How did Egyptian and Nubian civilization differ from other patriarchal societies of the ancient world?

Transcription

1 How did Egyptian and Nubian civilization differ from other patriarchal societies of the ancient world? A Mystery, Locked in Timeless Embrace By John Noble Wilford, New York Times, December 20, Making a God More Human By Annette Grant, New York Times: November 14, The Declaration of Innocence, from the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead Raymond Faulkner and James Allen, translators. New York: Barnes and Noble, Answer all ALL - questions in your Note Journals, which will be collected on Monday.

2 From John Noble Wilford, AA Mystery, Locked in Timeless December 20, 2005: New York Times When Egyptologists entered the tomb for the first time more than four decades ago, they expected to be surprised. Explorers of newly exposed tombs always expect that, and this time they were not disappointed B they were confounded. Since the 4,300-year-old tomb was discovered outside Cairo in 1964, Egyptologists have known the names of the two men buried there B Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep B and their occupation, manicurists to the king. But why were they embracing? It was back in 1964, outside Cairo, near the famous Step Pyramid in the necropolis of Saqqara and a short drive from the Sphinx and the breathtaking pyramids at Giza. The newfound tomb yielded no royal mummies or dazzling jewels. But the explorers stopped in their tracks when the light of their kerosene lamp shined on the wall art in the most sacred chamber. There, carved in stone, were the images of two men embracing. Their names were inscribed above: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Though not of the nobility, they were highly esteemed in the palace as the chief manicurists of the king, sometime from 2380 to 2320 B.C., in the time known as the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Grooming the king was an honored occupation. 1. Why do you think the Egyptologists were confounded? 2. What possible interpretations could be given to the image in this stone carving? 3. Is there a danger in reading our own cultural assumptions back into cultural artifacts from a different time and place? Religion and State in Egyptian Civilization 1. What reasons might there be for the development of the idea in ancient Egyptian civilization that Pharaohs were god-like? 2. Why was Ikhnaton=s rule so disturbing to the priestly elite of Egyptian civilization? 3. Some scholars have suggested that Sun god worship of Ikhnaton was one source of the inspiration for the development of Judaic monotheism, pointing to parallels between the and Psalm 104. Do you think this is a plausible interpretation of the emergence of monotheism, that it started from the worship of a

3 chief god in a polytheistic religion? 4. Do you think that there might be a connection between a more realistic and human portrayal of the ruling royalty, on the one hand, and the development of monotheism, on the other hand? 5. How did a religious belief in the after-life impact ancient Egyptian culture? 6. How would a text like the Book of the Dead comfort and console Egyptians in the face of death? 7. What purpose does the Adeclaration of innocence@ in the Book of Dead serve? 8. In what ways do the ancient Egyptians share our modern view of death? In what ways do the depart from it? Making a God More Human By Annette Grant New York Times: November 14, 1999 LOUIS XIV was a mere parvenu in the Sun King business. The first Sun King was the Egyptian pharaoh Ikhnaton, who lived some 30 centuries before Louis and built on this spot an opulent royal city that was the Versailles of its day. He called the city Ikhtaton, Horizon of the Sun, in honor of the sun god Aton, whose name was incorporated in his own, meaning Servant of the Sun. From his new capital on the Nile, roughly midway between Memphis and Thebes, Ikhnaton and his celebrated wife, Nefertiti, governed Egypt for 12 of the 17 years of his rule, from 1353 to 1336 B.C., and established a one-god (Aton) religion to supplant the polytheistic system that had obtained for centuries. Today, little remains at Ikhtaton, long called Amarna, but the foundations of mud-brick temples, palaces and houses, and millions of potsherds. The royal tombs, in the hills east of the 10-mile-long, 4-mile-wide city, were robbed and defaced long ago, leaving only wall murals incised in plaster that is endangered now not by vandals but by salt from Egypt's rising water table. Yet enough first-class material survived (some of it by chance when subsequent pharaohs co-opted it for their own building projects) here and at Karnak in Thebes to provide a tantalizing picture of a monarch who wrought changes in religion and art so heretical that after his death he was declared a nonperson, his face and name deleted from monuments and his fabulous city razed. A glimpse into the mysteries of Ikhnaton's world can be had in a 1999 museum exhibition titled ''Pharaohs of the Sun: Ikhnaton, Nefertiti, Tutankhamen,'' with more than 250 pieces of sculpture, relief, ceramics, jewelry, tools and furniture. (Ancient Egyptian names are transliterated many different ways; Ikhnaton is often rendered Akhenaten or Akhnaten.) Dr. Rita E. Freed, the museum's Norma-Jean Calderwood curator of ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern art and the exhibition's organizer, spent four years negotiating the loans necessary to flesh out the Amarna period of the New Kingdom dynasties, which are reckoned from 1539 to 1075 B.C. Dr. Freed pulled off a considerable coup in getting for the show two colossal heads of Ikhnaton never seen outside Egypt. These sandstone heads, each weighing more than a ton, were among about 30 statues of the pharaoh found at Karnak by Henri Chevrier in They have been in storage at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which has lent 28 objects to the exhibition.

4 The style of these statues marks a startling departure from the standard depiction of pharaohs. The status symbols B the uraeus (cobra) on the crown, the crook and flail crossed on the chest, the clip-on beard B are all in place. But the face has taken on a pronounced V shape, with heavily lidded eyes, a very long nose and full, pouting lips. Age lines frame the mouth. Whether Ikhnaton (or Nefertiti) actually looked like their statues or drawings may never be known, for idealization rather than likeness was the general rule for royalty, and the queen was often given the features of the king. Their mummies might provide a clue, but they have disappeared. Still, Ikhnaton certainly approved the depiction, for his chief sculptor, Bak, testifies in an inscription that the pharaoh closely supervised his work. The stylistic shift seen in these colossuses started before Ikhnaton was pharaoh B before he was even Ikhnaton but still Amenhotep IV. His father, Amenhotep III, was a powerful king who had made Egypt rich and secure enough to welcome innovation. Though the Amenhoteps, whose name incorporates the god Amon, built the usual temples for themselves, the traditional portraits show some eccentricities. In the Boston exhibition, a life-size torso of the aging and portly Amenhotep III is a sign of changing times. Early in his reign, Amenhotep IV underwent a conversion, breaking completely with his forebears. By Year 5, he had changed his name, declared Aton, until then a minor deity favored by his father, the one true god and set out with his family, court, artists and craftsmen to build his sun city, where he would live as Aton's sole high priest. The development caused consternation among the long-established priesthood of Amon, especially when Ikhnaton ordered all mention of Amon erased and statues of him destroyed throughout the land. In Ikhnaton's own city, which was rising at a dazzling rate and soon had a population of 20,000, Aton was rendered not as a man but as a radiant disk whose beneficent rays, bearing ankhs, the symbol of life, beamed down on the royal family. With Amon gone, along with the legions of gods who ritually guided the dead through eternity, the principal subject left to artists was royal and daily life. They embraced their task with apparent zeal. One of the greatest of these artists, Thutmose, ran a studio compound in the capital city that produced numerous statues, including the famous unfinished bust of Nefertiti discovered in 1912 by German archaeologists and given to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. This sculpture never travels, but others from Thutmose's workshop are in Boston and amply illustrate the lifelike candor the master carver coaxed from stone, clay and plaster. The new style also evolved in painting and bas-reliefs, though age-old conventions were still observed. The largest person in a scene continued to be the most important, the smallest the least. People strode forward in profile with the shoulders and chest seen frontally, and the king still usually faced right, the power direction. But rigidity was giving way to informality in scenes that look more like real-time snapshots than stage sets. For the first time the royal couple was shown eating, and the Cairo museum has lent the show a charming sculptor's model of a princess nibbling on a roasted duck. Emotions were expressed. The king and queen kissed, played with their children, wept when one of their six daughters died. There were portrayals of age, and in place of the wasp waist, a strange corpulence caused stomachs to sag

5 over low-slung waistbands. Buttocks and thighs swelled voluptuously under skinny chests while calves and arms became thin, and hands looked effete and boneless. Suddenly there were five articulated toes on the outer foot, with toenails. And there was a distinct slouch, accentuated by deep carving that produced a dramatic chiaroscuro in open-to-the-sun temples. If bodies looked elongated, even deformed, they were. The strict proportion of the canonical figure was based on 18 units the size of its fist; at Amarna the number increases to 20, the extra two added above the knee. Many scholars think the deliberate distortion in Amarnan art indicates that the king suffered from some physical affliction; others suggest it was the declaration of a cultural revolution: a new god served by new rituals demanded new art. From the evidence of some of that art, Ikhnaton didn't wage extensive wars (which is historically true) and didn't care for hunting, the usual sport of kings. Yet he enjoyed ceremonies like riding along the Royal Road in his chariot plated in electrum (a gold-silver alloy) to his midtown palace, where from the Window of Appearance he and Nefertiti distributed rewards, often necklaces and rings, to favored courtiers. Nefertiti wielded more power in the empire than most previous queens, which might qualify Ikhnaton as the first feminist. At Amarna, Nefertiti is often shown the same size as the king, and she also stands with him as an equal at political events and in tributes to Aton. She even drives her own chariot. In Boston, one unusual fragment shows Nefertiti in what is called a ''smiting'' position, a traditional saber-rattling pose in which the king threatens an enemy, whom he holds by the hair. She was the first queen to be represented in this attitude. Some experts think Nefertiti took over as pharaoh when Ikhnaton died, but the evidence is mixed on that point. What certainly did happen under the next major ruler, the boy-king Tutankhamen, is that Ikhnaton's world and philosophy came tumbling down. It is worth noting that Tutankhamen was born Tutankhaton and married one of Ikhnaton's daughters, who may have been his half or even full sister. Probably under pressure from advisers, he moved the capital back to traditional centers, changed his name and restored the old priesthood of Amon. As the citizens left the capital, so did the artists. Some headed south to Thebes, where their work is visible at Karnak and in the Valley of the Kings in Tut's tomb and others; some went north to Memphis to work at Saqqara, the city's necropolis. At these sites, the Amarnan look, often mixed with the resurgent older style, survives: here is a distinct pot belly; there is a high-waisted figure with five articulated toes. These remnants surely don't represent the kind of eternity the pharaoh had in mind for himself. But if after Ikhnaton was the deluge, the sun is out again and, 3,300 years later, giving new life to its most ardent subject. From the Chapter 125, AThe Declaration of Innocence@ in the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead [Raymond Faulkner and James Allen, translators. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005.]

6 "As for him who knows this book, nothing evil shall have power over him, he shall not be turned away at the gates of the West; he shall go in and out, and bread and beer and all good things shall be given to him in the presence of those who are in the Netherworld." CSpell 181, Book of the Dead of Ani Written between four thousand and twenty-five hundred years ago, the funerary texts today referred to as the Book of the Dead are among the earliest religious or philosophical writings in existence. The Book of the Dead was known to the ancient Egyptians as the "Spells of Emerging in Daytime," for according to their beliefs the spirit lives on after death, emerging each morning from the tomb to walk among the living in the world it once new but on a higher plane of existence. In this sense, the Book of the Dead is more aptly called the Book of Life. It includes magical spells, prayers, and incantations to help the deceased transition from death to eternal life as a spirit and to protect the spirit from the dangerous forces that inhabited the Netherworld, through which it would pass each night. The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead describes a strange world where goddesses inhabit trees, where baboons worship the sun, and where the spirit of the deceased can magically transform itself into a falcon, crocodile, or lotus blossom. Illuminating the sacred writings are nearly two hundred magnificent works of ancient Egyptian art, featuring richly colored vignettes from the Papyrus of Ani and other ancient papyri as well as stunning examples of jewelry and other symbolic funerary objects and artworks. What should be said when arriving at the Hall of Justice, of Two Truths, purging N [the deceased] of all the forbidden things he has done, and seeing the faces of all the Gods. Spell for descending to the broad hall of Two Truths: N shall say: Hail to you, great God, Lord of Justice! I have come to you, my lord, that you may bring me so that I may see your beauty, for I know you and I know your name, and I know the names of the forty-two gods of those who are with you in this Hall of Justice, who live on those who cherish evil and who gulp down their blood on that day of the reckoning of characters in the presence of Wennefer. Behold the double son of the Songstresses; Lord of Truth is your name. Behold I have come to you, I have brought you truth, I have repelled falsehood for you. I have not done falsehood against men, I have not impoverished my associates, I have done no wrong in the Place of Truth, I have not learnt that which is not, I have done no evil, I have not daily made labor in excess of what was to be done for me, my name has not reached the offices of those who control slaves, I have not deprived the orphan of his property, I have not done what the gods detest, I have not slandered a servant to his master, I have not caused pain, I have not made hungry, I have not made to weep, I have not killed, I have not turned anyone over to a killer, I have not caused anyone=s suffering, I have not diminished the food-offerings in the temples, I have not debased the offering cakes of the gods. I have not taken the cakes of the blessed, I have not copulated illicitly, I have not been unchaste, I have not increased nor diminished the measure, I have not diminished the palm, I have not encroached upon fields, I have not added to the balance weights, I have not tempered with the plumb bob of the balance. I have not

7 taken milk from a child=s mouth, I have not driven small cattle from their herbage, I have not snared birds for the gods= harpoon barbs, I have not caught fish of their lagoons, I have not stopped the flow f water in its seasons. I have not built a dam against flowing water, I have not quenched a fire in its time. I have not failed to observe the days for haunches of meat. I have not kept cattle away from the God=s property, I have not blocked the God at his processions. I am Pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. My purity is the purity of this great Phoenix that is in Heracleopolis, because I am indeed the nose of the Lord of Wind who made all men live on that day of completing the Sacred Eye in Heliopolis in the 2nd month of winter last day, in the presence of the lord of this land. I am he who saw the completion of the Sacred Eye in Heliopolis, and nothing evil shall come into being against me in this land in this Hall of Justice, because I know the names of these gods who are in it. Declaration of Innocence Before the Gods of the Tribunal Hail Far-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no falsehood. Hail Fire-embracer who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed. Hail Nosey who came forth from Hermopolis, I have not been rapacious. Hail Swallower of shades who came forth from the cavern, I have not stolen. Hail Dangerous One who came forth from Rosetjau, I have not killed men. Hail Double Lion who came forth from the sky, I have not destroyed food-supplies. Hail Fiery Eyes who came forth from Letopolis, I have done no crookedness. Hail Flame which came forth backwards, I have not stolen the god=s offerings. Hail Bone-breaker who came forth from Heracleopolis, I have not told lies. Hail Green of Flame who came forth from Memphis, I have no taken food. Hail You of the cavern who came forth from the West, I have not been sullen. Hail White of teeth who came forth from the Faiyum, I have not transgressed. Hail Blood-eater who came forth from the shambles, I have not killed a sacred bull. Hail Eater of entrails who came forth from the House of Thirty, I have not committed perjury. Hail Lord of Truth who came forth from Maaty, I have not stolen bread. Hail Wanderer who came forth from Bubastis, I have not eavesdropped.

8 Hail Pale One who came forth from Heliopolis, I have not babbled. Hail Doubly evil who came forth from Andjet, I have not disputed except concerning my own property. Hail Wememty-snake who came forth from the place of execution, I have not fornicated with a child. Hail You who see whom you bring who came forth from the House of Min, I have not misbehaved. Hail You who are over the Old One who came forth from Imau, I have not made terror. Hail Demolisher who came forth from Xois, I have not transgressed. Hail Disturber who came forth from Weryt, I have not been hot-tempered. Hail Youth who came forth from the Heliopolitan nome, I have not been deaf to words of truth. Hail Foreteller who came forth from Wenes, I have not made disturbance. Hail You of the altar who came forth from the secret place, I have not hoodwinked. Hail You whose face is behind him who came forth from the Cavern of Wrong, I have neither misconducted myself nor copulated with a boy. Hail Hot-foot who came forth from the dusk, I have not been neglectful. Hail You of the darkness who came forth from the darkness, I have not been quarrelsome. Hail Bringer of your offering who came forth from Sais, I have not been unduly active. Hail Owner of faces who came forth from Nedjefet, I have not been impatient. Hail Accuser who came forth from Wetjenet, I have not transgressed my nature, I have not washed out the picture of a god. Hail Owner of horns who came forth from Asyut, I have not been voluble in speech. Hail Nefertum who came forth from Memphis, I have done no wrong, I have seen no evil. Hail Tempsep who came forth from Busiris, I have not made conjuration against the king. Hail You who acted according to your will, who came forth from Tjebu, I have not waded in water. Hail Water-smiter who came forth from the Abyss, I have not been loud-voiced.

9 Hail Prosperer of the common folk who came forth from your house, I have not reviled mankind. Hail Bestower of good who came forth from the Harpoon nome, I have not been puffed up.. Hail Bestower of powers who came forth from the City, I have not made distinctions for myself. Hail Serpent with raised head, who came forth from the cavern, I am not wealthy except with my own property. Hail Carrier-off of His Portion who came forth from the Silent Land, I have not blasphemed God in my city.