Ancient Egypt Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus Ancient Egypt

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Zusammenfassung von Ancient Egypt

Name: Ancient Egypt
Rating: 4.2 (205 reviews)
Author: Ian Shaw

Ian Shaw

A Very Short Introduction

4.2 (205 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

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Ancient Egypt
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What’s in it for me? Immerse yourself in the colorful and fascinating world of an ancient civilization.

We’re all familiar with Ancient Egypt. Popular culture is brimming with motifs from this period. We’ve all heard stories about archeologists killed by curses, mummies coming back from the dead, pyramids pointing to extraterrestrial life.

For decades, Ancient Egypt has been nourishing our collective imagination. But how much do you really know about one of humanity’s oldest civilizations? Unless you’re a trained Egyptologist, the answer is probably not much.

Well, not to worry. These blinks distill the latest scientific evidence to give you the most up-to-date picture of this unique civilization.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why the superstitious Egyptians avoided drawing bird legs in their tombs;
how the “royal beard” came to be an official part of pharaonic regalia; and
what you have to look forward to in the afterlife, assuming you get mummified.

Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeast Africa that lasted for thousands of years.

In 1898, two British Egyptologists, James Quibell and Frederick Green, discovered something that would change our understanding of Ancient Egypt forever.

In the ruins of a six-thousand-year-old temple, they unearthed an artifact that we now call the Narmer Palette, a two-sided slab of stone teeming with images. It’s notable for being one of the earliest examples of hieroglyphic writing that we have.

The front of the Palette depicts two lions with long, intertwined necks. This image is thought to represent the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt – a common theme in Egyptian art. Above the lions stands a king. He appears to be reviewing the decapitated and castrated bodies of his enemies.

On the flip side of the stone is a much larger image of the king, identified as Narmer. Here, he’s shown holding a captive by the hair. Narmer is about to strike the man with a pear-shaped mace.

The Narmer palette is so rich in information that it’s treated by Egyptologists as a prism for Ancient Egyptian culture as a whole. It’s proof that key elements of this culture began to emerge as early as the fourth millennium BC.

The key message here is: Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeast Africa that lasted for thousands of years.

We’ll focus on the so-called pharaonic period of Ancient Egypt. It spanned three millennia, from around 3100 BC all the way to the year 332 BC. This period was, perhaps, the zenith of that civilization. But the history of Egypt reaches much farther back.

Early hominids – our common ancestors – were already living in Northeast Africa 400,000 years ago. We know this from the discovery of stone tools in the eastern Sahara desert. But the earliest actual human remains we have are from 55,000 years ago.

Those humans led predominantly nomadic lifestyles. Permanent settlements did not appear until about 6000 BC, when Egypt’s climate began to get wetter. These settlements lined the Nile River, and, from around 4000 BC onward, a sophisticated culture began to emerge.

Rain was – and still is – infrequent throughout Egypt. So, to grow crops, residents of those ancient villages depended on the annual flooding of the Nile. Floodwaters nourished the riverbanks by depositing layers of fertile silt. The Nile is undoubtedly the single most important geographical factor in the development of Egyptian society.

The arid climate, combined with the Egyptians' penchant for elaborate funerary arrangements, has preserved a wealth of artifacts, such as tombs, temples, and inscriptions.

From them, we’ve been able to piece together the story of this fascinating nation.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were an early form of writing used mainly for ceremonial purposes.

In a temple to the goddess of Isis built on the island of Philae, you’ll find a hieroglyphic inscription carved into one of the walls. This inscription is significant because it was written in 394 AD. And that is significant because that’s the last known date that the hieroglyphic script was still in use.

After that, humanity all but forgot it. For more than one and a half thousand years, we had no idea how to read hieroglyphics. Until, that is, Jean-Francois Champollion deciphered the Egyptian script in 1822. His discovery ended Egyptology’s dark age.

Ancient Egyptian kingship was intertwined with the civilization’s cosmological worldview.

We began our story with the Narmer Palette, which illustrates many of the ways ancient Egyptians depicted their rulers. You’ll remember that the palette’s dominant scene is a king smiting his enemy with a mace. Well, the royal smiting scene is actually a recurring theme in Egyptian art. It’s emblematic of the pharaoh’s power to maintain harmony in the universe by overcoming the forces of chaos.

In the top right-hand corner of the palette, the falcon-god Horus stands atop the king’s dead adversaries. It’s important to note that king and god share the same space. This mixture of divine and kingly elements is another convention in Egyptian art. It reflects the king’s divine legitimacy.

Ancient Egyptian identity was probably based largely on culture and language.

So far, we’ve taken it for granted that there was such a thing as “Ancient Egyptians,” who were somehow distinct from their neighbors elsewhere in Africa and in the Near East. But this label is relatively modern, and applying it to people who lived millennia ago can be misleading.

The diverse groups of people who inhabited pharaonic Egypt probably didn’t feel part of a single nation.

The cult of Osiris promoted elaborate funerary practices to ensure entrance into the afterlife.

A cliché about the Egyptians is that they were gloomy people obsessed with death. In truth, the evidence suggests that Egyptians were actually quite fond of life. Many Egyptian tombs contain joyful scenes, with people making wine, playing music, dancing, feasting – in other words, having fun.

So why do we associate the Egyptians with death? Well, it’s probably because most of our archaeological evidence comes from their well-preserved tombs. Remnants of their other activities are much rarer.

Religious practice in Ancient Egypt was based on the concealment and revelation of sacred idols.

When we think of Ancient Egyptian religion, the first things that come to mind are usually images of animal-headed deities, like the jackal-headed Anubis or the falcon-headed Horus.

If we take these images at face value, it would be reasonable to conclude that ancient Egyptians didn’t really differentiate between the natural and the supernatural. Portrayals of ancient deities show gods and humans interacting on the same physical plane.

The pyramids have been a focal point of wild speculation for centuries.

For better or for worse, Ancient Egypt isn’t the sole preserve of academics – it very much belongs to popular culture. As a result, there are a lot of alternative interpretations of Egypt floating around out there.

These alternative Egypts have been created by journalists, film producers, advertising executives, and, of course, conspiracy theorists. At this point, the popular perception of ancient Egypt is just a mishmash of mummy mysteries, Hollywood blockbusters, and Halloween costumes.

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Worum geht es in Ancient Egypt?

Ancient Egypt (2021) is a succinct introduction to the history and culture of one of humanity’s oldest civilizations. It touches on different aspects of Ancient Egyptian society and covers topics such as religion and mythology, the hieroglyphic writing system, and Egyptian ideas about death and mummification.

Wer Ancient Egypt lesen sollte

Students of archeology or Egyptology looking for a primer on Ancient Egypt
Museumgoers who want to learn more about the culture behind the exhibits
History buffs who just can't get enough of the Land of the Pharaohs

Über den Autor

Ian Shaw works as a research fellow in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Liverpool and is one of the foremost authorities on Ancient Egypt working today. He has excavated and surveyed numerous archeological sites in Egypt. He has worked at the ancient city of Amarna, in the Valley of the Kings, and at several ancient mining sites. He is the author of many other works, including The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, and The Oxford Handbook of Egyptology.

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