nui TheCourierSEPTEMBER IMS 9 Frsnch francs

Egypt of the Pharaohs

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Aida at LuxorIn May 1987, one hundred andsixteen years after it was first performed,the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi'sfamous opera A ida was staged amid theruins of ancient Thebes, the city in whichparts of it are set. In the magnificentsetting of Luxor temple, below, aninternational audience enjoyed aproduction that brought onto the stage aglittering cast of 1 ,500 singers, dancersand extras, as well as a small herd of horses

and even a lion. Officials of the EgyptianAntiquities Service ensured that the fragilemonuments would not be damaged by thetechnical crews and their equipment.Aida is based on an idea by the FrenchEgyptologist Auguste Mariette. The storyturns on the rivalry between thePharaoh's daughter, Amnéris, who is inlove with the young general R adames, andAida, taken captive after her father, theking of Ethiopia, is defeated by Raclâmes.Condemned for treason because of his love

for Aida, Radamès is entombed in a deathchamber with her.

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September 1988

53Time and the river

The Nile and ancient EgyptbyJohnBaines

8I

The riddle of the Rosetta Stone

by Jean Vereoutter

12

Colossal feats of engineeringby Rainer Stadelmann

17

S*SU

The Egyptian world-pictureby Jean Yoyotte

26

Daily life in the land of the Pharaohsby Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt

30

Egypt and the Mediterranean worldby Gaballa Aly Gaballa

33

Pharaonic art

and the modern imaginationby Richard A. Fazzini

36

Unesco

and the ancient Egyptian heritageFrom the Nubian campaignto the Library ofAlexandriaby Gamal Mokhtar

39

Map

Cover: Wall painting from the tomb of Pashedu atThebes (19th Dynasty, c. 1307-1 1% BC) showsthe deceased drinking from a lake in the shade of apalm tree.Photo© G. Dagli Orti, Paris

Back cover: burial chamber of Merneptah(c. 1224-1214 BC), thirteenth son and successorof RamessesII.

Photo B. Brake© Rapho, Paris

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Long ago, the scholars and travellers of Antiquitywere fascinated by the Egypt of the Pharaohs.Today, almost 200 years after modernarchaeological study of ancient Egypt began, thatfascination is still as potent as ever. Egyptology is aconstantly expanding field of study in whichspecialists patiently try to reconstruct a rich andstill in many ways baffling civilization fromrecords remarkably preserved in the dry air anddesert sands. The record-breaking crowds whichflock to international exhibitions of ancient

Egyptian art show that a vast non-specialist publicis today eager to know more about ancientEgyptian culture. Meanwhile, the giant pyramidsand lavishly decorated tombs and temples of theNile Valley, the messages of hieroglyphs carved instone or written on papyrus, have also created avision (not always historically accurate) of ancientEgypt which has stimulated the imagination ofartists, architects, writers and musicians down thecenturies.

This issue of the Unesco Courier retraces some

of the steps in the rediscovery of Pharaonic Egyptin modern times and evokes some of the grandioseachievements of ancient Egyptian architecture andengineering. But above all it seeks, in the light ofthe latest findings by Egyptologists, to showthrough the more homely and intimate aspects oftheir lives how the ancient Egyptians sawthemselves and their world ; the pattern of dailylife and work; the rhythm of the seasonsdominated by the annual inundation of the Nile ;the strange, complex and ubiquitous figures of theEgyptian pantheon; attitudes to the afterlife. Thepicture that emerges is one of a society in whichthe sacred and the sublime were totally integratedinto the tissue of everyday life, a civilization inwhich the earthly, the ephemeral, and the eternalwere uniquely blended. This harmony is perhapsmost clearly seen in ancient Egyptian art which,with its minute attention to detail, its gift forconveying the most subtle nuances of expressionand movement, provides a vivid panorama of apeople, time and place in which all aspects ofearthly experience farming, family life, theenjoyment of transient pleasures were sacredactivities forming part of cosmic processes.

This issue comprises 40 pages and a 4-page advertising insert between pages 2-3 and 38-39.

-Time and the river-^

BY JOHN BAINES Life in ancient Egyptwas geared

^annual ÑUe-floQd

WITHOUT the Nile, which flows

north from the Ethiopian high¬lands and Central Africa to the

Mediterranean, Egypt with its negligiblerainfall would have been almost completelyinhospitable. Because of the river, it was the

largest and most prosperous East Mediterra¬nean State from 3000 BC until the Roman

conquest in 30 BC. It regained this pre-emi¬nence in the Middle Ages, and remains themost important and populous country in theNear East. There is true continuity over thisenormous period, because Egypt's boundarieshave changed little.

Throughout Antiquity, the country'sstanding relied on its agricultural wealth andhence on the Nile; yet agriculture was notthe original basis of subsistence, but evolvedwith the land in prehistory. As well as gov

erning material potential, the Nile and othergeographical features affected political de¬velopments and played a part in Egyptianideas.

In the Pleistocene era, which ended

around 10,000 BC, Egypt was part of theeastern Sahara, which was inhabited bynomadic hunter-gatherers. The region wasrather less arid than at present and supportedpeople in areas now without resources orpopulation. The Nile, whose Valley andDelta were largely swamp, was privileged asa reliable water source, attracting game andpeople, and being exploited for its plants andfish. By 12,000 BC people also gathered wildgrasses, presumably for their cereal grains,which needed more processing than otherfoods they consumed. This suggests thatpressure on food resources was increasing.

In succeeding millennia the Sahara slowlydried, becoming by 200Ó BC almost as aridas it is now. From 10,000 to 5000 BC, late

Stone-Age people gathered where there waswater, exploiting resources ever more inten¬sively, both in the desert and near the Nile.

The culture of the region was uniform, un¬like that of later small-scale peasant societies.The transition to crop-growing occurredeither near water in the desert or in the Nile

Valley and Delta. Dates of 7000-5000 BC

have been suggested for both, much laterthan in Western Asia. Because the Nile

Valley preserves little evidence for farming,it may have been present earlier than can bedocumented.

The Nile Valley and Delta were opened upgradually for agriculture and population in¬creased. By 4000 BC there were only two

^The Nile in flood. The annual inundation

transformed the Nile Valley into a green ribbonof cultivation bordered by deserts.

Pink-veined breccia statuette of a bearded man,50 cm high, was fashioned in the Nile Valley by a

craftsman of the Naqada I culture whichdeveloped in Predynastic Egypt in the

4th millennium of the pre-Christian era.

Photo © Almasy, Paris

principal cultures in Egypt, the olderMerimda culture in the Delta and the

Badarian, centred on Asyut in Upper Egypt.Before 3100 BC the single Egyptian Statehad formed the first large nation State.

Egypt continued to develop and popula¬tion increased until Roman times. Important

factors in this process were unity and politic¬al stability, and the possibility of cultivatingever more fertile land. In this internal expan¬sion the harnessing of the Nile was crucial.

Crops could be planted after the annual in¬undation, which covered the Valley andDelta from late July to September; theyneeded minimal watering and ripenedfrom March to May. Some management ofthe inundation to improve its coverage of theland and to regulate the period of floodingincreased yields, while drainage and the

river's slow deposition of silt extended thefields. Vegetables grown in small plotsneeded irrigating all year from water carriedby hand in pots; not until 1500 BC was anyartificial water-lifting device introduced.Some plants, such as date palms, whosecrops ripened in the late summer, drew theirwater from the subsoil and needed no other

watering.

It is uncertain how early and how far thisregulation of the inundation and small-scalewatering shifted toward full-scale irrigation.By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040-1640 BC)basin irrigation, in which large sections ofthe floodplain were treated as single units,was well established, but it may not have

been present in the Old Kingdom (thirdmillennium BC), when the great pyramidswere built.

Egyptian texts say little about irrigationand provision of water, making it difficult toestablish when techniques were introduced.Exceptions are autobiographies of local lead¬ers of the troubled First Intermediate Period

(c. 2134-2040 BC), who claimed that theybuilt canals and supplied water to their peo¬ple when others had none. In more prosper¬ous times such matters may have been taken

for granted or not thought prestigiousenough to be described in public texts. Theonly area where there was major irrigationwork before Graeco-Roman times was the

Faiyum, a lakeside oasis to the west of the

Nile south of the Delta apex. Here MiddleKingdom kings reclaimed land by controll¬ing the water flow down a side river channeland directing it away from the lake to low-lying land. Their constructions did not last.

The Nile's annual inundation was quite

reliable, and the floodplain and Delta wereuniquely fertile, making Egyptian1 agricul¬ture the most secure and productive in theregion, while stability allowed storageagainst scarcity. This situation was,however, only relatively favourable. Cropfailure due to poor floods, population lossthrough disease, and other hazards, res¬tricted the pace of growth and unlike mod¬ern Egypt only one main crop was grownper year. High floods could be verydestructive.

The principal crops were cereals, emmerwheat for bread, and barley for beer. Thesemade up the staple diet and were easilystored. Other vital plants were flax, whichwas used for products from rope to the finestcloth and was also exported, and papyrus, aswamp plant which may have been culti¬vated or gathered wild. Papyrus roots couldbe eaten, and the stems were used for making

anything from boats and mats to the charac¬teristic Egyptian writing material with thesame name as the plant; this too was ex¬

ported. In addition, a wide range of fruit andvegetables was cultivated. Meat from live¬stock was relatively unimportant in the diet,

but birds were hunted in the marshes and the

Nile produced much fish, which was themain animal protein for most people.

Apart from making agriculture possible,the Nile was the chief means of communica¬

tion. In the Egyptian script words fortravelling are written with signs of ships.Heavy loads were taken by river and the easeof water transport helped the country's in¬tegration, while the complex geography of

against failures, so that they took uponthemselves much that is achieved throughco-operation in small societies. The central

organization that grew in the third millen¬nium BC created a disciplined labour forcewhich was used to build vast royal monu¬ments and élite tombs, for the fortifications

and pyramids of the Middle Kingdom, forthe imperial expansion, temples and privatetombs of the New Kingdom

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the Delta and its mouths were obstacles to

invasion. Travel into the desert or to Asia

was incomparably more difficult than move¬ment within Egypt. The river could alsoseparate people. The image of a poor manwas someone who had no boat, whom the

more fortunate should ferry across. Dyingwas "coming in to land" on the "other side",and the passage into the next world was a"crossing".

The compactness of Egypt, centred on theNile, favoured political unity, whichbrought both potential for exploiting theland's fertility and obligations on rulers.Rulers controlled agricultural resourcesthrough ownership of land, taxation of itsproduce, administrative measures to ensurethat it was cultivated, and compulsorylabour. In return for control, they were re¬

sponsible for storage and for provision

(c. 1550-1070 BC), and for building andother activities of the Graeco-Roman

period.Organization and the productivity of in¬

undation agriculture made all this possible,temporarily releasing many from the landduring the slack summer months in the

fields, or permanently freeing people to fol¬low specialized and élite occupations. Whencentral control collapsed, chiefly in the threeIntermediate Periods, few monuments were

constructed and there was little political ex¬pansion, but the agricultural basis of powerand prosperity was not destroyed; afterreunification monumental projects andgeneral culture revived. One should not,however, forget that for most people this useof labour made available by productivitywas not a personal benefit, but served therulers and the élite. Were it not for political

Detail from scene in relief on the limestone

ceremonial mace head of King "Scorpion" (socalled from the sign of a scorpion near his face).The king is shown digging the first trench atatemple-founding ceremony. Late Predynastic

Period (c. 3000 BC).

god Osiris, ruler of the netherworld, isdepicted in this painting from the tomb ofSennedjem at Thebes. The crook and flail he isholding allude to the god's ancient links withthe kingship and with pastoralism. The tombdates from the reign of Sethos I (c. 1306-1290BC). (See also photo page 24.)

Carving of the ram-headed god Khnum, fromthe Small Temple of Abu Simbcl. Patron of theFirst Cataract with its mythical caverns which

were considered to be the sources oftheNile

inundation, Khnum was worshipped chiefly inthe area around Elephantine in Upper Egypt.

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instability, the lot of many could have beenas good or better in the Intermediate Periods(c. 2134-2040 BC, 1640-1532 BC, 1070-712

BC), but here beliefs about king and countrymay have affected their outlook.

The Nile, which was so fundamental to

the country's life, was surprisingly unimpor¬tant in religion. The Egyptians took theirenvironment for granted as the centre of theworld. There was no special name for theNile, which was simply the "river"; theword "Nile" may not be Egyptian in origin.The bringer of water and fertility was not thestatic river but its inundation, called Hapy,

who became a god. Hapy was an essentialimage of abundance, but he was not a majorgod. Both kings and local potentates likenedthemselves to Hapy in their prosperity andprovision for their subjects. A hymn toHapy dwells on the inundation's bountiful

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nature but does not relate him to the rest of

the gods, as was done in the praise of otherdeities. He was not depicted as a god but as afat figure bringing the produce of abundanceto the gods. He had no temple, but wasworshipped annually at the start of the inun¬dation with sacrifices and hymns at Gebelel-Silsila, which was probably a prehistoricfrontier, where the hills come close to the

river north of Aswan.

In some other respects the Nile and theinundation were central to the Egyptianworld view. Unlike most peoples, theEgyptians oriented themselves to the south,from which the river came, so that the west

was on their right with the result that it wasthe "good" side for passage into the nextworld. The year and calendar were deter¬mined by the Nile and by the stars. NewYear was in mid July, when the river began

to rise for the inundation; this coincided

with the reappearance of the star Sirius,Egyptian Sothis, in the sky after seventydays' invisibility. The river defined threeseasons of four months, "Inundation",

"Emergence" (November-March) when theland reappeared and could be cultivated, and"Heat" or "Harvest", when crops were

gathered and the water was lowest.The major god most closely connected

with the Nile was Osiris. In myth Osiris wasa king of Egypt who was killed by hisbrother Seth on the banks of the river and

cast into it in a coffin. His corpse was cutinto many pieces. Later, his sister and widowIsis succeeded in reassembling his body andreviving it to conceive a posthumous son,Horus. Osiris, however, did not return to

this world but became king of the under¬world. His death and revival were linked to

the land's fertility. In a festival celebratedduring the inundation, damp clay models ofOsiris were planted with barley, whose ger¬mination stood for the revival of the land

brought by the flood, so that Osiris, the riverand the land were drawn into a complex ofideas about fertility and rebirth.

Another important god linked to the riverwas Khnum the "Lord of the Cataract", the

ram god of Elephantine at the southern fron¬tier. Khnum was a creator god and the pat¬

ron of the point where the inundation en¬tered Egypt. This connection was, however,secondary, supplementing an ancient localcult of the goddess Satis, whose temple cele¬brated the conjunction between Sothis and

the inundation; despite the later arrival of theinundation in more populous areas furthernorth, the conjunction was observed andrecorded at Elephantine.

The Nile's fundamental importance maybe more evident to us than to the ancient

Egyptians, who were so accustomed to itthat they termed rain in other countries an"inundation in the sky". In order to appreci¬ate its position in Antiquity, one must see itthrough ancient eyes with ancient distinc¬tions between sacred and secular, divine and

human. The Egyptians had a matter-of-factattitude to the river, whose inundation could

be destructive but was a beneficent moral

force in their lives; most gods were morecomplex beings whose abode was outside thenormal world. It was left to the Greeks and

Romans to make the Nile a god like the otherrivers of their world. I

JOHN BAINES, of the United Kingdom, hasbeen Professor of Egyptology at the University ofOxford since 1976. He is the author with JaromirMálek of the Atlas of Ancient Egypt (1980), whichhas been translated into many languages, ofFecundity Figures (1985), which includes a studyofthe personification ofthe inundation ofthe Nile,Hapy, and of articles on Egyptian religion, king¬ship and other subjects. He has lectured on ancientEgypt in Africa, Europe, and the United States.

The riddle of the Rosetta

BY JEAN VERCOUTTERScholars and adventurers who

rediscovered a forgotten civilization

N 27 September 1822, the Frenchscholar J e an - F r a n ço i sChampollion read out to the

members of his country's Académie des In¬scriptions et Belles-Lettres his celebrated Let¬tre à M. Dacier, relative à l'alphabet deshiéroglyphes phonétiques employés par lesEgyptiens, a text which marked a turning-point in the rediscovery of ancient Egypt.

The civilization of the Pharaohs, with itsgrandiose monuments and the exotic facetsof its religion, has always inspired curiosityand wonder. The writings of Herodotus, ofDiodorus of Sicily, of Strabo and of Petrarchwere rich in detail of the way of life and thereligious practices of the ancient Egyptians.

However, in the fourth century AD,Christianity became the religion of theRoman Empire and, in 391, Theodosius Iclosed all pagan temples. The Egyptianpriests, who were the only teachers ofhieroglyphic writing, gradually died out,and with them died all knowledge of the art.By the sixth century, no one could read thetexts inscribed on monuments or written on

papyrus.It was not until the seventeenth, and more

particularly, the eighteenth century that in¬quisitive travellers reawakened interest in

^Discovered near the mouth of the

Nile by an officer of Napoleon'sarmy in 1799, the Rosetta Stone,left, was the key to understandingthe long-forgotten language ofancient Egypt. It bears the text ofa decree by Egyptian priests tocommemorate the crowning ofPtolemy VEpiphanes, King ofEgypt from 205 to 180 BC,written in three different scripts:hieroglyphic at the top, demotic(the popular language of Egypt atthat time) in the middle, Greek atthe bottom. One of the pioneers ofthe decipherment of thehieroglyphic script was theFrench scholarJean-FrançoisChampollion (1790-1832), shownabove in an anonymous 19th-century portrait. He was the first toestablish an entire list of

hieroglyphs and their Greekequivalents, providing a basis forthe translation of all Egyptianhieroglyphic texts.

Stone Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798-1799 wasaccompanied by a team of scholars whose mission was tostudy and record all aspects of Egypt, ancient and modern.The team produced a multi-volume work, the Descriptionde l'Egypte (1809-1830), which contributed to Europe'sgrowing interest in Egypt. Illustrations from theDescription, below, are views of the temple complex atDendara in Upper Egypt drawn by the French engraverVivant Denon (1 747-1 825), who accompanied theEgyptian expedition.

.

Egypt, its monuments and its mysteriouswriting. The works of Benoit de Maillet andClaude Sicard, and Constantin François deVolney's Voyage en Syrie et Egypte (1787;"Travels Through Syria and Egypt"), fur¬nished details of the geography of the coun¬try and of its great temples, while VivantDenon's sketches made the face of Egyptknown to Europeans.

Denon was an attractive personality wholived a very full life. After serving as a gentle¬man-in-waiting to Louis XV and then asembassy secretary at St. Petersburg andNaples under Louis XVI, he persuadedNapoleon to allow him to join his expeditionto Egypt in 1798, "despite his age" (he wasthen fifty!). Appointed Director ofMuseums by Napoleon on his return fromEgypt, he created the Musée Napoléon, nowthe Louvre Museum.

Vivant Denon's Voyage dans la Basse et laHaute Egypte ("Travels Through Upper andLower Egypt") marked the beginning of arebirth of interest in ancient Egypt. Pub¬lished in Paris in 1802, it was a runawaysuccess throughout Europe. It ran to fortysuccessive editions and was translated into

English and German.Denon had accompanied General Desaix's

detachment to Upper Egypt where, often atrisk of his life and sometimes bearing armshimself, he sketched all the Pharaonic monu¬ments he came across. The charm of his

evocative drawings fuelled the "Egyptoma-nia" that was rife both among the educatedélite and the general public. Egyptian-stylefurniture and knick-knacks proliferated

and an unexpected consequence this thetheft of antiquities soared.

Vivant Denon's book was followed short¬

ly afterwards by Description de l'Egypte, amassive work consisting of nine volumes oftext and eleven large tomes of maps andillustrations. This was the work of the

150 scholars who accompanied Napoleon toEgypt; it was published between 1809and 1830. In 1822, however, the riddle of thehieroglyphs with which the walls of manyEgyptian monuments were covered re¬mained unsolved and the real story of Egyptof the Pharaohs remained shrouded in

mystery.In August 1799, during the preparation of

earthworks near Rosetta (Rashid), to the eastof Alexandria, an officer of Napoleon'sarmy noticed a stone of black basalt coveredwith inscriptions. His superior, GeneralMenou, had the stone taken to Alexandriaand showed it to the scholars accompanyingthe expedition. The stone was inscribed withthree texts. The one at the top was in hiero¬glyphic characters, the middle one in charac¬ters that looked somewhat like Arabic wri¬

ting, and the one at the bottom in Greekcharacters. Since several of the scholars knew

Greek, they were immediately able to readthe bottom text, a decree datingfrom 196 BC, during the reign ofPtolemy V. Deducing, correctly, that thesewere three versions of the same text, theyrealized that they had in their hands a poten¬tial key to hieroglyphic writing.

The scholars took rubbings and madeseveral copies of the inscriptions. This was

fortunate, since, on the surrender of theFrench forces, the British seized the"Rosetta Stone" as war booty. It is today inthe British Museum, London.

News of the discovery of the RosettaStone spread quickly throughout Europe,and there began a fiercely competitive race tobe the first to decipher the mysteriouswriting.

Jean-François Champollion was the mostfervent, and also the youngest, of these com¬petitors. Born at Figeac in southwest Francein 1790, he grew up in a milieu in whichEgypt was a consuming passion. Hisbrother, Jacques-Joseph Champollion, whohad been unable to take part in the expedi¬tion to Egypt, was secretary to the mathema¬tician, Egyptologist and Prefect of the Isèredépartement, Joseph Fourier. Fourier hadbeen among the scholars who had accompa¬nied the Egyptian expedition and on hisreturn to France he wrote the lengthy histor¬ical preface to the Description de l'Egypte.

Brought up in contact with two such men,Jean-François himself became passionatelyinterested in Egypt. On seeing a copy of theRosetta Stone inscriptions he vowed that hewould be the first to decipher the hiero¬glyphs. At the age of thirteen, with thisobjective in mind, he not only learned Latinand Greek but also Hebrew, Arabic, Syriacand Aramaic. In addition, at the age of seven¬teen, he also acquired Persian and Coptic,for he had become convinced that Copticwas, in fact, ancient Egyptian transcribed inGreek characters.

In 1821, after some misadventures result-

ing from dabbling in politics, Champollionsettled in Paris near nis brother who was

now secretary to Bon Joseph Dacier, a Hel¬lenist, and Perpetual Secretary of theAcadémie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.He devoted himself wholly to his researchwhilst keeping an anxious eye on the pro¬gress of his rivals, the English physicistThomas Young, his compatriot Sylvestre deSacy and the Swede Johan David Akerblad,all of whom were attempting to unravel thesecret of Egyptian writing.

Like Champollion himself, they were allfaced with the same conundrum. Was

Egyptian writing ideographic or phonetic?In other words, did each character representan idea or a sound? On 14 September 1832,Champollion had the sudden intuition thatEgyptian was both ideographic andphonetic. With the help of the Rosetta Stoneand copies of inscriptions from other monu¬ments sent to him from Egypt by friends, hesucceeded in deciphering the names ofGreek and Roman rulers: Alexander,Cleopatra, Arsinoe, Augustus, Nero, and soon. With these names as a starting point hesucceeded in deciphering the basicalphabetical characters; and from the namesof the Caesars and the Ptolemies he went on

to unravel those of the EgyptianPharaohs the Ramesses and the Tuthmosis

Dynasties. Gradually increasing the numberof hieroglyphic characters he could recog¬nize at eacn stage of his research, he ended upby being able to read them all. By working atever longer texts he finally mastered theEgyptian language.

Despite the jealousy that his discoveriesaroused, his achievement gradually gainedrecognition. With the backing of some high-ranking members of the court, he was

This granite bust of Ramesses II (c. 1290-1224BC) is the sole remaining part of a great colossusof the king from his vast mortuary temple, theRamesseum, on the west bank of the Nile at

Thebes. Drawing of the sculpture being draggedto the river was made in 1816 by the Italiangatherer of antiquities Giambattista Belzoni,who had been commissioned to organize itsremoval to the British Museum.

nominated Curator of the Egyptian collec¬tions at the Louvre Museum. In 1827 he

achieved the ambition of his life when he was

entrusted with a mission of exploration inEgypt. Setting out in 1828, accompanied bya number of excellent artists, such as NestorLlHôte, and a team of Italians led by hispupil and friend Rossellini, he spent fifteenmonths scouring the valley of the Nile fromAlexandria to Aswan, stopping for a time atAbu Simbel and going as far as the SecondCataract. He was able to write with pride tohis patron Dacier: "I can now inform youthat no changes will be necessary in ourLettre sur l'Alphabet des Hiéroglyphes("Paper on the Hieroglyphic Alphabet");our alphabet is correct and holds equallygood (...) for the inscriptions on all the tem¬ples, palaces and tombs of the Pharaonicepochs."

Whilst Champollion and his rivals werehard at work deciphering the hieroglyphics,the first effect of the "Egyptomania" whichhad become the rage with the publication ofVivant Denon's book and the Description del'Egypte was to arouse the covetousness ofcollectors, and in particular of the greatEuropean museums, all of which wantedtheir own collection of Egyptian antiquities.Furthermore, scores of adventurers wereattracted to Egypt in the hope of making aquick fortune.

Egypt was, in theory, under thesovereignty of the Sultan of Constantinople,but, in fact, the Viceroy, Mehemet Ali, ruledthe country as an absolute monarch.Mehemet Ali wanted to modernize the

country and had little interest in antiquities.As a result, taking advantage of their pri¬vileged diplomatic status, the foreign consulsobtained from him the necessary permits tocarry out archaeological excavations andtake away ancient monuments. They re¬cruited agents amongst adventurers, whomthey engaged to carry out excavations intheir name and to bring back the antiquitiesdiscovered or bought. It was in this mannerthat a number of important collections wereconstituted.

The Italian diplomat and collectorBernardino Drovetti, who was French Con¬sul General in Egypt between 1810and 1829, took advantage of his long tenureto indulge in some profitable trafficking in

The French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette(1821-1881) made his name with the excavation

of the Serapeum, a temple at Saqqara (Memphis)which was originally the necropolis of the Apis

bulls, sacred animals of the god Ptah. Thesubterranean chambers of the temple, which

Mariette entered in 185 1 , yielded the mummiesof 64 Apis bulls. This engraving made in 1858

shows a newly excavated gate of the Serapeum.

antiquities, at times directing the search forthem himself. His agents pillaged sites un¬scrupulously, especially in the area ofThebes. He offered a first collection to

Louis XVIII, but the French monarch foundthe price too high. It was acquired by theking of Piedmont and the Museum of Turinthus became the owner of the first Egyptiancollection of high quality.

Encouraged by this, Drovetti put to¬gether a second collection which, onChampollion's advice, Louis XVIII's suc¬cessor Charles X bought for the LouvreMuseum. He then built up a third collectionwhich was bought by the king of Prussiain 1 836. Not so large as the other two, it wasnevertheless very fine.

Appointed British consul in 1816, theartist Henry Salt followed Drovetti's exam¬ple. He too assembled three successive col¬lections. The first was bought by the BritishMuseum, except for its finest piece the ala¬baster sarcophagus of Sethos I which wassold to a private collector for the same priceas all the rest of the collection. The second

and much more important collection wasacquired by Charles X in 1824. Thanks tothe combined collections of Salt and

Drovetti, the Egyptian department of theLouvre became the equal of that of theMuseum of Turin. Salt's third collection was

sold after his death, the major part of it goingto the British Museum.

These outstanding collections could neverhave been put together without the untiringefforts of the consuls' agents, notably theFrenchman Jean-Jacques Rifaud, whoworked for Drovetti, a Greek namedGiovanni d'Athanasi, and above all the ex¬traordinary Italian Giambattista Belzoni,who acted for Salt. Born in Padua, Belzonihad considered becoming a monk when hewas twenty, but instead he went to Englandwhere, as a circus entertainer, he astonishedthe public with his incredible feats ofstrength. Later he turned up in Portugal, inSpain, in Malta and finally in Egypt. Therehe perfected a hydraulic pump of his owninvention for use in irrigation, but the ven¬ture was not a success as Mehemet Ali re¬

fused to buy it. Penniless, he was recom¬mended to Salt who took him into his ser¬

vice. Evidence of his astuteness and prodi- .gious strength abounds in the narrative heleft of his Travels in Egypt and Nubia, dur¬ing which he gathered antiquities for Salt.

Champollion's discoveries, and the pub¬lications to which they gave rise, were toform the basis of the training of the firstEgyptologists, among whom were someoutstanding figures.

Karl Lepsius, who studied at the Collegede France, learned to read hieroglyphs fromposthumously published works byChampollion. From 1842 to 1845 he headeda great expedition to Egypt organized by theking of Prussia. Appointed to a profes-

sorship at the University of Berlin, he wasthe father of German Egyptology. His majorwork, Denkmaeler aus Aegypten undAethiopien ("Monuments of Egypt andEthiopia") describes all the monuments ofthe Nile Valley from the Fourth Cataract tothe Mediterranean.

John Wilkinson can, perhaps, be consi¬dered the father of British Egyptology.Abandoning a military career, he settled inEgypt where he undertook archaeologicaldigs for more than ten years. In his Mannersand Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, hewas the first to describe the daily life of thecraftsmen and peasants of Pharaonic times asdepicted in tomb paintings.

After studying engineering and archi¬tecture, the Frenchman Prisse d'Avennes hadan adventurous life as a young man. Hefought against the Turks in the Péloponnèseand then became secretary to the GovernorGeneral of India before settling in Egyptwhere he devoted himself to archaeology.He gave the Louvre the "Royal Chamber",or "Hall of the Ancestors", removed fromthe temple of Karnak just before Lepsiusarrived to take possession of it. He donatedto France the "Prisse Papyrus", a long andprecious document which dates from2000 BC and has been described as the oldestbook in the world.

Finally, Auguste Mariette ensured thefuture of the burgeoning discipline ofEgyptian archaeology by putting a stop tothe traffic in antiquities which had involvedquantities of objects, monuments and papyritaken from Egypt either under cover of offi

cial permits or as booty from clandestineexcavations.

A secondary school teacher at Boulogne-sur-Mer, Mariette was irresistibly drawn toEgypt after seeing the drawings of NestorL'Hôte. Using Champollion's Grammairehe taught himself to read hieroglyphs. Then,after obtaining a modest post at tne LouvreMuseum, he was sent in 1850 on a mission toEgypt to buy Coptic manuscripts. Whilewaiting for the permits necessary to makethese purchases he made a visit to Saqqara.The sight of a few sphinxes, half buried in thesand, reminded him of a text of Strabo whichmentioned an avenue lined with sphinxeswhich led up to the Serapeum, the tombs ofthe Apis bulls. Abandoning the Copticmanuscripts, he decided to excavate. Un¬covering sphinx after sphinx, he traced outthe avenue he had discovered and found that

it did indeed lead to the Serapeum, where hedug out the enormous sarcophagi of thesacred bulls and everything around them.

This discovery caused a great sensationand earned Mariette an international repu¬tation. But above all, having tasted the joysof working in the field and experiencing theheady intoxication of discovery during themonths of feverish exploration, he could nolonger do without them. Through the goodoffices of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the viceroyof Egypt, Said Pasha, entrusted Mariettewith the task of protecting the antiquities ofEgypt. In 1858 he appointed Mariette to thepost of Director of Works for theAntiquities of Egypt and gave him all theresources needed for action. Mariette then

began archaeological excavations at Giza,Saqqara, Abydos, Thebes and Elephantineand assembled all his finds in Cairo.

Anxious to protect all the objects andmonuments of ancient Egypt, Mariette hadthe very greatest difficulty in ensuring theapplication of the necessary measures.Nevertheless, from that time, thanks to hisefforts, the foundations of the EgyptianAntiquities Service and of the CairoMuseum were laid. After his death, in 1881,his work was continued by his successor,Gaston Maspero. The way ahead was tracedout and was to lead to the great discoverieswhich would lead to a deeper understandingof Pharaonic Egypt the secret hiding-placeof the royal mummies at Deir el-Bahri, thetomb of Tutankhamun and the royal tombsofTanis.

JEAN VERCOUTTER is a French Egyptologistwho was formerly director of the French Instituteof Oriental Archaeology in Cairo and of the SudanAntiquities Service, and professor of Egyptology atthe University of Lille, France. He is the author ofnumerous works on ancient Egypt, includingTextes biographiques du Sérapeum de Memphis(1962; "Biographical Texts from the Serapeum ofMemphis") and A la recherche de l'Egypte oubliée(1986; "In Search of Forgotten Egypt").

Colossal feats of engineering

BY RAINER STADELMANN

The imposing Hypostyle Hall in the GreatTemple ofAmun, Karnak, begun by Sethos I

and completed by his son Ramesses II(c. 1290-1224 BC). The monumental columns,their papyriform capitals supporting colossalarchitraves ata height of24 m, show a perfect

mastery of construction techniques.

12

ANYONE who has ever gazed at thepyramids, if only once in a lifetime,is bound to have wondered how

these extraordinary and massive structureswere built, how the huge stones were trans¬ported, what technical and mathematicalknowledge the ancient Egyptians possessedand what tools or machinery they used.

The same questions spring to mind whencontemplating the obelisks of Luxor, theHypostyle Hall at Karnak, and especially thecolossi of Memnon, monoliths hewn out of

the quarries north-east of Cairo and trans¬ported to the city of Thebes 700 kilometresaway.

For the ancient Egyptians, technical andscientific knowledge was not a specializeddiscipline, but formed part of the trainingand the career of a competent scribe, a manemployed in the service of his province or hisKing. The scribe's education began when helearned the difficult arts of reading andwriting, achieved with the help of literarytexts but undoubtedly also by means ofmathematical and technical works written

on papyrus, fewer examples of which havecome down to us than works of literature.

A number of common trades were prob¬ably organized in family guilds from veryearly times. There is evidence of specializedcrafts in Egypt in Predynastic times in theform of finely crafted pottery and stonetools, stoneware vessels, and metalwork.

The goldmines of the Eastern Desert and thecopper deposits of Sinai may have been ex¬ploited in prehistoric times, and preciousstones prospected in the desert valleys of thesouth-east. In historical times, deposits ofrare hard stone were quarried, often at aconsiderable distance from the Nile Valley.During the Old Kingdom (third millen¬nium BC), the technique of stoneworkingwas perfected in sculpture, both in low reliefand in the round, and culminated in theearliest colossal statues such as the Great

Sphinx of Giza or the royal effigies of theFifth Dynasty (c. 2465-2323 BC).

The soil of Egypt, deposited along thebanks of the Nile by the annual inundationso that fields continually had to be markedout afresh, encouraged the development ofsurveying and hence of mathematical calcu¬lations. The rise of the Nile waters and the

annual height of the flood were calculatedand recorded by means of Nilometers inthe south, on Elephantine island, and in thenorth, near Memphis for the height of the

waters determined the levying of taxes on theincome from different categories of cultiv¬able land, particularly plantations on raisedplots. Observation of the relatively regularinundation and its connection with astrono¬

mical phenomena led to the invention of anannual calendar geared to the natural rhythmof the seasons, which was a great improve¬ment on the old lunar calendar. Knowledgeobtained from agrarian organization andobservation of the heavens and the stars laid

the theoretical foundations of the future

monumental constructions of the Old

Kingdom.The river was also the country's main

artery. People travelled up or down the Nilein boats or barges, and in the Delta thebranches of the river were used as channels

of communication. These waterways wereinterconnected by canals, and a canal net¬work also linked the settlements borderingthe Nile Valley. Even deliveries of goodsfrom one temple to another were carried outby water. Lighter loads, such as sacks ofgrain, were carried on donkeys over thefields, and from the fields to canal or river.

Wheels, which came into current use onlyunder the New Kingdom (c. 1550-1070 BC),were confined to war or hunting chariots.Although these vehicles were used for excur¬sions by the upper classes, they were neverstrictly speaking a mode of transport. In theOld Kingdom, high dignitaries used littersfor short overland journeys, but for longerjourneys boats were always the answer.

A royal boat approximately 44 metreslong has been excavated to the south of theGreat Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza.Equipped with five pairs of oars and anotherhuge pair of oars in lieu of a rudder, the boatbore signs of wear and tear indicating that ithad actually sailed. It was probably usedonly to link the royal residence with theneighbouring towns of the Delta, for thecraft which plied along the Nile were usuallyequipped with collapsible masts. When theytravelled south, the north wind carried themalong, but on journeys north the mast waslowered and the oars were used. There is

evidence of navigation on the open sea to thecities of the Phoenician coast from the First

Dynasty onwards (c. 3000 BC). Representa¬tions of single-masted vessels bearing mer¬chandise from Syria are common in the FifthDynasty. Heavy loads were transported onspecial barges.

The transport by barge of palmiform col

umns lashed on to sledges is depicted on thesouthern wall of the entrance to the funerarytemple of Unas (c. 2356-2323 BC), the lastking of the Fifth Dynasty. The obelisks ofQueen Hatshcpsut (c. 1503-1482 BC) arcshown being carried by barge in the southernportico of the lower terrace of her temple atDeir el-Bahri. The two obelisks lie side byside, the pointed end of one towards theprow of the barge and that of the othertowards the stern, held in place by ropes. Afleet of twenty-seven boats tows the barge,which is accompanied by a pilot vessel.

For the transport of the northern colossusof Memnon, weighing some 800 tons, anarchitect of genius, Amenhotpc son ofHapu, overseer of the Temple of Luxor andof the funerary temple of Amcnophis IIInear Thebes, built a special boat in approx¬imately 1350 BC which he named the "Boatof Eight", a name which seems to signify thatit was eight times larger than a normal barge.However, the biggest technical problemmust have arisen when the megalith wasbeing loaded on to the barge, and later whenit was unloaded at Thebes. We know that

One of the boats which formed part of thefunerary equipment of the Pharaoh Khufu

(Cheops, c. 2551-2528 BC) and may have beenintended to enable him to voyage in the next

world. The cedar craft, over 40 m long, has beenreassembled from dismantled sections

unearthed in 1954 close to the Great Pyramid.

13

ÄCsit*Ä*WOk...

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara, last resting placeof King Djoser (c. 2630-261 1 BC). This six-stepped white limestone monument, 60 m in

»height, is the earliest stone structure of its sizeknown to the world.

14

when obelisks were transported they werehauled down ramps as far as a canal dugspecially to connect the quarry to the Nile. Asimilar process was probably used for thetransport of the colossal statue of Memnon.Laden with ballast of stone or brick, the

barge would wait, low in the water of thecanal. The obelisk or colossus would be

heaved on board and lashed horizontally ona sledge, then the ballast would be unloaded,whereupon the barge would rise to the sur¬face and could be towed along.

Over short distances it was possible tohaul a load of some 60 tons along a smoothedout track, as is shown by the famous repre¬sentation of the transport by sledge of acolossal statue of the nomarch1 Djehuti-hotpe in his tomb at Deir el-Bersha. Thealabaster colossus, 13 cubits high accordingto the inscriptions, must have weighed asmuch as this. Wedged in place on an enor¬mous wooden sledge and held down withropes, it is being dragged along by 172 men,four abreast. Holding a pitcher, a workmanperched on the feet of the colossus is pouringwater in front of the sledge to make it slidemore easily along the clay-coated track.

Obelisks, guided by strong ropes, wereprobably slid down a ramp built of unfiredbricks and sand towards a quadrangularshaft filled with sand. While the obelisk,leaning at an angle, was still held by theropes, workmen emptied the sand out of theshaft, or the sand was allowed to run out

through slots in the walls of the shaft. When,with much careful manoeuvring, the obeliskwas set upright on its base, there was a risk ofdamaging its edges. Above all, its enormousmass might wobble on its plinth and settleoff-centre, so that the edges of its base werenot parallel to the edges of the plinth. Anaccident of this kind must have happened tothe obelisk of Tuthmosis III at Karnak,although the error of alignment with theplinth was minute and is scarcely visible.

However, the most extraordinary featswere those of monumental construction. As

early as the Second Dynasty (c. 2770-2649BC), Egyptian architects were familiar withvaulting, and used it in the superstructure oftombs and doubtless also in dwellings whichhave not survived. During the same dynasty,facing stone was increasingly used in brickfunerary monuments, and dressed stoneblocks were introduced. The crowning in¬novation, however, took place under KingDjoser, towards the beginning of the ThirdDynasty (c. 2649 BC) in Saqqara, part of thenecropolis of the ancient city of Memphis,with the first stone monumental construc¬

tion, the Step Pyramid, which took somethirty years to build. The various stages in itsconstruction show how Egyptian architects,in a single generation, gained mastery overthe new building material.

During the first construction phase of theoriginal step mastaba2, stone seems to havebeen used exactly as if it were brick. Blocks

of stone, designed like large bricks, werearranged in horizontal layers and cementedwith crude clay mortar. A different tech¬nique emerged in the second phase, markingthe change from step mastaba to step pyra¬mid. The mass of the dressed stone blocks

was far greater. Each one weighed half a ton.They were arranged with the lie of the stonesloping inwards towards the heart of theedifice at an angle of 18", so that their outersurface already had the angle of incline of72" to be found in its final phase in theenlarged pyramid.

The use of large blocks and the slopingarrangement of the rows were brilliant in¬novations which led to a considerable savingin time and the labour of stonecutting, sinceit was no longer necessary to chamfer theouter surface of the facing blocks, and thedesired angle of incline was more easilyobtained. This technique would not be aban¬doned until the final form of the pyramidwas attained during the following dynasty.A steeper inclination of 45" to 54" lent itselfto the use of horizontal layers and againmade it necessary to chamfer the outer sur¬face of the facing blocks.

The building of a pyramid confronted theState with great technical and administrativeproblems. The organization of large num-

1. Nomarch: governor of a nome, or province.2. Mastaba: a rectangular tomb with vertical or slopingsides and a flat roof. Editor

"The hypothesis that a single ramp,perpendicular to one of the faces of the pyramid,could have been used to transport the buildingblocks to the top of the pyramid and positionthem has now been superseded. ... The use of aspiralling ramp is difficult to imagine from atechnical point of view. ... It is more likely that anumber of small ramps (Fig. 1) were builtaround the pyramid right at the start, so thatblocks could be hauled up them to a height of 25or 30 m. ... Then a larger lateral ramp (Fig. 2),resting against one of the faces, could havebeen used ..."

The type of level which might have been used toachieve the horizontal alignment of the GreatPyramid.

A method of finding the north by bisecting theangle between the rising and setting positions of

a north star.

m¿BS

bers of workers, prospection for quarriesand the extraction of stone, the regular trans¬port of blocks of stone to the stonemasons'yards and their storage, the training ofstonecutters, building workers, transportspecialists, architects and foremen all theseachievements testify to the impressive ad¬ministrative system of ancient Egypt.

From the construction of the StepPyramid of King Djoser to that of the GreatPyramid at Giza (c. 2550 BC), which wasnumbered among the seven wonders of theworld, considerable advances were made in

technical and geometrical expertise. AncientEgyptian funerary monuments are alwaysoriented with extraordinary precision. Theorientation of the Step Pyramid shows anaverage deviation of 3", but the deviation ofthe Great Pyramid is no more than 3'6". Aperfect orientation was obtained on pre-levelled ground by observing the polar starsfrom a fixed point at the northern corner ofthe future pyramid. The instruments usedwere the merkhet, a horizontal bar equippedwith a plumbline, and the bay, a wooden rodwith a sighting notch in its upper end. On thearc of a circle, the positions of the rising andsetting of a north star were marked. To findtrue north the Egyptians halved the angleformed by the position of a polar star when itrose, the position of the observer, and theposition of the same star when it set. Oncetrue north had been found, a string connect¬ing various fixed points on the north-south

Illustrations © Rainer Stadclmann

Two drawings showing a technique which mayhave been used for the erection of obelisks in

ancient Egypt. Supported by strong ropes, theobelisk was slid down a ramp of unfired bricksand sand towards a quadrangular shaft filledwith sand. The sand was then gradually emptiedout of the shaft and the obelisk manoeuvred

upright until it stood on its plinth.

Unfinished obelisk in a granite quarry near ^Aswan. Its estimated length and weight are 42 m

and 1,200 tons respectively.15

axis made it possible to determine one side ofthe pyramid. With the aid of measuring rods,the desired length was marked out. A rightangle was obtained by means of a set ofprotractors. If Pythagoras' theorem on therelationship between the sides of a trianglehad not yet been formulated, it was certainlyapplied in practice.

The precision of the right angles of theGreat Pyramid, with an average deviation ofonly 2' 48", is still, today, worthy of admir¬ation, as is the horizontal alignment of itsfour corners, with a fractional divergenceof 2.1 centimetres. The alignment must havebeen achieved by means of a level in the formof a large wooden setsquare equipped with aplumbline which hung between its two equalarms joined at a right angle (see drawingsp. 15). Connecting these two arms was ahorizontal crossbar with a median notch

into which the string of the weight fittedwhen the level was held perfectly horizontal.All other theories, such as that of filling anartificial lake around the pyramid, must berejected.

There are no ancient descriptions of build¬ing methods as such. The reports of

<4 Bronze statuette of Imhotep, chief minister andarchitect to King Djoser. Imhotep designed theking's tomb as a monumental stairway towardsthe sky. It was built entirely of stone to last untileternity (see photo page 14). Sage and thinker aswell as architect, Imhotep is thought to havewritten the earliest collections of the maxims or

didactic "wisdom texts" which constitute one of

the richest genres of ancient Egyptian writing.In the Late Dynastic Period (c. 713-332 BC),some 2,000 years after his death, he was deifiedas the patron of scribes and as a healer. TheGreeks identified him with their god ofmedicine, Asclepius.

A scribe and his assistants measure a field of

wheat to determine the taxes to be levied.

Painting from theTheban tomb of Menna, asurveyor during the New Kingdom

(18th Dynasty).

-..,.,,.

t a »»ra. «MtTïfTïiftttt - .«. .tiní.»....%r,a.r,,'

16

Herodotus on this subject are based on in¬formation supplied by his contemporarieswho, 2,000 years after the building of thepyramids, probably knew no more than wedo. Near the pyramids of Maidum andDahshur, the remains of the ramps used totransport the stone building materials canstill be seen today. The hypothesis that asingle ramp, perpendicular to one of thefaces of the pyramid, could have been used totransport the building blocks to the top ofthe pyramid and position them has now beensuperseded. For the Great Pyramid, such aramp would have been 3.3 kilometres longand its mass would have been 3.5 times grea¬ter than that of the pyramid itself. The use ofa spiralling ramp is difficult to imagine froma technical point of view, since it would haveconcealed the four faces of the pyramid andits four corners, making it impossible tocontrol the angles and the slope of the faces.

It is more likely that a number of smallramps were built around the pyramid right atthe start, so that blocks could be hauled upthem to a height of 25 or 30 metres. By thisstage, 50 per cent of the mass was already inplace. Then a larger lateral ramp, restingagainst one of the faces, could have been usedto transport stones up to a point near the top"of the pyramid. Such a ramp could dispensewith half the mass of a free-standing rampand would also be more stable. In the case of

the Great Pyramid, for example, which is146.6 metres high, 96 per cent of the masswould be in place at a height of 100 metres.The last 20 or 30 metres probably called fora stepped construction. The pyramidion, orcapstone, could only have been put in posi¬tion by means of scaffolding, which indi¬cates that the Egyptians were familiar withpulleys, even if no depiction of this systemhas survived. The use of simpler leveragedevices and sledges has been recorded. Illus¬trations of irrigation work depict the shaduf,a hand-operated weight-arm for raisingwater. This system may well have been usedto lift building materials.

It is remarkable that the greatest scientific,technical and artistic breakthroughs, notonly for the history of Egyptian civilizationbut for the history of humanity as a whole,from the discovery of writing to advances inmedicine, evidently took place in the firsthalf of the third millennium BC. The follow¬

ing centuries only built on and perfected thisknowledge. No innovations were made tobroaden the scientific and technical horizons

until the advent of the Greek philosophers inthe seventh and sixth centuries BC.

RAINER STADELMANN, of the Federal Re¬public of Germany, is director of the GermanInstitute of Archaeology in Cairo and of the ex¬cavations being carried out by the Institute at theTemple of Sethos I, Qurna (Thebes), and at thePyramid ofSnofru, Dhashur. His published worksinclude Syrisch-Palästinensische Gottheiten inÄgypten ("Syrian-Palestinian Divinities inEgypt") and Die Ägyptischen Pyramiden (1986;"The Pyramids of Egypt"), as well as a number ofarticles in specialized journals.

The Egyptian world-pictureBY JEAN YOYOTTE

THE huge temples and enormous funer¬ary monuments of ancient Egyptwith their profusion of hieroglyphs

are a source of amazement to the modern

mind, which cannot easily grasp their useful¬ness or significance. The ancient Greeks, somuch closer in time to them, considered the

Pyramids of Giza to be an absurd andoppressive show of royal pride. However,these monuments retain their majesty andcease to tower quite so disturbingly over usonce we see them as an expression of theconceptions that the Egyptians had formedof their universe and of the answers that

those conceptions provided to the problemsof their society, reflecting ways of thinkingand of acting that are at once strange andfamiliar.

That which is larger than life cannot bebrought down to human proportions by

means of a linear approach. Several differentimages, several different sacred accounts,taken together may help us to understand thesame processes or phenomena. The im¬penetrable sky is an ocean, a roof, a cow, awoman's body. Any image rooted in tradi¬tion is relevant, despite its apparently con¬tradictory features, and serves as a means ofapprehending, coming to terms with, theworld of the gods.These differing approaches are often ex¬

pressed through a dualistic way of thinkingin which the whole may be reduced to theopposition and association of two qualities,exemplified by the twofold characteristic ofthe monarchy twofold on two accountsby the black earth and the desert, and byUpper and Lower Egypt. In addition, lan¬guage, writing and images are not to beconfused with conventional symbols. Be-

Temple relief depicting, at right, Tuthmosis III(c. 1479-1425 BC) wearing the red crown ofLower Egypt, with the god Amun, creator andsustainer of the world. Amun holds the ankh,

the ancient Egyptian symbol for life, and wearsthe two-plumed headdress with which he isusually represented.

tween that which is named and drawn and

the object, an affinity exists. Words thuscreate things hence the importance ofwordplay in creation stpries and speechcommands things. These are the two princi¬ples of "magical" thinking.The vehicle of the words of the gods, the

hieroglyphic system explains reality; com¬posed of images drawn from Nature, it cameinto being at the same time as the Egyptiangraphic arts. The representation of a livingbeing, duly accompanied by the person's

17

18

Detail of a pink granite relief carving of Nut, thesky-goddess and protector of the deceased. Thecarving, inscribed with stars, adorned the insideface of the sarcophagus lid in the tomb of KingPsusennes I (1040-992 BC) at San el-Hagar(Greek Tanis) in the Nile Delta. Now preservedin the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, the hoard offuneral furniture found in Psusennes' tomb is

comparable in richness with the treasure ofTutankhamun.

name, is a duplication of that person. Analmost maniacal passion for giving lastingverbal and graphic expression to reality inorder to shore it up by means of a supremeform of magic is a hallmark of Pharaonicculture and accounts for its extraordinarymonuments and inscriptions.

The horizon of the Egyptians stretchesfrom the narrow strip of black earth (kernet,from which derives Kemi, the Coptic namefor Egypt) constituted by the flat alluvialvalley of the Nile, to the red earth (desheret)of the immense Sahara all around, with itsarid hills. "The Black Land" is the home of

human beings, a place for the growing ofcrops, familiar and reassuring. "The RedLand" is terrible and strange. Aggressivebands of backward people are its denizensand from that area invaders come, whether

from afar or from nearby. But in addition,the desert offers no escape, with its horizonswhere the sun is born and dies; its unchang¬ing rocks and pure sands are welcoming tothe dead and are the scene of invisible re¬

births. An infinite liquid mass surrounds thesolid universe, appearing on the face of theEarth in the form of the seas. This waterconstitutes the celestial vault where the stars

follow their courses. It flows into the under¬

ground river, where the sun sails from westto east during the night, and each year itproduces a new tidal flow in the form of theflood waters of the Nile.

Peopled with mysterious, somnolentbeings, this ocean and the world of darknessfilled the whole of space until the day whenthe sun, Re-Atum, rose up, pushing back thedense gloom to the periphery. A mound

emerged from which the god gave shape tothe present world, breathing air, light andlife into it, while at the same time having tocombat the forces of the void. He then cre¬

ated gods and men, animals and plants. Thiswas to be but the "first occasion". Everyevening, the sun god grows old, and everymorning, rejuvenated and purified in thewaters, he recreates the universe and joinsbattle; every day the dragon Apopisthreatens the sun in his course. A rebellion

on the part of mankind caused Re to takeflight into the skies, but he continues to seeto the maintenance of order, Maat, which he

established and which is his life. Livingbeings are destined to grow old and becomeyoung again here on Earth, in accordancewith a perpetual time cycle (neheh), like thesun, until the day when, touched by thefinger of death, they enter a static eternity(djet) like Osiris. When Atum returns to hisoriginal state of passivity, both space andtime will cease to exist.

Several different myths and doctrines, re¬flecting the diversity of approaches andclaims from one locality to another, recountin their own ways the work of the one andonly demiurge. According to the predomi¬nant doctrine, originating in Heliopolis, itwas Re-Atum who set things in their places,but the priests of Memphis believed that itwas Ptah, the Earth, who was the first to

appear and who then placed the sky on highand brought forth the sun. The scholarsmaintained that God conceived the universe

in his heart (i.e. in his mind) and brought itinto being through his mouth (i.e. hiscreative word).

In Pharaonic times sexual duality was con¬sidered to be an inherent part of the processof life, long before the hymns of the NewKingdom praised God as the father andmother. Two myths, that of Kamutef andthat of the "Eye of Re", reveal the place ofwoman. Each major god is flanked by afemale companion who is at once his daught¬er, his wife and his mother. He is broughtinto the world by this goddess and he makesher pregnant, being his own son and the

COLOUR PAGES

Colour page rightThe lavishly decorated tomb of Sennefer atSheikh Abd el-Qurna is known as the "tomb ofthe vines" because of the vine leaf motifs which

adorn its ceiling. Sennefer, mayor of Thebesduring the reign of Amenophis II (c. 1427-1401BC), is shown on each pillar, sometimesaccompanied by one of his three wives.Photo B. Brake,© Rapho, Paris

Centre pages

Above left: the god Osiris is depicted on thispectoral from the tomb of Tutankhamun (c.1 333-1 323 BC), Valley of the Kings at Thebes.The vast array of treasures making up theyoung king's funerary equipment, discovered in1922 by the English Egyptologist HowardCarter, are preserved in the Egyptian Museum,Cairo.

Photo©G. Dagli Orti, Paris

"Ishall never befarawayfrom you while my handis inyourhand, andIshall stroll with you in everyfavouriteplace. "Extract from a poem written on papyrus anddating from the time of Ramesses II.Below left, detail from a painting in the tomb ofthe first wife of Ramesses II, Queen Nefertari

(c. 1290-1224 BC). See also photo page 22.Photo B. Brake© Rapho, Paris

Above right: elongated head of an 18th Dynastyprincess sculpted during the reign of Akhenaten(c. 1353-1335 BC) in the highly originalAmarna style. Akhenaten's court artistsdepicted all the members of the royal householdwith the king's own physical imperfections,notably his egg-shaped skull.Photo ©J. Vertut, Paris

Below right: the boat was the most importantmeans of transport in ancient Egypt, andwooden models of boats have been found in

many tombs. This example, dating from theMiddle Kingdom (c.2040-1640 BC), is equippedwith two massive oars at the stern which acted

as rudders. Northerly winds, favourable tosailing up-river, prevailed in the Nile Valley, butwhen travelling downstream the mast waslowered and the oars were used.

Photo © G. Dagli Orti, Paris

Further reading

The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (1985),translated by Raymond O. Faulkner, edited byCarolAndrews.

An Introduction to Ancient Egypt (1979) andAncient Egypt: The Land and its Legacy (1988),both by T.G.H.James.

Reading the Past: Linear B and Related Scripts(1987) byJohn Chadwick.

Allpublished by British Museum PublicationsLtd., London.

Yn'-'i $r<

M

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8

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"Bull of his Mother" (Kamutef). This femalecompanion is also his eye, the source offlames and light, who went away from him inanger and whom he had to pacify. An imageof the ambivalence of the sacred, she is the

good Hathor, desire and joy, and the danger¬ous Sakhmet, a leonine agent of calamity anda cobra who may strike against enemies andsinners.

Two divine couples born of the demiurgerepresent the ordering of the physical uni¬verse: air and light-fire; and earth and sky.The following generation, ncaring man'sestate, had to contend with human dramas in

the shape of power struggles and death.Osiris, slain by Seth, found new life throughIsis and Nephthys, and gained sovereigntyover death and the dead. His posthumousson Horus assumed rule of the Earth bydefeating his uncle Seth. The latter, atroublemaker who was not to be seen as a

supreme satanic force until later periods, isan ambiguous figure. His divine violence isan inescapable fact, causing life to open ontoeternity and serving to help Re and thePharaoh to vanquish foreigners and the dra¬gon of the void, thus giving rise to conflict¬ing legends. For instance, power is said to beshared between Horus, the master of theblack earth, and Seth, the master of the red

earth; or Seth is described as the king of theSouth and Horus as the king of the North,forming together an indissoluble confeder¬ation; or again, and most frequently, Horusis depicted as expelling Seth and ruling aloneover the organized world.

This entanglement of ideas and imagesunderpinned a political theology that

Colour page left

marked Egyptian history and culture sostrongly at that time that they arc legitimate¬ly designated by historians as Pharaonic, theword "Pharaoh", transmitted to us by theBible, being a specific term for the king ofEgypt. The king was the representative ofthe divine order and epitomized in himselfalone the forces of economic, social and

political life. The incarnation of Horus sincethe earliest times, the son of Re since the

period of the great pyramids, the "perfectgod" fulfilled the role of gods whose image,heir and servant he was. In him Horus and

Seth were united. His coming marked thecoming of Horus and at the same time thereappearance of the sun and the beginning ofa new era. He maintained Maat among man¬kind and ensured security by driving backthe barbarians and imposing Egyptian rulebeyond the Nile Valley. He was the solerepository of that supernatural force whichensured victory and political wisdom. Healone issued decrees and was responsible forappointments to every single post. Initiatedinto the mysteries and highly cultivated, hekept the gods alive through the arts andthrough ritual.

The doctrinal foundations for the legi¬timacy of kings lay not in heredity but inimmediate predestination, a choice made byGod, illustrated by the fiction of his procrea¬tion by the god himself (myth of theogamy).Once he had taken possession of the crownsand affixed the cobra on his forehead, the

new Horus took up his place among thegods. He would pass into eternity as a super¬natural being. His tomb, along with the cere¬monies accompanying his burial, reflectedthis difference that existed between him and

the rest of humanity, exemplified by thepyramids of the Old and New Kingdomswith their vast royal temples, and the rock-cut tombs of the Valley of the Kings and the"Million-Year Castles" of the New

Kingdom. One of the few social conquestsachieved by ordinary people throughout thecourse of Egyptian history was the democra¬tization of funerary privileges, which wereextended to common mortals during each ofthe Intermediate Periods, when the central

authority weakened. But each Kingdom thatrestored the unity of the monarchy inventedfurther differentiations.

Ancient Egypt had no practical or theore-

One of the most beautiful tombs in the Valley ofthe Queens at Thebes is that of Nefertari. A

striking feature of the tomb is this wall paintingin which the morning manifestation of the sungod, Khepry, is depicted at left with a scarab fora head. On the other side of the doorway sit thegoddess of the west (Hathor), with the sign for"west" above her head, and Re-Harakhty, or"Horus of the Horizon", the daytime form ofthe sun god, depicted with a hawk's headsurmounted by a sun disk.Photo © E. Thiem, Lotus Film, Kaufbcurcn

Painted limestone stela from el-Amarna, withKing Akhenaten (c. 1353-1335 BC) on the left,his wife Nefertiti and three of their daughters.

The intimate family scene, typical of royaliconography during Akhenaten's reign, is

blessed by the life-giving rays of the Aten, thesun god, represented by a solar disk. For 12 yearsor so, el-Amarna was Egypt's capital and centreof the new State religion introduced by the king,

in which only the sun god was worshipped.Atenism was as close as the ancient Egyptian

world ever came to monotheism.

Detail of a wooden panel from a niche in thetomb of Hezyre, Chief Scribe and Chief ofDentists and Physicians of the 3rd Dynasty (c.2649-2575 BC), at Saqqara. Hezyre carries thetools of a scribe over his shoulder reed pen,water pot or bag, and a palette with cakes ofpigment for making ink, all tied together.

Painting from the tomb of Sennedjem, ahigh-ranking official during the reign of Sethos

I, shows Sennedjem and his wife Iynefertiworshipping a group of deities. (See also photo

page 6, left.)

24

tical understanding of democracy. It ele¬vated to the highest degree, and integratedinto its cosmology, a system whereby allhuman authority was delegated to a chief.Not very inclined towards abstraction, the"prephilosophical" Egyptian had no wordfor State or for Nation, but invested the

person of the sun king with all the attributesof the State. The various terms used to desig¬nate the king did not apply to foreignsovereigns and, in speaking of Pharaoh, theearly Egyptians internalized their nationalfeeling, although the storytellers were wellaware that Pharaoh as god shared the physic¬al and moral weaknesses of our species.Scribes and priests cultivated a spirit ofloyalty towards the monarchy and finallyattributed an ecumenical dimension to it

which made it easier to accept foreign mas

ters representing a universal empire: thePersians Cambyses and Darius, Alexanderthe Great, and the Roman Augustus.

This unified society whose sacred poemssang of the unity of creation and the mysteryof the creator was at the same time radicallypolytheistic and stubbornly idolatrous. TheEgyptian nation recognized all the gods re¬vealed by the immemorial traditions of thedifferent localities. Each had its own names,legends, major attributes and set images,making it unique of its kind. Each city godwas revered by the local people whose lordhe was and whose happiness he ensured.However, all the gods and goddesses weresimultaneously recognized as the father ormother of the Pharaoh who kept them allalive and expected to be protected by them.

With time, a form of logic came to be

introduced into this extensive pantheonthrough the establishment of a hierarchy andcorrespondences. The principal god of anyprovince was thus seen as a manifestation ofthe sun, reflected in such names as

Amon-Re, Montu-Re and Sobek-Re. Ulti¬

mately, all the gods came to represent intheory the manifestations or offspring of asingle, remote god, while their personalitiesserved on the occasion of State rituals and

local devotions as a medium for approachingthe divinity in its place of being, through itsmanifestations. The enlightened reform ofthe renowned Pharaoh Akhenaten, impos¬ing the exclusive cult of the visible sun (theAten) could not have any lasting success,especially since polytheism had profoundlymodelled not only the tolerant spirituality ofthe Egyptians but also the economic andsocial structures of the country.

What then was the place of men andwomen in this universe where the whole of

collective life seemed to be understood and

managed in terms of communication be¬tween a single flesh-and-blood being theking and the multiplicity of gods? In com¬parison with other Near Eastern peoples inancient times, Egypt was singularly modern.Human beings were equal before the creatorand, as a general rule, owed their advance¬ment purely to the judicious choice of thePharaoh. There existed neither statutoryaristocracy nor intermediate authority be¬tween the State and the individual. A man

defined himself by the name of his parentsand by his title in the administrative appar¬atus. The legal status of women was equal tothat of men, although marriage was patriloc-al and the activity of wives centred on theproud role that each one played as "Mistressof the House". The pleasure taken in the joysof the home are prettily expressed in tombdrawings and inscriptions and in literature.Children were desired and cared for, not in

order to perpetuate a line but because of thehappiness they brought and in order to en¬able their parents to live again through thefunerary rites. In each village there was astrong sense of community.

The "haves" were required by the preceptsof Maat to assist the "have-nots" and, as

early as the third millennium BC, the "wis¬dom writings" of officials spoke of charityand alms-giving in terms that foreshadowAbrahamic religions. These wisdom writ¬ings preach good manners, reserve, absenceof gesticulation, an entire discipline which istypified in Pharaonic drawings and statuary.

The omnipresent mediation of the king byno means ruled out direct relations between

individuals and the gods. Admittedly, ordin¬ary people, unless performing the functionsof priests, did not enter the precincts of themajor temples, which were so to speak fac¬tories for maintaining the energy of the uni¬verse, but at the door of the sacred precincts,in village oratories and in their inmost beingthey prayed to the gods of their choice andconsulted their oracles in an effort to solve

their health and career problems. Moreover,theories as to the power of names, writingsand images offered a magical means of

'

...... -

Wall painting in the oval-shaped sarcophaguschamber of Tuthmosis III. It depicts a scene and

texts from the Book ofAmduat ("that which isin the netherworld"), a religious compositionwhich describes the sun god's daily death and

rebirth and is often found in royal tombs of theearly New Kingdom. In this scene the sun god's' bark has reached the 12th hour of the night,

when the god and his retinue enter into thebody of a giant snake which they will leave

rejuvenated as "young children".

The judgment after death, a detail from one ofthe many funerary papyri placed in New

Kingdom tombs, which are today known as theBook ofthe Dead. In this scene Anubis, the godresponsible for embalming and the lord of the

necropolis, weighs the deceased's heart in abalance against Maat, correct conduct in life. To

his right, the moon god Thoth, symbol ofwisdom and justice, records the result. If theheart and Maat are in equilibrium, the test is

successful, and the deceased is presented toOsiris in triumph.

obtaining the favour of a god in one's life¬time. A statue or stele set in a holy placetransformed the person who had erected itinto a regular companion of the god con¬cerned and enabled an indirect benefit to be

gained from the offerings made to that godby the king, thereby ensuring prosperity,long life and the promise of a good burial.

For this was the one area in which the

Pharaonic world view gave men and womenthe possibility of asserting themselves, avail¬ing themselves of all the magical powers ofart, writing and ritual to ensure everlastinglife for their mummified remains, their

name, their mobile soul (ba) and their lifeforce (ka). They were offered eternal life,and a truly royal life since each person wastransformed into Osiris; also, a truly divinelife since each became a companion of thesun. From the time of the Middle Kingdomonwards, this survival depended in each caseon the individual's morality. In the temples

Pharaoh alone may have represented andspoken for humanity, but all Egyptianscould, according to their resources andmerits, express themselves through theirtombs.

The sons of Re reached their first zenith in

the third millennium BC. The Pharaonic

world view was given tangible expression inthe cities of pyramids, scattered through theregion of Memphis, at the junction of Upperand Lower Egypt. During each successivereign, a new crop-growing area was estab¬lished in the valley, while a royal city wasbuilt at the edge of the desert. This cityserved a temple where the ruling king, theincarnation of Horus, worshipped the gods.The holy of holies of the temple was thepyramid, representing the primordialmound and the course of the sun in which

the new Osiris would be reborn. In the

surrounding area, filled with images ofeveryday life, the tombs of the princes andministers, followed by those of the priestsand the keepers of the pyramids, formed acity of the dead, above the city of the living.A record of the conquest of the land, thechain of pyramids was a reflection of theordering of the Egyptian cosmos beforebeing the illustrious, disconcerting collec¬tion of mausoleums that we admire so much

today.

JEAN YOYOTTE, of France, specializes in thehistory of Egypt ofthe late Pharaonic period. He isdirector ofstudies at the Ecole Pratique des HautesEtudes, Paris, and until 1985 led the French team

excavating Tanis. His published works include Lestrésors des pharaons (1968; "Treasures of thePharaohs") and, in association with P. Vernus, a"Dictionary of the Pharaohs" (1988).

25

Daily life in the landof the Pharaohs

BY CHRISTIANE DESROCHES-NOBLECOURT

EVEN the uninitiated traveller along thebanks of the Nile, studded as theyare with superb vestiges of

Pharaonic times, is immediately impressedby the essential features of the luminouscivilization of ancient Egypt a profoundreligious feeling that found expression inimmense temples and tombs, and an intenseand ardent love of life, endlessly recorded inthe painted or sculpted images that adorn theinner walls of funerary monuments.

Study of these sources reveals thatEgyptian temples were never destined toreceive believers gathered to offer prayers toan evocation of God. They were sanctuariesdesigned primarily to maintain the cosmicmachinery through the meticulous atten¬tions of the Pharaoh, who was the earthlyrepresentative of divine power and purpose,the supreme pontiff surrounded by a hierar¬chy of priests. Ordinary people were deniedaccess to these sacred edifices. Imbued with

the divine, like "all that lives on land, in the

air, under the water" (the plant and mineralworlds included), they recognized and wor¬shipped their creator in all the manifesta¬tions of Nature, without frequenting tem¬ples. For them death was simply a thresholdwhich took them closer to god, and in theirfunerary trappings they portrayed them¬selves in the presence of the deities of theunderworld with which they would be indirect contact until their complete incor¬poration in eternity.

We should also take care not to misinter¬

pret what we see in the tombs. The captivat¬ing scenes from daily life that adorn the wallsof burial chambers and some of the ritual

objects preserved in them should be seen in amystical light as symbolic images of the"everyday" challenges and vicissitudes ofthe journey through the Osirian underworldfrom which the dead person would surelyemerge in triumph, winning access toeternity.

These images are inspired by scenes fromeveryday life on the banks of the Nile. Afunerary banquet incites the deceased to di¬vine inebriation. A clump of papyrus reedsrecalls the primeval marshland in which hemust undergo gradual "gestation" as hemoves towards apotheosis. A depiction ofhunting the hippopotamus or trapping wildducks is meant to paralyse demons that mayblock his path. Nets are set to catch themystic fish, the symbol of his destiny. Grainis harvested and grapes are picked to makeofferings of bread and wine for Osiris. Thepresence of a small calf symbolizes the sun'srenewal.

Through this lively and colourful panor¬ama, designed for otherworldly purposes, it

^ Limestone head of a young girl in the Amarnastyle. The short-lived Amarna period during thereign of Akhenaten (New Kingdom, c. 1353-1335 BC), who left Thebes to found a new capitalcity near the present el-Amarna, left a legacy ofnaturalistic statuary which broke withtraditional conventions of representation.

Wall painting from the tomb of the VizierRekhmire (18th Dynasty), atThebes, shows thedeceased sailing in a papyrus skiff pulled byhaulers. The stretch of water, within a closed

garden, is surrounded by rows of sycamores anddate palms. Nature is widely represented in NewKingdom art, whose practitioners enjoyedgreater liberty than their predecessors in choiceof subject, especially in the decoration of tombs.

is possible to grasp in broad outline thecontext in which "the herd of god", as theancient Egyptians saw themselves, livedtheir lives.

It is an almost entirely agrarian setting,governed by what Julius Caesar (whoadopted it and imposed it on the Romanworld) termed "the greatest and most intelli¬gent of calendars". This calendar was deter¬mined by the inundation of the Nile, whichoccurred every 365 V4 days to cover and fer¬tilize the drought-parched lands of Egypt(which had no other watercourse and vir¬tually no rainfall).

The regularity of the annual flood haddetermined since the earliest times the calen¬

dar of three four-month seasons, instilling inthe Egyptians, who were infinitely sensitiveto their environment, a profound and un-shakeable faith in the principle of eternalrenewal.

Relations between men and women were

modelled on those which were deemed to

have governed the divine couples of "theearliest times", and were characterized bycomplete equality. Unlike women in manyof the societies of classical Antiquity, thewomen of ancient Egypt enjoyed full legalpowers. Even a married woman could man¬age her own fortune, share part of her hus¬band's wealth and freely dispose of her ownproperty among her children. The marriedwoman was "Mistress of the House". She

advised her husband and contributed largelyto the prosperity of the household she man¬aged. Cherished by her husband and re¬spected by what she hoped would be anumerous offspring, she was happy to feelherself the pivot of the household and thefamily circle. Parents accorded their atten¬tion equitably to sons and daughters, not allof whom (especially girls) seem to have re¬ceived much formal schooling. Some girlsmust, however, have undergone fairlyadvanced instruction, since women were ad¬

mitted to certain posts in administration, incommerce and even in the scientific profes¬sions. The first woman doctor known to

history, Lady Pesechet, was in practice inMemphis at the time of the pyramids, duringthe third millennium BC.

Profoundly patriotic, the Egyptian was byno means xenophobic. In early times prison¬ers were taken during conflicts caused by theneed to defend the frontiers of "The Black

Land" (Kemi, as ancient Egypt was called),but the Egyptians were fundamentally paci¬fic people, for whom "war is a day of misfor¬tune". Prisoners were humanely treated.While they were often consigned to the sol¬diers or officers who had captured them,they could be set free and even permitted tomarry into the family of their captor. Theywere free to worship their own gods.

As was still to some extent the case on the

banks of the Nile at the beginning of this

century, marriage was sanctioned neither bya religious ceremony nor by an administra¬tive act. An agreement made before a witnessby a man and a woman wishing to start afamily was a commitment of great moralsignificance. On occasion, a deed might bedrawn up to specify the personal property ofeach partner. The purpose of this was pri¬marily to preserve the rights of the wife inthe event of divorce, which could be re¬

quested by either of the parties. Since di¬vorce entailed forfeiture by the husband ofthe wife's contribution (or of whatever hehad acknowledged to be her contribution) totheir joint fortune, it could prove a costly, ifnot ruinous, process for him! All these conLditions, with the help of an admixture ofcommon sense, helped to maintain the sta¬bility of marriage. *

The simplest dwellings always comprisedan enclosed courtyard leading to a commun¬al living-room. Outbuildings were situatedbehind the house. A staircase led from the

courtyard to a terrace, which was particular¬ly appreciated as a place where the familycould spend the hot summer nights and en¬joy a breath of cool air.

Remains of the residences of very wealthyEgyptians have revealed a logical groundplan that remained unchanged for thousandsof years. Like all other buildings except reli¬gious monuments, which were constructedin stone, a noble and durable material, such

dwellings were built in unbaked brick, madeof Nile mud mixed with straw and ash. Largecountry mansions in vast estates comprised

The sarcophagus of a royal lady named Kawit,in the precincts of the mortuary temple ofMentuhotpe (c. 2061-2010 BC), Deir el-Bahri, isdecorated with reliefs evoking the daily life ofthe deceased princess and perpetuating it in thenext world. Below right, the princess is seatedon a high backed chair, mirror in hand, while anattendant arranges the curls of her wig. She isholding to her lips a cup of milk poured out forher by a steward. Below, the cow which gave themilk, with a calf still attached to its leg.

_ tai

: z- '«- '

* .i * . *

three parts, corresponding to the require¬ments of everyday life. A large entrance-hallled to a central chamber whose high ceilingwas supported by one or by four columns.Small windows high in the walls were fittedwith bars. Here were held the receptions andfestivities which the ancient Egyptians soenjoyed. Side rooms served as stores, officesor lodgings for secretaries or housekeepers.A staircase led to a loggia running the lengthof the entrance-hall.

The third part of the house was reservedfor family life, and included a central, moreintimate, communal living room, roomswhere the children worked and played dur¬ing the cold days of winter and bedrooms.An entire wing reserved for ablutions (inc¬luding showers), anointings and personaltoilet and hygiene, was equipped with a sys¬tem of drains.

These country estates, which functionedas small, closed economics, were completedby outbuildings housing kitchens, grain

silos, a bakery, butchery, brewery, and va¬rious workshops, including one for weaving,which was the major household activity ofwomen in all classes of society. Otherdomestic activities, notably cooking (exceptfor making bread) were usually carried outby the men. Asses were kept in the stables,and so were horses, which were introduced

into Egypt during the New Kingdom andwere mainly used to pull the light chariotsthat also originated in the Near East.

A garden planted with sycamores, weep¬ing willows, tamarisks and palms, patch-worked with flowerbeds and further deco¬

rated with trellised vines and a refreshingpool of water, was the dream of everyEgyptian. In the towns, where space waslimited, gardens were smaller, surroundingbuildings of several storeys containing theareas that occupied a single storey in thecountry. The weavers' workshop was lo¬cated in the cellar, which doubtless also pro¬vided cold storage for foodstuffs and drink.

^ "o'ViV ^ -h" ^-Kn^Ksbii^: g I LI

28

Q

©

! ^&3TJ* üin!|í?te!i !fe^lo¡#afir?

#lè áfli: 0i&

Above left, portrait of two children on a wall ofthe tomb of Vizier Ramose, governor of Thebesduring the reign of Amenophis III andAmenophis IV (Akhenaten), c. 1391-1335 BC.The delicately modelled features of theselimestone reliefs are typical of the polished styleof the 1 8th Dynasty Amarna period. Above,procession bringing the funerary equipment tothe tomb.

Agricultural scenes are depicted in the tomb ofthe Theban surveyor Menna (18th Dynasty).

Below, threshing with cattle.

Kitchens and grain silos were situated on theterrace level.

Boys, whether of humble or noble birth,attended the temple school. One inscriptiontells us of a poor boy who had been able to"reach the feet of the Pharaoh thanks to his

writing tablet". Each day, the mothers tookthé master payment in the form of food.Particularly promising pupils spent severalyears within the temple precincts. Fami¬liarization with the many hieroglyphic signs,study of the written language and literatureand of arithmetic, geometry and geography,all figured in secondary studies, at the con¬clusion of which successful pupils earned thetitle of "scribe who has obtained the tablet".

Appointment to an administrative postfollowed. Particularly gifted students mightgo on to higher studies in a "House of Life"within the precincts of a temple, which prop¬agated the teachings of great architects, sci¬entists (medicine, pharmacology, chemistry,astronomy or geometry) and men of letters,

as well as philosophy and the pursuit ofwisdom. Lessons were generally accompa¬nied by practical exercises and laboratorywork.

At holiday time the whole population wasfree to celebrate the great seasonal festivalsduring which symbols of divinities werebrought from their sanctuaries and bornethrough the crowds in sacred barks, amid theexcitement of processions and theatricalperformances.

The most important of these occasionswas, of course, the New Year, when the Nileinundation covered the cultivable land and

freed the farmers from their work in the

fields. On this great day, and during theweeks that followed, the people travelledfrom village to village, visiting friends andrelations _ to pay together their respects torevered ancestors and to the creator re¬

sponsible for the divine and providentialphenomenon that had occurred once againto enrich the soil of Egypt.

CHRISTIANE DESROCHES-NOBLE-

COURT is inspector general and honorary chiefcurator ofthe Museums ofFrance. She was Unescoconsultant to the Documentation Centre forAncient Egypt in Cairo, which she helped to estab¬lish, and participated from its inception in theInternational Campaign to Save the Monumentsof Nubia. A founder member of the Franco-Egyptian Centre at Karnak, she is currently direct¬ing restoration work in the Valley ofthe Queens atLuxor. Her many published articles and books onEgyptology include Life and Death of a Pharaoh,published by Rainbird, London, and the NewYork Graphic Society.

29

BY GABALLA ALY GABALLAEgypt andthe Mediterranean world

H

30

' ISTORIC Egypt emerged as a unifiedcountry, with its own system ofwriting, towards the end of the

fourth millennium BC. It rapidly becamethe seat of a brilliant civilization in which

flourished philosophy and literature,architecture and art, science and medicine,

administration and social organization.From ancient times, thanks to the country'ssituation on the Mediterranean coast, the

Egyptians made increasingly numerous con¬tacts with Europe. The contribution madeby Egypt to Western culture enriched civi¬lization as a whole.

Around the same time, the Minoan civi¬

lization (named after Minos, the legendaryking), came into being on the shores of theAegean, centred on the island of Crete.

Although the Mediterranean was noobstacle between Egypt and the Aegean,contacts between Egyptian and Aegean trad¬ers and emissaries were made first of all in the

Phoenician coastal ports, Byblos in particu¬lar. Egyptian trading vessels no doubt set sailfrom these ports to Crete, and called atCyprus, Rhodes, Karpathos and Kasos be¬fore returning directly to Egypt (some270 nautical miles from Crete), carried alongby the north winds that blow in summer.The voyage then took three days andtwo nights.

There is no lack of archaeological evidencefor relations between the two peoples. ManyEgyptian cylindrical stone jars have beenfound in Crete and eventually the Cretansadopted the Egyptian technique of manufac¬turing these jars. On the island of Kithira, analabaster vase has been found bearing thename of an Egyptian king of the FifthDynasty (c. 2465-2323 BC). From thetwenty-second century BC, Egyptian writ¬ings began to mention Kaftiou, an Egyptianadaptation of the Semitic name for Crete,Caphtor, which also appears in the Bible.

At the beginning of the second millen¬nium BC, there was a thriving trade betweenMiddle Kingdom Egyptians and Cretans ofthe period known as Middle Minoan. ManyEgyptian objects from that era, includingeveryday utensils, scarabs used as seals and adiorite statuette, have been found in Crete,

while Minoan pottery in the Kamares style,and silver vases showing an Aegean in¬fluence, have been discovered in a templenear Luxor.

Around 1500 BC, Egypt cast off the yoke

t

5^*

Vi t*"^ . XI< -i jS*P

^ Minoan terracotta figurine with an Egyptianhairstyle (14th or 13th century BC)

#'%

This votive object from the New Kingdomrepresenting an Egyptian woman was found in

a cave at Tzouzoura, Crete.

of the Hyksos1 and emerged from its tradi¬tional isolationism to become an interna¬

tional power, strengthened by a series ofmilitary victories. Phoenicia and Syria fellunder its sway, and the Egyptian fleet con¬trolled the Phoenician ports, probably ex¬tending its influence as far as Cyprus. ThisEgyptian presence created a new situation inthe eastern Mediterranean basin. The

Aegeans of the Late Minoan period and theMycenaeans of Hellas2 had thereafter to dealdirectly with the Egyptians if their merchantships were to have access to the traditionalmarkets of Palestine and Syria. In all prob¬ability, the Cretans and the Mycenaeanscame to an agreement with the powerfulPharaoh Tuthmosis III (c. 1479-1425 BC).The tomb of his vizier Rekhmire, at the

necropolis of Thebes, depicts Cretan emis¬saries bearing tribute from their island. TheEgyptian inscription describes the scene:"The arrival of the princes from Kaftiou and

4 Relief from the tomb of Puiemre, one of the highpriests of Amun during the reign of TuthmosisIII (c. 1479-1425 BC), depicts foreignersbringing "tributes" to the Temple ofAmun atKarnak. Between two Syrians, a Cretan isshown with characteristic shoulder-length hair.

the islands in the midst of the sea, submissive

and with bowed heads before the might ofHis Majesty Tuthmosis III". There is everyreason to believe that these "islands in the

midst of the sea" were those of the eastern

Mediterranean and the city of Mycenae inthe Péloponnèse.

Brown-skinned Aegeans, wearing bright¬ly coloured loincloths and with thick manesof hair hanging to their shoulders or worn inone or more plaits bound around their fore¬heads, became a familiar sight to theEgyptians as they threaded through thestreets of Thebes to bear their gifts, called"tribute" by the Egyptians, to Pharaoh:large, ornate goblets with handles shapedlike animals, or elongated vases with smallhandles, decorated with floral motifs or

horizontal polychrome lines.Towards the middle of the fifteenth cen¬

tury BC, the Cretan civilization foundered,probably as a result of internal power strug¬gles. Small wonder, then, that the name ofKaftiou should have disappeared fromEgyptian sources after the end of that cen¬tury. However the expression "islands in themidst of the sea" continues to occur fre¬

quently in these writings, before dis¬appearing, in its turn, in the twelfthcentury BC, when successive waves of thebarbarians known to the Egyptians as the"sea peoples" were surging into thePéloponnèse peninsula and wreaking havoc.These hordes crossed Anatolia (where theyannihilated the Hittites) and Greece, andadvanced on Egypt overland across Syriaand by sea via the Mediterranean islands. Butthey were repelled by such powerfulPharaohs as Ramesses II, Merneptah andRamesses III, who saved Egypt from des¬truction on a massive scale.

The Greek presence in Egypt made itselffelt in the early seventh century BC throughmercenaries serving in the Egyptian armiesand merchants who set up trading posts invarious towns of the Delta. Greek philo¬sophers, historians and geographers fol¬lowed them, dazzled by Egyptian civiliza¬tion with its gigantic monuments, its beliefsand its wealth of knowledge.

The Greek astronomer, philosopher andmathematician, Thaïes of Miletus, is said to

1. Asiatic invaders of northern Egypt who ruled as theFifteenth Dynasty (c. 1640-1532 BC).2. Greeks of the classical period called their country 31Hellas and themselves Hellenes. ^^H

have brought back the 365-day solar calen¬dar from Egypt at the end of the seventhcentury BC. The Athenian statesman Solon(c. 640-560 BC) visited Egypt at the timewhen, according to Herodotus, the Six¬teenth-Dynasty king Amasis II prom¬ulgated a law under which each Egyptianwas obliged to make an annual declaration ofincome and return it to the governor of theprovince. Any person guilty of illicit gainswas condemned to death. Solon had an iden¬

tical law adopted in Athens. Another Greekhistorian, Diodorus of Sicily, recounts thatLycurgus (legendary king of Sparta) drewinspiration from Egyptian legislation, as didPlato.

Egypt's influence on early Greek art isevident, too. The kouros figure of a youngman, characteristic of archaic statuary, hasan Egyptian air about it. The tall, slim youthstands with his left leg forward, his arms heldstraight by his sides and his hands clenched.This type of statue not only imitates theattitudes of Egyptian figures, but also abidesby the traditional rules governing Egyptianart, in particular the "rule of proportion"that its creators had been applying for over2,000 years. The human body was originallydivided into 18 equal squares, and into 21from the Saite3 period (seventh century BC),when the unit of measurement of length, thecubit, was modified. Diodorus of Sicily re¬lates that in the sixth century BC Teleklesand Thcodorus, two famous Greek sculp¬tors, drew on that tradition for a statue of

Apollo by dividing the body into21 V4 squares.

Over the centuries, the Greeks became

increasingly involved in the history ofEgypt. In 332 BC, the country was con¬quered by Alexander the Great, and aMacedonian Dynasty was founded whichgoverned the country for some three centur¬ies. Egypt became part of the Hellenisticworld encompassing the eastern basin of theMediterranean. Alexandria, the new

Egyptian capital founded by the Greeks,brought fresh prestige to Hellenism throughits writers, geographers, historians, archi¬tects and astronomers.

When the Roman general MarcusAntonius, ally of Cleopatra VII, lost thebattle of Actium in 31 BC, Egypt became aRoman province. As the granary of Rome ithelped to supply the Roman army during itsmajor conquests.

As regards religion, the cult of Isis andOsiris (Serapis, in its Ptolemaic form), and oftheir son Horus-Harpocrates, was widelyadopted in the Graeco-Roman world. Thelegend of Osiris, based on belief in the after¬life of the soul in a better world, has strongpopular appeal, since it promises salvation toall, a concept lacking in the official worshipof the Greek and Roman divinities. To the

Greeks, Isis was the incarnation of destiny,since she succeeded in freeing herself fromthe control of the gods and thereby acquiredabsolute power. The Isis cult in Rome corn-

Black basalt Roman statue of the Egyptiangoddess Isis, whose cult was widespread in the

Graeco-Roman world.

The hand of Seshat, goddess of writing and oflearning, and the protector of royal chronicles.Together with Thoth, patron of scribes and the

art of writing, she recorded each king's nameandthedatesofhisreignonthe leaves ofthetree

of life, as in this relief on the throne of

Ramesses II (c. 1290-1224 BC)at Luxor.

32 3. Named after the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty (664-525 BC)^^ capital city, Sais, in the Nile Delta. Editor.

pcted with the Roman religion and emperor-worship. Moreover, the Osirian triad fore¬shadowed the Christian trinity. Before theadvent of Christianity, Isis-worship inEurope became as prevalent as the later cultof the Virgin Mary.

The world also owes the invention of the

calendar and the alphabet to the ancientEgyptians.

Like other peoples, the Egyptians firstdevised a dating system which divided timeinto lunar years of 354 days. But before longthey realized that it was not sufficientlyaccurate and was unsuited to the organiza¬tion of their complex bureaucratic system, soit fell into disuse except for the celebration ofcertain religious events. Around 3000 BCthey invented a solar calendar of 365 daysdivided into twelve months of thirty dayseach, to which at the end of the year wereadded five extra, or "epagomenal", days. TheEgyptians knew that their year was six hoursshorter than tjie solar year (365 '/4 days), butfor a long time they did nothing to remedythis discrepancy. Only under Greek rule didthey begin to add one day to the official yearevery four years, to bring it into alignmentwith the solar year. That calendar wasadopted by Julius Caesar and imposed inRome from 45 BC. The Julian calendar wasused in Europe and the West until, at the endof the sixteenth century, it was refined byPope Gregory XIII and, as the Gregoriancalendar, became known throughout theworld.

Towards the end of the fourth millennium

BC, the Egyptians invented a system of writ¬ing which used hieroglyphic signs, i.e. pic¬tures, rather than letters. These pictures werechosen, not for their meaning, but for thesounds that they represented.

It is true that the modern Europeanalphabet is derived from the Graeco-Romanalphabet, which is directly based on thePhoenician alphabet. But what system ofwriting influenced the Phoenicians? Theoldest Semitic texts known to us date back to

the fifteenth century BC. They were disco¬vered in the Sinai desert, and contain Semitic

terms transcribed with signs that resemblehieroglyphs. It is very likely that this Semiticwriting was based on hieroglyphs, using asystem of pictured sounds, and that it de¬veloped over several centuries into thePhoenician alphabet, in which each sound isrepresented by a single letter. It seems prob¬able, therefore, that the alphabet, one of thegreatest achievements of the human mind, isof Egyptian origin.

GABALLA ALY GABALLA, ofEgypt, is Profes¬sor of Egyptology at Cairo University. He wasformerly visiting Professor at the Mohamed VUniversity (Morocco), at the University ofCentralFlorida (USA), and at the University of Kuwait.He is the author oftwo books published in English,Narrative in Egyptian Art, (1976) and. TheMemphite Tomb Chapel of Mose (1977), and ofmany articles.

Pharaonic art

and the modern

imagination

BY RICHARD A. FAZZINI

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THE sense of identity underlyingEgypt's nationalist movement wasenhanced by the archaeological re¬

discovery of ancient Egypt, a fact reflected insuch works as Cairo's partially pharaoniciz-ing sculpture The Awakening of Egypt byMahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934), and in theuse of ancient Egyptian history in the earlyallegorical novels of the modern writer NajibMahfüz.

These uses of elements of ancient

Egyptian history and art might have seemedfamiliar to the Pharaohs of the early NewKingdom (sixteenth century BC) who ex¬pelled the Hyksos the so-called "shepherdkings from the East" and reunited thecountry. Viewing themselves as heirs to thekings of the early Middle Kingdom (latetwenty-first to early twentieth century BC)when Egypt was reunited after the collapseof the Old Kingdom, they established closereligious and archaizing artistic links be¬tween themselves and their early MiddleKingdom "ancestors". In fact, ancientEgyptian civilization, while sufficiently evo¬lutionary to permit incredible artisticchange, was also sufficiently resistant tochange to ensure amazing artistic continuity,and encompassed concepts that could allowthe past to be a viable model for the present.

This also helps to explain how Egyptianart of the fourth century BCand later, whichincluded the native Twenty-ninth and Thir¬tieth Dynasties (399-343 BC), was a blend ofthe traditional and the innovative. Amongthe features of that era's art was a greaterfullness in figurai style, a greater penchantfor animal figures, a plethora of figures ofgods and of religious symbols, and morecomplex forms and decoration in general. Itwas this later Egyptian art especially thatspread throughout the Hellenistic andRoman world, via the diffusion of Egyptiancults. In Italy and Rome in particular, ob¬jects imported from Egypt were sup¬plemented by new Egyptianizing worksmade to serve cults that also partook ofnon-Egyptian elements, to reflect imperialglory, or simply to decorate houses andgardens.

With the fall of Rome and the rise of

Christianity and Islam, ancient Egypt en¬tered the realm of the unknown, mysteriousand fabulous. It remained there even when

Egypt's rediscovery was begun in the Re¬naissance, because the rediscovcrcrs were

concerned, for example, with ideas of linksbetween Christian doctrine and the wisdom

or magic of ancient Egypt. Further, the Re¬naissance's main sources for the study ofancient Egypt were the Egyptian andEgyptianizing objects from Italy and Rome.The former were hardly representative ofancient Egypt in general, and the lattervaried greatly in the degree of adherence toEgyptian norms.

Poster advertising a record album by a modernpop music group is a fantastic and theatrical mix 33of popular images of ancient Egypt. oassra

34

One especially important discovery wasthe Roman Period Mensa Isiaca, so called

because it resembles the top of a table (mensain Italian) and because its iconography re¬lates it to the cult of Isis. Made of bronze and

silver, it is decorated with images ofEgyptian deities and symbols, as well ashieroglyphs which are imperfectly under¬stood. Like sculptures similar to the secondcentury AD Egypto-classical figure of theEmperor Hadrian's favourite, Antinous,found at Tivoli in 1740, the Mensa Isiaca

became a source for Egyptianizing elementsin the art of the Renaissance. In part becausethey went on being presented as fine sourcesfor such endeavours, they and otherEgyptian and Roman Egyptianizing workscontinued to play a role in Egyptian studiesand Egyptianizing art in the Western world,despite increased interest in, and firsthandknowledge of, Egypt in the seventeenth and,especially, in the eighteenth centuries.Nevertheless, in the eighteenth centuryseveral non-scientific developments also ledto greater interest in ancient Egypt, and alsoincreased its influence on Western arts.

These developments included the growingimportance of Freemasonry, the concept ofthe Sublime (the ability of art andarchitecture to induce emotional reactions

such as amazement and dread) and emergingNeoclassicism's concern for grandeur, sim¬plicity and massiveness.

Such concepts informed the reconstruc¬tions of Egyptian temples by the Frenchpainter and designer Louis François Cassas,published in 1799, and the schemes for vastEgyptianizing monuments by architectssuch as Etienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799),also of France. Equally significant, but in avery different vein, are the drawings of extra¬vagantly Egyptianizing rooms and fireplaces

Above, the Grande Pyramide, an engraving by the French artist Louis-FrançoisCassas (1756-1827). The entire'composition is a Romantic fantasy combining anOld Kingdom pyramid with a temple of much later date, and an approach linedwith very un-Egyptian sphinxes. In the background is an equally un-Egyptian

mountain landscape. Above right, a glass and steel pyramid has been erected abovethe main entrance and reception area of the Louvre Museum, Paris, as part of amodernization programme. The structure, designed by the American architect

I.M. Pei, was completed in 1988.

by the Italian printmaker and architectGiambattista Piranesi, published in 1769.Based to no small extent on late Egyptianand Roman Egyptianizing art, they consti¬tute a major attempt to create anEgyptianizing style instead of using indi¬vidual motifs. Indeed, Piranesi was amongthe first to appreciate Egyptian art for itsdecorative beauty as opposed to its majestyor mystery. Europe was thus already in¬volved with ancient Egypt when theNapoleonic Expedition to Egypt of 1798-1801 ushered in the first and largest of whatwould be many Egyptian revivals, betweenwhich interest in Egypt has never reallyvanished.

The Napoleonic Expedition also initiatedEgypt's archaeological rediscovery, whichled to scholars' growing ability to recon¬struct Egypt's history and civilization moreaccurately, and to understand and appreciatethe art of all its ages. It also made possiblemore accurate Egyptianizing in literature,art, architecture, stage sets and the like.Nevertheless, this did not happen all at once,as evidenced, for example, by the figure inthe 1808 Egyptianizing fountain in the ruede Sèvres, Paris, that is based on the statue of

Antinous discovered in 1740. If newly dis¬covered, older Egyptian models appearedalongside long-familiar later ones, they did

Below left, a 2nd-century-AD Roman statue ofAntinous, favourite of the Emperor Hadrian.Antinous, deified by the Emperor afterdrowning in the Nile, is depicted as the Egyptiangod Osiris. This type of statue served as themodel for the fountain constructed in 1808 in

the rue de Sèvres, Paris (below).

not supplant them: it is the business of scho¬lars, not artists, to attempt to recreate ancientcivilizations totally and accurately.

In the twentieth century a number of fac¬tors, not all new, fostered a greater know¬ledge and appreciation of ancient Egypt andits art: archaeological discoveries (especiallyTutankhamun's tomb); exhibitions ofEgyptian art, some of which, . like theTutankhamun finds, have inspired Egyptianrevivals in various areas; increased tourism

to Egypt; more mass education; and an en¬hanced Western respect for non-Westernart. As in the nineteenth century, Egyptianart continues to influence serious architects,

artists and designers in manners other thanslavish imitation.

However, other aspects of ancient Egypt'sculture, real or imagined, continue to fascin¬ate and influence the West. In fact, even

before the great age of commercial motionpictures, plays, operas (especially Aida), his¬torical novels, and fantasy and horror novels(Egyptian themes start in the nineteenth cen¬tury, well before the "curse" of Tutankha¬mun's tomb was world news) gave someversion of the culture to the public. Adver¬tising and packaging for a variety of pro¬ducts, particularly cigarettes and beauty pro¬ducts, also have had their influence.

Both symptom and cause of interest inancient Egypt, Hollywood and its allieshave, from the beginning, used spectaclesbased on Egyptian themes to attract a wideraudience, once again with varying degrees ofhistorical or artistic accuracy. Other impor¬tant influences on popular conceptions ormisconceptions of ancient Egypt and its artare television, American comic books (notalways aimed solely at children), and theirmore sophisticated French counterparts. Anumber of the latter dealing with Egypt

combine impressively accurate drawings ofmodern Egypt and its ancient monumentswith equally impressive Egyptianizingfantasies.

The mass media, heirs not only to earlyHollywood but also to the works of theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries, per¬petuate old and new myths about ancientEgypt such as its descent from Atlantis, theinfluence of beings from outer space, and"pyramid power".

An impressive recent example ofEgyptianizing in popular media are the post¬er and cover for the record album Power-

slave by the group Iron Maiden. Its designwould have been impossible without thetemples of Abu Simbel, widely publicized byUnesco's campaign to save the monumentsof Nubia. The image, however, is not reallyAbu Simbel, but rather a theatrical

Egyptianizing fantasy evocative of manypopular associations of Egypt in the modernmind.

One thing seems certain: ancient Egyptand its art may come to be better understoodand appreciated, but the land of thePharaohs, of which the ancient Greek histo¬rian Herodotus said "more monuments

which beggar description are to be foundhere than anywhere else in the world", willcontinue to be a source of many wonders andfantasies only somewhat reflective of ancientreality.

RICHARD A. FAZZINI, of the United States ofAmerica, is curator of Egyptian, Classical, andAncient Middle Eastern Art at The BrooklynMuseum. An Egyptologist specializing in ancientEgyptian art, he is also an archaeologist and directsThe Brooklyn Museum's excavations in the templeprecinct of the goddess Mut at South Karnak.

From the Nubian campaign to the Library ofAlexandria

Unesco and the ancient

Egyptian heritageBY GAMAL MOKHTAR

THE Campaign to Save the Monumentsof Nubia was the most spectaculardemonstration of Unesco's concern

for the legacy of ancient Egypt, and its suc¬cess was the most striking example of inter¬national understanding and world solidarityin the field of cultural co-operation and thepreservation of the heritage.

When the Egyptian Government began tostudy a project for building a High Dam tothe south of the city of Aswan in order todevelop and modernize the country's eco¬nomy and decided to execute the projectin 1954, it became apparent that Egypt andthe Sudan had a major cultural problem ontheir hands: dozens of temples andarchaeological sites and areas in Nubia werein danger of being submerged by the watersof the vast artificial lake that would be

formed behind the High Dam. The lake,which would be 25 kilometres wide in some

areas, would extend over 300 kilometres upthe Nile Valley in Egyptian Nubia and some200 kilometres into Sudanese Nubia.

Two examples indicate the scale of theproblem. The first concerns the two templesof Abu Simbel, 270 kilometres south ofAswan. The base of the larger temple stood124 metres and that of the smaller temple122 metres above sea level. The temples layupstream of the old Aswan Dam, which hadbeen constructed around the turn of the

century, but as the water level of the reser¬voir created by this dam never exceeded121 metres, no part of the two temples wasever submerged by its waters. After the con¬struction of the High Dam, however, thewater level would rise to 1 82 metres, exceed

ing the highest level reached by the waters ofthe old Aswan Dam by 62 metres and sub¬merging the two temples completely.

The second example is that of the templeswhich stood on the island of Philae,1 04 metres above sea level to the south of the

old Aswan Dam and to the north of the HighDam. The Philae temples were submergedalmost totally by the waters of the oldAswan Dam most days of the year.However, after the construction of the HighDam (whose waters would not directlyaffect these temples, as they were locateddownstream) the water level of the old reser¬voir would drop and fluctuate dailybetween 102 and 110 metres in the processof generating electricity. In other words, thewater would only partially inundate the tem¬ple walls, but the fluctuating water level

36

The project to dismantle the two rock temples ofAbu Simbel and to re-erect them ata new site

with the same orientation as before, but 64 m

higher and 180 m further inland, was one of themost spectacular achievements of theCampaign to Save the Monuments of Nubialaunched by Unesco in 1960. Artist's conceptionof the salvage operation (right) shows the GreatTemple with its seated colossi and the SmallTemple beyond it, both protected from thewaters of the Nile by a cofferdam (foreground).The rock has been excavated above and behind

the Great Temple to enable dismantling of thetemple rooms. Far right, the temples re-erectedat the new site, out of reach of the water. Two

great concrete domes with overlying rockrecreate the original appearance of thesurrounding area. Work was completed in 1968.

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would pose a more serious threat to thestonework of the temples than their total andpermanent submersion.

The High Dam project thus confrontedthe two governments with a major responsi¬bility to the land of Nubia, which had hadstrong links with Egypt throughout its his¬tory, especially during the Pharaonic period.It had therefore been the scene of majorarchitectural activity, particularly the con¬struction of temples, fortifications and cas¬tles for the protection of trade routes and themaintenance of peace. Cities, cemeteries andtombs were built in various periods, andinnumerable quantities of rock stelae, carv¬ings and inscriptions had survived, not tomention all the records of the past that stilllay buried.

The Egyptian Government thereforeapproached Unesco on 6 April 1959, re¬questing its active material, technical andscientific assistance in the design and execu¬tion of projects to save the monuments ofNubia. Such a step was warranted by thescale and costliness of the task and also bythe fact that the monuments were part of theuniversal human heritage and hence a matterof concern to the world as a whole.

Moreover, it was felt that Unesco had a

major responsibility for preserving and safe¬guarding the world heritage and was the onlyinternational organization capable of raisingthe financial support and rallying the special¬ists and technicians that were needed from all

over the world. A few months later, theSudanese Government submitted a similar

request to Unesco.

Unesco responded to these requests bylaunching two major appeals. A first generalappeal was made by the Director-General ofUnesco on 8 March 1960 and a second, con¬cerned more specifically with the need torescue the temples of Philae, was madeon 6 November 1968. In both appeals, theDirector-General called on governments,public and private bodies and all potentialsources of aid to provide financial, technicaland scientific assistance for the purpose ofsaving the monuments of Nubia.

The Campaign to Save the Monuments ofNubia began with the following archaeolo¬gical activities:

1 . Comprehensive recording of the monu¬ments of Nubia: this was meticulously car¬ried out by the Documentation and StudyCentre for the History of the Art and Civi¬lization of Ancient Egypt in Cairo, whichhad been established in 1955 as a result of acontract between Unesco and the Govern¬

ment of Egypt providing for co-operation indocumenting Egyptian monuments withtheir inscriptions and carvings. The Centrewas set up and financed by Egypt, withUnesco providing the experts andequipment.

2. An archaeological survey of Nubia tomake an inventory of all the archaeologicalareas and sites that would be inundated and

to identify areas that had not yet been ex¬cavated. Over seventy archaeological mis¬sions from twenty-five countries then car¬ried out excavations in those areas of

Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia that were tobe submerged.

The rescue of the temples which stood on theisland of Philae was the final stage in theCampaign to Save the Monuments of Nubiathreatened by the waters of the Aswan HighDam. The temples, dedicated to the cult of Isis,are shown still almost intact in the 1 9th-centuryengraving above left. They became endangeredin the early years of this century, when the firstAswan Dam was built downstream from them.

After 1934, when the dam was raised, the island

and its temples were submerged for much of theyear. Photo taken in 1972 (above centre) showsthe Temple of Isis and the Graeco-Roman"Kiosk" of Trajan partly under water. In 1960,the construction of the High Dam threatened tosubmerge the temples permanently, and adecision was made to dismantle them and move

them to the neighbouring island of Algikia,which was landscaped to resemble Philae. Workbegan in 1972 and was completed in 1979.Above, the monuments reconstituted on their

3. Rescue work on over twenty temples inEgyptian and Sudanese Nubia, including:

The two temples of Abu Simbel, whichhad been hewn in the rock. Many proposalswere submitted and extensive field studieswere carried out. In the end it was decided to

dismantle the two temples and rebuild theminside soaring artificial domes erected at thesame site, but on ground 60 metres above theoriginal location. The temples were inaugu¬rated at their new location in 1967.

The temples of Philae. Several proposalswere submitted for this rescue operation andthe project finally selected was carried out by.Egyptian and Italian companies. It involveddismantling the temples and reassemblingthem on the neighbouring island of Agilkiaafter preparing and levelling the terrain. Thecompletion of the project and the successfulconclusion of the campaign to save theNubian heritage were marked with greatcelebrations in 1980.

In addition, over twenty temples, manychapels, rock stelae and carvings also had tobe dismantled, transported and reassembledon higher ground, safely above the waters ofthe new reservoir, Lake Nasser. This rescuework was carried out by the Egyptian De¬partment of Antiquities, with the exceptionof the Temple of Kalabsha, which was res¬cued by the Federal Republic of Germany,

The Great

Sphinxthreatened

^ With its human head and the body of arecumbent lion carved out of the rock

beneath the Great Pyramids at Giza,the colossal great Sphinx is a portrait

statue of the Pharaoh Khephren(c. 2520-2494 BC), whose tomb it

guards. Today the Sphinx isthreatened both by erosion due to theclimate and by the rising level ofextremely saline ground-water. InFebruary 1988, a block of stoneweighing almost 300 kg fell from theright shoulder of the monument andbroke. The Egyptian Minister ofCulture has appealed to Unesco forhelp in saving the Sphinx, which withthe rest of the Giza site is inscribed on

the World Heritage List of cultural; properties of outstanding universal

value. The Director-General of

Unesco, who has recently visited thesite and noted the extent of the

damage, has expressed Unesco'sreadiness to co-operate in therestoration of the Sphinx.

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38

and a section of the Temple of Amada, whichwas rescued by France. The latter was movedon rails to safe ground near its original site.

The antiquities of a region that had impor¬tant ties with Pharaonic Egypt were thussaved for posterity. For thousands of yearsthey had stood as a magnificent symbol ofhuman achievement in an isolated, barrenand inhospitable land, and they now providea unique example of what modern scienceand technology can do to save the heritage ofour forebears.

Saving the monuments of Nubia was amajor landmark in the history of Unesco, forit involved the Organization in the mostambitious cultural and scientific operationever attempted in human history. The un¬qualified success of the campaign was theresult of intensive co-operation among allthe parties concerned over a period of almosttwenty years. Victory was achieved throughthe firm determination of the Governments

of Egypt and Sudan to save their culturalheritage, the generosity of Unesco's MemberStates, and the enthusiasm and skill of allthose who took part in the rescue operationitself, particularly the archaeologists,architects, engineers and experts who joinedforces under Unesco's aegis.

Unesco has contributed to the presenta¬tion and enhancement of Egypt's ancientheritage in other fields, including:

the improvement of museum services, par¬ticularly the Egyptian Museum of PharaonicAntiquities in Cairo;

the conservation and restoration of ancient

Egyptian and Islamic archaeological sitessuch as the Pyramids of Giza, Luxor andseveral Islamic sites in Cairo;

the inclusion of a number of Egyptianantiquities on the World Heritage List;

assistance in the publication of the Copticmanuscripts of Nag' Hammadi, known as"The Gnostic Codices";

the launching in 1982 of an InternationalCampaign for the Establishment of theNubia Museum in Aswan and the National

Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairoand provision or all the financial, technicaland informational assistance needed to

achieve the goals of the campaign. The pur¬pose of the National Museum is to presentthe civilizations of Egypt from pre-nistoryto the present day . The exhibits of the NubiaMuseum will cover the geological, geog¬raphic, ecological, ethnographic and artisticfeatures of Nubia and every aspect of itshistory and archaeology. The Museum will

also contain a research centre to study allmatters related to Nubia and its ties with

Africa, for it was a major passage-way for thetransmission of cultural influences between

the Mediterranean and Africa.

Support for the project to revive theancient Library of Alexandria, a store oflearning that served the scientists and philo¬sophers of the Greek world at a time whenAlexandria was a world centre of culture and

science. Unesco has called for contributions

to cover the building costs and for donationsof basic equipment, and has offered help inplanning this long-term project, which willbe completed at the end of the century. '

1 . The Library of Alexandria project will be the subject ofan article in the November 1988 issue of the Unesco

Courier. Editor.

GAMAL MOKHTAR, Egyptian archaeologist, isa former Director of his country's Service ofAnti¬quities. The author of many publications on thehistory of ancient Egypt, he was the editor ofAncient Civilizations of Africa (1981), Volume II

of Unesco's General History of Africa. The Editorsof the Unesco Courier would like to thankDr. Mokhtar for his help in the preparation of thisissue.

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ISSN 0041-5278

N° 9 - 1988 - OP1 - 88 - 1 - 460 A

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