Transcript Ancient Egypt

EGYPT:
A Thumbnail Sketch
Cooperation—work
toward common
goal
Nation-state—along
Nile, bounded by
ocean & desert
(multi-ethnic)
Theocracy (pharaoh
is god made flesh)
Lap of luxury. (No
worries. Stable for
the most part).

PHARAOH
Queen & Vizier
Priesthood & Scribes
artisans, soldiers, merchants,
farmers, herders, servants (or slaves?)
Matrilinear Materialism:
Women in Power?
Many rights and privileges in public
as well as in private life.
Property passed from the female to
her heirs.
Could draw up legal documents:
>wrote their own wills & divorce
decrees,
>allowed to testify & bear witness.
Held positions of power and
control--from ship captain to
pharaoh
5 female pharaohs (Hatshepsut +
Cleopatra, last pharaoh of Egypt).
Many of Egypt’s queens shared
power with their husbands
(Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s wife;
Nefertari, Ramses the Great’s
consort)
Behaviors
Beliefs:
Beliefs
Values
AFTERLIFE
“As Above, So Below” (from Emerald Tablets of Thoth)
Live pharaoh=incarnation of Ra/Horus
Dead pharaoh unites with Osiris
Polytheistic with one unified guiding principle
(Ma’at)
Monotheistic under Akhenaten, who instituted
monotheism & dissolved all priesthoods other than
Aten’s because he believed that there was only one
true God.
Values: Unifying Principle
 MA’AT: goddess of
Harmony/Balance, Justice (based
moral rather than highly legalistic
code), & righteousness
 Even the pharaoh was held
accountable to Ma’at, who was
symbolized by a feather.
 TRUTH: (complex
math/geometry is infused into
practically all their agriculture, trade,
art and architecture).
 BEAUTY (jewelry, clothes,
beads, weaving, make-up, wigs)
 GOODNESS
 MAGIC (Book of the Dead,
Coffin Texts, Pyramid texts, etc.)
Behaviors
Negative proclamations
Thoth=scribe god
Emerald Tablet
Ammut, devourer of souls
Everything counts
Omniscient gods
Provide for pharaoh at all
costs
Mummification
Ritual lives
Emerald Tablets of Thoth
 18 tablets
 Hermes
Trismegistus =
unification of
Greek god Hermes
& Egyptian god
Thoth.
 Ruled for 3226
years.
 Conquered
Typhon, symbol of
ignorance.
 Believed to have
been mummified and
entombed within
Great Pyramid of
Giza.
 Hermetica = 42
books of Egyptian
magic.

One translation of
emerald tablet was
of key importance
to alchemists.
 Papyrus books of
Hermetica lost
when Library at
Alexandria burned
to the ground in
626 c.e.
 18 surviving
treatises buried in
desert.
 Divine Pymander &
The Vision
* Believed in numerous
paradoxical & seemingly
contradictory myths,
embracing new ideas.
* Gods and goddesses
had power animals
associated with them,
many times appearing
with human body and
animal head.
* Thoth, though, had two
animals associated with
him: ibis and baboon.
When represented as a
baboon, he didn’t
display human
characteristics;
however, otherwise he
appeared as an ibis
headed man.
* Sacred texts: Pyramid
texts, Book of the Dead,
Emerald Tablet
TECHNOLOGY
Writing:
•Hieroglyphics (sacred)
•Hieratic (like cursive)
•Demotic (Hellenistic)
•Coptic
Rosetta Stone—festival
decree in 3 languages
enabled the 1st translation of
hieroglyphs
•pyramids + associated math
and tools
•herbalism and aromatherapy
•jewelry, perfume, cosmetics,
wigs, etc.
Hatshepsut, Egypt’s first known female pharaoh, was a cross dresser who
donned the royal garb of male pharaohs--all the way down to the fake goatee
that was a symbol of royal power. When she had a daughter instead of a son,
Pharaoh Tutmose II, her husband and brother, bequeathed the throne to one of
his harem consorts’ sons. Since Tutmose III was too young to serve as godking, Hatshepsut became regent until the young king was old enough to rule.
Rather than step down when he came of age, she instead built a temple in her
honor, claimed the throne as her royal birthright.
After 21 years as pharaoh, when Tutmose III took power,
he commanded that Hatshepsut’s name and image
be eradicated in an attempt to erase her
from history and to deny her honor
in the afterlife
since Egyptians
believed
that the spirit
lives on
in the
word
and image.
HATSHEPSUT
Isis and Osiris were brother and sister, husband and wife, destined to become
Lord of the Underworld/Judge of the Afterlife and Queen of Heaven,
goddess of love who has ten thousand names (Isis Myrianymos). Their brother
Seth, jealous of Osiris’ power, tricked his brother by giving a banquet in his
honor and giving him a beautifully carved coffin for his burial.
Seth tricks Osiris
When Osiris climbed into the coffin to try it on for size, Seth sealed it
and threw it into the Nile hoping to be rid of his brother and usurp his
power.
But Isis, loving Osiris as she did, managed to rescue the coffin and hid
it away. Seth took the throne and soon found out about Osiris, so
he found him and cut his body into pieces, and threw it into the Nile.
In turn, Isis--together with her sister, Nephthys, and Anubis, their son,
the jackel headed god of mummification—patiently recollected all the
pieces except for his penis, which, unfortunately, had been eaten by a
crocodile.
So. . .
• In her early days, Isis was
once a sorceress, back
before she tricked Ra, the
sun god, into telling her his
secret name
• (By fashioning a snake from
clay and setting it along the
path to bite him, just before
nightfall when he was a
weak old man.
• He caved in to her demand,
revealed his secret nameand
she gave him the antidote,
and that’s how she became
a goddess, by claiming the
secret knowledge of the
gods).
• Finally, she decided to give
up the search for the
missing piece and fashioned
him a new penis (some say
it was made of gold, others
say clay, still others claim
wood).
REVENGE
IS SWEET
Once she puts his body back
together, she speaks magic
spells to resurrect him, and her
words are the birth of the Book
of the Dead. She makes love
to him and conceives their son,
Horus.
Osiris goes to the underworld to
judge the souls of the deceased,
and Isis returns to earth to raise
Horus in secret until he is old
enough to reap vengeance for
his father’s death.
Ultimately Horus kills Seth… but
not before Seth plucks out one
of his eyes. Thoth makes him a
new eye, and he takes the
throne.
Osiris appears green because he is
a fertility god; he is depicted
wrapped in linen as a mummy.
Wanted: Dead or Alive!
While alive, pharaohs were believed to be
the embodiment of Ra or Horus; once
deceased, pharaohs united with Osiris.
Life in between
 KA
 spirit possessed by gods, men,
and all nature (even temples &
sacred sites); vehicle enabling
the circle of life to flow through
life forces of Sa (cosmic) and
Sekhem (individual).
immortal; matrix of the body that
carries the spirit
when joined with physical form,
constitutes mental, moral,
spirituality of individual.
serves as rational guide &
intuitive protector, akin to
guardian angel.
ka statue in tomb-served food &
drink, oiled and clothed.
can journey between physical
and spiritual being.
 BA
depicted as human-headed hawk
hovers over mummies, sometimes
together with ka to awaiting the
moment when they will be rejoined in
the afterlife.
vehicle possessing all knowledge of
past lives and can come and go from
the physical body without loss of life
or consciousness.
process of rebirth changes from hawk
to migratory stork (reincarnation).