Egypt

From ArchaeoWiki

This page refers to the ancient land of Egypt; for the modern republic, see Egypt (state)

Ancient Egypt refers to an enduring human civilisation geographically located in the extreme north-eastern quadrant of the African continent, concentrated along the middle to lower reaches of the Nile River, and classically reaching from the Nile Delta in the north to the First Cataract. This southern boundary extended as far south as Gebel Barkal at the Fourth Cataract during the civilisation's greatest contiguous expansion in that period of the second millennium BCE referred to as the New Kingdom. Other significant extensions to the geographical range of ancient Egyptian civilisation included—at different times—areas of the southern Levant, the Eastern Desert and Red Sea coastline, the Sinai Peninsula and the Western Desert (particularly the Oases).

Chronologically, Ancient Egypt is regarded as developing as a culturally-unified civilisation continuously over a period of at least three and a half millennia, beginning with the incipient unification of diverse Nile Valley polities around 3500 BCE, and arguably ending in 30 BCE when the mature Roman Empire (the Augustan Principate) conquered and absorbed the Hellenistic / Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt—though this last did not represent the first period of foreign domination, the Roman period was to witness a marked, if gradual transformation in the political and religious life of the Nile Valley, effectively marking the termination of independent civilisational development).

The civilisation of ancient Egypt was based on a finely balanced control of natural and human resources, characterised primarily by controlled irrigation of the fertile Nile Valley; the mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions; the early development of an independent writing system and literature; the organisation of collective projects; trade with surrounding regions in east / central Africa and the eastern Mediterreanean; finally, military ventures that exhibited strong characteristics of imperial hegemony and territorial domination of neighbouring cultures at different periods. Organising and incentivising these activities were a socio-political and economic elite that achieved social consensus by means of an elaborate system of religious belief under the figure of a (semi)-divine ruler (usually male) from a succession of ruling dynasties and which related to the larger world by means of polytheistic beliefs.

Contents 1 Origins of Name 2 Geography 3 Chronology 4 Art and Material Culture 5 Medicine 6 Bibliography 6.1 General 6.2 Reference 7 External links

Origins of Name

The English word "Egypt" derives from the ancient Greek Άιγυπτος, in turn derived from Egyptian ḥ3.(t)-k3-Ptḥ, "House of the ka (soul) of Ptah", a name for the city of Memphis.

The Egyptian name is several times employed in the Amarna correspondence, transliterated into Akkadian as Ḫikuptaḫ. EA 84:37, EA 139:7-9.

Albright 1938 puts forward Brugsch as suggesting this identification (though without citation).

Geography

Although the geographical setting of ancient Egyptian civilisation was very much focused on the Nile River valley and its delta, the adjoining desert regions nonetheless represented vital zones of exploitation, particularly with regard to their mineral wealth and resources.

• the Eastern Desert
• the Western Desert and the Oases

• • Siwa Oasis
  • Bahariya Oasis
  • Farafra Oasis
  • Dakhla Oasis
  • Kharga Oasis

Chronology

Main article: Chronology of Ancient Egypt

The civilisation of ancient Egypt is conventionally divided by scholars into a series of kingdoms, intermediate periods and ruling dynasties.

Art and Material Culture

• Ancient Egyptian Pottery

Medicine

Main article: Medicine in Ancient Egypt

Bibliography

• Kemp, Barry (1991), Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, Routledge, 1991. ISBN 0415063469

General

• Lehner, Mark (1997), The Complete Pyramids, London: Thames & Hudson, 1997. ISBN 0500050848.
• Wilkinson, R. H. (2000), The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500051003
  • (2003), The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, London: Thames and Hudson, 2003. ISBN 0500051208

Reference

• Baines, John and Málek, Jaromir (2000), The Cultural Atlas of Ancient Egypt, revised edition, Facts on File, 2000. ISBN 0816040362

• Nicholson, Paul and Shaw, Ian (eds) [2000], Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0521452570

• Shaw, Ian (ed.) (2003), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0192804588

External links

• Trismegistos - An interdisciplinary portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources dealing with Egypt and the Nile valley between roughly 800 BCE and 800 CE