EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION

Overview The basic element in the lengthy history of Egyptian civilization is geography. The Nile River rises from the lakes of central Africa as the White Nile and from the mountains of Ethiopia as the Blue Nile. The White and Blue Nile meet at Khartoum and flow together northward to the Nile delta, where the 4000 mile course of this river spills into the Mediterranean Sea. Less than two inches of rain per year falls in the delta and rain is relatively unknown in other parts of Egypt. Most of the land is uninhabitable. These geographical factors have determined the character of Egyptian civilization. People could farm only along the banks of the Nile, where arid sand meets the fertile soil. Of course, each summer the Nile swells as the rains pour down and the snow melts on the mountains. The river overflows its banks and floods the land with fresh water and deposits a thick layer of rich alluvial soil. The land would then yield two harvests before winter. This yearly flood determined more than just the agricultural needs of early Egypt. It also determined the lifecycle of society and helped to create the world view of ancient Egyptian civilization. The basic source of Egyptian history is a list of rulers compiled in c.280 B.C. by Manetho for the Macedonians who ruled Egypt. Manetho divided Egyptian kings into thirty dynasties (a 31st was added later) in the following manner. NAME Archaic Period Old Kingdom Intermediate Period Intermediate Period New Kingdom Post-Empire DYNASTY 1-2 3-6 7-10 YEARS 3100-2700 B.C. 2700-2200 B.C. 2200-2050 B.C. 2050-1800 B.C. 1800-1570 B.C. 1570-1085 B.C. 1085-332 B.C.

down through local mayors and tax collectors. The entire system was supported by the work of slaves, peasants and artisans. The Old Kingdom reached its highest stage of development in the Fourth Dynasty. The most tangible symbols of this period of greatness are the three enormous pyramids built as the tombs of kings at Giza between 2600 and 2500. The largest, Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks), was originally 481 feet high and 756 feet long on each side. Khufu was made up of 2.3 million stone blocks averaging 2.5 tons each. In the 5th century B.C. the Greek historian Herodotus tells us that the pyramid took 100,000 men and twenty years to build. The pyramids are remarkable not only for their technical engineering expertise, but also for what they tell us about royal power at the time. They are evidence that Egyptian kings had enormous wealth as well as the power to concentrate so much energy on a personal project. The priests, an important body within the ruling caste, were a social force working to modify the king's supremacy. Yielding to the demands of the priests of Re, a sun god, kings began to call themselves "sons of Re," adding his name as a suffix to their own. Re was also worshipped in temples that were sometimes larger than the pyramids of later kings. In the Old Kingdom, royal power was absolute. The pharaoh (the term originally meant "great house" or "palace"), governed his kingdom through his family and appointed officials. The lives of the peasants and artisans was carefully regulated: their movement was limited and they were taxed heavily. Luxury accompanied the pharaoh in life and in death and he was raised to an exalted level by his people. The Egyptians worked for the pharaoh and obeyed him because he was a living god on whom the entire fabric of social life depended. No codes of law were needed since the pharaoh was the direct source of all law. In such a world, government was merely one aspect of religion and religion dominated Egyptian life. The gods of Egypt came in many forms: animals, humans and natural forces. Over time, Re, the sun god, came to assume a dominant place in Egyptian religion. The Egyptians had a very clear idea of the afterlife. They took great care to bury their dead according to convention and supplied the grave with things that the departed would need for a pleasant life after death. The pharaoh and some nobles had their bodies preserved in a process of mummification. Their tombs were decorated with paintings, food was provided at burial and after. Some tombs even included full sized sailing vessels for the voyage to heaven and beyond. At first, only pharaohs were thought to achieve eternal life, however, nobles were eventually included, and finally all Egyptians could hope for immortality. The Egyptians also developed a system of writing. Although the idea may have come from Mesopotamia, the script was independent of the cuneiform. Egyptian writing began as pictographic and was later combined with sound signs to produce a difficult and complicated script that the Greeks called hieroglyphics ("sacred carvings"). Though much of what we have today is preserved on wall paintings and carvings, most of Egyptian writing was done with pen and ink on fine paper (papyrus). In 1798 Napoleon invaded Egypt as part of his Grand Empire. He brought with a Commission of Science and Arts composed of more than one hundred scientists, engineers and mathematicians. In 1799 the Commission discovered a basalt fragment on the west bank of the Nile at Rachid. The fragment is now known by its English name, the Rosetta Stone. The Egyptian hieroglyphics found on the Rosetta Stone were eventually deciphered in 1822 by Jean Franois Champollion (1790-1832), a French scholar who had mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and

Middle Kingdom 11-12 13-17 18-20 21-31

Early Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, one in Upper Egypt (Nile Valley), and one in Lower Egypt (Nile delta). Remember, the Nile flows from south to north. Egyptian Dynasties Menes (or Narmer) unified Upper and Lower Egypt and established his capital at Memphis around 3000 B.C.. By the time of the Old Kingdom, the land had been consolidated under the central power of a king, who was also the "owner" of all Egypt. Considered to be divine, he stood above the priests and was the only individual who had direct contact with the gods. The economy was a royal monopoly and so there was no word in Egyptian for "trader." Under the king was a carefully graded hierarchy of officials, ranging from the governors of provinces

Coptic. The Rosetta Stone contains three inscriptions. The uppermost is written in hieroglyphics; the second in what is now called demotic, the common script of ancient Egypt; and the third in Greek. Champollion guessed that the three inscriptions contained the same text and so he spent the next fourteen years (1808-1822) working from the Greek to the demotic and finally to the hieroglyphics until he had deciphered the whole text. The Rosetta Stone is now on display at the British Museum in London. During the period of the Middle Kingdom (2050-1800 B.C.) the power of the pharaohs of the Old Kingdom waned as priests and nobles gained more independence and influence. The governors of the regions of Egypt (nomes) gained hereditary claim to their offices and subsequently their families acquired large estates. About 2200 B.C. the Old Kingdom collapsed and gave way to the decentralization of the First Intermediate Period (2200-2050 B.C.). Finally, the nomarchs of Thebes in Upper Egypt gained control of the country and established the Middle Kingdom. The rulers of the Twelfth Dynasty restored the power of the pharaoh over the whole of Egypt although they could not control the nomarchs. They brought order and peace to Egypt and encouraged trade northward toward Palestine and south toward Ethiopia. They moved the capital back to Memphis and gave great prominence to Amon, a god connected with the city of Thebes. He became identified with Re, emerging as Amon-Re. The Middle Kingdom disintegrated in the Thirteenth Dynasty with the resurgence of the power of the nomarchs. Around 1700 B.C. Egypt suffered an invasion by the Hyksos who came from the east (perhaps Palestine or Syria) and conquered the Nile Delta. In 1575 B.C., a Thebian dynasty drove out the Hyksos and reunited the kingdom. In reaction to the humiliation of the Second Intermediate Period, the pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty, most notably Thutmose III (1490-1436 B.C.), created an absolute government based on a powerful army and an Egyptian empire extending far beyond the Nile Valley. One of the results of these imperialistic ventures of the pharaohs was the growth in power of the priests of Amon and the threat it posed to the pharaoh. When young Amenhotep IV (13671350 B.C.) came to the throne he was apparently determined to resist the priesthood of Amon. Supported by his family he ultimately made a clean break with the worship of Amon-Re. He moved his capital from Thebes (the center of Amon worship) to a city three hundred miles to the north at a place now called El Amarna. Its god was Aton, the physical disk of the sun, and the new city was called Akhenaton. The pharaoh changed his name to Akhenaton ("it pleases Aton"). The new god was different from any that had come before him, for he was believed to be universal, not merely Egyptian. The universal claims for Aton led to religious intolerance of the worshippers of other gods. Their temples were closed and the name of Amon-Re was removed from all monuments. The old priests were deprived of their posts and privileges. The new religion was more remote than the old. Only the pharaoh and his family worshipped Aton directly and the people worshipped the pharaoh. Akhenaton's interest in religious reform proved disastrous in the long run. The Asian possessions fell away and the economy crumbled as a result. When the pharaoh died, a strong reaction swept away his life's work. His chosen successor was put aside and replaced by Tutankhamon (1347-1339 B.C.), the husband of one of the daughters of Akhenaton and his wife, Nefertiti. The new pharaoh restored the old religion and wiped out as much as he could of the memory of the worship of

Aton. He restored Amon to the center of the Egyptian pantheon, abandoned El Amarna, and returned the capital to Thebes. His magnificent tomb remained intact until its discovery in 1922. The end of the El Amarna age restored power to the priests of Amon and to the military officers. Horemhab, a general, restored order and recovered much of the lost empire. He referred to Akhenaton as "the criminal of Akheton" and erased his name from the records. Akhenaton's city and memory disappeared for over 3000 years to be rediscovered by accident about a century ago. Egyptian Religion Religion was integral to Egyptian life. Religious beliefs formed the basis of Egyptian art, medicine, astronomy, literature and government. The great pyramids were burial tombs for the pharaohs who were revered as gods on earth. Magical utterances pervaded medical practices since disease was attributed to the gods. Astronomy evolved to determine the correct time to perform religious rites and sacrifices. The earliest examples of literature dealt almost entirely with religious themes. The pharaoh was a sacrosanct monarch who served as the intermediary between the gods and man. Justice too, was conceived in religious terms, something bestowed upon man by the creator-god. Finally, the Egyptians developed an ethical code which they believed the gods had approved. J. A. Wilson once remarked that if one were to ask an ancient Egyptian whether the sky was supported by posts or held up by a god, the Egyptian would answer: "Yes, it is supported by posts or held up by a god -- or it rests on walls, or it is a cow, or it is a goddess whose arms and feet touch the earth" (The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, 1943). The ancient Egyptian was ready to accept any and all gods and goddesses that seemed appropriate. For instance, if a new area was incorporated into the Egyptian state, its gods and goddesses would be added to the pantheon of those already worshipped. From its earliest beginnings, Egyptian religious cults included animals. It is no accident that sheep, bulls, gazelles and cats have been found carefully buried and preserved in their own graves. As time passed, the figures of Egyptian gods became human (anthropomorphism) although they often retained the animal's head or body. Osiris, the the Egyptian god who judged the dead, first emerged as a local deity of the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt. It was Osiris who taught the Egyptian agriculture. Isis was his wife, and animal-headed Seth, his brother and rival. Seth killed Osiris. Isis persuaded the gods to bring him back to life, but thereafter he ruled below. Osiris was identified with the life-giving, fertilizing power of the Nile, and Isis with with the fertile earth of Egypt. Horus, the god of the sky, defeated the evil Seth after a long struggle. But Horus was only one kind of sky god. There was also Re, the sun god, later conjoined with Amen, and still later Aten. The moon god was the baboon-headed Thoth, who was the god of wisdom, magic and numbers. In the great temple cities such as Heliopolis ("city of the sun"), priests worked out and wrote down hierarchies of divinities. In the small communities of villages, all the forces of nature were deified and worshipped. One local god was part crocodile, part hippopotamus, and part lion. Despite the ever-increasing number of deities which could be added to this hierarchy of deities, one thing is certain: Egyptian religion, unlike the religion of Mesopotamia, was centralized. In Sumer, the temple was the focus of political, economic and religious

organization. Indeed, it was often difficult to know where one aspect began and another ended. By contrast, the function of an Egyptian temple was focused on religion. We are certain that ancient Egyptians were preoccupied with life after death. They believed that after death each human being would appear before Osiris and recount all the evil that had been committed during one's earthly existence: "I have not done evil to men. I have not illtreated animals," and so on. This was a negative confession and justification for admittance into the blessed afterlife. Osiris would then have the heart of the person weighed in order to determine the truth of their confession. The Egyptians believed not only in body and soul, but in ka, the indestructible vital principle of each person, which left the body at death but which could also return at other times. This explains why the Egyptians mummified the dead: so that the ka, on its return, would find the body not decomposed. And this also explains why tombs were filled with wine, grain, weapons, sailing ships and so on -- ka would find everything it needed, otherwise it might come back to haunt the living.

representatives, and in the case of the Akkadian kingdom, this meant Sargon. Hopefully, you can already notice the decreased status of the temple priests at Akkad. Although they still exist, and continue to serve a vital role, the mediator between the gods and ordinary men and women, is now Sargon. Men and women were created by the gods to serve the gods to feed and clothe them, to honor and obey them. One thing absent from this religion, however, was that the gods did not specify any code of ethics or morality. Issues of good and evil were left to men and women to discover on their own. In the end, the gods gave the inhabitants of these early river civilizations an answer to the basic question why are we here? what is our role? And the answer was equally simple to serve the gods. Ancient Egypt While the Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians and other groups were busy creating a Mesopotamian civilization in the Fertile Crescent of the Ancient Near East, another civilization had appeared to the west. Again, this civilization depended entirely upon geography (see map). It was the fertile valley of the Nile River that allowed Egyptian civilization to flourish over the course of many centuries. It is an area of the world in which much needed natural resources were abundant. Furthermore, the climate of Egypt is very dry and almost changeless. Because of this static, changeless quality, the Egyptians obtained a sense of security from their environment. For centuries ancient Egyptian civilization flourished in isolation from the rest of the Ancient Near East (see Lecture 3). Just the same, although Egypt was isolated, it was not unified. Geographically, it was divided between the Black Land and the Red Land, and politically, between Upper and Lower Egypt. Around 3100 B.C., various political factions struggled to gain control. Victory eventually fell to Menes in Upper Egypt. Menes is also known as Narmer. The Egyptians considered the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt as the most important event in their history. Like Sargon, a king like Narmer ruled as a mediator between men and the gods. But Narmer was also pharaoh. He was not only the mediator between men and the gods, but was himself divine. Pharaoh's rule was eternal and absolute he ruled not just for the gods, but as a god himself. In assuming the position of king and chief priest, pharaoh shed his human qualities and assumed an unchanging, fixed and divine position. And this was the role that Narmer assumed in 3100 B.C. The new state also derived authority and stability from the concept of ma'at, a quality or behavior which translates as truth, justice, order and righteousness. Ma'at implied a divine force for harmony and stability which emanated from the beginning of time itself. Good rule by pharaoh signified the presence of ma'at. Egyptian religion, like that of Mesopotamia, was polytheistic and each region had its own patron deity. Some of these local or regional gods gained notoriety throughout Egypt. For instance, the god Ptah gained power when the city of Memphis became the capital of Egypt. Later, the god Re of Heliopolis eclipsed that of Ptah. Finally, the god Amon rose to supremacy in Thebes in connection with the political authority of the Thebian pharaoh. As a rule, whenever a new capital was founded, a new supreme god was chosen.

THE AKKADIANS, EGYPTIANS AND THE EBREWS

The Akkadian Kingdom The Sumerians were not the only people to inhabit the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia (see Lecture 2). There were other groups of people who lived in permanent communities and who interacted with the Sumerians in times of peace and in war. By 2350 B.C., Semitic-speaking people united northern Mesopotamia with the Sumerian city-states and a new capital was set up at Akkad (see map). The result was a centralized government under the authority of the king, his royal court, and the high class of priests. The man most responsible for this development is assumed to be SARGON OF AKKAD. Sargon, whose name is taken to mean "the king is legitimate," carried out more than thirty battles against the Sumerian city-states and eventually, these city-states were incorporated into the Akkadian kingdom. The foundation of the Akkadian state was economic. Sargon and his royal court served as the focal point of all economic activity. Remember, at Sumer, this task was assumed by the priests of the temple. Sargon brought vast amounts of wealth to the capital city he also brought a huge number of royal servants and administrators, thus creating a bureaucratic organization to help rule his kingdom. The Akkadian kingdom, like most Ancient Near Eastern kingdoms, also embraced a polytheistic religion. Their gods were anthropomorphic, that is, the gods took human form. And because the gods took human form, they also had human qualities: the gods could be foolish, intelligent, shy, humorous, jealous, angry or silly. Among themselves, the gods also had unequal status. The gods were derived from the world of nature for the simple reason that life in Mesopotamia was controlled or conditioned by the seasons. Theirs was a world of nature and in order to understand nature, the Mesopotamians gave human shape to the forces of nature. So, we encounter An, the sky god, Enlil, the god of air, Nanna, the moon god and Utu, the sun god. The Mesopotamians believed these gods were responsible for creating the universe and everything it contained, including humankind. The gods were also responsible for the smooth running of that world. The gods ruled the world of men through their earthly

Egyptian gods were often represented as animals as falcons, vultures, a cobra, dog, cat or crocodile. For the Egyptians, because animals were non-human, they must have possessed religious significance. Other gods, such as Ptah and Amon, were given human representation, but the most important god Re, was not represented at all. The gods created the cosmos they created order out of chaos. The Sumerians had a similar belief. But the life of the Sumerian was filled with anxiety and pessimism because the gods themselves were unstable and the idea of an afterlife was unknown. Egyptian religion inspired confidence and optimism in the external order and stability of the world. The gods guided the rhythms of life and death. And what really distinguished Egyptian religion from that of Mesopotamia, was that any man or woman could share in the benefits of an afterlife. As one historian has put it: "death meant a continuation of one's life on earth, a continuation that, with the appropriate precautions of proper burial, prayer, and ritual, would include only the best parts of life on earth nothing to fear, but on the other hand, nothing to want to hurry out of this world for." Religion was the unifying agent in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh indicated his concern for his people by worshipping the local deities in public ceremonies. The gods protected the living and guaranteed them an afterlife. The Egyptians believed they were living in a fixed, static or unchanging universe in which life and death were part of a continuous, rhythmic cycle. Certain patterns came to be expected grain had to be harvested, irrigation canals had to be built and pyramids had to be built. Just as the sun rose in the east and set in the west, so too all human life and death passed through regular and predictable patterns. The first pyramids, built around 2900 B.C., were little more than mudbrick structures built over the burial pits of nobles. These structures protected the body from exposure and also provided a secure place for the personal belongings of the dead noble. By 2600 B.C., mudbrick structures were replaced by the familiar stone pyramid. The pyramids were completely inaccessible structures once pharaoh was buried, hallways and passages were sealed and obliterated. In this way, the pyramids would stand eternal, unchanged, and fixed, as they stand today. The pyramid symbolizes much of what we know about ancient Egypt. They reflect the extreme centralization of the Egyptian government as well as rule by pharaoh. The great pyramids of Giza, built more than 4500 years ago, expressed pharaoh's immortality and divinity. The earliest built of the Giza pyramids is that of Khufu, better known as Cheops, the Greek name given to it by the Greek historian Herodotus, when he visited the pyramids around 480 B.C.. Cheops covers 13 acres and contains two million stone blocks, each weighing 5000 pounds. It's height originally stood at 481 feet. One of the most compelling features of the pyramids, in addition to the architectural feat of just building them, was their mortuary art. Inside the pyramids was the royal burial chamber. The walls of the chamber are covered with hieroglyphics, which detail the life of pharaoh. We find art detailing people fishing and hunting. We also see people seated at banquets. Representations of food and wine were included as well. Jars of wine, grain, fruits and other foods were included, as well as boats, bows, arrows and other objects from the real world. Slaves were often entombed as well. Why? Very simple. Pharaoh would need these things in the afterlife, since death was not final, but an extension of this worldly life. The emphasis on mortuary art was not death but life. Like the seasons, man lives and dies. Death was nothing final but the beginning of yet another cycle. In the next life there would be birds, people, oceans, rivers, desert, food and wine.

From what we have said so far it should be obvious that religion gave the river civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt their distinctive character. But this religion was not a religion of comfort or morality. Instead, these polytheistic religions were MYTHOPOEIC. Whereas our world view may be scientific or rational, these river civilizations adopted a world view based on myth. The construction of myths was the first manner in which western civilization attempted to explain life and the universe. Myths explained the creation of the universe as well as the role men and women would play in that universe. Nature, for these earliest river civilizations, was not an inanimate "it." Instead, nature, the world of nature, had a life, will and vitality all its own. The myth-makers of the Ancient Near East and of Egypt did not seek to rationally or logically explain nature. Instead of natural laws or systematic explanations, these people resorted to divine powers and myths. Although these civilizations certainly exercised their minds to build ziggurats and pyramids, irrigation canals and pottery wheels, cuneiforms and hieroglyphics, they did not advance to the creation of science. They did not deduce abstractions, nor did they make hypotheses or establish general laws of the nature world. These efforts science and philosophy were the product of another culture, located in another time and place: the Greeks. Hebrew Civilization Dwarfed by the great empires of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Egyptians, were the Hebrews. Of all the ancient civilizations, it was the Hebrews who exerted perhaps the greatest influence on western society as well as the western intellectual tradition. The Hebrews, a Semitic-speaking people, first appeared in Mesopotamia. For instance, Abraham's family were native to Sumer. But between 1900 and 1500 B.C., the Hebrews migrated from Mesopotamia to Canaan and then into Egypt. At this time, a tribe of Hebrews who claimed to be the descendants of Abraham began to call themselves Israelites ("soldiers of God"). The Hebrews were enslaved by the Egyptian pharaohs until 1250 B.C. when their leader, Moses, led them on an exodus out of Egypt to the Sinai peninsula. Moses persuaded his followers to become worshippers of Yahweh or Jehovah. The Hebrews who wandered into the Sinai with Moses decided to return to Canaan. The move was not easy and the Hebrews were faced with constant threats from the Philistines who occupied the coastal region. Twelve Hebrew tribes united first under Saul and then his successor, David. By the 10th century, David and his son Solomon had created an Israelite kingdom. Economic progress was made as Israeli people began to trade with neighboring states. New cities were built and one in particular, Jerusalem, was built by Solomon to honor God. In 586, the region of Judah was destroyed and several thousand Hebrews were deported to Babylon. (200 years earlier the northern country of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians. The 586 destruction completed the destruction of the two regions.) The prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah declared that the Babylonian captivity was God's punishment. The Hebrews, in other words, had brought upon their own captivity because they had violated God's laws. Despite this calamity, the Hebrews survived as people. In the 4th century, Alexander the Great conquered nearly all of the Near East and Palestine was annexed to Egypt and fell under Greek control. And by the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C., the Hebrews lost near total independence under the Romans. But the Hebrews would never give up their faith or their religion.

The Hebrews were, as a people, committed to the worship of one God and His Law as it was presented in the Old Testament. The Old Testament represents an oral history of the Jews and was written, in Hebrew, between 1250 and 150 B.C. The Old Testament was written by religious devotees and not by historians it therefore contains factual errors, discrepancies and imprecise statements. Still, much of the 39 books of the Old Testament are also reliable as history. No historian who wishes to understand the religious faith of the Jews can do so without mastering the Old Testament. There is only one god in the Old Testament although the books of the Old Testament emphasize the values of human experience. Its heroes are not gods and goddesses but men and women, both strong and weak. What separates the religious beliefs of the Hebrews from the belief systems of Egypt or Mesopotamia was clearly their monotheism. The Hebrews regarded God as fully sovereign He ruled all and was subject to no laws Himself. Unlike Near Eastern gods, Jehovah was not created God is eternal and the source of all creation in the universe. He created and governed the world and shaped the moral laws that govern humanity. God was transcendent that is, He is above nature and not part of nature. In this sort of religion, there is no place for a sun god or moon god. Nature was demystified it was no longer super-natural, but natural. That is, the Hebrews conceived nature as an example of God's handiwork. This is very important because once nature was demystified scientific thought could begin. However, the Hebrews were neither philosophers nor were they scientists. They were concerned with God's will and not with man's capacity to explain away or understand nature. In other words, God's existence was based not on Reason or rational investigation, but on religious conviction or faith alone. Not Reason but Revelation was the cornerstone of the Hebrew faith. This monotheism made possible for a new awareness of the individual. In God, the Hebrews developed an awareness of the Self or the "I" the individual was self-conscious and aware of his own moral autonomy and worth. With this in mind, the Hebrews believed that man was a free agent man had the capacity to choose between good and evil. Although God was omnipotent He was also just and merciful. He did not want His followers to be slaves. Instead, men and women were to fulfill their morality by freely making the choice to do good or evil. God does not control mankind rather, men must have the freedom to choose. There is only one God and the Hebrews believed that the worship of idols would deprive people of the freedom God had given them. This belief was opposed to Near Eastern polytheism which used images to represent their gods and goddesses. For the Hebrews, God is incapable of being represented in any form whatsoever. Because God was the center of all life only He was worthy of worship. Therefore, the Hebrews would give no ultimate loyalty to kings or generals. To do so would be to violate God's law to have "no other God but me." So, the Hebrews were morally free. But, this freedom came with one solemn condition. Freedom did not mean, do as you please. Instead, it meant voluntary obedience to those moral commands which God had given to the Hebrews through Moses. For the Hebrews, to know God did not mean to understand him with the intellect, nor did it mean to rationally prove his existence, something which preoccupied medieval Christian theologians for five hundred years. To know God, one just had to be righteous, moral, loving, merciful and just. When men and women loved God, they were improved.

One of the central religious principles of the Hebrew faith is that God had made a special agreement with his people. This agreement is called the Covenant. From the book of Exodus we read: "Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." The Hebrews, then, were conscious of themselves as God's chosen people. They did not believe they were better than anyone else instead, they believed that God had rescued them from Egyptian bondage and selected them to receive his laws. This was a pretty heavy responsibility to say the very least. Moses received the 10 Commandment a code of moral "oughts." To violate the laws of God would mean the covenant their special agreement with God would be broken. This could lead to national disaster and the destruction of the Hebrew nation. The bottom line is this: Hebrew society had the moral obligation to make justice prevail at the same time, evil had to be eradicated. This sense of moral obligation (the ought) was written into Hebrew law. The poor, widows, children and the sick were all protected by law and rich and poor were to be treated under the same laws, something unheard of in the Code of Hammurabi. The significance of all this is clearly ethical and moral. The individual was clearly more important than his or her private property. Lastly, the Hebrews were perhaps the first culture of the ancient western world to show any awareness of historical time. The events of their past were carefully celebrated. They also envisioned a great day in the future when God would establish peace on earth, prosperity, happiness and brotherhood. History was conceived as a vast drama, a drama just full of moral significance. Through history, God's presence is made known. History, then, had a purpose and meaning. And this kind of awareness would soon become part of the western intellectual tradition itself.

E.C.
Ancient Egypt -- a land of mysteries. No other civilization has so captured the imagination of scholars and laypeople alike. Mystery surrounds its origins, its religion and its monumental architecture: colossal temples, pyramids and the enormous Sphinx. The Egyptian pyramids are the most famous of all the ancient monuments, the only remaining wonder of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Just as life arose from the waters, the seeds of civilization were first sown along the banks of the Nile. This mighty river, which flows north from the heart of Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, nourished the growth of the pharaonic kingdom. The long, narrow flood plain was a magnet for life, attracting people, animals and plants to its banks. In pre-dynastic times, nomadic hunters settled in the valley and began to grow crops to supplement their food supply. Seen as a gift from the gods, the annual flooding of the river deposited nutrient rich silt over the land, creating ideal conditions for growing wheat, flax and other crops. The first communal project of this fledgling society was the building of irrigation canals for agricultural purposes. The sun was a principal deity whose passage across the sky represented the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The pharaohs were seen as gods, divine representatives on earth who, through rituals, ensured the continuation of life. After death, they became immortal, joining the gods in the afterworld.

The Egyptians also believed that the body and soul were important to human existence, in life and in death. Their funerary practices, such as mummification and burial in tombs, were designed to assist the deceased find their way in the afterworld. The tombs were filled with food, tools, domestic wares, treasures -- all the necessities of life -- to ensure the soul's return to the body so that the deceased would live happily ever after.

pharaohs,

he

was

considered

god.

2. The kings of the first Egyptian empire, called the Ancient Empire, built gigantic pyramidshaped tombs. In its interior, the construction had a chamber where the mummified cadaver of the pharaoh was deposited, with a plethora of offerings: food, clothes, jewels, dishes, and other. To avoid the theft of these treasures and tomb's profanation, inside the pyramid the architects built a real labyrinth of false passages to confuse the thieves. It was calculated that for building the pyramid of Kheops, the largest ever, 110,000 workers labored for 25 years. It is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing, 138.8 m (455.2 ft) tall. 3. Accommodated Egyptian families lived in beautiful mansions built of adobe or stone, close to canals or the Nile itself. Each dwelling had one level and an inner courtyard with a pool with papyrus and lotus. Against the hot climate, the houses had small external openings, just some very small windows which, with the serene sky of Sahara, delivered enough light for the houses during the day. The entrance to the house had porches sustained by columns, reunion places for men at the sunset. But if the tombs were richly decorated with wall paintings and bas-reliefs, the houses were not. 4. The tombs were the place were Egyptian art (painting, sculpture and jewelry) reached its highest. Tombs varied along the time. The first type were pyramids and mastabas (small buildings made of mud brick, rectangular in plan with sloping sides and a flat roof, leading to a well carved in the ground leading to the funerary chamber), then speos (rock cut chapels in rocky cliffs).The tombs were richly adorned with art works: sculptures in painted wood, stone or ceramic dishes, coffins with the dead person's effigy, wall paintings in vivid colors and stone reliefs. Still, Egyptian art varied very little along the centuries. 5.The main Egyptian god was Amon Re, the king of all gods. The god Ra Harakti was represented with human body and falcon head. His daughter was Maat, the goddess of truth and justice. One important Egyptian symbol was that of the solar disk surrounded by the sacred snake. Crocodiles were sacred in the ancient Egypt, and they were even embalmed; large embalmed crocodiles were found in many tombs and sacred edifices. A sacred bird was the ibis. Egyptians used to embalm baboons, cats, dogs, falcons, mice (representing the hearts of the sinners, offered to Osiris, the god of death). Human mummies show that Egyptians used prostheses 3,000 years ago. 6.Ancient Egyptians were physically very similar to the modern Egyptian peasants, called fellahs. Nobles, priests, and the pharaohs shaved their heads and wore various types of caps and wigs. Oppositely, villagers or artisans wore long hair and shaved their beards. Against the hot sun, Egyptians wore linen clothes. In time, linen use turned exclusive for some social classes and served as cast distinction. The Egyptian attire consisted generally from a short fabric skirt and a tunic reaching to the ankles. The costume was completed with various adornments. Egyptian women were famous for their make up: they used khol, a black dye for outlining the eyes, ocher powder to give a healthy color to the cheeks, and a vegetal red liquid, called hena, for smearing their hands. Their toiletries included very refined tools: depilating pincers, palettes for mixing the beauty products and ivory sticks for applying them over the skin. They used wigs too, adhered to the head with gold and gemstone diadems and from which bead strings and fine metal plates hung. Noble women possessed luxury jewelry, like wide pearl collars, lapis lazuli, or glass beads.

The most imposing tombs are the famous pyramids, shaped like the sacred mound where the gods first appeared in the creation story. These were incredibly ambitious projects, the largest structures ever built. Their construction was overseen by highly skilled architects and engineers. Paid labourers moved the massive limestone blocks without the use of wheels, horses or iron tools. The conscripts may have been motivated by a deep faith in the divinity of their leaders and a belief in immortality. Perhaps they thought that their contributions would improve their own prospects at the final judgement in the afterworld. The gigantic pyramids were conspicuous targets for tomb robbers, whose plundering jeopardized the hope for eternal life. Subsequent generations of kings hid their tombs in the Valley of the Kings in an attempt to elude the robbers. In the desert valley near the ancient capital of Thebes, now called Luxor, they prepared their royal tombs by cutting into the side of the mountain. Despite efforts to hide the entrances, thieves managed to find the tombs, pillaging and emptying them of their treasures. One tomb was spared, however: Tutankhamun's. Although his resting place was disturbed twice by robbers, the entrance was resealed and remained hidden for over 3,000 years. Its discovery by the British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 is considered the greatest archaeological find in history. Carter spent the rest of his life working on the tomb, removing its treasures to Cairo, and documenting and studying its contents, including the pharaoh's gold coffins and mask. Tutankhamun's mummy remains in his tomb, the only pharaoh to be left in the Valley of the Kings. Today, Egyptian archaeologists are still making important discoveries, and the scientific study of royal mummies is shedding new light on the genealogy of the pharaohs. The ongoing deciphering of hieroglyphic writings and research on the life of the peasants are also answering many questions related to the evolution of Egyptian culture. The pharaonic religion gives the impression that the Egyptians were preoccupied with death; however, there are ample indications that they were a happy lot who knew how to enjoy life.

9 THINGS ABOUT E.C.

1. The fertile banks of the Nile River offered several annual crops, as many floodings the river produced. The farmers would eagerly wait for the flooding, because after the water's retreat, the fields remained covered with a thick layer of mud on which the crops grew rapidly. This condition boosted the existence of various independent agricultural settlements. But around 5,200 BC, the first pharaoh, Menes, unified by war all the populations inhabiting the lower valley of the Nile River. Menes founded the first Egyptian dynasty and, like all the succeeding

7. The Egyptians were feared for their war chariots. The Egyptian war chariot was driven by two horses and provided a very rapid deadly advance. The horse and chariot were introduced into Egypt during the 17th century BC during the invasion of the Hyksos, a Semitic tribe coming from Syria and Palestine. Along their history, Egyptians made long conquest or punishment expeditions into Palestine, Phoenicia, Minor Asia, and Black Africa (like Nubia), this way maintaining the border of the empire. Egyptian archers were very skilled also. Chariots were used by the pharaohs for hunting as well, like in the lion hunt. The hunt of the lion was reserved to pharaohs and nobles (today, lion is extinct in Egypt). 8. The Nile was the main communication route in Egypt. Egyptian ships had a large rectangular or square sail and, despite their size, they were of low draft, which allowed them to avoid sandbanks, and were controlled through rudders of large reed astern. In that place, the highest part of the ship, an awning, was raised for storing the transported goods and make shelter during the voyage. Fishing boats were made like bundles of entwined woody vines and their curved stern somehow resembled a lotus flower. They were driven with poles, and fish were usually harpooned in shallow waters. 9. Egypt was an agricultural state; all classes were involved in it. The pharaohs made norms and laws, nobles surveyed the field work, while the slaves made the seeding and harvesting. The Egyptians turned desert patches into croplands, irrigating them with the Nile's water. This was realized through a complicated network of irrigation ditches and canals.

As Egyptology began to come into its own as a science rather than a treasure hunt after the 1890s, only then did early investigators find surviving evidence predating the pyramids. Excavations by Flinders Petrie brought to light a much older culture predating the historic 1st Dynasty known from records, and at first, this material was so unfamiliar that Petrie thought it must have been left by a "New Race" of people in the Nile Valley. However, even though culturally distinct from the Egyptians of Dynastic times, after further study, he determined that he had, in fact, discovered the remains from a prehistoric period. He, and others, were especially struck by the marked differences between this new, Predynastic culture, and the much better known material from the Old Kingdom and later period.

The Egyptologists of the early 20th century concluded that the classic ancient Egyptian civilization had been brought to the Nile Valley by a "dynastic race" of invaders. They believed that the invaders were both culturally and politically superior to the native Prehistoric Egyptians, and that they swiftly established themselves as rulers of the country. At the time, the dubious science of cranial metrology, that is, using skull measurements to attempt to determine racial characteristics, was fashionable. It was also used in support of this "superior race" theory in Egypt.

ORIGIN OF E.C.

A stone circle at Nabta Playa in Egypt's Western Desert is thought to act as a calendar and was constructed around 7000 BC What could Hitler, the German chancellor who savaged the Jews and brought world war upon us during the mid 20th century, had to do with our initial interpretations of the origins of Egyptian society? Quite a lot, actually, although we must not place all the blame on him. Many of his attitudes about race were more common in the early 20th century amongst the western colonial powers than most people realize.

These superior, invading people were believed to have come from a land to the east of Egypt, reflecting the widespread view that the Orient was a primary source of early culture. The royal art of Egypt during the 1st Dynasty was thought to be similar to that found in Mesopotamia, and so many believed that the earliest kings of Egypt came from present day Iraq. In the 1930s, this theory was given further credence by Hans Winkler, a German who became well known in Egyptology for his exploration of the Eastern Desert. There, he found an abundance of ancient rock art between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. Significantly, numerous images of boats were especially striking, and were also very similar to water crafts found in early Mesopotamian art.

However, in the early 20th century, the chronology of the ancient world was still very poorly understood, and so Winkler did not know at the time that these Egyptian boats predated their

Mesopotamian counterparts by many centuries. Hence, he argued that the Mesopotamians invaded Egypt by way of the Red Sea, leaving traces of their passage on the rocks as they traveled to the Nile River.

This invasion theory was very much a product of its time. Individuals such as Hitler encouraged this approach, but in fact diffusionist theories involving superior racial groups bringing civilization to indigenous peoples were popular among many of the colonial powers of western Europe. At the time, Africa was known as "the heart of darkness", and was thought to be incapable of producing an advanced culture without outside influence. In fact, it was the defeat of Nazism, and the granting of independence to many of the former European colonies in Africa, that would finally drive such theories from popularity. Though invasion theories would persist among a few Egyptologists for some time, and even see a resurrection in popular works as late as the 1990s, most scholars abandoned their search for the foreign origins of Egyptian civilization. Today, we look instead for indigenous development and the roots of dynastic Egyptian culture within the Nile Valley itself and the immediate territory surrounding this cradle of civilization. Intensive archaeological research has, after many years, finally divulged much about prehistoric Egypt. Our understanding of Egyptian civilization can now be traced back through a long sequence of developments to 5000 BC and earlier, almost 2000 years prior to Egypt's 1st Dynasty. We have found even prior to 5000 BC, evidence of very early communities of hunter-gatherer people along the Nile Valley and on the shores of what is now Lake Qarun in the Fayoum, as well as for a palaeolithic population dating back some 300,000 years. Now, our knowledge of the culture of early dynastic Egypt has also changed our view of how classic Egyptian civilization emerged. As little as sixty years ago, and even today among some popular theorists, the dynastic Egypt we know appears to have suddenly sprang from a a cultural vacuum. However, like the pyramids themselves that evolved through experimentation, sometimes resulting in failures, over many years, likewise, today we can appreciate the long gestation of Egyptian culture, and the fact that its roots lie firmly within Egypt itself.

However, we must recognize, as with most cultures, that Egypt was not immune to foreign influence. In fact, most successful civilization must borrow from other cultures some technological advances, even if they produce a few themselves. Thus, it is clear that the Predynastic culture of Egypt was receptive to ideas from neighboring lands. Foreign architectural and artistic motif, and perhaps even the idea of writing, were adopted by the Egyptians at the dawn of history. However, like the chariots of the New Kingdom which were themselves adapted from foreign sources, but modified to be lighter in order to better handle the Egyptian terrain and the Egyptians battle tactics, all such borrowings from even the earliest times were quickly fitted into an Egyptian context. Hence, there is certainly no evidence whatsoever for an invasion of dynastic conquerors, though in ancient times as even today, Egypt was a cultural melting pot, where Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean met. The civilization that emerged in the Nile Valley simply absorbed influences from all of these areas. However, while the Nile civilization did not spring from foreign influence abroad, recent evidence suggests that the impetus behind this development may not have been the adoption of a settled, agricultural way of life, and archaeologists once thought. Rather, it would seem that the stresses of a more precarious existence in the hostile environment of the dry savannahs to the east and west, where now there is little but desert, may have resulted in a gradual migration of semi-nomadic cattle herders into the Nile Valley. Almost like a vacuum, the Nile Valley began to suck in these nomads as their grassland pastures dried out, and this could have also been an important stimulus to the rapid development of Egyptian civilization, forcing a large population into a much smaller area.

As a side note, we should mention that the same evidence that exists to dispel more normal foreign invaders just as clearly evidences the fact that the ancient Egyptian civilization does not owe its existence to Atlantians or extraterrestrials. Such popular theories have existed for many years, but particularly since the 1960s. Writers have found an eager audience for such laughable ideas, even though their theories are flawed. Usually, they present highly selective evidence, but not the wide context of material available to us on the evolution of Egyptian civilization. In summary, over several thousand years, environmental changes and foreign influences molded the gradual development of a civilization that was, in the final analysis, distinctively and uniquely Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the egg was seen as a symbol of birth and resurrection, and indeed, Egypt was as an egg itself, nourishing its people from within, while providing a hard shell to protect them from outside hazards. As the savannahs dried up to become deserts, forcing their inhabitants into a more densely packed population, they also cradled and protected these people, allowing them to incubate along the rich, fertile Nile into the grand empire we find in later times.