Ancient Egypt

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Ancient Egypt

• Spring 2008

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Ancient
Egypt 5052512240 (74770) Honors Seminar
5009030101 (75053) Arts and Sciences Ancient
Egypt 5660650201 (69382) Ancient and Medieval
Era The course introduces the students to the
Ancient Egyptian civilization from the early
Stone Age to their conquest by the Persians and
Greeks. It gives a comprehensive historical
account on the rise and fall of the Egyptian
dynasties, analyzes archeological and
anthropological evidence, discusses religious,
cultural and social patterns, and examines the
earliest masterpieces of art and architecture in
the Egyptian world. Instructor Dr. Toth Office
310 BSB Phone [phone] E-Mail
gtoth_at_crab.rutgers.edu http//carp.rutgers.edu/ Cl
ass Mondays and Wednesdays 600-720 Office
Hours Mondays and Wednesdays 400-600 or by
appointment Assignments Three tests and a
final Textbook Ian Shaw, The Oxford History of
Ancient Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2000.
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Chronologies and Cultural Change

• Manetho, an Egyptian priest of the sun-god Re at
  Heliopolis during the reign of Ptolemy II, wrote
  a history of Egypt in three books. Using the
  sources at his disposal, he divided Egypts many
  pharaohs into 30 dynasties based on the kings
  family relations, geographic origins, change of
  the era, etc. Manethos list of pharaohs is still
  used today as a reference for historians and
  archaeologists.

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Predynastic Period c. 5300-3000
B.C. Early Dynastic Period c. 3000-2680
B.C. Old Kingdom
2686-2160 B.C. First Intermediate Period
2160-2055 B.C. Middle Kingdom
2055-1650 B.C. Second Intermediate Period
1650-1550 B.C. New Kingdom
1550-1069 B.C. Ramessid Period
1295-1069 B.C. Third Intermediate Period
1069-664 B.C. Late Period
664-332 B.C. Ptolemaic Period
332-30 B.C. Roman Period
30 B.C.- A.D. 395
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Early Dynastic Period c. 3000-2680 B.C. 1st
Dynasty c. 3000-2890
B.C. Aha Djer Djet Den Queen Merneith Anedjib Seme
rkhet Qaa 2nd Dynasty c.
2890-2686 B.C. Hetepsekhemwy Raneb Nynetjer Weneg
Sened Peribsen Khasekhemwy
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• Manethos dating system is a politically based
• chronology and does not take into account
• cultural and socio-economic changes. In addition,
• it exists only in quotes by Josephus, Africanus,
• Eusebius and Syncellus.
• Modern Chronologies
• Relative Chronologies
• Absolute Chronologies
• Radiometric Methods

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Relative Chronologies

• Stratigraphic excavation (stratigraphy)
• Sequence dating (seriation) of artefacts
• (Flinders Petrie 1899)
• 1. Pottery styles
• 2. Middle Kingdom Coffins
• 3. Oil lamp, loom weight etc. styles.

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Stratigraphy I
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Stratigraphy II
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Absolute Chronologies

• Calendars and textual chronicles (recording
  annual events such as festivals, warfare, the
  Nile heights)
• Astronomical observations (the heliacal rise of
  the Sirius)
• Manethos Aegyptiaca
• The Abydos King List (The Hall of the Ancestors)
• The Palermo Stone (problems with regnal year,
  co-regencies, intermediate periods)
• The Turin Royal Canon (Ramessid papyrus)
• 7. Synchronism with non-Egyptian sources
  (Assyrian king lists)

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• The Abydos King List (19th Dynasty, c. 1300 B.C.)
• In the Abydos King List Seti I and prince
  Ramesses (the future Ramesses II) present
  offerings to the total of 75 former kings of
  Egypt.
• (Seti I finishes the royal cartouches and is
  repeated 19 times to fill the bottom.)

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• The Palermo Stone (5th Dynasty)
• The Palermo stone exists in fragments (1 in
  Palermo, Sicily, 4 in Cairo and 1 in London). It
  has short, year by year accounts of major events
  and also records the Nile heights. We analyze two
  details of the Palermo fragment.
• Detail 1. 4th row on the left recording the
  events during 6 years of reign of King Nynetjer
  (2nd Dynasty).
• Detail 2. Middle 3rd row. Part of the reign
  of a king, possibly Den (2nd Dynasty).

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Year 1 Appearance of the King and the 2nd
Running of the Apis Bull. Year 2 Processional
Tour of the King (Horus) and 8th time of the
enumeration census. Year 3Appearance of the
King and the 3rd time of the Festival of
Seker. Year 4 Processional Tour of the King
and 9th time of the enumeration. Year 5
Appearance of the King, offering to the goddess
Nekhbet, Djet-Festival.
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Smiting the bedouin Appearance of the King of
Upper and Lower Egypt, heb-sed Numbering of
all the people of west, north, south and east
2nd time of the Djet-Festival Design of the
Temple Thrones of the Gods, attendance of the
Festival of Seker Stretching the cord for the
temple Thrones of the Gods by the
Seshat-priest, great door.
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• The Turin Royal Canon
• It is a papyrus from the reign of Ramesses II
  and about 50 fragments survived. It is the most
  complete king list, and contains 300 pharaohs
  starting with the reign of deities and spirits.
  The list has very precise dates although the
  reign of the god Thoth was given 7,726 years.

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In ancient Egypt the division of the year into
three seasons was based on the agricultural
demands. The palm branch stripped from its leaves
is believed to have been used for measurement as
well as a symbolic representation of the time
passing (as the palm produces a new branch every
month). The seasons are as follows Inundation
mid-July to mid November Growing
mid-November to mid-March Harvest
mid-March to mid-July Each season was divided
into 4 months and each month contained 30 days.
Each month was divided into 3 weeks and each week
was 10 days long. (There is no word for week in
ancient Egyptian.) In this system x Season y
meant month x and day y in the respective season,
where x1,...,4 and y1,...,30. For example, 3
Growing 15 means the 3rd month and 15th day in
the growing season. The years were counted by
the so-called regnal year, that is, the counting
of the years started with the ascension of the
current king to the throne.
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The ancient Egyptians realized that they
undercounted the year by 5 days and they added 5
extra days those over the year, after the end
of the year. These 5 epagomenal (added) days as
the Egyptologists call them, were days of
celebration of the births of 5 children of the
earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut Osiris,
Horus the Elder, Seth, Isis and Nephtys. During
the 5 epagomenal days nothing major was supposed
to be done by anyone. The first day of the
year, was the birthday of the sun god Re.
The day was divided into 24 hours 12 hours for
the day and 12 hours for the night. During the
Old and Middle Kingdoms, the length of an hour
was not fixed.
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Converting the regnal years into our calendar
dates represents a major problem due to
inconsistencies in the available data. Counting
backwards regnal years from the firm date of 30
B.C. of the death of Cleopatra VII (the last
Egyptian pharaoh) leads to major discrepancies.
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Leap
Year A more precise dating can be attained by
noting that the solar year is actually 365 1/4
days long. The modern day calendar accounts for
this by adding an extra day (in the leap year)
after each period of 4 years. The ancient
Egyptians had no leap years so that their
calendar was steadily slowing down compared to
ours. For example, if the new year fell on June
18, 4 years later it fell on June 17 etc. This
did not bother the Egyptian farmers who lived by
the agricultural cycle. The scribes must have
complained about it though a papyrus from the
Ramessid Period records Winter has come in
summer, the months are reversed, the hours are
all in confusion.
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On the other hand, the Egyptian astronomers kept
meticulous records of astronomical events,
notably the rise of Sothis, the Sirius star above
the horizon at sunrise. (The Sothis disappears
from the sky for about 70 days in late spring and
appears about mid-July the time for the
inundation of the Nile.)
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The rise of Sothis was supposed to fall on 1
Inundation 1 but, due to the backward moving
calendar, it usually fell on a different date.
In 4x365 1,460 years the rising of the Sothis
was on the same day. Due to some tiny
discrepancies (the solar year is not quite 365
1/4 days) the so-called Sothic Cycle is actually
1,453 years. From ancient records we know that
the Sothis rose on 1 Inundation 1 in AD 136-139.
Counting backwards, we know that it also rose on
1 Inundation 1 on 1317-1320 B.C. (136-1,453 -
1,317 which is converted to 1317 B.C.) and also
on 2771-2774 B.C. Now if we have an ancient
record which particular day did the Sothis rise
during a regnal year of a king then this
particular regnal year can be converted to our
calendar year. Very few of these records exist.
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Radiometric Methods

• Chemical and physical tests (radiometric
  methods)
• 1. Carbon Dating (rate of C12 to C14)
• 2. Thermoluminescence (very inaccurate,
• mostly used to check whether an artifact is
  genuine or fake)
• 3. Dendrochronology is used to convert
  radiocarbon dates to real calendar dates.

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Chronological Problems

• Co-Regencies (simultaneous ruling of kings give
  rise to overlaps in their regnal years). In the
  Middle Kingdom co-regents may have used different
  separate regnal dates resulting in the so-called
  double dated stelae (referring to the same
  event). In the New Kingdom this practice changed.
• Intermediate Periods