5th and 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic period ( Koine Greek, 3rd century BC to 4th century AD).

It is preceded by Mycenaean Greek and succeeded by Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage although its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek. There were several regional dialects of ancient Greek, of which Attic Greek developed into Koine.

Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language.

Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, and Doric, many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions.

There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems, the and the , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects.

The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek, but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form.

Scholars assume that major ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions-and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians.

The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people - Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation.

One standard formulation for the dialects is:

West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West is called 'East Greek'.

Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age.

Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree.

Pamphylian Greek, spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence.

Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian, the dialect of Sparta), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian).

The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek.

All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects.

The dialects outside the Ionic group are known mainly from inscriptions, notable exceptions being:

fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, in Aeolian, and

the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar and other lyric poets, usually in Doric.

After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek, but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek. By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek.

Related languages or dialects

Ancient Macedonian was an Indo-European language. Because of no surviving sample texts, it is impossible to ascertain whether it was a Greek dialect or even related to the Greek language at all. Its exact relationship remains unclear. Macedonian could also be related to Thracian and Phrygian languages to some extent. The Macedonian dialect (or language) appears to have been replaced by Attic Greek during the Hellenistic period. Late 20th century epigraphic discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia, such as the Pella curse tablet, suggest that ancient Macedonian has been a variety of north-western ancient Greek or replaced by a Greek dialect.

Differences from Proto-Indo-European

Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics, ancient Greek words could end only in a vowel or /n s r/; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following:

PIE *s became /h/ at the beginning of a word (debuccalization): Latin sex, English six, ancient Greek ἕξ /héks/.

PIE *s was elided between vowels after an intermediate step of debuccalization: Sanskrit janasas, Latin generis (where s > r by rhotacism), Greek *genesos > *genehos > ancient Greek γένεος (/géneos/), Attic γένους (/génoːs/) "of a kind".

PIE *w, which occurred in Mycenaean and some non-Attic dialects, was lost: early Doric ϝέργον /wérgon/, English work, Attic Greek ἔργον /érgon/.

PIE and Mycenaean labiovelars changed to plain stops (labials, dentals, and velars) in the later Greek dialects: for instance, PIE *kʷ became /p/ or /t/ in Attic: Attic Greek ποῦ /pôː/ "where?", Latin quō; Attic Greek τίς /tís/, Latin quis "who?".

PIE "voiced aspirated" stops *bʰ dʰ ǵʰ gʰ gʷʰ were devoiced and became the aspirated stops φ θ χ /pʰ tʰ kʰ/ in ancient Greek.

Phonemic inventory

The pronunciation of ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek. Ancient Greek had long and short vowels; many diphthongs; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops; and a pitch accent. In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives, and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent. Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes.

The examples below represent Attic Greek in the 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent.

Consonants

[ŋ] occurred as an allophone of /n/ that was used before velars and as an allophone of /ɡ/ before nasals. /r/ was probably voiceless when word-initial (written ῥ). /s/ was assimilated to [z] before voiced consonants.

/oː/ raised to [uː], probably by the 4th century BC.

Morphology

Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages, is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative), three genders ( masculine, feminine, and neuter), and three numbers (singular, dual, and plural). Verbs have four moods ( indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative) and three voices (active, middle, and passive), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"): the present, future, and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist ( perfective aspect); a present perfect, pluperfect and future perfect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice.

The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least) a prefix /e-/, called the augment. This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist).

The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r, however, add er). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel:

Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei. The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έβαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in the aorist.

Following Homer's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry, especially epic poetry.

The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below.

Reduplication

Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (Note that a few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are:

Syllabic reduplication: Most verbs beginning with a single consonant, or a cluster of a stop with a sonorant, add a syllable consisting of the initial consonant followed by e. An aspirated consonant, however, reduplicates in its unaspirated equivalent: Grassmann's law.

Augment: Verbs beginning with a vowel, as well as those beginning with a cluster other than those indicated previously (and occasionally for a few other verbs) reduplicate in the same fashion as the augment. This remains in all forms of the perfect, not just the indicative.

Attic reduplication: Some verbs beginning with an a, e or o, followed by a sonorant (or occasionally d or g), reduplicate by adding a syllable consisting of the initial vowel and following consonant, and lengthening the following vowel. Hence er → erēr, an → anēn, ol → olōl, ed → edēd. This is not actually specific to Attic Greek, despite its name, but it was generalized in Attic. This originally involved reduplicating a cluster consisting of a laryngeal and sonorant, hence h₃l → h₃leh₃l → olōl with normal Greek development of laryngeals. (Forms with a stop were analogous.)

Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab) has the perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha) because it was originally slambanō, with perfect seslēpha, becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening.

Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i. A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs.

Writing system

The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing (circa 1450 BC) are in the syllabic script Linear B. Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks, interword spacing, modern punctuation, and sometimes mixed case, but these were all introduced later.

Sample texts

The beginning of Homer's Iliad exemplifies the Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details):

Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε,
πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν
ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν
οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή·
ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε
Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς.

The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from the Classical period of ancient Greek:

Ὅτι μὲν ὑμεῖς, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, πεπόνθατε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν κατηγόρων, οὐκ οἶδα· ἐγὼ δ' οὖν καὶ αὐτὸς ὑπ' αὐτῶν ὀλίγου ἐμαυτοῦ ἐπελαθόμην, οὕτω πιθανῶς ἔλεγον. Καίτοι ἀληθές γε ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν οὐδὲν εἰρήκασιν.

Using the IPA:

[hóti men hyːmêːs | ɔ̂ː ándres atʰɛːnaî̯i̯oi | pepóntʰate | hypo tɔ̂ːn emɔ̂ːŋ katɛːɡórɔːn | oːk oî̯da ‖ éɡɔː dûːŋ kai̯ au̯tos | hyp au̯tɔ̂ːn olíɡoː emau̯tûː | epelatʰómɛːn | hǔːtɔː pitʰanɔ̂ːs éleɡon ‖ kaí̯toi̯ alɛːtʰéz ɡe | hɔːs épos eːpêːn | oːden eːrɛ̌ːkaːsin ‖]

Transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme:

Hóti mèn hūmeîs, ô ándres Athēnaîoi, pepónthate hupò tôn emôn katēgórōn, ouk oîda: egṑ d' oûn kaì autòs hup' autōn olígou emautoû epelathómēn, hoútō pithanôs élegon. Kaítoi alēthés ge hōs épos eipeîn oudèn eirḗkāsin.

Translated into English:

How you, men of Athens, are feeling under the power of my accusers, I do not know: actually, even I myself almost forgot who I was because of them, they spoke so persuasively. And yet, loosely speaking, nothing they have said is true.

In education

The study of ancient Greek in European countries in addition to Latin occupied an important place in the syllabus from the Renaissance until the beginning of the 20th century. Ancient Greek is still taught as a compulsory or optional subject especially at traditional or elite schools throughout Europe, such as public schools and grammar schools in the United Kingdom. It is compulsory in the liceo classico in Italy, in the gymnasium in the Netherlands, in some classes in Austria, in klasična gimnazija (grammar school - orientation classical languages) in Croatia, in Classical Studies in ASO in Belgium and it is optional in the humanities-oriented gymnasium in Germany (usually as a third language after Latin and English, from the age of 14 to 18). In 2006/07, 15,000 pupils studied ancient Greek in Germany according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, and 280,000 pupils studied it in Italy. It is a compulsory subject alongside Latin in the humanities branch of the Spanish bachillerato. Ancient Greek is also taught at most major universities worldwide, often combined with Latin as part of the study of classics. It will also be taught in state primary schools in the UK, to boost children's language skills, and will be offered as a foreign language to pupils in all primary schools from 2014 as part of a major drive to boost education standards, together with Latin, Mandarin, French, German, Spanish, and Italian.[needs update ]

Ancient Greek is also taught as a compulsory subject in all gymnasiums and lyceums in Greece. Starting in 2001, an annual international competition "Exploring the Ancient Greek Language and Culture" ( Greek: Διαγωνισμός στην Αρχαία Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Γραμματεία) was run for upper secondary students through the Greek Ministry of National Education and Religious Affairs, with Greek language and cultural organisations as co-organisers. It appears to have ceased in 2010, having failed to gain the recognition and acceptance of teachers.

Modern real-world usage

Modern authors rarely write in ancient Greek, though Jan Křesadlo wrote some poetry and prose in the language, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, some volumes of Asterix, and The Adventures of Alix have been translated into ancient Greek. Ὀνόματα Kεχιασμένα (Onomata Kechiasmena) is the first magazine of crosswords and puzzles in ancient Greek. Its first issue appeared in April 2015 as an annex to Hebdomada Aenigmatum. Alfred Rahlfs included a preface, a short history of the Septuagint text, and other front matter translated into ancient Greek in his 1935 edition of the Septuagint; Robert Hanhart also included the introductory remarks to the 2006 revised Rahlfs-Hanhart edition in the language as well. Akropolis World News reports weekly a summary of the most important news in ancient Greek.

Ancient Greek is also used by organizations and individuals, mainly Greek, who wish to denote their respect, admiration or preference for the use of this language. This use is sometimes considered graphical, nationalistic or humorous. In any case, the fact that modern Greeks can still wholly or partly understand texts written in non-archaic forms of ancient Greek shows the affinity of the modern Greek language to its ancestral predecessor.

An isolated community near Trabzon, Turkey, an area where Pontic Greek is spoken, has been found to speak a variety of Modern Greek, Ophitic, that has parallels, both structurally and in its vocabulary, to ancient Greek not present in other varieties ( linguistic conservatism). As few as 5,000 people speak the dialect, and linguists believe that it is the closest living language to ancient Greek.

Ancient Greek is often used in the coinage of modern technical terms in the European languages: see English words of Greek origin. Latinized forms of ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in scientific terminology.

^ Mycenaean Greek is imprecisely attested and somewhat reconstructive due to its being written in an ill-fitting syllabary (Linear B).

References

Further reading

Adams, Matthew. "The Introduction of Greek into English Schools." Greece and Rome 61.1: 102-13, 2014.

Allan, Rutger J. "Changing the Topic: Topic Position in Ancient Greek Word Order." Mnemosyne: Bibliotheca Classica Batava 67.2: 181-213, 2014.

Athenaze: An Introduction to Ancient Greek (Oxford University Press). [A series of textbooks on Ancient Greek published for school use.]

Bakker, Egbert J., ed. A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Beekes, Robert S. P. Etymological Dictionary of Greek. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.

Chantraine, Pierre. Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, new and updated edn., edited by Jean Taillardat, Olivier Masson, & Jean-Louis Perpillou. 3 vols. Paris: Klincksieck, 2009 (1st edn. 1968-1980).

Christidis, Anastasios-Phoibos, ed. A History of Ancient Greek: from the Beginnings to Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Easterling, P and Handley, C. Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction. London: Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 2001. ISBN 0-902984-17-9

Fortson, Benjamin W. Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. 2d ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Hansen, Hardy and Quinn, Gerald M. (1992) Greek: An Intensive Course, Fordham University Press

Horrocks, Geoffrey. Greek: A History of the Language and its Speakers. 2d ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

Janko, Richard. "The Origins and Evolution of the Epic Diction." In The Iliad: A Commentary. Vol. 4, Books 13-16. Edited by Richard Janko, 8-19. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992.

Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece: Revised Edition with a Supplement by A. W. Johnston. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990.

Morpurgo Davies, Anna, and Yves Duhoux, eds. A Companion to Linear B: Mycenaean Greek Texts and their World. Vol. 1. Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 2008.

Swiggers, Pierre and Alfons Wouters. "Description of the Constituent Elements of the (Greek) Language." In Brill's Companion to Ancient Greek Scholarship. Edited by Franco Montanari and Stephanos Matthaios, 757-797. Leiden : Brill, 2015.

External links

Grammar learning

Classical texts

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Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often roughly divided into the Archaic period (9th to 6th centuries BC), Classical period (5th and 4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic period ( Koine Greek, 3rd century BC to 4th century AD).

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Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they've all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

However, there's more to ancient Egypt than the amazing stories we hear about the pharaohs and the dynasties that have ruled the land of sand and pyramids for thousands of years. Egyptians left us a valuable legacy through their inventions and discoveries that changed the course of history and led to the development of the modern world. So, let's take a trip through Egypt's history and explore the most notable creations that ancient Egyptians gave us.
Medical science
Ancient Egyptians were quite knowledgeable when it came to understanding different ailments and they were quite skilled at treating them as well. Several medical texts have been discovered, describing medical procedures and recipes in great detail. They used herbs and animal parts to cure wounds and other health issues, so they didn't rely on magical powers or unearthly forces to ensure their good health and wellbeing. But what's even more impressive is that they also performed surgeries. The bronze surgical tools and the papyrus logs that have been discovered stand proof of their advanced medical skills, so Egyptians can be considered the precursors to modern medicine.
Mathematics
Egyptians were also great mathematicians, knowing how to perform calculations such as additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions in effective ways, and there's evidence proving they were the first to come up with the concept of basic fractions. They also had knowledge in geometry and they made use of these skills to help them take accurate measurements and build their impressive monuments. Just think about the Great Pyramids and the level of mathematical and geometrical knowledge this civilization had to possess in order to build such massive structures.
Written language
Although the Egyptian alphabet is no longer in use today, they were the first civilization to use symbols to represent individual sounds, thus developing written language. Egyptians initially used hieroglyphs to express their ideas in written form, but over the course of time they invented 24 alphabets. They also took one step further by leaving behind the common practice of carving these symbols into stone and started using papyrus for their writings, crafted from the plant with the same name that grew on the banks of Nile. This inspired other civilizations to develop similar materials such as parchments and then the Chinese finally invented the paper in 100 BC.
Art and architecture
It's quite obvious that ancient Egyptians excelled in both art and architecture. Numerous structures and art pieces have stood the test of time and still amaze us today with their beauty and intricacy. It remains a mystery how such an ancient civilization could create these mesmerizing monuments. Archaeologists have discovered countless art pieces from different dynasties which make the object of fasciation to this day. So much so that people even try to replicate the style and artistry of ancient Egyptians, searching for Egyptian antiquities for sale to decorate their homes and bring an unique accent to their space.
Makeup and wigs
In ancient Egypt, both men and women were equally interested in makeup and enhancing their physical appearance. For them, beauty was related to sacredness, and people from all classes indulged in the art of makeup. We all know the stories about queen Cleopatra's ravishing beauty, so for Egyptians outward appearance was a matter of no small importance. Women from upper classes would use creams and powders to make their skin look lighter, but the most popular beauty trend was of course the use of heavy eye makeup. Egyptians would use either grepond eye-paint or black kohl to contour their eyes. Another widespread beauty trend in ancient Egypt was wearing wigs. It was a sign of nobility as most nobles would shave their heads and cover their heads with wigs made from natural hair.
The calendar
The Egyptian calendar is amongst the first dating systems known to mankind. The Egyptians who were skilled astronomers discovered the lunar year and created a calendar based on the phases of the moon, but they later introduced a civil calendar that very much resembles the one we use today. According to the Egyptian civil calendar, the year had 365 days and consisted of three seasons of 120 days each. The seasons would have four months of 30 days and at the end of each year there would be 5 epagomenal days added. So, we can all thank ancient Egyptians for forming the basis of the modern-day calendar.
Keep up with the top stories from Reader's Digest by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How ancient Egyptian civilization influenced the modern world - Reader's Digest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they’ve all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they've all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

However, there's more to ancient Egypt than the amazing stories we hear about the pharaohs and the dynasties that have ruled the land of sand and pyramids for thousands of years. Egyptians left us a valuable legacy through their inventions and discoveries that changed the course of history and led to the development of the modern world. So, let's take a trip through Egypt's history and explore the most notable creations that ancient Egyptians gave us.
Medical science
Ancient Egyptians were quite knowledgeable when it came to understanding different ailments and they were quite skilled at treating them as well. Several medical texts have been discovered, describing medical procedures and recipes in great detail. They used herbs and animal parts to cure wounds and other health issues, so they didn't rely on magical powers or unearthly forces to ensure their good health and wellbeing. But what's even more impressive is that they also performed surgeries. The bronze surgical tools and the papyrus logs that have been discovered stand proof of their advanced medical skills, so Egyptians can be considered the precursors to modern medicine.
Mathematics
Egyptians were also great mathematicians, knowing how to perform calculations such as additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions in effective ways, and there's evidence proving they were the first to come up with the concept of basic fractions. They also had knowledge in geometry and they made use of these skills to help them take accurate measurements and build their impressive monuments. Just think about the Great Pyramids and the level of mathematical and geometrical knowledge this civilization had to possess in order to build such massive structures.
Written language
Although the Egyptian alphabet is no longer in use today, they were the first civilization to use symbols to represent individual sounds, thus developing written language. Egyptians initially used hieroglyphs to express their ideas in written form, but over the course of time they invented 24 alphabets. They also took one step further by leaving behind the common practice of carving these symbols into stone and started using papyrus for their writings, crafted from the plant with the same name that grew on the banks of Nile. This inspired other civilizations to develop similar materials such as parchments and then the Chinese finally invented the paper in 100 BC.
Art and architecture
It's quite obvious that ancient Egyptians excelled in both art and architecture. Numerous structures and art pieces have stood the test of time and still amaze us today with their beauty and intricacy. It remains a mystery how such an ancient civilization could create these mesmerizing monuments. Archaeologists have discovered countless art pieces from different dynasties which make the object of fasciation to this day. So much so that people even try to replicate the style and artistry of ancient Egyptians, searching for Egyptian antiquities for sale to decorate their homes and bring an unique accent to their space.
Makeup and wigs
In ancient Egypt, both men and women were equally interested in makeup and enhancing their physical appearance. For them, beauty was related to sacredness, and people from all classes indulged in the art of makeup. We all know the stories about queen Cleopatra's ravishing beauty, so for Egyptians outward appearance was a matter of no small importance. Women from upper classes would use creams and powders to make their skin look lighter, but the most popular beauty trend was of course the use of heavy eye makeup. Egyptians would use either grepond eye-paint or black kohl to contour their eyes. Another widespread beauty trend in ancient Egypt was wearing wigs. It was a sign of nobility as most nobles would shave their heads and cover their heads with wigs made from natural hair.
The calendar
The Egyptian calendar is amongst the first dating systems known to mankind. The Egyptians who were skilled astronomers discovered the lunar year and created a calendar based on the phases of the moon, but they later introduced a civil calendar that very much resembles the one we use today. According to the Egyptian civil calendar, the year had 365 days and consisted of three seasons of 120 days each. The seasons would have four months of 30 days and at the end of each year there would be 5 epagomenal days added. So, we can all thank ancient Egyptians for forming the basis of the modern-day calendar.
Keep up with the top stories from Reader's Digest by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How ancient Egyptian civilization influenced the modern world - Reader's Digest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they’ve all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they've all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

However, there's more to ancient Egypt than the amazing stories we hear about the pharaohs and the dynasties that have ruled the land of sand and pyramids for thousands of years. Egyptians left us a valuable legacy through their inventions and discoveries that changed the course of history and led to the development of the modern world. So, let's take a trip through Egypt's history and explore the most notable creations that ancient Egyptians gave us.
Medical science
Ancient Egyptians were quite knowledgeable when it came to understanding different ailments and they were quite skilled at treating them as well. Several medical texts have been discovered, describing medical procedures and recipes in great detail. They used herbs and animal parts to cure wounds and other health issues, so they didn't rely on magical powers or unearthly forces to ensure their good health and wellbeing. But what's even more impressive is that they also performed surgeries. The bronze surgical tools and the papyrus logs that have been discovered stand proof of their advanced medical skills, so Egyptians can be considered the precursors to modern medicine.
Mathematics
Egyptians were also great mathematicians, knowing how to perform calculations such as additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions in effective ways, and there's evidence proving they were the first to come up with the concept of basic fractions. They also had knowledge in geometry and they made use of these skills to help them take accurate measurements and build their impressive monuments. Just think about the Great Pyramids and the level of mathematical and geometrical knowledge this civilization had to possess in order to build such massive structures.
Written language
Although the Egyptian alphabet is no longer in use today, they were the first civilization to use symbols to represent individual sounds, thus developing written language. Egyptians initially used hieroglyphs to express their ideas in written form, but over the course of time they invented 24 alphabets. They also took one step further by leaving behind the common practice of carving these symbols into stone and started using papyrus for their writings, crafted from the plant with the same name that grew on the banks of Nile. This inspired other civilizations to develop similar materials such as parchments and then the Chinese finally invented the paper in 100 BC.
Art and architecture
It's quite obvious that ancient Egyptians excelled in both art and architecture. Numerous structures and art pieces have stood the test of time and still amaze us today with their beauty and intricacy. It remains a mystery how such an ancient civilization could create these mesmerizing monuments. Archaeologists have discovered countless art pieces from different dynasties which make the object of fasciation to this day. So much so that people even try to replicate the style and artistry of ancient Egyptians, searching for Egyptian antiquities for sale to decorate their homes and bring an unique accent to their space.
Makeup and wigs
In ancient Egypt, both men and women were equally interested in makeup and enhancing their physical appearance. For them, beauty was related to sacredness, and people from all classes indulged in the art of makeup. We all know the stories about queen Cleopatra's ravishing beauty, so for Egyptians outward appearance was a matter of no small importance. Women from upper classes would use creams and powders to make their skin look lighter, but the most popular beauty trend was of course the use of heavy eye makeup. Egyptians would use either grepond eye-paint or black kohl to contour their eyes. Another widespread beauty trend in ancient Egypt was wearing wigs. It was a sign of nobility as most nobles would shave their heads and cover their heads with wigs made from natural hair.
The calendar
The Egyptian calendar is amongst the first dating systems known to mankind. The Egyptians who were skilled astronomers discovered the lunar year and created a calendar based on the phases of the moon, but they later introduced a civil calendar that very much resembles the one we use today. According to the Egyptian civil calendar, the year had 365 days and consisted of three seasons of 120 days each. The seasons would have four months of 30 days and at the end of each year there would be 5 epagomenal days added. So, we can all thank ancient Egyptians for forming the basis of the modern-day calendar.
Keep up with the top stories from Reader's Digest by subscribing to our weekly newsletter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How ancient Egyptian civilization influenced the modern world - Reader's Digest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient civilizations have always held a special fascination for people, with their rich history and enthralling mysteries that transport us back in time, and they’ve all had their contribution at shaping the world as we know it today. But out of all ancient civilizations known to humankind, the ancient Egyptians are probably the ones that capture our imagination the most.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1319562X21005027

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Abstract

The ancient Egyptians practiced medicine with highly professional methods. They had advanced knowledge of anatomy and surgery. Also, they treated a lot of diseases including dental, gynecological, gastrointestinal, and urinary disorders. They could diagnose diabetes and cancer. The used therapeutics extended from different plants to include several animal products and minerals. Some of these plants are still used in the present day. Fortunately, they documented their life details by carving on stone, clay, or papyri. Although a lot of these records have been lost or destroyed, the surviving documents represent a huge source of knowledge in different scientific aspects including medicine. This review article is an attempt to understand some information about traditional medicine in ancient Egypt, we will look closely at some basics, sources of information of Egyptian medicine in addition to common treated diseases and therapeutics in this great civilization.

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Traditional ancient Egyptian medicine: A review

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The ancient Egyptians practiced medicine with highly professional methods. They had advanced knowledge of anatomy and surgery. Also, they treated a lot of diseases including dental, gynecological, gastrointestinal, and urinary disorders. They could diagnose diabetes and cancer. The used therapeutics extended from different plants to include several animal products and minerals.

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https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Architecture/

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt. The pyramids at Giza remain impressive monuments thousands of years after they were built and the knowledge and skill required to construct them was gathered over the many centuries prior to their construction. Yet the pyramids are not the apex of ancient Egyptian architecture; they are only the earliest and best known expressions of a culture which would go on to create buildings, monuments, and temples just as intriguing.

6,000 Years of History

Ancient Egyptian history begins prior to the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - 3150 BCE) and continues through the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Artifacts and evidence of overgrazing of cattle, in the area now known as the Sahara Desert, date human habitation in the area to c. 8000 BCE. The Early Dynastic Period in Egypt (c. 3150 - 2613 BCE) built upon the knowledge of those who had gone before and Predynastic art and architecture was improved on. The first pyramid in Egypt, Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara, comes from the end of this Early Dynastic Period and a comparison of this monument and its surrounding complex with the mastaba tombs of earlier centuries show how far the Egyptians had advanced in their understanding of architectural design and construction. Equally impressive, however, is the link between these great monuments and those which came after them.

The pyramids at Giza date from the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 - 2181 BCE) and represent the pinnacle of talent and skill acquired at that time. Ancient Egyptian history, however, still had a long and illustrious path before it and as the pyramid form was abandoned the Egyptians focused their attention on temples. Many of these whose ruins are still extant, such as the temple complex of Amun-Ra at Karnak, inspire as much genuine awe as the pyramids at Giza but all of them, however great or modest, show an attention to detail and an awareness of aesthetic beauty and practical functionality which makes them masterpieces of architecture. These structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, and raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian structures still resonate in the present day because they were conceived, designed, & raised to tell an eternal story which they still relate to everyone who visits the sites.

Egyptian Architecture & the Creation Of The World

At the beginning of time, according to the Egyptian religion, there was nothing but swirling waters of dark chaos. From these primordial waters rose a mound of dry land, known as the ben-ben, around which the waters rolled. Upon the mound lighted the god Atum who looked out over the darkness and felt lonely; so he mated with himself and creation began.

Atum was responsible for the unknowable universe, the sky above, and the earth below. Through his children he was also the creator of human beings (though in some versions the goddess Neith plays a part in this). The world and all that human beings knew came from water, from dampness, moistness, from the kind of environment familiar to the Egyptians from the Nile Delta. Everything had been created by the gods and these gods were ever-present in one's life through nature.

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The lives of the gods mirrored those of the people and the Egyptians honored them in their lives and through their works. The gods were thought to have provided the most perfect of worlds for the people of ancient Egypt; so perfect, in fact, that it would last forever. The afterlife was simply a continuation of the life one had been living. It is not surprising, then, that when these people constructed their great monuments they would reflect this belief system. The architecture of ancient Egypt tells this story of the people's relationship with their land and their gods. The symmetry of the structures, the inscriptions, the interior design, all reflect the concept of harmony ( ma'at) which was central to the ancient Egyptian value system.

The Predynastic & Early Dynastic Periods

The homes and tombs of the Predynastic Period were built of mud-brick which was dried in the sun (a practice which would continue throughout Egypt's history). Homes were thatched structures of reeds which were daubed with mud for walls prior to the discovery of brick making. These early buildings were circular or oval before bricks were used and, after, became square or rectangular. Communities gathered together for protection from the elements, wild animals, and strangers and grew into cities which encircled themselves with walls.

As civilization advanced, so did the architecture with the appearance of windows and doors braced and adorned by wooden frames. Wood was more plentiful in Egypt at this time but still not in the quantity to suggest itself as a building material on any large scale. The mud brick oval home became the rectangular house with a vaulted roof, a garden, and courtyard. Work in mud brick is also evidenced in the construction of tombs which, during the Early Dynastic Period in Egypt, become more elaborate and intricate in design. These early oblong tombs (mastabas) continued to be built of mud brick but already at this time people were working in stone to create temples to their gods. Stone monuments (stelae) begin to appear, along with these temples, by the Second Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2890 - c. 2670 BCE).

Obelisks, large upright stone monuments with four sides and a tapered top, began to appear in the city of Heliopolis at about this time. The Egyptian obelisk (known to them as tekhenu, "obelisk" being the Greek name) is among the most perfect examples of Egyptian architecture reflecting the relationship between the gods and the people as they were always raised in pairs and it was thought that the two created on earth were mirrored by two identical pieces raised in the heavens at the same time. Quarrying, carving, transporting, and raising the obelisks required enormous skill and labor and taught the Egyptians well how to work in stone and move immensely heavy objects over many miles. Mastering stonework set the stage for the next great leap in Egyptian architecture: the pyramid.

Djoser's mortuary complex at Saqqara was conceived by his vizier and chief architect Imhotep (c. 2667 - c. 2600 BCE) who imagined a great mastaba tomb for his king built of stone. Djoser's pyramid is not a "true pyramid" but a series of stacked mastabas known as a "step pyramid". Even so, it was an incredibly impressive feat which had never been achieved before. Historian Desmond Stewart comments on this:

Djoser's Step Pyramid at Saqqara marks one of those developments that afterward seem inevitable but that would have been impossible without an experimenting genius. That the royal official Imhotep was such a genius we know, not from Greek legend, which identified him with Aesculapius, the god of medicine, but from what archaeologists have discovered from his still impressive pyramid. Investigation has shown that, at every stage, he was prepared to experiment along new lines. His first innovation was to construct a mastaba that was not oblong, but square. His second concerned the material from which it was built (cited in Nardo, 125).

Temple construction, albeit on a modest level, had already acquainted the Egyptians with stonework. Imhotep imagined the same on a grand scale. The early mastabas had been decorated with inscriptions and engravings of reeds, flowers, and other nature imagery; Imhotep wanted to continue that tradition in a more durable material. His great, towering mastaba pyramid would have the same delicate touches and symbolism as the more modest tombs which had preceded it and, better yet, these would all be worked in stone instead of dried mud. Historian Mark van de Mieroop comments on this:

Imhotep reproduced in stone what had been previously built of other materials. The facade of the enclosure wall had the same niches as the tombs of mud brick, the columns resembled bundles of reed and papyrus, and stone cylinders at the lintels of doorways represented rolled-up reed screens. Much experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex. It had several plans with mastaba forms before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six mastaba-like levels on top of one another...The weight of the enormous mass was a challenge to the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to prevent the monument breaking up (56).

When completed, the Step Pyramid rose 204 feet (62 meters) high and was the tallest structure of its time. The surrounding complex included a temple, courtyards, shrines, and living quarters for the priests covering an area of 40 acres (16 hectares) and surrounded by a wall 30 feet (10.5 meters) high. The wall had 13 false doors cut into it with only one true entrance cut in the south-east corner; the entire wall was then ringed by a trench 2,460 feet (750 meters) long and 131 feet (40 meters) wide. The actual tomb of Djoser was located beneath the pyramid at the bottom of a shaft 92 feet (28 meters) long. The tomb chamber itself was encased in granite but, to reach it, one had to traverse a maze of hallways, all brightly painted with reliefs and inlaid with tiles, leading to other rooms or dead ends filled with stone vessels carved with the names of earlier kings. This labyrinth was created, of course, to protect the tomb and grave goods of the king but, unfortunately, it failed to keep out ancient grave robbers and the tomb was looted at some point in antiquity.

Djoser's Step Pyramid incorporates all of the elements most resonant in Egyptian architecture: symmetry, balance, and grandeur which reflected the core values of the culture. Egyptian civilization was based upon the concept of ma'at(harmony, balance) which was decreed by their gods. The architecture of ancient Egypt, whether on a small or large scale, always represented these ideals. Palaces were even built with two entrances, two throne rooms, two receiving halls in order to maintain symmetry and balance in representing both Upper and Lower Egypt in the design

The innovations of Imhotep were carried further by the kings of the 4th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom. The last king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, Huni (c. 2630 - 2613 BCE), was long thought to have initiated the massive building projects of the Old Kingdom in constructing the pyramid at Meidum but that honor is due the first king of the 4th Dynasty, Sneferu (c. 2613 - 2589 BCE). Egyptologist Barbara Watterson writes, "Sneferu initiated the golden age of the Old Kingdom, his most notable achievements being the two pyramids built for him at Dahshur" (50-51). Sneferu began his work with the pyramid at Meidum now referred to as the "collapsed pyramid" or, locally, as the "false pyramid" because of its shape: it resembles a tower more than a pyramid and its outer casing rests around it in a gigantic heap of gravel.

The pyramid of Meidum is the first true pyramid constructed in Egypt. A "true pyramid" is defined as a perfectly symmetrical monument whose steps have been filled in to create seamless sides tapering toward a point at the top. Originally, any pyramid began as a step pyramid. The Meidum pyramid did not last, however, because modifications were made to Imhotep's original pyramid design which resulted in the outer casing resting on a sand foundation rather than rock, causing it to collapse. Scholars are divided on whether the collapse occurred during construction or over a longer period of time.

Sneferu's experiments with the stone pyramid form served his successor well. Khufu (2589 - 2566 BCE) learned from his father's experiments and directed his administration in constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza, the last of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Contrary to the popular belief that his monument was built by Hebrew slaves, Egyptian workers on the Great Pyramid were well cared for and performed their duties as part of a community service, as paid laborers, or during the time when the Nile's flood made farming impossible. Scholars Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs note:

Were it not for the two months every year when the Nile's water covered Egypt's farmland, idling virtually the entire workforce, none of this construction would have been possible. During such times, a pharaoh offered food for work and the promise of a favored treatment in the afterworld where he would rule just as he did in this world. For two months annually, workmen gathered by the tens of thousands from all over the country to transport the blocks a permanent crew had quarried during the rest of the year. Overseers organized the men into teams to transport the stones on sleds, devices better suited than wheeled vehicles to moving weighty objects over shifting sand. A causeway, lubricated by water, smoothed the uphill pull. No mortar was used to hold the blocks in place, only a fit so exact that these towering structures have survived for 4,000 years - the only Wonders of the Ancient World still standing today (17-18).

There is no evidence whatsoever that Hebrew slaves, or any kind of slave labor, went into the construction of the pyramids at Giza, the city of Per-Ramesses, or any other important site in Egypt. The practice of slavery certainly existed in Egypt throughout its history, as it did in every ancient culture, but it was not the kind of slavery popularly depicted in fiction and film based on the biblical Book of Exodus. Slaves in the ancient world could be tutors and teachers of the young, accountants, nursemaids, dance instructors, brewers, even philosophers. Slaves in Egypt were either captives from military campaigns or those who could not pay their debts and these people usually worked in the mines and quarries.

The men and women who worked on the Great Pyramid lived in state-provided housing on the site (as discovered by Lehner and Hawass in 1979 CE) and were well compensated for their efforts. The more skilled a worker was, the higher their compensation. The result of their work still amazes people in the modern day. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder left of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world and justifiably so: until the Eifel Tower was completed in 1889 CE, the Great Pyramid was the tallest structure on earth built by human hands. Historian Marc van de Mieroop writes:

The size boggles the mind: it was 146 meters high (479 feet) by 230 meters at the base (754 feet). We estimate that it contained 2,300,000 blocks of stone with an average weight of 2 and 3/4 tons some weighing up to 16 tons. Khufu ruled 23 years according to the Turin Royal Canon, which would mean that throughout his reign annually 100,000 blocks - daily about 285 blocks or one every two minutes of daylight - had to be quarried, transported, dressed, and put in place...The construction was almost faultless in design. The sides were oriented exactly toward the cardinal points and were at precise 90-degree angles (58).

The second pyramid constructed at Giza belongs to Khufu's successor Khafre (2558 - 2532 BCE) who is also credited with creating the Great Sphinx of Giza. The third pyramid belongs to his successor Menkaure (2532 - 2503 BCE). An inscription from c. 2520 BCE relates how Menkaure came to inspect his pyramid and assigned 50 of the workers to the new task of building a tomb for his official, Debhen. Part of the inscription reads, "His majesty commanded that no man should be taken for any forced labour" and that rubbish should be cleared from the site for construction (Lewis, 9). This was a fairly common practice at Giza where the kings would commission tombs for their friends and favored officials.

The Giza plateau today presents a very different image from what it would have looked like in the time of the Old Kingdom. It was not the lonely site at the edge of the desert it is today but a sizeable necropolis which had shops, factories, markets, temples, housing, public gardens, and numerous monuments. The Great Pyramid was sheathed in an outer casing of gleaming white limestone and rose from the center of the small city, visible from miles around. Giza was a self-sustaining community whose people were government workers but the construction of the enormous monuments there in the 4th Dynasty was very costly. Khafre's pyramid and complex are a little smaller than Khufu's and Menkaure's smaller than Khafre's and this is because, as 4th Dynasty pyramid building continued, resources dwindled. Menkaure's successor, Shepsekhaf (2503 - 2498 BCE) was buried in a modest mastaba at Saqqara.

The cost of the pyramids was not only financial but political. Giza was not the only necropolis in Egypt at the time and all of these sites required maintenance and administration which was carried out by priests. As these sites grew, so did the wealth and power of the priests and the regional governors (nomarchs) who presided over the different districts the sites were in. The later rulers of the Old Kingdom built temples (or pyramids on a much smaller scale) as these were more affordable. The shift from the pyramid monument to the temple signaled a deeper shift in sensibilities which had to do with the growing power of the priesthood: monuments were no longer being built to honor a certain king but for a specific god.

The power of the priests and nomarchs, along with other factors, brought about the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Egypt then entered the era known as the First Intermediate Period (2181 - 2040 BCE) in which individual regions essentially governed themselves. The kings still ruled from Memphis but they were ineffectual.

The First Intermediate Period of Egypt has traditionally been depicted as a time of decline because no great monuments were raised and the quality of the art is considered inferior to that of the Old Kingdom. Actually, though, the artwork and architecture is simply different, not sub-par. In the Old Kingdom, architectural works were state-sponsored, as was artwork, and so was more or less uniform to reflect the tastes of royalty. In the First Intermediate Period, regional artists and architects were free to explore different forms and styles. Historian Margaret Bunson writes:

Under the nomarchs, architecture survived the collapse of the Old Kingdom. Their patronage continued into the Middle Kingdom, resulting in such remarkable sites as Beni Hassan (c. 1900 BC) with its rock carved tombs and large chapels complete with columned porticos and painted walls (32).

When Mentuhotep II (c. 2061 - 2010 BCE) united Egypt under Theban rule, royal commissioning of art and architecture resumed but, unlike in the Old Kingdom, variety and personal expression was encouraged. Middle Kingdom architecture, beginning with Mentuhotep's grand mortuary complex at Deir el-Bahri near Thebes, is at once grand and personal in scope.

Under the reign of king Senusret I (c. 1971 - 1926 BCE), the great Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak was begun when this monarch erected a modest structure at the site. This temple, like all Middle Kingdom temples, was constructed with an outer courtyard, columned courts which led to halls and ritual chambers, and an inner sanctum which housed a god's statue. Sacred lakes were created at these sites and the entire effect was a symbolic representation of the beginning of the world and the harmonious operation of the universe. Bunson writes:

Temples were religious structures considered the "horizon" of a divine being, the point at which the god came into existence during creation. Thus, each temple had a link to the past, and the rituals conducted within its court were formulas handed down for generations. The temple was also a mirror of the universe and a representation of the Primeval Mound where creation began (258).

Homes and other buildings continued to be made from mud brick during the Middle Kingdom; stone was only used for temples and monuments and this was usually limestone, sandstone or, in some cases, granite which required the greatest skill to work in. A little known masterpiece of the Middle Kingdom, long ago lost, was the pyramid complex of Amenemhat III (c. 1860 - 1815 BCE) at the city of Hawara.

This complex was enormous, featuring twelve great separate courts which faced one another across an expanse of columned halls and interior hallways so intricate that it was called "the labyrinth" by Herodotus. The courts and hallways were further connected by corridors and colonnades and shafts so that a visitor might walk down a familiar hall but take an unfamiliar turn and wind up in a completely different area of the complex than the one they had intended. Criss-crossing alleys and false doors sealed by stone plugs served to confuse and disorient a visitor to protect the central burial chamber of the pyramid of the king. This chamber is said to have been cut from a single block of granite and to have weighed 110 tons. Herodotus claimed it was more impressive than any of the wonders he had ever seen.

The rulers of the New Kingdom built on a grand scale in keeping with Egypt's new elevated status as an empire. Egypt had never known a foreign power like the Hyksos taking control of their land and, after Ahmose I drove them out, he initiated military campaigns to create buffer zones around Egypt's borders. These areas were expanded by his successors, most notably Thutmose III (1458 - 1425 BCE), until Egypt ruled an empire which stretched from Syria, down the Levant, across to Libya, and down through Nubia. Egypt became immensely wealthy during this time and that wealth was lavished on temples, mortuary complexes, and monuments.

The greatest of these is the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak. As with all the other temples in Egypt, this one told the story of the past, the people's lives, and honored the gods but was an immense work-in-progress with every ruler of the New Kingdom adding to it. The site covers over 200 acres and is comprised of a series of pylons (monumental gateways which taper towards the top to cornices), leading into courtyards, halls, and smaller temples. The first pylon opens onto a wide court which invites the visitor further. The second pylon opens onto the Hypostyle Court which measures 337 feet (103 meters) by 170 feet (52 meters). The hall is supported by 134 columns 72 feet (22 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) around in diameter. Scholars estimate one could fit three structures the size of Notre Dame Cathedral inside the main temple alone. Bunson comments:

Karnak remains the most remarkable religious complex ever built on earth. Its 250 acres of temples and chapels, obelisks, columns, and statues built over 2,000 years incorporate the finest aspects of Egyptian art and architecture into a great historical monument of stone (133).

As with all other temples, Karnak is a paragon of symmetrical architecture which seems to rise organically from the earth toward the sky. The great difference between this structure and any other is its grand scale and the scope of the vision. Each ruler who contributed to the building made greater advances than their predecessors but acknowledged those who had gone before. When Thutmose III built his festival hall there he may have removed monuments and buildings of earlier kings whom he then acknowledged with an inscription. Every temple symbolizes Egyptian culture and belief but Karnak does so in large letters and, quite literally, through inscriptions. Thousands of years of history may be read on the walls and columns of the Karnak temple.

Hatshepsut (1479 - 1458 BCE) contributed to Karnak like every other ruler but also commissioned buildings of such beauty and splendor that later kings claimed them as their own. Among her grandest is her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri near Luxor which incorporates every aspect of New Kingdom temple architecture on a grand scale: a landing stage at the water's edge, flagstaffs (relics of the past), pylons, forecourts, hypostyle halls, and a sanctuary. The temple is constructed in three tiers reaching 97 feet (29.5 meters) and visitors are still amazed by the building in the present day.

Long before the author of Exodus ever came up with his story, however, Ramesses II was famous for his military exploits, efficient rule, and magnificent building projects. His city of Per-Ramesses ("City of Ramesses") in Lower Egypt was widely praised by Egyptian scribes and foreign visitors but his temple at Abu Simbel is his masterpiece. The temple, cut from solid rock cliffs, stands 98 feet (30 meters) high and 115 feet (35 meters) long with four seated colossi flanking the entrance, two to each side, depicting Ramesses II on his throne; each one 65 feet (20 meters) tall. Beneath these giant figures are smaller statues (still larger than life) depicting Ramesses' conquered enemies, the Nubians, Libyans, and Hittites. Further statues represent his family members and various protecting gods and symbols of power. Passing between the colossi, through the central entrance, the interior of the temple is decorated with engravings showing Ramesses and Nefertari paying homage to the gods.

Abu Simbel is perfectly aligned with the east so that, twice a year on 21 February and 21 October, the sun shines directly into the inner sanctum to illuminate statues of Ramesses II and the god Amun. This is another aspect of ancient Egyptian architecture which characterizes most, if not all, of the great temples and monuments: celestial alignment. From the pyramids at Giza to the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the Egyptians oriented their buildings according to the cardinal points and in keeping with celestial events. The Egyptian name for a pyramid was Mer, meaning "Place of Ascension" (the name "pyramid" comes from the Greek word pyramis meaning "wheat cake" which is what they thought the structures looked like) as it was believed that the shape of the structure itself would enable the dead king to rise toward the horizon and more easily begin the next phase of his existence in the afterlife. In this same way, temples were oriented to invite the god to the inner sanctum and also, of course, provide access for when they wanted to ascend back to their own higher realms.

Late Period & Ptolemaic Dynasty

The New Kingdom declined as the priests of Amun at Thebes acquired greater power and wealth than the pharaoh while, at the same time, Egypt came to be ruled by weaker and weaker kings. By the time of the reign of Ramesses XI (c. 1107 - 1077 BCE) the central government at Per-Ramesses was completely ineffective and the high priests at Thebes held all the real power.

The city has magnificent public precincts and royal palaces which cover a fourth or even a third of the entire area. For just as each of the kings would, from a love of splendour, add some ornament to the public monuments, so he would provide himself at his own expense with a residence in addition to those already standing (1).

Alexandria became the impressive city Strabo praises during the time of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 - 30 BCE). Ptolemy I (323 - 285 BCE) began the great Library of Alexandria and the temple known as the Serapeum which was completed by Ptolemy II (285 - 246 BCE) who also built the famous Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

The early rulers of the Ptolemaic Dynasty continued the traditions of Egyptian architecture, blending them with their own Greek practices, to create impressive buildings, monuments, and temples. The dynasty ended with the death of the last queen, Cleopatra VII (69 - 30 BCE), and the country was annexed by Rome. The legacy of the Egyptian architects lives on, however, through the monuments they left behind. The imposing pyramids, temples, and monuments of Egypt continue to inspire and intrigue visitors in the present day. Imhotep and those who followed after him envisioned monuments in stone which would defy the passage of time and keep their memory alive. The enduring popularity of these structures today rewards that early vision and accomplishes their goal.

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The pyramids are the most recognizable symbol of ancient Egypt. Even though other civilizations, such as the Maya or the Chinese, also employed this form, the pyramid in the modern day is synonymous in most people's minds with Egypt.

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Ancient Egyptian literature was written in the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature.

Writing in ancient Egypt-both hieroglyphic and hieratic-first appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase of predynastic Egypt. By the Old Kingdom (26th century BC to 22nd century BC), literary works included funerary texts, epistles and letters, hymns and poems, and commemorative autobiographical texts recounting the careers of prominent administrative officials. It was not until the early Middle Kingdom (21st century BC to 17th century BC) that a narrative Egyptian literature was created. This was a "media revolution" which, according to Richard B. Parkinson, was the result of the rise of an intellectual class of scribes, new cultural sensibilities about individuality, unprecedented levels of literacy, and mainstream access to written materials. However, it is possible that the overall literacy rate was less than one percent of the entire population. The creation of literature was thus an elite exercise, monopolized by a scribal class attached to government offices and the royal court of the ruling pharaoh. However, there is no full consensus among modern scholars concerning the dependence of ancient Egyptian literature on the sociopolitical order of the royal courts.

Middle Egyptian, the spoken language of the Middle Kingdom, became a classical language during the New Kingdom (16th century BC to 11th century BC), when the vernacular language known as Late Egyptian first appeared in writing. Scribes of the New Kingdom canonized and copied many literary texts written in Middle Egyptian, which remained the language used for oral readings of sacred hieroglyphic texts. Some genres of Middle Kingdom literature, such as " teachings" and fictional tales, remained popular in the New Kingdom, although the genre of prophetic texts was not revived until the Ptolemaic period (4th century BC to 1st century BC). Popular tales included the Story of Sinuhe and The Eloquent Peasant, while important teaching texts include the Instructions of Amenemhat and The Loyalist Teaching. By the New Kingdom period, the writing of commemorative graffiti on sacred temple and tomb walls flourished as a unique genre of literature, yet it employed formulaic phrases similar to other genres. The acknowledgment of rightful authorship remained important only in a few genres, while texts of the "teaching" genre were pseudonymous and falsely attributed to prominent historical figures.

Ancient Egyptian literature has been preserved on a wide variety of media. This includes papyrus scrolls and packets, limestone or ceramic ostraca, wooden writing boards, monumental stone edifices and coffins. Texts preserved and unearthed by modern archaeologists represent a small fraction of ancient Egyptian literary material. The area of the floodplain of the Nile is under-represented because the moist environment is unsuitable for the preservation of papyri and ink inscriptions. On the other hand, hidden caches of literature, buried for thousands of years, have been discovered in settlements on the dry desert margins of Egyptian civilization.

By the Early Dynastic Period in the late 4th millennium BC, Egyptian hieroglyphs and their cursive form hieratic were well-established written scripts. Egyptian hieroglyphs are small artistic pictures of natural objects. For example, the hieroglyph for door-bolt, pronounced se, produced the sound; when this hieroglyph was combined with another or multiple hieroglyphs, it produced a combination of sounds that could represent abstract concepts like sorrow, happiness, beauty, and evil. The Narmer Palette, dated . 3100 BC during the last phase of Predynastic Egypt, combines the hieroglyphs for catfish and chisel to produce the name of King Narmer.

The Egyptians called their hieroglyphs "words of god" and reserved their use for exalted purposes, such as communicating with divinities and spirits of the dead through funerary texts. Each hieroglyphic word represented both a specific object and embodied the essence of that object, recognizing it as divinely made and belonging within the greater cosmos. Through acts of priestly ritual, like burning incense, the priest allowed spirits and deities to read the hieroglyphs decorating the surfaces of temples. In funerary texts beginning in and following the Twelfth Dynasty, the Egyptians believed that disfiguring, and even omitting certain hieroglyphs, brought consequences, either good or bad, for a deceased tomb occupant whose spirit relied on the texts as a source of nourishment in the afterlife. Mutilating the hieroglyph of a venomous snake, or other dangerous animal, removed a potential threat. However, removing every instance of the hieroglyphs representing a deceased person's name would deprive his or her soul of the ability to read the funerary texts and condemn that soul to an inanimate existence.

Hieratic is a simplified, cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Like hieroglyphs, hieratic was used in sacred and religious texts. By the 1st millennium BC, calligraphic hieratic became the script predominantly used in funerary papyri and temple rolls. Whereas the writing of hieroglyphs required the utmost precision and care, cursive hieratic could be written much more quickly and was therefore more practical for scribal record-keeping. Its primary purpose was to serve as a shorthand script for non-royal, non-monumental, and less formal writings such as private letters, legal documents, poems, tax records, medical texts, mathematical treatises, and instructional guides. Hieratic could be written in two different styles; one was more calligraphic and usually reserved for government records and literary manuscripts, the other was used for informal accounts and letters.

By the mid-1st millennium BC, hieroglyphs and hieratic were still used for royal, monumental, religious, and funerary writings, while a new, even more cursive script was used for informal, day-to-day writing: Demotic. The final script adopted by the ancient Egyptians was the Coptic alphabet, a revised version of the Greek alphabet. Coptic became the standard in the 4th century AD when Christianity became the state religion throughout the Roman Empire; hieroglyphs were discarded as idolatrous images of a pagan tradition, unfit for writing the Biblical canon.

Egyptian literature was produced on a variety of media. Along with the chisel, necessary for making inscriptions on stone, the chief writing tool of ancient Egypt was the reed pen, a reed fashioned into a stem with a bruised, brush-like end. With pigments of carbon black and red ochre, the reed pen was used to write on scrolls of papyrus-a thin material made from beating together strips of pith from the Cyperus papyrus plant-as well as on small ceramic or limestone potsherds known as ostraca. It is thought that papyrus rolls were moderately expensive commercial items, since many are palimpsests, manuscripts that have had their original contents erased to make room for new written works. This, along with the practice of tearing pieces off of larger papyrus documents to make smaller letters, suggests that there were seasonal shortages caused by the limited growing season of Cyperus papyrus. It also explains the frequent use of ostraca and limestone flakes as writing media for shorter written works. In addition to stone, ceramic ostraca, and papyrus, writing media also included wood, ivory, and plaster.

By the Roman Period of Egypt, the traditional Egyptian reed pen had been replaced by the chief writing tool of the Greco-Roman world: a shorter, thicker reed pen with a cut nib. Likewise, the original Egyptian pigments were discarded in favor of Greek lead-based inks. The adoption of Greco-Roman writing tools influenced Egyptian handwriting, as hieratic signs became more spaced, had rounder flourishes, and greater angular precision.

Underground Egyptian tombs built in the desert provide possibly the most protective environment for the preservation of papyrus documents. For example, there are many well-preserved Book of the Dead funerary papyri placed in tombs to act as afterlife guides for the souls of the deceased tomb occupants. However, it was only customary during the late Middle Kingdom and first half of the New Kingdom to place non-religious papyri in burial chambers. Thus, the majority of well-preserved literary papyri are dated to this period.

Most settlements in ancient Egypt were situated on the alluvium of the Nile floodplain. This moist environment was unfavorable for long-term preservation of papyrus documents. Archaeologists have discovered a larger quantity of papyrus documents in desert settlements on land elevated above the floodplain, and in settlements that lacked irrigation works, such as Elephantine, El-Lahun, and El-Hiba.

Writings on more permanent media have also been lost in several ways. Stones with inscriptions were frequently re-used as building materials, and ceramic ostraca require a dry environment to ensure the preservation of the ink on their surfaces. Whereas papyrus rolls and packets were usually stored in boxes for safekeeping, ostraca were routinely discarded in waste pits; one such pit was discovered by chance at the Ramesside-era village of Deir el-Medina, and has yielded the majority of known private letters on ostraca. Documents found at this site include letters, hymns, fictional narratives, recipes, business receipts, and wills and testaments. Penelope Wilson describes this archaeological find as the equivalent of sifting through a modern landfill or waste container. She notes that the inhabitants of Deir el-Medina were incredibly literate by ancient Egyptian standards, and cautions that such finds only come "...in rarefied circumstances and in particular conditions."

John W. Tait stresses, "Egyptian material survives in a very uneven fashion ... the unevenness of survival comprises both time and space." For instance, there is a dearth of written material from all periods from the Nile Delta but an abundance at western Thebes, dating from its heyday. He notes that while some texts were copied numerous times, others survive from a single copy; for example, there is only one complete surviving copy of the Tale of the shipwrecked sailor from the Middle Kingdom. However, Tale of the shipwrecked sailor also appears in fragments of texts on ostraca from the New Kingdom. Many other literary works survive only in fragments or through incomplete copies of lost originals.

Although writing first appeared during the very late 4th millennium BC, it was only used to convey short names and labels; connected strings of text did not appear until about 2600 BC, at the beginning of the Old Kingdom. This development marked the beginning of the first known phase of the Egyptian language: Old Egyptian. Old Egyptian remained a spoken language until about 2100 BC, when, during the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, it evolved into Middle Egyptian. While Middle Egyptian was closely related to Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian was significantly different in grammatical structure. Late Egyptian possibly appeared as a vernacular language as early as 1600 BC, but was not used as a written language until c. 1300 BC during the Amarna Period of the New Kingdom. Late Egyptian evolved into Demotic by the 7th century BC, and although Demotic remained a spoken language until the 5th century AD, it was gradually replaced by Coptic beginning in the 1st century AD.

Hieratic was used alongside hieroglyphs for writing in Old and Middle Egyptian, becoming the dominant form of writing in Late Egyptian. By the New Kingdom and throughout the rest of ancient Egyptian history, Middle Egyptian became a classical language that was usually reserved for reading and writing in hieroglyphs and the spoken language for more exalted forms of literature, such as historical records, commemorative autobiographies, hymns, and funerary spells. However, Middle Kingdom literature written in Middle Egyptian was also rewritten in hieratic during later periods.

Throughout ancient Egyptian history, reading and writing were the main requirements for serving in public office, although government officials were assisted in their day-to-day work by an elite, literate social group known as scribes. As evidenced by Papyrus Anastasi I of the Ramesside Period, scribes could even be expected, according to Wilson, "...to organize the excavation of a lake and the building of a brick ramp, to establish the number of men needed to transport an obelisk and to arrange the provisioning of a military mission". Besides government employment, scribal services in drafting letters, sales documents, and legal documents would have been frequently sought by illiterate people. Literate people are thought to have comprised only 1% of the population, the remainder being illiterate farmers, herdsmen, artisans, and other laborers, as well as merchants who required the assistance of scribal secretaries. The privileged status of the scribe over illiterate manual laborers was the subject of a popular Ramesside Period instructional text, The Satire of the Trades, where lowly, undesirable occupations, for example, potter, fisherman, laundry man, and soldier, were mocked and the scribal profession praised. A similar demeaning attitude towards the illiterate is expressed in the Middle Kingdom Teaching of Khety, which is used to reinforce the scribes' elevated position within the social hierarchy.

The scribal class was the social group responsible for maintaining, transmitting, and canonizing literary classics, and writing new compositions. Classic works, such as the Story of Sinuhe and Instructions of Amenemhat, were copied by schoolboys as pedagogical exercises in writing and to instill the required ethical and moral values that distinguished the scribal social class. Wisdom texts of the " teaching" genre represent the majority of pedagogical texts written on ostraca during the Middle Kingdom; narrative tales, such as Sinuhe and King Neferkare and General Sasenet, were rarely copied for school exercises until the New Kingdom. William Kelly Simpson describes narrative tales such as Sinuhe and The shipwrecked sailor as "...instructions or teachings in the guise of narratives", since the main protagonists of such stories embodied the accepted virtues of the day, such as love of home or self-reliance.

There are some known instances where those outside the scribal profession were literate and had access to classical literature. Menena, a draughtsman working at Deir el-Medina during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt, quoted passages from the Middle Kingdom narratives Eloquent Peasant and Tale of the shipwrecked sailor in an instructional letter reprimanding his disobedient son. Menena's Ramesside contemporary Hori, the scribal author of the satirical letter in Papyrus Anastasi I, admonished his addressee for quoting the Instruction of Hardjedef in the unbecoming manner of a non-scribal, semi-educated person. Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert further explains this perceived amateur affront to orthodox literature:

What may be revealed by Hori's attack on the way in which some Ramesside scribes felt obliged to demonstrate their greater or lesser acquaintance with ancient literature is the conception that these venerable works were meant to be known in full and not to be misused as quarries for popular sayings mined deliberately from the past. The classics of the time were to be memorized completely and comprehended thoroughly before being cited.

There is limited but solid evidence in Egyptian literature and art for the practice of oral reading of texts to audiences. The oral performance word "to recite" ( šdj) was usually associated with biographies, letters, and spells. Singing ( ḥsj) was meant for praise songs, love songs, funerary laments, and certain spells. Discourses such as the Prophecy of Neferti suggest that compositions were meant for oral reading among elite gatherings. In the 1st millennium BC Demotic short story cycle centered on the deeds of Petiese, the stories begin with the phrase "The voice which is before Pharaoh", which indicates that an oral speaker and audience was involved in the reading of the text. A fictional audience of high government officials and members of the royal court are mentioned in some texts, but a wider, non-literate audience may have been involved. For example, a funerary stela of Senusret I (r. 1971-1926 BC) explicitly mentions people who will gather and listen to a scribe who "recites" the stela inscriptions out loud.

Literature also served religious purposes. Beginning with the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom, works of funerary literature written on tomb walls, and later on coffins, and papyri placed within tombs, were designed to protect and nurture souls in their afterlife. This included the use of magical spells, incantations, and lyrical hymns. Copies of non-funerary literary texts found in non-royal tombs suggest that the dead could entertain themselves in the afterlife by reading these teaching texts and narrative tales.

Although the creation of literature was predominantly a male scribal pursuit, some works are thought to have been written by women. For example, several references to women writing letters and surviving private letters sent and received by women have been found. However, Edward F. Wente asserts that, even with explicit references to women reading letters, it is possible that women employed others to write documents.

Richard B. Parkinson and Ludwig D. Morenz write that ancient Egyptian literature-narrowly defined as belles-lettres ("beautiful writing")-was not recorded in written form until the early Twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Old Kingdom texts served mainly to maintain the divine cults, preserve souls in the afterlife, and document accounts for practical uses in daily life. It was not until the Middle Kingdom that texts were written for the purpose of entertainment and intellectual curiosity. Parkinson and Morenz also speculate that written works of the Middle Kingdom were transcriptions of the oral literature of the Old Kingdom. It is known that some oral poetry was preserved in later writing; for example, litter-bearers' songs were preserved as written verses in tomb inscriptions of the Old Kingdom.

Dating texts by methods of palaeography, the study of handwriting, is problematic because of differing styles of hieratic script. The use of orthography, the study of writing systems and symbol usage, is also problematic, since some texts' authors may have copied the characteristic style of an older archetype. Fictional accounts were often set in remote historical settings, the use of contemporary settings in fiction being a relatively recent phenomenon. The style of a text provides little help in determining an exact date for its composition, as genre and authorial choice might be more concerned with the mood of a text than the era in which it was written. For example, authors of the Middle Kingdom could set fictional wisdom texts in the golden age of the Old Kingdom (e.g. , Ptahhotep, and the prologue of Neferti), or they could write fictional accounts placed in a chaotic age resembling more the problematic life of the First Intermediate Period (e.g. and The Eloquent Peasant). Other fictional texts are set in illo tempore (in an indeterminable era) and usually contain timeless themes.

Parkinson writes that nearly all literary texts were pseudonymous, and frequently falsely attributed to well-known male protagonists of earlier history, such as kings and viziers. Only the literary genres of "teaching" and "laments/discourses" contain works attributed to historical authors; texts in genres such as "narrative tales" were never attributed to a well-known historical person. Tait asserts that during the Classical Period of Egypt, "Egyptian scribes constructed their own view of the history of the role of scribes and of the 'authorship' of texts", but during the Late Period, this role was instead maintained by the religious elite attached to the temples.

There are a few exceptions to the rule of pseudonymity. The real authors of some Ramesside Period teaching texts were acknowledged, but these cases are rare, localized, and do not typify mainstream works. Those who wrote private and sometimes model letters were acknowledged as the original authors. Private letters could be used in courts of law as testimony, since a person's unique handwriting could be identified as authentic. Private letters received or written by the pharaoh were sometimes inscribed in hieroglyphics on stone monuments to celebrate kingship, while kings' decrees inscribed on stone stelas were often made public.

Modern Egyptologists categorize Egyptian texts into genres, for example " laments/ discourses" and narrative tales. The only genre of literature named as such by the ancient Egyptians was the "teaching" or genre. Parkinson states that the titles of a work, its opening statement, or key words found in the body of text should be used as indicators of its particular genre. Only the genre of "narrative tales" employed prose, yet many of the works of that genre, as well as those of other genres, were written in verse. Most ancient Egyptian verses were written in couplet form, but sometimes triplets and quatrains were used.

The "instructions" or "teaching" genre, as well as the genre of "reflective discourses", can be grouped in the larger corpus of wisdom literature found in the ancient Near East. The genre is didactic in nature and is thought to have formed part of the Middle Kingdom scribal education syllabus. However, teaching texts often incorporate narrative elements that can instruct as well as entertain. Parkinson asserts that there is evidence that teaching texts were not created primarily for use in scribal education, but for ideological purposes. For example, Adolf Erman (1854-1937) writes that the fictional instruction given by Amenemhat I (r. 1991-1962 BC) to his sons "...far exceeds the bounds of school philosophy, and there is nothing whatever to do with school in a great warning his children to be loyal to the king". While narrative literature, embodied in works such as The Eloquent Peasant, emphasize the individual hero who challenges society and its accepted ideologies, the teaching texts instead stress the need to comply with society's accepted dogmas.

Key words found in teaching texts include "to know" ( rḫ) and "to teach" ( sbꜣ). These texts usually adopt the formulaic title structure of "the instruction of X made for Y", where "X" can be represented by an authoritative figure (such as a vizier or king) providing moral guidance to his son(s). It is sometimes difficult to determine how many fictional addressees are involved in these teachings, since some texts switch between singular and plural when referring to their audiences.

Examples of the "teaching" genre include the Maxims of Ptahhotep, Instructions of Kagemni, Teaching for King Merykare, Instructions of Amenemhat, Instruction of Hardjedef, Loyalist Teaching, and Instructions of Amenemope. Teaching texts that have survived from the Middle Kingdom were written on papyrus manuscripts. No educational ostraca from the Middle Kingdom have survived. The earliest schoolboy's wooden writing board, with a copy of a teaching text (i.e. Ptahhotep), dates to the Eighteenth dynasty. Ptahhotep and Kagemni are both found on the Prisse Papyrus, which was written during the Twelfth dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. The entire Loyalist Teaching survives only in manuscripts from the New Kingdom, although the entire first half is preserved on a Middle Kingdom biographical stone stela commemorating the Twelfth dynasty official Sehetepibre. Merykare, Amenemhat, and Hardjedef are genuine Middle Kingdom works, but only survive in later New Kingdom copies. Amenemope is a New Kingdom compilation.

The genre of "tales and stories" is probably the least represented genre from surviving literature of the Middle Kingdom and Middle Egyptian. In Late Egyptian literature, "tales and stories" comprise the majority of surviving literary works dated from the Ramesside Period of the New Kingdom into the Late Period. Major narrative works from the Middle Kingdom include the Tale of the Court of King Cheops, King Neferkare and General Sasenet, The Eloquent Peasant, Story of Sinuhe, and Tale of the shipwrecked sailor. The New Kingdom corpus of tales includes the Quarrel of Apepi and Seqenenre, The Taking of Joppa, Tale of the doomed prince, Tale of Two Brothers, and the Report of Wenamun. Stories from the 1st millennium BC written in Demotic include the story of the Famine Stela (set in the Old Kingdom, although written during the Ptolemaic dynasty) and short story cycles of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods that transform well-known historical figures such as Khaemweset ( Nineteenth Dynasty) and Inaros ( First Persian Period) into fictional, legendary heroes. This is contrasted with many stories written in Late Egyptian, whose authors frequently chose divinities as protagonists and mythological places as settings.

Parkinson defines tales as "...non-commemorative, non-functional, fictional narratives" that usually employ the key word "narrate" (). He describes it as the most open-ended genre, since the tales often incorporate elements of other literary genres. For example, Morenz describes the opening section of the foreign adventure tale Sinuhe as a "...funerary self-presentation" that parodies the typical autobiography found on commemorative funerary stelas. The autobiography is for a courier whose service began under Amenemhat I. Simpson states that the death of Amenemhat I in the report given by his son, coregent, and successor Senusret I (r. 1971-1926 BC) to the army in the beginning of Sinuhe is "...excellent propaganda". Morenz describes The shipwrecked sailor as an expeditionary report and a travel-narrative myth. Simpson notes the literary device of the story within a story in The shipwrecked sailor may provide "...the earliest examples of a narrative quarrying report". With the setting of a magical desert island, and a character who is a talking snake, The shipwrecked sailor may also be classified as a fairy tale. While stories like Sinuhe, Taking of Joppa, and the Doomed prince contain fictional portrayals of Egyptians abroad, the Report of Wenamun is most likely based on a true account of an Egyptian who traveled to Byblos in Phoenicia to obtain cedar for shipbuilding during the reign of Ramesses XI.

Narrative tales and stories are most often found on papyri, but partial and sometimes complete texts are found on ostraca. For example, Sinuhe is found on five papyri composed during the Twelfth and Thirteenth dynasties. This text was later copied numerous times on ostraca during the Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties, with one ostraca containing the complete text on both sides.

The Middle Kingdom genre of " prophetic texts", also known as " laments", " discourses", " dialogues", and "apocalyptic literature", include such works as the Admonitions of Ipuwer, Prophecy of Neferti, and Dispute between a man and his Ba. This genre had no known precedent in the Old Kingdom and no known original compositions were produced in the New Kingdom. However, works like Prophecy of Neferti were frequently copied during the Ramesside Period of the New Kingdom, when this Middle Kingdom genre was canonized but discontinued. Egyptian prophetic literature underwent a revival during the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and Roman period of Egypt with works such as the Demotic Chronicle, Oracle of the Lamb, Oracle of the Potter, and two prophetic texts that focus on Nectanebo II (r. 360-343 BC) as a protagonist. Along with "teaching" texts, these reflective discourses (key word mdt) are grouped with the wisdom literature category of the ancient Near East.

In Middle Kingdom texts, connecting themes include a pessimistic outlook, descriptions of social and religious change, and great disorder throughout the land, taking the form of a syntactic "then-now" verse formula. Although these texts are usually described as laments, Neferti digresses from this model, providing a positive solution to a problematic world. Although it survives only in later copies from the Eighteenth dynasty onward, Parkinson asserts that, due to obvious political content, Neferti was originally written during or shortly after the reign of Amenemhat I. Simpson calls it "...a blatant political pamphlet designed to support the new regime" of the Twelfth dynasty founded by Amenemhat, who usurped the throne from the Mentuhotep line of the Eleventh dynasty. In the narrative discourse, Sneferu (r. 2613-2589 BC) of the Fourth dynasty summons to court the sage and lector priest Neferti. Neferti entertains the king with prophecies that the land will enter into a chaotic age, alluding to the First Intermediate Period, only to be restored to its former glory by a righteous king- Ameny-whom the ancient Egyptian would readily recognize as Amenemhat I. A similar model of a tumultuous world transformed into a golden age by a savior king was adopted for the Lamb and Potter, although for their audiences living under Roman domination, the savior was yet to come.

Although written during the Twelfth dynasty, Ipuwer only survives from a Nineteenth dynasty papyrus. However, A man and his Ba is found on an original Twelfth dynasty papyrus, Papyrus Berlin 3024. These two texts resemble other discourses in style, tone, and subject matter, although they are unique in that the fictional audiences are given very active roles in the exchange of dialogue. In Ipuwer, a sage addresses an unnamed king and his attendants, describing the miserable state of the land, which he blames on the king's inability to uphold royal virtues. This can be seen either as a warning to kings or as a legitimization of the current dynasty, contrasting it with the supposedly turbulent period that preceded it. In A man and his Ba, a man recounts for an audience a conversation with his ba (a component of the Egyptian soul) on whether to continue living in despair or to seek death as an escape from misery.

The funerary stone slab stela was first produced during the early Old Kingdom. Usually found in mastaba tombs, they combined raised-relief artwork with inscriptions bearing the name of the deceased, their official titles (if any), and invocations.

Funerary poems were thought to preserve a monarch's soul in death. The Pyramid Texts are the earliest surviving religious literature incorporating poetic verse. These texts do not appear in tombs or pyramids originating before the reign of Unas (r. 2375-2345 BC), who had the Pyramid of Unas built at Saqqara. The Pyramid Texts are chiefly concerned with the function of preserving and nurturing the soul of the sovereign in the afterlife. This aim eventually included safeguarding both the sovereign and his subjects in the afterlife. A variety of textual traditions evolved from the original Pyramid Texts: the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, the so-called Book of the Dead, Litany of Ra, and written on papyri from the New Kingdom until the end of ancient Egyptian civilization.

Poems were also written to celebrate kingship. For example, at the Precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak, Thutmose III (r. 1479-1425 BC) of the Eighteenth dynasty erected a stela commemorating his military victories in which the gods bless Thutmose in poetic verse and ensure for him victories over his enemies. In addition to stone stelas, poems have been found on wooden writing boards used by schoolboys. Besides the glorification of kings, poems were written to honor various deities, and even the Nile.

Surviving hymns and songs from the Old Kingdom include the morning greeting hymns to the gods in their respective temples. A cycle of Middle-Kingdom songs dedicated to Senusret III (r. 1878-1839 BC) have been discovered at El-Lahun. Erman considers these to be secular songs used to greet the pharaoh at Memphis, while Simpson considers them to be religious in nature but affirms that the division between religious and secular songs is not very sharp. The Harper's Song, the lyrics found on a tombstone of the Middle Kingdom and on Papyrus Harris 500 from the New Kingdom, was to be performed for dinner guests at formal banquets.

During the reign of Akhenaten (r. 1353-1336 BC), the Great Hymn to the Aten-preserved in tombs of Amarna, including the tomb of Ay-was written to the Aten, the sun-disk deity given exclusive patronage during his reign. Simpson compares this composition's wording and sequence of ideas to those of Psalm 104.

Only a single poetic hymn in the Demotic script has been preserved. However, there are many surviving examples of Late-Period Egyptian hymns written in hieroglyphs on temple walls.

No Egyptian love song has been dated from before the New Kingdom, these being written in Late Egyptian, although it is speculated that they existed in previous times. Erman compares the love songs to the Song of Songs, citing the labels "sister" and "brother" that lovers used to address each other.

The ancient Egyptian model letters and epistles are grouped into a single literary genre. Papyrus rolls sealed with mud stamps were used for long-distance letters, while ostraca were frequently used to write shorter, non-confidential letters sent to recipients located nearby. Letters of royal or official correspondence, originally written in hieratic, were sometimes given the exalted status of being inscribed on stone in hieroglyphs. The various texts written by schoolboys on wooden writing boards include model letters. Private letters could be used as epistolary model letters for schoolboys to copy, including letters written by their teachers or their families. However, these models were rarely featured in educational manuscripts; instead fictional letters found in numerous manuscripts were used. The common epistolary formula used in these model letters was "The official A. saith to the scribe B".

The oldest-known private letters on papyrus were found in a funerary temple dating to the reign of Djedkare-Izezi (r. 2414-2375 BC) of the Fifth dynasty. More letters are dated to the Sixth dynasty, when the epistle subgenre began. The educational text Book of Kemit, dated to the Eleventh dynasty, contains a list of epistolary greetings and a narrative with an ending in letter form and suitable terminology for use in commemorative biographies. Other letters of the early Middle Kingdom have also been found to use epistolary formulas similar to the Book of Kemit. The Heqanakht papyri, written by a gentleman farmer, date to the Eleventh dynasty and represent some of the lengthiest private letters known to have been written in ancient Egypt.

During the late Middle Kingdom, greater standardization of the epistolary formula can be seen, for example in a series of model letters taken from dispatches sent to the Semna fortress of Nubia during the reign of Amenemhat III (r. 1860-1814 BC). Epistles were also written during all three dynasties of the New Kingdom. While letters to the dead had been written since the Old Kingdom, the writing of petition letters in epistolary form to deities began in the Ramesside Period, becoming very popular during the Persian and Ptolemaic periods.

The epistolary Satirical Letter of Papyrus Anastasi I written during the Nineteenth dynasty was a pedagogical and didactic text copied on numerous ostraca by schoolboys. Wente describes the versatility of this epistle, which contained "...proper greetings with wishes for this life and the next, the rhetoric composition, interpretation of aphorisms in wisdom literature, application of mathematics to engineering problems and the calculation of supplies for an army, and the geography of western Asia". Moreover, Wente calls this a "...polemical tractate" that counsels against the rote, mechanical learning of terms for places, professions, and things; for example, it is not acceptable to know just the place names of western Asia, but also important details about its topography and routes. To enhance the teaching, the text employs sarcasm and irony.

Catherine Parke, Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, writes that the earliest "commemorative inscriptions" belong to ancient Egypt and date to the 3rd millennium BC. She writes: "In ancient Egypt the formulaic accounts of Pharaoh's lives praised the continuity of dynastic power. Although typically written in the first person, these pronouncements are public, general testimonials, not personal utterances." She adds that as in these ancient inscriptions, the human urge to "...celebrate, commemorate, and immortalize, the impulse of life against death", is the aim of biographies written today.

Olivier Perdu, a professor of Egyptology at the Collège de France, states that biographies did not exist in ancient Egypt, and that commemorative writing should be considered autobiographical. Edward L. Greenstein, Professor of Bible at the Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University, disagrees with Perdu's terminology, stating that the ancient world produced no "autobiographies" in the modern sense, and these should be distinguished from 'autobiographical' texts of the ancient world. However, both Perdu and Greenstein assert that autobiographies of the ancient Near East should not be equated with the modern concept of autobiography.

In her discussion of the Ecclesiastes of the Hebrew Bible, Jennifer Koosed, associate professor of Religion at Albright College, explains that there is no solid consensus among scholars as to whether true biographies or autobiographies existed in the ancient world. One of the major scholarly arguments against this theory is that the concept of individuality did not exist until the European Renaissance, prompting Koosed to write "...thus autobiography is made a product of European civilization: Augustine begat Rosseau begat Henry Adams, and so on". Koosed asserts that the use of first-person "I" in ancient Egyptian commemorative funerary texts should not be taken literally since the supposed author is already dead. Funerary texts should be considered biographical instead of autobiographical. Koosed cautions that the term "biography" applied to such texts is problematic, since they also usually describe the deceased person's experiences of journeying through the afterlife.

Beginning with the funerary stelas for officials of the late Third dynasty, small amounts of biographical detail were added next to the deceased men's titles. However, it was not until the Sixth dynasty that narratives of the lives and careers of government officials were inscribed. Tomb biographies became more detailed during the Middle Kingdom, and included information about the deceased person's family. The vast majority of autobiographical texts are dedicated to scribal bureaucrats, but during the New Kingdom some were dedicated to military officers and soldiers. Autobiographical texts of the Late Period place a greater stress upon seeking help from deities than acting righteously to succeed in life. Whereas earlier autobiographical texts exclusively dealt with celebrating successful lives, Late Period autobiographical texts include laments for premature death, similar to the epitaphs of ancient Greece.

Modern historians consider that some biographical-or autobiographical-texts are important historical documents. For example, the biographical stelas of military generals in tomb chapels built under Thutmose III provide much of the information known about the wars in Syria and Palestine. However, the annals of Thutmose III, carved into the walls of several monuments built during his reign, such as those at Karnak, also preserve information about these campaigns. The annals of Ramesses II (r. 1279-1213 BC), recounting the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites include, for the first time in Egyptian literature, a narrative epic poem, distinguished from all earlier poetry, which served to celebrate and instruct.

Other documents useful for investigating Egyptian history are ancient lists of kings found in terse chronicles, such as the Fifth dynasty Palermo stone. These documents legitimated the contemporary pharaoh's claim to sovereignty. Throughout ancient Egyptian history, royal decrees recounted the deeds of ruling pharaohs. For example, the Nubian pharaoh Piye (r. 752-721 BC), founder of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, had a stela erected and written in classical Middle Egyptian that describes with unusual nuances and vivid imagery his successful military campaigns.

An Egyptian historian, known by his Greek name as Manetho ( c. 3rd century BC), was the first to compile a comprehensive history of Egypt. Manetho was active during the reign of Ptolemy II (r. 283-246 BC) and used The Histories by the Greek Herodotus ( c. 484 BC- c. 425 BC) as his main source of inspiration for a history of Egypt written in Greek. However, the primary sources for Manetho's work were the king list chronicles of previous Egyptian dynasties.

Fischer-Elfert distinguishes ancient Egyptian graffiti writing as a literary genre. During the New Kingdom, scribes who traveled to ancient sites often left graffiti messages on the walls of sacred mortuary temples and pyramids, usually in commemoration of these structures. Modern scholars do not consider these scribes to have been mere tourists, but pilgrims visiting sacred sites where the extinct cult centers could be used for communicating with the gods. There is evidence from an educational ostracon found in the tomb of Senenmut ( TT71) that formulaic graffiti writing was practiced in scribal schools. In one graffiti message, left at the mortuary temple of Thutmose III at Deir el-Bahri, a modified saying from The Maxims of Ptahhotep is incorporated into a prayer written on the temple wall. Scribes usually wrote their graffiti in separate clusters to distinguish their graffiti from others'. This led to competition among scribes, who would sometimes denigrate the quality of graffiti inscribed by others, even ancestors from the scribal profession.

After the Copts converted to Christianity in the first centuries AD, their Coptic Christian literature became separated from the pharaonic and Hellenistic literary traditions. Nevertheless, scholars speculate that ancient Egyptian literature, perhaps in oral form, influenced Greek and Arabic literature. Parallels are drawn between the Egyptian soldiers sneaking into Jaffa hidden in baskets to capture the city in the story The Taking of Joppa and the Mycenaean Greeks sneaking into Troy inside the Trojan Horse. The Taking of Joppa has also been compared to the Arabic story of Ali Baba in One Thousand and One Nights. It has been conjectured that Sinbad the Sailor may have been inspired by the pharaonic Tale of the shipwrecked sailor. Some Egyptian literature was commented on by scholars of the ancient world. For example, the Jewish Roman historian Josephus (37- c. 100 AD) quoted and provided commentary on Manetho's historical texts.

The most recently carved hieroglyphic inscription of ancient Egypt known today is found in a temple of Philae, dated precisely to 394 AD during the reign of Theodosius I (r. 379-395 AD). In the 4th century AD, the Hellenized Egyptian Horapollo compiled a survey of almost two hundred Egyptian hieroglyphs and provided his interpretation of their meanings, although his understanding was limited and he was unaware of the phonetic uses of each hieroglyph. This survey was apparently lost until 1415, when the Italian Cristoforo Buondelmonti acquired it at the island of Andros. Athanasius Kircher (1601-1680) was the first in Europe to realize that Coptic was a direct linguistic descendant of ancient Egyptian. In his Oedipus Aegyptiacus, he made the first concerted European effort to interpret the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs, albeit based on symbolic inferences.

It was not until 1799, with the Napoleonic discovery of a trilingual (i.e. hieroglyphic, Demotic, Greek) stela inscription on the Rosetta Stone, that modern scholars were able to decipher ancient Egyptian literature. The first major effort to translate the hieroglyphs of the Rosetta Stone was made by Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) in 1822. The earliest translation efforts of Egyptian literature during the 19th century were attempts to confirm Biblical events.

Before the 1970s, scholarly consensus was that ancient Egyptian literature-although sharing similarities with modern literary categories-was not an independent discourse, uninfluenced by the ancient sociopolitical order. However, from the 1970s onwards, a growing number of historians and literary scholars have questioned this theory. While scholars before the 1970s treated ancient Egyptian literary works as viable historical sources that accurately reflected the conditions of this ancient society, scholars now caution against this approach. Scholars are increasingly using a multifaceted hermeneutic approach to the study of individual literary works, in which not only the style and content, but also the cultural, social and historical context of the work are taken into account. Individual works can then be used as case studies for reconstructing the main features of ancient Egyptian literary discourse.

1. Forman & Quirke 1996, pp. 51-56, 62-63, 68-72, 111-112; Budge 1972, pp. 240-243.

2. Simpson 1972, p. 57 states that there are two Middle-Kingdom manuscripts for Sinuhe, while the updated work of Parkinson 2002, pp. 297-298 mentions five manuscripts.

3. Simpson 1972, p. 279; Erman 2005, p. 134.

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Wildung, Dietrich (2003), "Looking Back into the Future: The Middle Kingdom as a Bridge to the Past", in Tait, John (ed.), 'Never Had the Like Occurred': Egypt's View of Its Past, London: University College London, Institute of Archaeology, an imprint of Cavendish Publishing Limited, pp. 61-78, ISBN 1-84472-007-1

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Wilson, Penelope (2003), Sacred Signs: Hieroglyphs in Ancient Egypt, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280299-2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ancient Egyptian literature was written in the Egyptian language from ancient Egypt's pharaonic period until the end of Roman domination. It represents the oldest corpus of Egyptian literature. Along with Sumerian literature, it is considered the world's earliest literature. Writing in ancient Egypt-both hieroglyphic and hieratic-first appeared in the late 4th millennium BC during the late phase of predynastic Egypt.