Download Prehistory to Egypt

Prehistory to Egypt
up to circa 1,000 BC
Introduction
Period before writing
Paleolithic, up to 13,000 BC
Mesolithic, 13,000 - 8,000 BC
Neolithic, after 8,000 BC
Paleo=old, meso=middle, neo=new
lithic=stone
The first “Art”
• Development of early visual art
– Dark outline
– Outline with one color fill
– Outline with two contrasting colors
– Multi-colored, realistic paintings
• First “Sculpture” 30,000 - 15,000 BC
• “Venus” figures
Venus of
Willendorf
• c. 30,000BC
Cave painting
• Lascaux France - 13,000 BC
– Hall of the Running Bulls
Cave painting
Cave painting
Mesopotamia
• Meso - “middle” & potamia - “water”
• between Tigris & Euphrates rivers
• circa 8,000 BC
• Beginnings of Agriculture
– Made a stable society possible
• What is “Culture”?
– Originally - transmitting knowledge of
growing food
– Now - all knowledge of a society
Map of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
• Inventions
– 1. Pottery
– 2. Weaving
– 3. Permanent houses
– 4. Organized cities
– 5. Buying and selling of crops
– 6. Calendars
Mesopotamia
• Inventions cont.
– 7. Mathematics
• the idea of “Zero”
– 8. Writing
– 9. Sail
– 10. Wheel
Sumer - 6,000 BC
• 4 inventions
– 1. Writing
• Cuneiform (“Wedge” shaped)
– 2. System of Math based on 60
• 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 360 degrees
– 3. Wheel c. 3000BC
• easier transportation
– 4. Beer c.3500BC
• safe drink
Sumer cont.
• Divine monarchy supported by armed
forces
– now the basis of all government
• Ziggurat
– stepped “pyramid”
– reverential climbing
– ritual, priests did praying, not people
– used offerings, sacrifices
Ziggurat
Tell Asmar Statues, c. 2,750 BC
He-Goat,
c. 2,600 BC
Standard of Ur, c. 2,400 BC
Sumer cont.
• Gilgamesh, c. 2,000 BC
– ruler of Uruk (Erech in the bible)
– first “Epic”/“buddy” story
–Robinhood & Little John, etc.
• Gilgamesh is oppressive king
• the Gods send Enkidu to wrestle
Gilgamesh
• the match ends in a draw
• they become friends
Gilgamesh cont.
• They share many adventures
together
• They return to Uruk
• Ishtar professes her love for
Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh rejects her
• Ishtar sends the bull of heaven to kill
Gilgamesh
• Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the bull
Gilgamesh cont.
• for this the Gods condemn Enkidu to
die
• This greatly troubles Gilgamesh
• He goes to Utnapishtim seeking
immorality
• Utnap. Shares the story of the great
flood
• He also tells Gil. Of the location of
the plant of eternal life
Gilgamesh cont.
• It is located at the bottom of the sea
• Gil. Swims and gets it
• He returns to the surface and meets
a snake
• The snake tricks him out of the plant
• Gil. Returns home and dies a lonely
death
European Ice-Age cultures
• c. 4,000 - 1,000 BC
– Stonehenge c. 1,400 BC
– various stone circles around northern
Europe
– man-made mounds
Stonehenge
Stonehenge drawing
Babylon
• c. 1,900 - 539 BC
• Hammurabi’s Code of Laws
– An eye for and eye…
• Nebuchadnezzer
– Jewish capitivity (586-538 BC)
– Temple of Entemenaki (Ziggurat)
• Foundation of Heaven and Earth
• may have been the “Tower of Babel”
Tower of Babel
Babylon cont.
– Hanging Gardens
• One of 7 ancient wonders of the
world
• Belshazzar (563-539 BC)
– Daniel and the Lion’s Den
– Samson and Delilah
Assyria
• c. 1,000 BC
• Mesopotamia
• First militaristic state
• Huge cites with master plan
– laid out to show “class” system
• Sargon II - built, occupied, and
abandoned in 1 generation (20 years)
Persia
• 539-331 BC
• took over Babylon
• network of roads
Persia cont.
• Zoroastrianism
– 1st ethical, monotheistic religion
– Twin evil spirit (devil) to the one God
– Personal religion, no rituals, priests, or
temples
– waiting for coming savior, judgement,
resurrection
Judea
• Hebrews, 12 tribes
• earliest written Bible from time of King
David, 1,000-961 BC
• Third King - Solomon 961-922 BC
• Temple of Solomon
– House of the Lord
– not a place for common worshippers
– plans detailed in I Kings, 5-9
Temple of Solomon
Africa
• General Concepts
– Non-Western culture
Africa
India
Far East
– Western culture – influenced by the
Greeks
Circular view of time, re-occurring cycles
• (also by Meso-american peoples)
Western view of time as linear
•Past
Present
Future
Africa cont.
• All art is useful, no “art” for arts sake
• Not written, oral transmission
• Art as symbol of traditions
• Reinforce practices that keep tribe alive
Literature / Drama
• Mythology / Myth
• popular def. - Impossible or untrue
story
• Real def. – profound human truth
portrayed by a fictional story
(proverb, parable, fable, etc.)
• Strong ethnic/tribal identity
2 basic questions of story-telling;
• Where did we come from?
• Where do we go?
• Trickster tale
– 1 character tricks or betrays another
– good and bad tricksters
– has a “moral” at the end
Music
• Northern Africa
– Muslim/Islamic
– Arabic
– Small groups
– Vocal and instruments
Music
• Western Africa
– Complex rhythms/Polyrhythms
– Repeated patterns with soloist
– Percussion, sometimes with vocal
– Unaccompanied vocal
– Large Ensembles
– Essential for all ceremonies
Visual Arts
• Art classified by purpose
• Household objects
– Head rests
– Stools
– Pot lids
Visual arts cont.
• Fetish figures
– Object with supernatural powers
– Power in relation to size
– Good or bad
– Composite works
Ritual
• Initiation rites
• Transition from child to adult
– Bar Mivtoza
– Drivers License
• Dance costumes
Kente Cloth
• Geometric
• Simple Colors
• Strip weaving
• Strips sewn together to make larger
pieces of “fabric”
• Each tribe has it’s own pattern
(like tartans to the Scots)
Kente cloth
Kente cloth
Kente cloth
Masks
• Spirit
• Ancestor
• uses idea or trait of animal
gazelle = fast
lion = great hunter
• never thrown away, but destroyed
African Mask examples
Fertility figures
• Continuance of tribe
– Dolls (“Venus” type figures common)
– Used by mother until childbirth
– then given to female child to ensure
her fertility
Religious figures
• Creation myth
– Primordial couple (Adam & Eve), or
– Two pairs of twins
– One destroys the other in a struggle of
good vs. evil
(Cain & Able, Egyptian & Greek myths)
Reliquary figures
• Holds bones of ancestor (cremation urn)
– Ancestor spirit in control
– Older people almost worshipped in
many tribes
– “Elders” many times rule tribe
Dance
• Very important
• To be Ashante King, you had to be a
good dancer
– Mimics animals
– Displays power, virtue, honors
ancestors
– Free expression
Dance
• “religion without dance would be
impossible”
• Dance acc. By drums
• Drum censorship
Egypt
• 4,000BC - 332AD
• Longest,
uninterrupted history
of any culture
Egypt cont.
• Pre-dynastic
– 4,000 - 3,000BC
• Old Kingdom
– 3,000 - 2,400BC
• Middle Kingdom
– 2,400 - 1,575BC
Egypt cont.
• New Kingdom
– 1,575 - 1,100BC
• Late period
– 1,100BC - 332AD
• c. 600BC - conquest by Persia
• 332AD - conquest by Rome
• Ptolemaic period (Ruled by Rome)
– after 332AD
General Concepts
• Protected by deserts, isolated
• Depended on yearly flooding of Nile
• Art in service of the Pharaoh
• Order and Balance
• 90% of population within 10 miles of Nile
Maps of Egypt
Egyptian Mythology
INTRODUCTION
The religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians were the
dominating influence in the development of their
culture.
A true religion, in the sense of a unified theological
system, never existed among them.
The Egyptian faith was based on an unorganized
collection of ancient myths, nature worship, and
innumerable deities.
In the most influential and famous of these myths a
divine hierarchy is developed and the creation of the
earth is explained.
CREATION
According to the Egyptian account of creation, only
the ocean existed at first.
Then Ra, the sun, came out of an egg that appeared
on the surface of the water.
Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb
and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut.
Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood
on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut,
who became the sky.
Ra ruled over all.
Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris,
and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys.
Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped
by Isis, his sister-wife.
Set, however, hated his brother and killed him.
(Osiris & Isis legend, see below)
Isis then embalmed her husband’s body with
the help of the god Anubis, who thus became
the god of embalming.
The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris,
who became king of the netherworld, the land
of the dead.
Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later
defeated Set in a great battle and became king
of the earth.
Nut and Geb
The Legend of Osiris and Isis
There were the four children of Geb and Nut;
Boys - Osiris & Set
Girls – Isis & Nephthys
Osiris married Isis
Set married Nephthys
Osiris became the living king of Egypt
Set was VERY jealous of this
Set tricked Osiris into getting into a gold box, which
he then closed and threw into the Nile
Set took the throne of Egypt
This upset Set’s wife, Nephthys, and she left him to
help her sister Isis
Together, Isis and Nephthys found the body of Osiris
on the island of Byblos and brought it back to Egypt
Set found the body and ripped it into 14 pieces,
throwing them again into the Nile, where they were
scattered.
Isis and Nephthys went all over Egypt and found the
13 of the parts (all except the penis), building a
temple to Osiris at each place
Isis then bound up the 13 pieces in cloth
(mummification), and constructed a penis
Isis turned into a Kite (a hawk) and flapped her
wings on the body of Osiris, breathing the wind of
life back into his body
Osiris and Isis then had a child, Hours
Isis raises Horus in secret so Set cannot find him
Osiris becomes the lord of the dead, as he was the fist
person to die
When Horus grows up, he avenges his father’s death
by defeating Set
Horus castrates Set and sends him into the desert to
live forever in isolation
Horus becomes the “prototype” pharaoh, after which
all pharaohs are viewed as divine, being “Horus”
LOCAL GODS
Ennead, a group of nine divinities, and the triad,
consisting of a divine father, mother, and son.
Every local temple in Egypt possessed its own
ennead and triad.
The greatest ennead, however, was that of Ra and
his children and grandchildren. This group was
worshiped at Heliopolis, the center of sun worship.
Their importance increased with the political
ascendancy of the localities where they were
worshiped.
As the religion became more involved, true deities
were sometimes confused with human beings who
had been glorified after death. Thus, Imhotep, who
was originally the chief minister of the 3rd Dynasty
ruler Zoser, was later regarded as a demigod.
ICONOGRAPHY
The Egyptian gods were represented with human
torsos and human or animal heads.
Sometimes the animal or bird expressed the
characteristics of the god.
Ra, for example, had the head of a hawk, and the
hawk was sacred to him because of its swift flight
across the sky
Anubis was given the head of a jackal because these
animals ravaged the desert graves in ancient times.
Because of the gods to which they were attached,
the sacred animals were venerated, but they were
never worshiped until the decadent 26th Dynasty.
The gods were also represented by symbols, such as
the sun disk and hawk wings that were worn on the
headdress of the pharaoh.
SUN WORSHIP
The only important god who was worshiped with
consistency was Ra, chief of cosmic deities, from
whom early Egyptian kings claimed descent.
Beginning with the Middle Kingdom (2134-1668 BC)
Ra worship acquired the status of a state religion.
During the 18th Dynasty the pharaoh Amenhotep
III renamed the sun god Aton, an ancient term for
the physical solar force.
Amenhotep IV, instituted a revolution in Egyptian
religion by proclaiming Aton the true and only god.
He changed his own name to Akhenaton, meaning
"Aton is satisfied."
This first great monotheist was so iconoclastic that
he had the plural word gods deleted from
monuments, and he relentlessly persecuted the
priests of Amon.
Akhenaton’s sun religion failed to survive, although it
exerted a great influence on the art and thinking of
his time, and Egypt returned to the ancient religion
of polytheism after Akhenaton’s death.
BURIAL RITUAL - The Book of the Dead
Burying the dead was of religious concern in Egypt,
and Egyptian funerary rituals and equipment
eventually became the most elaborate the world has
ever known.
The Egyptians believed that the vital life-force was the
ka.
The ka, a duplicate of the body, accompanied the body
throughout life and, after death, departed from the
body to take its place in the kingdom of the dead.
The ka, however, could not exist without the body;
every effort had to be made, therefore, to preserve the
corpse.
Bodies were embalmed and mummified according to a
traditional method supposedly begun by Isis, who
mummified her husband Osiris.
After arriving in the kingdom of the dead, the ka
was judged by Osiris, the king of the dead, and 42
demon assistants.
The Book of the Dead also contains instructions for
proper conduct before these judges.
If the judges decided the deceased had been a
sinner, the ka was condemned to hunger and thirst
or to be torn to pieces by horrible executioners.
If the decision was favorable, the ka went to the
heavenly realm of the fields of Yaru.
Anubis as the God of Embalming
Gods and Goddesses
Anubis
Anubis was the son of Nephthys.
Anubis was depicted as a jackal, or as a jackalheaded man.
Probably because of the jackal's tendency to prowl
around tombs, he became associated with the dead,
and by the Old Kingdom.
Anubis was worshipped as the inventor of
embalming, who had embalmed the dead Osiris, thus
helping preserve him in order to live again.
Anubis
Apis
An early deity, probably the best known Egyptian
deity represented only as an animal.
He was represented as a bull crowned with the
solar disk and serpent.
He was primarily a deity of fertility.
Aten
The sun-disk itself.
Aten was depicted as a disk with rays, each ray
terminating in a human hand and bestowing
symbols of "life" upon those below.
Bast
A cat-goddess.
A protector of cats and those who cared for cats.
As a result, an important deity in the home (since
cats were prized pets).
Bast
Geb
The god of the earth.
He is generally represented as a man with green or
black skin - the color of living things, and the color
of the fertile Nile mud.
Note that Geb is masculine, contrasting with many
other traditions of Earth being female.
Hathor
A very old goddess of Egypt, worshiped as a cowdeity from earliest times.
She was usually shown with a solar disk flanked by
cow horns on her head.
She was also the patron of love, dance, alcohol, and
foreign lands.
Hathor
Horus
One of the most important deities of Egypt. As the
Child, Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis, who, upon
reaching adulthood, avenges his father's death, by
defeating and castrating his evil uncle Set.
He then became the divine prototype of the Pharaoh.
Shown with the head of a hawk.
Horus
Imhotep
Imhotep was a historical figure. He was the
architect, physician, scribe, and vizier (adviser) of
the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh Zoser.
It was Imhotep who conceived and built the Step
Pyramid at Sakkara.
In the Late Period, Imhotep was worshipped as the
son of Ptah and a god of medicine, as well as the
patron of scribes.
He was one of the few mortals born of common
blood to be elevated to the rank of deity.
Isis
Perhaps the most important goddess (or god, for
that matter) of all Egyptian mythology.
Her most important functions, however, were those
of motherhood, marital devotion, healing the sick,
and the working of magical spells and charms.
She was believed to be the most powerful magician
in the universe, owing to the fact that she had
learned the Secret Name of Ra from the god himself.
She was the sister and wife of Osiris, sister of Set,
and twin sister of Nephthys, and was the mother of
Horus.
Isis was responsible for protecting Horus from Set
during his infancy; for helping Osiris to return to life;
and for assisting her husband to rule in the land of
the Dead.
Isis
Nephthys
"Lady of the House", the youngest child of Geb and
Nut.
The sister and wife of Set, and sister of Isis and
Osiris; also the mother of Anubis.
She abandoned Set when he killed Osiris, and
assisted Isis in the care of Horus and the resurrection
of Osiris.
She was, along with her sister, considered the special
protectress of the dead, and she was the guardian of
Hapi, the protector of the lungs of the deceased.
Nephthys
Nut
The goddess of the sky.
Nut was generally depicted as a woman with blue
skin, and her body covered with stars, standing on
all fours, leaning over her husband Geb,
representing the sky arched over the earth.
Osiris
The god of the dead, and the god of the
resurrection into eternal life; ruler, protector, and
judge of the deceased.
Osiris was the first child of Nut and Geb, thus the
brother of Set, Nephthys, and Isis, who was also his
wife.
By Isis he fathered Horus, and according to some
stories, Nephthys assumed the form of Isis,
seduced him thus, and from their union was born
Anubis.
Being the first person to die, he subsequently
became lord of the dead.
Osiris
Pharaohs as deities
From earliest times in Egypt the pharaohs were
worshipped as gods: the son of Ra, the son of Horus,
etc.
The pharaoh was looked upon as being chosen by
and favored by the gods, his fathers.
Ra
Ra was the god of the sun; the name is thought to
have meant "creative power", and as a proper name
"Creator", similar to English Christian usage of the
term "Creator" to signify the "almighty God."
Very early in Egyptian history, Ra was identified with
Horus, who as a hawk or falon-god represented the
loftiness of the skies.
Ra is represented either as a hawk-headed man or as
a hawk.
In order to travel through the waters of Heaven and
the Underworld, Ra was also depicted as traveling in
a boat.
Ra
Sekhmet
A lioness goddess
Created by Ra from the fire of his eyes as a
creature of vengeance to punish mankind for his
sins.
Selket
A scorpion-goddess, shown as a beautiful woman
with a scorpion poised on her head; her creature
struck death to the wicked.
She was also petitioned to save the lives of innocent
people stung by scorpions and was also viewed as a
helper of women in childbirth.
She is depicted as binding up demons that would
otherwise threaten Ra, and she sent seven of her
scorpions to protect Isis from Set.
She protected Qebehsenuef, the son of Horus who
guarded the intestines of the deceased.
She was made famous by her statue from
Tutankhamen's tomb, which was part of the
collection which toured America in the 1970's.
Selket
Set
He was the patron deity of Lower (Northern) Egypt,
and represented the fierce storms of the desert that
the Lower Egyptians sought to appease.
When Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt and
ushered in the 1st Dynasty, Set became known as
the evil enemy of Horus (Upper Egypt's dynastic
god).
Set is best known for murdering his brother and
attempting to kill his nephew Horus.
Horus, however, managed to survive and grew up to
avenge his father's death by establishing his rule
over all Egypt, castrating Set, and casting him out
into the lonely desert for all time.
Set
Sobek
The crocodile god.
Sobek was worshipped to appease him and his
animals
Sobek
Thoth
The god of wisdom, Thoth was said to be selfcreated at the beginning of time, along with his
consort Ma'at (truth).
Thoth was depicted as a man with the head of an
ibis bird, and carried a pen and scrolls upon which
he recorded all things.
He was shown as attendant in almost all major
scenes involving the gods, but especially at the
judgement of the deceased.
He served as the messenger of the gods, and was
thus equated by the Greeks with Hermes.
He is a god of the moon, and is also the god of time,
magic, and writing. He was considered the inventor
of the hieroglyphs.
Thoth
Literature / Drama
• Old Kingdom – beginnings of
Hieroglyphics - ("sacred carving")
• INTRODUCTION
• Characters in any of several systems of writing in
which the characters are pictorial, that is,
represent recognizable objects.
• The term hieroglyph is, however, most generally
associated with the script in which the ancient
Egyptian language was written; the Greeks
applied the term to the decorative characters
carved on Egyptian standing monuments.
Hieroglyphics
• The word hieroglyphic was later used to
describe the pictorial writing systems of the
Hittites, Cretans, and Mayans, but their systems
are in no way related to one another or to the
Egyptian, having in common only that they are
pictorial.
IDEOGRAMS AND PHONOGRAMS
• Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions are composed
of two basic types of signs: ideograms and
phonograms.
• Ideograms signify either the specific object
drawn or something closely related to it; for
example, a picture of the sun may mean "sun"
or "day".
• Phonograms, or sound signs, were used purely
for their phonetic value and have no
relationship to the word they are used to spell.
IDEOGRAMS AND PHONOGRAMS
• The development of the principle, by which the
picture of an object could stand not only for
that object but also for a word with the same
sound but a different meaning, made possible
the writing of proper nouns and abstract ideas.
• A sign might serve as an ideogram in one word
and as a phonogram in another.
• Most words were written with a combination of
phonetic and pictorial signs.
IDEOGRAMS AND PHONOGRAMS
• A picture of the floor plan of a house
meant "house," but the same sign
followed by a phonetic complement and a
picture of a pair of walking legs was used
to write the verb meaning "to go out."
ARRANGEMENT OF HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS
Hieroglyphic inscriptions could be written either
vertically or horizontally, usually from right to left, or
top to bottom.
The direction for any given inscription is indicated by
the individual signs, which normally face the
beginning of the inscription.
The king's two most common names were inscribed
in cartouches or "royal rings," stylized
representations of loops formed by a double
thickness of rope with the ends tied at the bottom.
DECIPHERMENT OF HIEROGLYPHS
The Romans believed that Egyptian hieroglyphs
were symbolic and allegorical, not phonetic; this
theory prevailed into the time of the Renaissance.
The breakthrough came in 1799, when a soldier
serving in Napoleon's campaign in Egypt discovered
the Rosetta Stone, a bilingual stela inscribed (196
BC) with a decree in honor of Ptolemy V in Greek,
hieroglyphic, and demotic (“popular” writing form)
Egyptian.
It was not until the work (begun 1821) of the
French Egyptologist, Jean François Champollion,
however, that the two Egyptian scripts were
recognized as phonetic.
In earlier stages of the work Champollion had
predicted the hieroglyphic spelling of various royal
names based on the demotic; these spellings were
confirmed by actual cartouches on the Rosetta
Stone and other Ptolemaic monuments.
After identifying the names and titles of the GrecoRoman rulers, he combined the phonetic values he
had so derived with his knowledge of Coptic, the
late stage of the Egyptian language.
This achievement enabled him to decipher earlier
Pharaonic cartouches. In 1822 the decipherment of
the script was completed.
Hieroglyphic name translator web page:
• http://www.eyelid.co.uk/e-name.htm
Sculpture / "Solid" arts
• 1st and most important art form of the
Egyptians
• Small to life-sized
• Realistic, with some idealization
• Cubic, upright rectangle, frontal
• To be viewed from the front
• To glorify the king, and to give the spirit
the things it needed for the after-life
Show parts of the body from their most identifiable
side;
Head – side
Lower body – side
Eye – front
Upper body – front
Face rarely shown from front
Idea was to preserve the essence of what was being
shown, not always realistic.
Old Kingdom
• Oldest surviving metal statue
– Pepi I (ruled 2395-2360BC)
• Copper, circa 2300BC
• Pottery
– Well made
– Variety of shapes
– Usually un-decorated
Old Kingdom
• Jewelry
– Gold and precious stones
– Animal and plant designs
Middle Kingdom
• More realism (less idealization)
– Jewelry
• Precious metal inlaid with colored
stones
– Few large sculptures
New Kingdom
• Combination of realism and idealization
• Decorative arts
– Well designed and made
– Alabaster, ebony, gold, ivory, precious
stones
– Love of decoration
Painting / "Visual" Arts
• Relief carving
– Painting on carvings and sculptures
– Tomb wall painting
– Palette of King Narmer
• 3100BC
• Shows uniting of upper and lower Egypt
• Make-up palette
• Shows king in “smiting” pose
–Arm raised in striking gesture
Palette of King Narmer
Treasures of King Tut
Tomb plan
Antechamber as found
Opening the three coffins
Gold mask as found
Gold mask restored
Anubis
Alabaster case
Canoptic shrine
Two part case
Portrait head
Relief of Selket
Tut’s throne
Vulture pendant
Wooden chest
Architecture
2nd most important
art form
Old Kingdom
Imhotep, architect for Zoser
Stepped pyramid at Saqqarah
c. 2,720BC
Grew from mastaba (Ar. “bench”)
Pyramids - c. 2700BC
• 80+ still in existence
• Giza Pyrmid complex most famous
• Oldest existent complete buildings in the
world
• Only remaining structure of the 7 ancient
wonders of the world.
• Necropolis – city of the dead
Reconstruction of the pyramid complex
Cheops/Khufu (The “Great” pyramid)
• 755’ 8” on a side (13 acres, area of 10 football fields)
• 481’ tall (40 story building, 1 and 2/3 football fields)
• 2.3 million blocks
• Base covers 13 acres
• Base is level 1/4 inch from corner to corner
• Oriented perfectly N and S
• Used as a Geodetic marker for the entire ancient world
• Is at the center of a circle drawn around the Nile Delta
the other pyrimads at Giza
• Chephren/Khafre, son of Cheops
– 707’ on a side
– 471’ tall
– appears taller because it’s built on
higher ground
• Mycerinus, son of Chephren
– 356’ on a side
– Less well made
“Man fears time,
time fears the pyramids.”
Sphnix – head of man, body of lion, guardian of
pyramids
Architecture
• Middle Kingdom
– Little building, almost none still existing
• New Kingdom
– New focus on religious building
(see following)
Temple at Luxor
• Temple of Amun, Mut, and Chons
– Anchorage for the royal boats during
the floods
– Main religious center at various times in
Egyptian history
Temple at Luxor
Temple at Al Karnak
• Valley of the Kings
• Tombs cut into rock, underground
• Covered to hide (Tutankhamun)
Temple at Al Karnak
Tomb of Hatshepsut
• Only true female pharaoh
• Vast above ground, terraced structure
• Many shrines to gods and carvings of her accomplishments
Temple at Abu Simbal
• 4 large statues of Ramses II (pharaoh at
the time of Moses)
• Deep rock-cut temples behind in mountain
• Moved in 1968 to save it from the rising of
Lake Nasser
Temple at Abu Simbal