The Sphinx
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
In a depression to the south of Khafre’s pyramid at Giza near Cairo sits a huge creature with the head of a human and a lion’s body. This monumental statue, the first truly colossal royal sculpture in Egypt, known as the Great Sphinx, is a national symbol of Egypt, both ancient and modern. It has stirred the imagination of poets, scholars, adventurers and tourists for centuries and has also inspired a wealth of speculation about its age, its meaning, and the secrets that it might hold.
Akhenaton and Nefertiti
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
Akhenaton, Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, ruled some thirteen centuries before Christ, in a time and place where government and religion were inextricably intermingled. He felt constricted by the political power of the priest caste, so he "streamlined" religion, announcing that the hundreds of gods worshiped in Egypt were merged into one god, Aton, a sun deity — who spoke only to him. He had the name of the old god, Amon, physically removed from monuments, and had all references to gods in the plural replaced with the new god, always in the singular. Akhenaton’s decree is believed to have instituted humanity’s first known organized monotheism.
Video 1. Akhenaton and Nefertiti.
To go with this newly decreed religion, the Pharaoh changed his own name from Amenhotep to "Akhenaton", meaning, "servant of Aton". The effect was more political than religious, as the Pharaoh’s pronouncement banning the old religions effectively stripped the priests of their power. He also moved the empire’s capitol from Thebes to the city he named Akhetaton, which is generally translated as "place of Aton’s Power". Though his god and the gods he banished are forgotten today by all but historians, Akhenaton is still remembered as the Heretic Pharaoh, "false prophet" of Egypt.
Akhenaton is believed to have taken two of his daughters, Ankhesenpaaten and Meketaten, as sexual consorts. Ankhesenpaaten was Akhenaton’s daughter by his greater queen, Nefertiti, and later married Tutankhamun, his son by his lesser queen, Tiya. After Akhenaton’s death, his body was mummified and buried in a pink granite sarcophagus, but his remains have never been found. His successor, the famed King Tutankhamun, restored the worship of Amon and the other gods Akhenaton had banned.
Video 2. The story of ancient Egypt
Hatshepsut
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
Born in the 15th century BC, Hatshepsut, daughter of Tuthmose I and Aahmes, both of royal lineage, was the favorite of their three children. When her two brothers died, she was in the unique position to gain the throne upon the death of her father. To have a female pharaoh was unprecedented, and probably most definitely unheard of as well. When Tuthmose I passed away, his son by the commoner Moutnofrit, Tuthmose II, technically ascended the throne. For the few years of his reign, however, Hatshepsut seems to have held the reins. From markings on his mummy, archaeologists believe Tuthmose II had a skin disease, and he died after ruling only three or four years. Hatshepsut, his half sister and wife, had produced no offspring with him (her daughter Nefrure was most likely the daughter of her lover Senmut), although he had sired a son through the commoner Isis. This son, Tuthmose III, was in line for the throne, but due to his age Hatshepsut was allowed to reign as queen dowager.
Figure 1. Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was not one to sit back and wait for her nephew to age enough to take her place. As a favorite daughter of a popular pharaoh, and as a charismatic and beautiful lady in her own right, she was able to command enough of a following to actually take control as pharaoh. She ruled for about 15 years, until her death in 1458 BC, and left behind more monuments and works of art than any Egyptian queen to come.
Hatshepsut, as a female, had many obstacles to overcome. There was always a threat of revolt, especially as her bitter nephew came of age. Using propaganda and keen political skills, she deftly jumped each hurdle she faced. To quell the fears of her people, she became a "king" in all statuary and relief during her reign. She even dressed in the traditional garb of male rulers: the shendyt kilt, the nemes headdress with its uraeus and khat headcloth, and the false beard. Although there were no wars during her reign, she proved her sovereignty by ordering expeditions to the land of Punt, in present-day Somalia, in search of the ivory, animals, spices, gold and aromatic trees that Egyptians coveted. These expeditions are well documented in the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of her temple. With these inscriptions are included incised representations of the journey, including humorous images of the Puntites and their queen, at whom the Egyptians no doubt looked while restraining a giggle; the queen has folds of fat hanging over her knees and elbows, her back is crooked and she has an aquiline nose. To the short, thin Egyptian she was probably quite a sight. Hatshepsut, in a final bid to be recognized as a legitimate queen, constructed a fabulous temple in the Valley of the Kings, of all places, by a tall plateau at Deir-el-Bahri, across the Nile from Thebes.
Hatshepsut was a master politician, and an elegant stateswoman with enough charisma to keep control of an entire country for twenty years. Her charisma and experience could carry her only so far, however. She used two devices to ensure the legitimacy of her position. The first was to emphasize not only her relationship to Tuthmose I, but her favor from that popular ruler. She claimed to have been handpicked by her father, above her two brothers and her half-brother. In her temple are written the words of Khnum, the divine potter who sculpted the forms of the gods:
I will make you to be the first of all living creatures, you will rise as king of Upper and of Lower Egypt, as your father Amon, who loves you, did ordain.
This assertion has validity, as other texts indicate. Her second conceit was more doubtful, however: she claims a direct divine lineage. As in the previous passage, she claims Amon is her father. On the walls of her tomb is inscribed a story detailing the night the Theban god Amon-Re approached Aahmes in the form of Tuthmose I.
Amon took the form of the noble King Tuthmose and found the queen sleeping in her room. When the pleasant odours that proceeded from him announced his presence she woke. he gave her his heart and showed himself in his godlike splendour. When he approached the queen she wept for joy at his strength and beauty and he gave her his love…
These propaganda worked well to cement Hatshepsut’s position. But as Tuthmose III grew, her sovereignty grew tenuous. He not only resented his lack of authority, but no doubt harbored only ill will towards his step-mother’s consort Senmut. Senmut originally intended to be buried in the tomb he designed for Hatshepsut, but was actually buried nearby in his own tomb. Not long after his death, however, his sarcophagus was completely destroyed. The hard stone that had been carved for his funerary coffin was found in over 1,200 pieces. His mummy was never found. Hatshepsut’s mummy was likewise stolen and her tomb destroyed. Only one of the canopic jars was found, the one containing her liver. After her death, it is presumed that Tuthmose III ordered the systematic erasure of her name from any monument she had built, including her temple at Deir-el-Bahri. Since most of the images of her were actually males, it was convenient to simply change the name "Hatshepsut" to "Tuthmose" I, II or III wherever there was a caption. Senmut’s name was also removed. Whether Tuthmose killed Hatshepsut, Senmut and Nofrure is questionable but likely. Since he paid little respect to her in death, it is quite possible he paid even less in life.
While this account is the most accepted of theories, the Hatshepsut Problem was a source of endless debate near the turn of the twentieth century. The archeaologists Edouard Naville and Kurt Sethe went head-to-head on the order of rule between the three Tuthmoses and Hatshepsut. Since it is generally assumed that if one ruler’s name is replaced with another, the second ruler is in power at the time, a confusing problem exists. Theoretical timelines indicate that the succession followed this sequence:
1. Tuthmose I
2. Tuthmose III
3. Tuthmose III and Hatshepsut, together
4. Tuthmose III alone
5. Tuthmose I and Tuthmose II
6. Tuthmose II alone
7. Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III
8. Tuthmose III alone
This sequence seems as illogical as it is complicated, and only after the discovery of the tomb of Ineni, the architect of the tomb of Tuthmose I. His description follows a more intuitive sequence, and disproves the previously-held belief that only Tuthmose III would put his name in Hatshepsut’s place.
Video 1. The story of Hatshepsut
Not only was Hatshepsut’s name erased, but some of her monuments were destroyed. She built two obelisks of red granite, the largest built to that point. This was a continuation of the works of her father, who was not able to complete all his construction plans. Her name appeared on the obelisks, but instead of toppling them, Tuthmose III ordered them sheathed in masonry. Their gilded pyramidions were probably the only original elements to be exposed. Later, one of the obelisks was destroyed after all.
In all, Hatshepsut accomplished what no woman had before her. She ruled the most powerful, advanced civilization in the world, successfully, for twenty years. Even if there were some who resented her success, her success stands for all eternity.
Video 2. Hatshepsut: Mummy Reconstruction
Battle of Qadesh
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
The Battle of Kadesh took place around in the fifth year of the reign of Ramses II between Egypt and the Hittites. The exact date is unknown, but it was around 1285 BC. It was fought on the Orontes River in Syria.
Figure 1. Battle Of Kadesh Egyptian Papyrus 116D
The Hittites, based at Carchemish, were angry over the defection of Amurru to Egypt. Muwatallish, the Hittite king, gathered his allies against Ramses army. The Hittites positioned themselves behind the hill at Kadesh, but Ramses thought they were at Aleppo and learned the truth only after capturing two Hittites. The Egyptian army was divided into four divisions: Ptah, Suteh, Amon, and Ra, but before Ramses could gather them all together, 2500 of Muwatillish’s chariots attacked the Ra and Amon divisions and plundered the Egyptian camp. However, an army from Amurru suddenly arrived to assist Ramses, and drove the Hittites back.
Figure 2. Horus and Anoubis Crowning Ramses Egyptian Papyrus
The Egyptians regrouped and almost surrounded the Hittites, but the Hittite chariots retreated back across the Orontes to join their infantry. Muwatallish called for a truce with Ramses. Despite the victory for Ramses, his troops had suffered many casualties and he was unable to capture any more territory. Kadesh and Amurru were later recaptured by the Hittites.
Video 1. Battle of Qadesh
How the Egyptian pyramids were built
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
Video 1. How the pyramids was built
Video 2. How the pyramids was built
The favorite perfume of powerful Egyptian “she king” Hatshepsut may be resurrected from residue
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
We already know how to walk like an Egyptian, and soon we’ll know how to smell like one, too.
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Figure 1. Egyptian Queen’s Perfume to Be Resurrected (Click to enlarge figure)
The favorite perfume of powerful Egyptian “she king” Hatshepsut may be resurrected from residue found in a 3,500-year-old perfume bottle (Figure 1), a German research team said in March 2009.
X-ray photographs of the 4.7-inch-tall (12-centimeter-tall) bottle, from the permanent collection of Bonn University’s Egyptian Museum, reveals remnants of the ancient oil. Scientists plan to identify the substance and, possibly within a year, re-create the perfume.
The bottle, which was found in the queen’s possessions after her death in 1457 B.C., is engraved with a hieroglyph (Figure 1) of her name.
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Figure 2. “She king” Hatshepsut (Click to enlarge figure)
The thin neck “allows a very economical dosing of the valuable content,” according to Michael Höveler-Müller, curator of Bonn University’s Egyptian Museum. A small clay stopper would have kept the oil from spilling.
“In every case our research will touch new grounds and will maybe enable us to put our noses back into a time more than 3,500 years [ago],” Höveler-Müller said.
Was Pharaoh Divine?
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
Obviously the answer is ‘No’, the question is did the ‘Egyptian in the street’ believe that he was and why was it necessary that he believed the religious teachings.
To understand the development of kingship and the belief in the divinity of the pharaoh we need to look at the development of the civilisation in the Nile Valley and compare it to the progress made elsewhere in the world.
Religion and religious ceremony was necessary to hold together the primitive civilisations and cultures that were beginning to form some 7,000 years ago or more. The great fear of the time was death and the blackness that this brought. The promise of life after death for those that believed and followed the ‘true’ teachings was a big incentive to conform.
The country may have been unified under one ruler with one set of laws and a single legal and taxation system but the people would only be unified by a single religion. The various festivals, ceremonies and communal acts of worship were what really brought the people together as a nation.
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Figure 1. Celebrating the “Beautiful Feast of the Valley” at Thebes (Click to enlarge figure)
We should not compare Ancient Egypt with current concepts of culture, law, morality or ethics. Holding a rich civilisation together with its growing population and rising economic prospects and holding off external forces that would love to conquer it was not any easy task. If we keep these factors in mind we will see why civilisations generally and Egypt in particular developed in the way they did.
- Development of the State
It is surmised that the development of the state of Egypt closely follows that of other states in the area that developed at about the same time.
Originally the nomadic tribes were hunter-gatherers while the climate was suitable for the growth of wooded grassland. As it dried out tribes tended to migrate to oases and flowing rivers. Those tribes that could adapt survived and gradually changed to a farming way of life for most of their food. These tribes gradually grew in size and would have traded excess produce with neighbours. This would have resulted in some intermarrying and merging into larger units 2.
When a tribe found itself short of food or women a raid would be organised against other local tribes and eventually one tribe grew stronger, dominated the area and assimilated its neighbours.
As the tribe grew in influence the tribal leader became what we would call a warlord who eventually took on the mantle of king1.
- Development of the Leader
With the growing influence of the tribe so the influence of the leader grew. The leader would mostly be male and aggressive because the means of choosing a leader was usually by fighting between challengers. The leader would then gather a powerful group around him, consisting of other aggressive males, to reinforce his leadership. The leader would remain in power so long as he could command the loyalty of his men, which he did by giving them special privileges such as the best food and the choice of the women2.
The most able leaders would have realised that the strong-arm tactics that kept the populace in order did not bring as much prosperity and power as a growing economy. It was also wasteful because it took men away from work in order to enforce his leadership. The fewer men that this took the more produce and goods there would be available for trade.
The more intelligent leaders would therefore have selected some of the more able and thinking types to act as his advisors
Brains gradually replaced brawn and the heavies would have been put in charge of the army and border guards while the king gathered about him a corpus of advisors who organised the different aspects of state affairs under his guidance. As the task grew larger and more complex these advisers would have gathered their own staff to help them.
- Development of Religion
In parallel with the growth of the tribe and warlord/king, primitive forms of religion were developing, initially worshiping in some form the sun, the moon, particular star formations and even dangerous animals. This was an important step in the development of the state.
All civilisations developed their own creation myth naming all the gods necessary to do the work. They still thought of the gods in terms of human endeavour so the sun god for example had to have helpers. They were responsible for the weather, crop fertility, the river and all types of different human and natural activities.
The leader or king was expected to provide protection for his people and this would have extended to food storage against bad harvests. If he couldn’t or hadn’t provided enough he would send his army to annex his neighbour and steal their food stocks. If he lost he would be killed and his area of influence taken over by the victors or one of his generals.
Somewhere in all this it became a custom to thank the god/s for their support against their neighbours, then thank them for the harvest and the rain. It was only a short step to asking the gods for a good harvest or a victory. If there were continual victories or good harvests this would have been followed by the king saying that the gods looked favourably on him and his kingdom.
The more powerful kings obviously said that they had the support of the gods so no one could depose them or they would incur the god’s displeasure. How the concept of divine-kingship developed is not known but there are two schools of thought. One is that a king, fearful for his position, spread the rumour that he had had a vision and the gods had told him that he was their representative or intermediary on earth. The second school thinks that a king may have returned home after a period of some months to find his queen pregnant. Her excuse was that a god, the king’s father, had visited her and impregnated her to continue the line of god-kings,. This idea appears in so many ancient religions that it was obviously copied in the mythology of many countries.
The Pharaoh was central to Egyptian life. He encompassed both the secular and sacred which to Egyptians were one and the same. He settled legal disputes and led the religious rituals that sustained Egypt. The Pharaoh was not only a god-king but was responsible for holding the balance of ma’at, that was the rule of order over the chaos that was waiting to envelope the world. As long as king and commoner alike honoured the gods and obeyed the laws set down by them the balance was maintained and all would be well. Should the Pharaoh fail all the world would suffer and descend into the unthinkable state of anarchy.
Even the Pharaohs ritual vestments were designed to show his power. The symbols of the gods were the kings tools of office. The crook, to reward the innocent, the flail, to punish the guilty, the dual crown, showing his authority to rule the two-lands, and the Ureaus Cobra or Eye of Ra seeing all that the Pharaoh did, good or evil.
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Figure 2. King with Crook and Flail crossing his chest (Click to enlarge figure)
The spirit of Horus, which entered into him at his coronation, was thought to reside within him to guide him along the path of ma’at. Then when he died his spirit was merged with Osiris from where he could guide his successors.
- Why Divinity was Essential
As each kingdom grew each king had to be as great as the king of his neighbouring state otherwise his followers would defect to the superior king and oust the mortal. No one would want to be governed by an inferior king. So gradually this idea of divine kingship was developed. This was aided by the priests who found it to be in their own interest to support the king, who supported them in return, rather than risk getting the blame and being slaughtered for not propitiating the gods when things went wrong.
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Figure 3. An image of the goddess, Hathor (Click to enlarge figure)
The divine king then could not be deposed unless he lost the favour of the gods in which case he was no longer divine and could be replaced. As the head of the state and of divine origin he was also head of the religion and led the most important religious rites and services. This only served to reinforce his position.
The concepts of divine kingship and immaculate conception were of such importance in Egyptian belief that many of the kings had mammisi built showing their conception by Osiris and the shaping of the new-born by the god Khnum with the goddess Hathor present at his birth. A beautiful example of this can be seen in the forecourt of the Temple of Isis at Philae. Here we can see the story told in the Ptolomey I mammisi.
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Figure 4. The Temple of Philae (Click to enlarge figure)
In many civilisations the divinity of the leader or strong juju-medicine was passed on to his supporters and soldiers who believed that no harm could come to them if they were true believers. (This was the case with the followers of The (Mad) Mahdi who sacked Khartoum and the Simbas in the Congo in the 1970s). As a result the army would follow the king into battle without fear. This idea may have been part of the reason why Ramesses II described the battle of Qadesh in the way that he did. His soldiers had supposedly deserted him so the invincible Pharaoh took on the opposing army single-handed and drove them off, thus saving the day for Egypt (more or less, according to the Egyptian story).
- Conclusion
The concept of divine kingship was central to the continuance of rule and civil order in Egypt. The Pharaoh was seen as the emissary of the gods and life was good as long as the religious rites were performed and ma’at was maintained. The king’s notional strength came from the support of the gods and as long as this was maintained no ill could befall the country. Once this was lost, however, the kingdom was thrown into turmoil until a new strong king, who had the support of the gods, took the throne.
The importance of this was recognised by all the pharaohs up to Roman times and each new king perpetuated the myth of divine conception as a means of legitimising his (and sometimes her) claim to the throne.
References
- Bronowski, Prof. J; The Ascent of Man
- Kemp, Barry J; Ancient Egypt
The Kings (Pharaohs) of Ancient Egypt
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
The title of “Pharaoh” actually comes to us from the Greek language and its use in the Old Testament. It originates in the Egyptian Per-aa, meaning “Great House”, a designation of the palace, which first came to be used as a label for the king around 1450 BC, though it only became common usage some centuries later. For most of the time, the usual word for the king of ancient Egypt was nesu, but a whole range of titles were applicable to any full statement of a king’s names and titulary.
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Figure 1. Ramesses the second (Click to enlarge figure)
According to Egyptian legend, the first kings of Egypt were later some of Egypt’s most famous gods. We really do not know whether some of these individuals actually existed in human form or what regions of Egypt they may have ruled over. Only at the end of the Predynastic period, prior to the unification of Egypt, can we recognize specific kings who most likely ruled over either northern or southern Egypt. According to many sources, the first real king of Egypt, therefore ruling over the unified land, was Menes, who would have ruled Egypt around 3100 BC, but we have little if any archaeological basis for this name. Most scholars today believe that he may have been a king named Narmer, or more likely still, Aha, two figures that are better attested in the archaeological record. However, Menes might have also been a legendary composition of several rulers. After these first rulers of a unified Egypt, the Egyptian monarchy lasted in a recognizable form for over three thousand years, basically ending with Cleopatra, though even Roman emperors attempted to style themselves as Egyptian pharaohs. We know of 170 or more specific pharaohs during this period of time. Although many changes occurred during that time, almost all of the fundamentals remained the same.
Kings were not only males, and unlike in modern monarchies, the ruler of ancient Egypt, whether male or female, was always called a king. In fact, Egypt had some very noteworthy female rulers such as Hatshepsut and others.
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Figure 2. Tuthmosis III (Click to enlarge figure)
In ancient (Pharaonic) Egypt, the pinnacle of Egyptian society, and indeed of religion, was the king. Below him were the layers of the educated bureaucracy which consisted of nobles, priests and civil servants, and under them were the great mass of common people, usually living very poor, agricultural based lives. Except during the earliest of themes, when the highest official was apparently a Chancellor, for most of Egyptian history, the man or men just under the king were Viziers, (tjaty), a position that was roughly similar to a modern Prime Minister.
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Figure 3. Muntohotob II (Click to enlarge figure)
In many if not most accounts, the king is viewed as an incarnation of Horus, a falcon god, and the posthumous son of Osiris, who himself was a divine king slain by his brother, Seth. Horus fought his uncle for the return of the throne, and part of the accession process of the king was the proper burial of his predecessor, as Horus carrying out the last rites of Osiris. In fact, there are a number of cases where such an act may have been the legal basis for a non-royal figure’s ascent of the throne. However, more usual was the succession of the eldest son, whose status as heir was frequently, if not always, proclaimed during his father’s lifetime. Furthermore, there were a number of instances where this was taken a step further by the heir’s coronation as a co-regent prior to the father’s death. This has actually led to much confusion among scholars, because in some cases, the young heir began to count his regnal years only after the death of his father, while in other instances, he started to do so from the moment of his coronation. The ancient Egyptians did not use era dating as we do today (BC or AD), but rather relied on regnal dating of the king’s rule, and therefore potential difficulties for modern, if not ancient, historians can easily be imagined.
The king himself (or herself) was the figure upon whom the whole administrative structure of the state rested. These god-kings usually commanded tremendous resources. The Pharaoh was the head of the civil administration, the supreme warlord and the chief priest of every god in the kingdom. All offerings were made in his name and the entire priesthood acted in his stead. In fact, he was himself a divine being, considered the physical offspring of a god. The myth of the ruler’s divine birth centered on the god assuming the form of (or becoming incarnate in) the king’s father, who then impregnated his wife, who accordingly bore the divine ruler.
Of course, the king was also subject to some rather grave responsibilities. Through his dealings with the gods, he was tasked with keeping the order, or ma’at of the land, and therefore keeping out chaos, often in the form of the enemies of Egypt from foreign lands. But he was also responsible for making sufficient offerings and otherwise satisfying the gods so that they would bless Egypt with a bountiful Nile flood, and therefore a good enough harvest to feed his people. When he failed at these tasks, he could bear not only blame, but a weakening of the state and thus his power. In drastic cases, such as at the end of the Old Kingdom, this could actually lead to a complete collapse of the Egyptian state.
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Figure 4. Seti I (Click to enlarge figure)
Even today, many questions remain about the kings of ancient Egypt. We have a fairly good idea of their order through time, though often scholars disagree about specific dates related to our current form of the calendar. Our evidence of their order comes mostly from various “kings’ lists, that almost exclusively were made during the New Kingdom. Another source is the Egyptian history written by Manetho, an Egyptian priest, but over the years, there have been modifications to both the kings’ lists and Manetho’s history made through archaeological discovery. Nevertheless, there are periods of Egyptian history, particularly those known as intermediate periods, where very little information exits on who ruled (usually only a part of) Egypt.
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Figure 5. Akhenaten (Click to enlarge figure)
Basically, Manetho divided up ancient Egyptian history into thirty dynasties, though this division is a bit difficult, and modern scholarship has proven it to be not completely (and sometimes not at all) accurate. Most of the time, a dynasty consisted of a related family of rulers, though sometimes dynasties seem to have been broken up due to the establishment of a new capital. In a number of instances, modern Egyptologists believe that he may have been incorrect about the end of a family line.
Even today, the power that an ancient Egyptian pharaoh commanded in ancient Egypt and the resources under his control can seem staggering. One need only think in terms of the Great Pyramids, the wealth of gold and the grand temples to gain some understanding of their power. They commanded resources that many modern day states would be hard pressed to emulate, and they did so at a time when much of the remainder of the ancient world were struggling for a foothold in history.
References
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Chronicle of the Pharaohs (The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt) Clayton, Peter A. 1994 Thames and Hudson Ltd ISBN 0-500-05074-0
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History of Ancient Egypt, A Grimal, Nicolas 1988 Blackwell None Stated
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Monarchs of the Nile Dodson, Aidan 1995 Rubicon Press ISBN 0-948695-20-x
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Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The Shaw, Ian 2000 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-815034-2
The Great Pyramids of Egypt
The author: Professor Yasser Metwally
There are no more famous ancient sites within Egypt, or for that matter elsewhere in the world, than the Great Pyramids at Giza. They are, without question, the icon most associated with the Egypt. They have been both the main destination for tourists, and a source of imaginative thought to the world for over three thousand years.
Video 1. The great Egyptian pyramids
However, there are actually over 100 pyramids in Egypt, many of which are relatively unknown to anyone who is not an ancient Egypt enthusiast. All but a very few are grouped around and near the City of Cairo, just south of the Nile Delta. Otherwise, only one royal pyramid is known in southern Egypt (at Abydos), that being the one built by Ahmose, founder of the 18th Dynasty and Egypt’s New Kingdom. It may have also been the last royal pyramid built in Egypt.
Hence, major pyramids were not built throughout Egypt’s ancient history. The Pyramid Age began with a burst of building, starting with the 3rd Dynasty reign of Djoser. Some of the early kings, most specifically Snefru, built more than one pyramid. Almost all of the kings added to their number through the end of the Middle Kingdom, with the possible exception of the First Intermediate Period between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. After the first Pharaoh of Egypt’s New Kingdom, Ahmose, royal pyramid building by Egyptians ceased entirely. Somewhat abruptly the kings of the New Kingdom chose, rather than making their tombs completely obvious, to hide them in the hills of the West Bank of Thebes (modern Luxor).
Video 2. The great Egyptian pyramids
However, smaller pyramids were constructed, for example in the Deir el-Medina necropolis, by private individuals. The Late Period Nubians who ruled Egypt also built relatively small pyramids with much steeper sides, though these were in fact constructed in Nubia itself. This tradition was carried on in Nubia after these southern rulers lost control of Egypt, and eventually, more pyramids were actually built in Nubia than Egypt, though on a much smaller scale.
Other pyramids in the world certainly exist, but their purpose, for the most part, was different than those of ancient Egypt. The most famous outside Egypt are probably those located in Mexico and to the south of Mexico, but these appear to have been built more as temples. In Egypt, all but a select few of the pyramids were built as tombs, sometimes to hold the physical body of a pharaoh (as well as other individuals), or to hold the soul of the deceased (as in the case of the small cult pyramids built next to the larger ones). Otherwise, the purpose of only a few small, regional stepped pyramids remains elusive.
While pyramids were, for the most part, tombs for the Pharaohs of Egypt, one must nevertheless question the reason that Egyptian rulers chose this particular shape, and for that matter, why they built them so large. Today, we believe that they chose the shape in order to mimic the Benben, a pyramid shaped stone found in the earliest of temples, which itself is thought to symbolize the primeval mound from which the Egyptians believed life emerged. This also connected the pyramid to Re, the Sun God, as it was he, according to some of the ancient Egypt mythology, who rose from the primeval mound to create life.
As far the great size of many of the pyramids in Egypt, we can really only surmise that the Pharaohs were making a statement about their own power and perhaps, about the glory and strength of their country. However, it should also be remembered that many of the latter pyramids were not nearly as large as the Great Pyramids at Giza (and elsewhere).
Pyramids evolved. The first of them was not a perfectly formed pyramid. In fact, the first Pyramid we believe that was built in Egypt, that of Djoser, was not a true pyramid at all with smooth sides and a point at the top. Rather, its sides were stepped, and the top of the pyramid truncated with a flat surface (as best we know). As the Egyptian pyramids evolved, there were failures as well glorious failures until finally, they got it right with what was probably the first smooth sided true pyramid built at Meidum. In fact, pyramids continued to evolve throughout their history, perhaps not always in outward appearances, but in the way that they were built and in the theology surrounding their construction. For example, towards the latter part of Egypt’s Pyramid Age, Osirian beliefs seem to have had more and more impact on the arrangement and layout of the subterranean chambers.
However, soon after the first pyramids were built, their form became somewhat standardized. Royal pyramid complexes included the main pyramid, a courtyard surrounding the main pyramid, a much smaller cult pyramid for the king’s soul, a mortuary temple situated next to the main pyramid, an enclosure wall and a causeway that led down to a valley temple. Some pyramid complexes included subsidiary, smaller pyramids for family members, and most were surrounded by some sort of tombs for family members.
Our thinking on pyramids has evolved considerably over the years. Many of us who are a bit older were taught that the pyramids were built using Jewish slave labor, which is a fabrication of immense proportions. Most of the pyramids were built long before the Jews made their appearance historically and currently, many if not most scholars believe they were not built using slave labor at all (or perhaps a nominal number of slaves).
Otherwise, we can also dismiss offhand alternative theories related to aliens or some lost culture being responsible for pyramid building. There is just far too much evidence, including tools, drawings, evolutionary changes, and even worker villages that rule these farfetched ideas obsolete.
However, some mysteries remain, even in some of the best well known Pyramids. The most famous of them all, the Great Pyramid of Khufu, continues, year after year, to give up a few more secrets, and there doubtless remains much to learn from these Egyptian treasures. There may even be one or more pyramids yet to be discovered.
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