.............following

Egypt          29

How the Egyptians Saw the World

Usually,  but not always,  one can learn a great deal about a civilization’s level of sophistication by observing its  visual arts. For  most of human history,  until the development of the camera in the  mid-

1800s, drawing and other forms of visual art, such as painting and  sculpture, were the  primar y  means  for  recording  the appearances of  people and things. As societies  developed, likewise their artists’ ability to”see” the world developed, much as a child goes  from drawing scribbles to stick     figures      to      more     detailed representations of human figures.

It is surprising,  then,  that the Old Kingdom   society   that  produced  the pyramids could also  have produced the visual arts it did.  The pyramids were built to a degree of  exactness that still baffles scientists. Their design  indicates that the people who created them  had a great understanding of spatial  relationships. The phrase spatial relationships refers to the

space   between   and   within   objects, concepts that are also closely related to the idea of proportion. Proportion describes the size of one thing in relation to  something else:  if someone drew a picture of  a man whose head was twice as big as his  body, one would say the picture was “out  of proportion.”

Egyptian visual  art  of  the  Old Kingdom, however,  shows little sense  of spatial   relationships,   proportion, or perspective, which helps artists to represent faraway objects as  being smaller than objects close by. The  Egyptians did not know how to do this, so if they wanted to show that something  was  farther away, they simply put it on top of the thing that was closer.  In a crowd  scene, for instance, they  would show the first row of men standing  side by side, then the next row above them, and so on.

Along with this lack of perspective, there was a lack of depth in early Egyptian

second  phase of unrest confronted something it had  not had to face before: invasion.

The conquerors were called  Hyksos (HICK-sose),  and they entered Egypt in about 1670 B.C. They seem to have come from the region of Palestine, later occupied by the Hebrews; in fact, it is possible that the Hyksos and  the Hebrews were one and the same. Egyptian texts from the time refer to one of the Hyksos chieftains  as Ya’kob, which  may  be  a reference to the biblical name Jacob.

30              Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

artwork. Everything seemed to  be flat, as though the people in the  pictures were crammed up against a sheet of glass. Their bodies were turned away  from the viewer in strange, unnatural ways, with their arms and legs  stretched  sideways, while their eyes (which always looked more or less the same) faced  outward. (The title of a  hit song  from  the  1980s, “Walk  Like  an Egyptian” by the Bangles, played on the weird stance of figures in Egyptian artwork.)

Egyptian artists also showed the pharaoh much larger than other men, as though he were twelve feet tall. This  was not a problem with proportion:  the  artists simply wanted to point out that he  was more important than others. By the time of the New  Kingdom, however,  much had changed in both society and art. Thanks to the influence of other cultures, Egyptian art had become  considerably more realistic. Also, the pharaoh’s status had become

more human; for example,  artists during the reign of Akhenaton depicted their king with a fat stomach and skinny legs.

Still, sculpture continued to  be more advanced than drawing or  painting. Sculptors  work  in  three  dimensions— length,   width, and   depth—whereas painting or drawing involves only length and  width. Though  two-dimensional art improved  greatly, the Egyptians still had a hard time  figuring out how to translate three-dimensional figures to a flat  surface. By contrast, the bust (a sculpture of ahead) of   Akhenaton’s  wife  Queen   Nefertiti represents some of the most advanced and realistic artwork of the ancient world.

With the end of Akhenaton’s reign in 1336 B.C. came a widespread reaction to the  reforms he had brought.  Part of the reaction was manifested in a  return to more   traditional   styles   of   artwork, including a less realistic  representation of the human figure.

Whatever the case, the Egyptians hated the  Hyksos, but they were unable to resist them due to their enemies’ supe- rior military technology. Whereas the Egyptians went to war in donkey-carts, the Hyksos rode into battle  in horse-drawn char- iots, which made them a much more powerful fighting force. Rather than  repel the Hyksos, Lower Egypt came under their domination; these were the Fifteenth and Sixteenth dynasties, composed  of Hyksos kings. Other Egyptians gathered around their own pharaoh  at Thebes  in Upper Egypt.

Egypt          31

The  Theban  pharaohs  of the Seventeenth Dynasty  found them- selves caught between the Hyksos  in the north and the kingdom of Kush  in the south. At     one point  the  Hyksos tried   to   become    allied   with    the Kushites  against   the  Egyptians,  but they failed to  do  so. The  Egyptians, meanwhile, had   learned from  their enemies and   began  to  make  use of chariot  warfare. Led by  Ahmose  (AH- moze) I, they  expelled the Hyksos  in about 1550 B.C., a victory that opened the  way  for another great period  in Egyptian history.

Sarcophagus lid depicting Ahmose I. Corbis/Gianni Degli Orti. Reproduced by permission.

The New Kingdom

(1539–1070 B.C.)

Not since the Fourth Dynasty a thousand years before  was  there  an Egyptian dynasty as memorable as the Eighteenth. And   whereas the  Fourth

Dynasty is remembered chiefly for its great building  projects, most  notably  the Great  Pyramids  of Giza, the  Eighteenth Dynasty  is most famous for its colorful  leaders: Hatshepsut (hah-CHEP-sut),  the woman   who  ruled as  king; Thutmose (TUT-moze)  III, the great  conqueror; and  Akhenaton  (ock- NAH-ton), who tried and failed to change the entire Egyptian religion. As  with the Fourth Kingdom, there were great build- ing projects, most  notably  in the Valley  of the Kings.  There  were also developments in the visual  arts that indicated a rev- olution in Egyptian thought.

Ahmose,  after he drove out the Hyksos, led a number of other military  expeditions and  colonized Kush—that  is, he made it a part  of Egypt. His son Amenhotep I (ah-min-HOE- tep) continued  with this colonial expansion. Amenhotep also became the first king to have himself buried in a hidden tomb. Like many  a  pharaoh  before him, his memorial  included a temple with a small  pyramid called  a pyramidon; Amenhotep, however, was buried somewhere else in hopes of protecting his

32           Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

tomb from grave robbers. Thutmose I, his  successor,  selected  a  burial  site near Thebes   in  what   came  to   be known as  the Valley  of Kings.  Over the succeeding  centuries, some sixty- two pharaohs, mostly from the Eigh- teenth and   Nineteenth  dynasties, would be buried there.

Thutmose’s son, Thutmose II, married a  princess  named  Hatshep- sut. When  Thutmose  II  died, Thut- mose III, his son by another wife, was supposed to take the throne. But  Hat- shepsut  claimed   that  she had  been personally  selected by  the  supreme god    Amon       to   take  the   Egyptian throne. She  managed  to bring legiti- macy on herself by  claiming  a  con- nection with the gods.

But    Hatshepsut  had  to  fight more of an uphill battle  than  others who  tried to  take power  in  Egypt, because  she was a woman. Therefore she  was  often portrayed as  a  man,

complete with a ceremonial beard, and  sculpture showed her leading troops into battle  although no evidence exists that this actually happened. She  did, however,  initiate foreign  trade with the nation  of Punt, in the area  of modern-day Somalia, and had a number of structures built in her honor. Among the latter was an obelisk (OBB-uh-lisk; a tall, pointed column) in the city of Karnak (CAR-nack) near Thebes, which became  the site of many Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasty monuments.

Hatshepsut ruled from about 1473 to 1458 B.C., and after she died, Thutmose  III paid  her back for keeping  him out of power for so long: he removed her pictures and nameplates from any of her monuments. Then he went off to war. Thutmose has been called  “the Napoleon of Egypt,” a reference to the French emperor Napoleon  Bonaparte (1769–1821), who  conquered most of Europe during his reign. Under the leadership of Thut- mose, Egypt fought a major  battle  against  rebel forces in Pales- tine. It extended its reach throughout most of the Sinai Penin-

Hatshepsut claimed the throne after her husband’s death, claiming that she had been personally selected for the role by the god Amon. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.

Egypt          33

sula and the region of what would become  Israel. To the south, its borders went farther up the Nile than ever, taking in most of the Nubians’ kingdom. Ancient Egypt under Thutmose was as large as it would ever be. Thutmose would be remembered as the first of many  great conquerors in world history. Others would include Cyrus the Great and Alexander the Great.

But  Thutmose did not only use war as a means of influ- encing foreign countries: he also made use of diplomacy—that is, skillful negotiations with leaders of other nations. His successors likewise conducted diplomatic activities, an important develop- ment because  Egypt was  fast becoming one of several powers (including the Assyrians and the Hittites) competing for control of the region. A valuable record of ancient Egyptian diplomacy exists in the form of the Amarna Letters, some 400 exchanges between the court  of Amenhotep III (reigned 1382–1344 B.C.) and leaders of Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. Egyptian kings also used marriage as a form of diplomacy: they had many wives, but could always  afford to take on more. An  easy way to develop ties with  another country  was  to  marry  one of its princesses. Several pharaohs did this, thus establishing links, for instance, with the Mitanni people of southwest Asia.

Akhenaton  turns the world upside down

After Amenhotep III came a pharaoh  who very nearly turned the ancient  Egyptians’  world upside down. This  was Amenhotep IV  (reigned  1352–1336 B.C.),  who  adopted  the  name Akhenaton, which  means “Servant of Aton.” Aton   was the name of the deity whom he declared was the only god. Up to then, of course, the Egyptian religion had included numer- ous deities. Akhenaton proposed to sweep away  all those old  gods. Just as there was  only one god,  so there was  only one prophet of Aton, and that was Akhenaton.

To break  all ties with the past, Akhenaton established a new capital. He ordered that the new capital be built at a loca- tion along  the Nile almost  exactly  midway between the old capital at  Thebes   and   the even older capital at  Memphis. Akhenaton  called  his new capital city Akhetaton   (ock-TAH- ton), or “The Horizon of Aton.” He and his wife Nefertiti (neff- ur-TEE-tee)  moved the royal  court   there in  the  1340s B.C.  Akhenaton  took with him very few of the  people who had

34           Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

attended him in Thebes. Instead, he established  an  entirely new court  and  avoided contact  with the priests of  the old  Egyptian religion. To ensure that  no one  worshiped the old  deities, he ordered that  their  statutes  and  other images be removed from temples.

The old  religion was polytheistic, meaning that it had many  gods; what  Akhenaton proposed  was  monotheism, the worship of one god. Egyptian paganism represented its gods as  having   bodies  (though usually   not  faces)  like those of humans; Aton, by contrast, was symbolized only by a golden, sun-like circle.

From the perspective of history, Akhenaton was a man ahead of his time. Most  of the ancient  cultures (except  the Hebrews) had  polytheistic religions, but most of these pagan belief systems would fade away.  Judaism,  which  was  influ- enced by the monotheistic ideas of the Zoroastrian faith in Per- sia, would survive and influence Christianity and Islam, two of the world’s biggest religions in terms of their followers. By con- trast, the only  remaining polytheistic religion of any  impor- tance is  Hinduism, the religion of India. As   for Akhenaton’s idea  of Aton   as having  no physical form, this too was  a for- ward-looking concept. One of the Ten Commandments later adopted by the Hebrews  forbids any attempt to represent Jeho- vah with any “graven image.” Islam would later establish even stricter rules against  trying to depict Allah.

Ancient  Egypt, however, was  not ready for the radical changes  proposed by Akhenaton, and  much  of the blame  for this can be placed on the pharaoh  himself. Instead of trying to bring about gradual change, he was impatient and acted hastily. He won few friends by upsetting the old traditions as he did.

After Akhenaton died, the Egyptians departed Akheta- ton as quickly as they had moved there. In their hurry they left behind the Amarna  Letters, which  would give historians  an extremely valuable  record   of the time.  The  next  pharaoh  claimed his own reign had begun after Amenhotep III, in effect removing Akhenaton from history.

After that  pharaoh  came  a king who was  only nine years old when he took the throne—yet he already had a wife, who was Akhenaton’s daughter. He had adopted a name given to him by his father-in-law,  but once he assumed  power,  he

Egypt          35

Whatever Happened to the Treasures of Egypt?

One  of  the  saddest  aspects  of Egypt’s legacy is that because of  greed, ignorance, or  simple  neglect, the world has lost a  great deal of the archaeological riches from that great civilization.

Architects  of the earliest pyramids were aware that robbers would try to steal the  gold and other treasures stored with the pharaoh’s tombs. For  that reason, they built in elaborate  devices, including blind passageways, trap  doors,  and air shafts filled with  sand, to stop robbers from breaking in.

In spite  of  these  efforts,  ever y known pyramid had been looted by  1000

B.C. In many cases the theft was an “inside

job”    by    the    ver y    priests    whose responsibility it was to protect the  tombs. These corrupt priests  moved a number of the   treasures   to    another   location, supposedly for  safekeeping but in fact to loot the  gold. Perhaps  if the gold items had  been preserved intact, they might

have later resurfaced, but in order to avoid detection, the robbers  usually melted down the treasures they  stole. Therefore the world will  probably never know what gorgeous   objects   were   buried   with pharaohs such as Cheops and Khafre.

Ancient Egyptian law set extremely harsh penalties for  grave-robbing. There were  tales  of  a  curse  over  those  who disturbed   the   eternal   sleep   of   the pharaohs. Thus  when  Howard  Carter discovered the tomb of  Tutankhamen, it was  said  that  he  brought  a  curse  on himself. Several strange things did happen,

including  the  sudden  death  of  Lord Carnar von,  who    financed    Carter’s expedition. But Carter  himself lived to be

65 years old, so it would be hard to prove that he had suffered a “curse.”

Curse  or not, great damage has been done by people who did not know how  to value the historical treasures of Egypt. In  the   A . D . 600s,   the   Arab

officially ended the religion of Aton  and  went back to the old faith and his old name. That name would become  more famil- iar to the modern world than it ever was to the ancients: Dead at the age  of eighteen, Tutankhamen was destined to become  one of the most famous pharaohs of all time.

Ramses and the end of the New Kingdom

After Tutankhamen died in 1323 B.C., there was a strug- gle for  power as  the aged vizier Aya  and  a  general named

36                     Ancient Civilizations: Almanac

Funerary mask of Tutankhamen. The gold mask was inlaid with enamels and semi-precious stones. The Library of Congress.

conquerors ordered the Great   Pyramids stripped of their elegant limestone facing so  that they could build new structures in and  around  Cairo. The  only  part  left untouched   was   the   top   of   Khafre’s pyramid.

Even  in  ancient  times,   many treasures of Egypt had fallen into disrepair. By the  1400s  B . C ., for   instance, the Egyptians had  allowed the sands of the desert to cover the  Sphinx up to its neck. Once  a  young  prince fell asleep in the shadow of  the great statue, and had a dream in  which the Sphinx itself told him he would  become pharaoh if he had the sand  removed. So he ordered the  Sphinx uncovered and placed between its  paws  a stone tablet telling the story of what  had happened. By then the Sphinx’s prediction had come true, and  the young prince reigned as Thutmose IV.

In the A.D.1400s Muslim   soldiers broke off the nose of the Sphinx. They did this because Islam prohibits making statues or images of a god.  More   recently, the Sphinx  and  the  Great  Pyramids  have suffered the damages of pollution, which is gradually eroding their surfaces.

Horemhab  (hoe-REEM-hob) competed for  the hand   of  his widow. She  in turn tried to initiate a marriage with the son of a Hittite king, but the Hittite prince was  apparently  assassi- nated by Aya. Aya married her, then sent Horemhab to make war  on the Hittites. Soon  the old  man  died,  however,  and Horemhab took the throne.

As  leadership of Egypt passed from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth dynasties, Horemhab  was  followed by a  minor pharaoh  named Ramses (RAM-sees) I, whose son was Seti (SET-

Egypt          37

ee) I. Seti  conducted important military  campaigns in Pales- tine and  Syria and  began building  a giant  temple at Karnak, which  his own son, Ramses II, would complete.  Seti’s tomb, carved some 300 feet into the cliffs, was the largest in the Val- ley of the Kings.

Ramses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 B.C., would become  known as Ramses the Great. He fought a number of campaigns against  the Syrians and Hittites, including a battle  at  Kadesh (KAY-desh)  in 1285  B.C.,  but he later made peace  with the Hittites. His building  projects include  the massive temples at Abu Simbel, work on the Karnak temple, and many others. Ramses lived for ninety-six years and reigned for nearly sixty-seven,  allegedly fathering  ninety-six  sons  and   sixty daughters with his more than two hundred wives and  concu- bines. (A concubine, pronounced “CONG-cue-bine,” was like a wife, but had lower social and legal status than a wife.)

The last  of the truly great pharaohs,  Ramses died in

1213 B.C.  His son, Merneptah  (mare-NEP-tah),  had to  face invasion by a mysterious group known as “the  Sea  Peoples,” which  may  have included the  Philistines  mentioned in the Bible.  That is not Merneptah’s only connection with the Old Testament: he may have been the pharaoh from whom Moses secured the freedom of the Israelites, although some scholars suggest that it was Ramses. A  succession of lesser pharaohs fol- lowed, a list that includes  Tworse (TORE-say), one of the only ruling queens other than Hatshepsut.

In 1186 B.C., Setakht (set-OCT) established the Twenti- eth Dynasty,  and  was  followed by  Ramses III,  who  fought numerous campaigns against  the Libyans and the Sea Peoples. Just as Ramses II had been the last of the great pharaohs, Ram- ses III was the last of the semi-great, and the end of his reign in about 1163 marked the beginning of the end of the New King- dom.

Other forces were on the rise in Egyptian society. The army and  the priests, the very elements which had previously upheld the  pharaoh’s  power,   now   threatened  it. Earlier pharaohs had created a standing army, but now that army was like an attack dog  whose master could no longer control it. As for the priests and  scribes,  they had  become   corrupted   by wealth and power. Some of them were so greedy they even par- ticipated  in robbing the  tombs. The pharaohs, once supreme

38           Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

rulers, found that they had become insignificant. When a priest named Herihor in effect declared himself king, the last pharaoh  of the New Kingdom, Ramses XI, could do nothing to stop him.

Later periods in Egypt (1070 B.C.–A.D. 640)

There  would be eleven more dynasties in Egypt, but its most  important years  were   long  past. The   Twenty-First through  the Twenty-Fourth  dynasties  made  up  what   was called  the Third Intermediate  Period  (1070–712 B.C.)  During this time, the  pharaohs took up residence in Tanis, far to the north, while the priests maintained control  in Thebes. Even- tually  the latter  became  a separate nation, a theocracy (thee- OCK-ruh-see; a  government controlled   by religious  leaders) called   the Divine   State   of Amon. In the  Twenty-Second Dynasty, Libyans began to take control.

In 712 B.C. the Kushites, who once had  been ruled by the Egyptians,  invaded and  became   the new rulers  of  the nation. This initiated what was called the Late Period (712–332

B.C.) In 672, the Assyrians drove out the Kushites and put in an Egyptian king named Necho (NEE-koh; r. 672–664 B.C.), who they thought would do  their bidding. Instead, he ushered in the last phase of Egyptian independence for many centuries to come. It was  during this final  flowering of Egyptian culture that demotic  script developed.

By    the  beginning of  the Twenty-Seventh  Dynasty, Egypt had come under the influence of the Persians. Just as the era  of Necho was  a mere  shadow of Egypt’s  glory  days, the dynasties from the Twenty-Eighth  to the  Thirtieth  (404–343

B.C.), when Egyptians ruled one last time, were a mere shadow of Necho’s time. In the  Thirty-First and  last dynasty, Persians once more took control.

Then  in 332 B.C., troops under Alexander the  Great conquered  Egypt. They  would set  up  the  dynasty of  the Ptolemies, of  which   Cleopatra   would  become   the   most famous. The Romans took Egypt out of her hands in 30 B.C.. It would remain part  of the Roman  Empire,  and  later of  the Byzantine  Empire that  evolved from  Rome, for nearly 700 years. Egypt came under the influence of the Coptic branch of Christianity,  which  still exists  in  parts  of the country  today.

Egypt          39

The  land  would remain in Byzantine  hands until A.D.  640, when it was conquered by Muslim troops from Arabia.

The legacy of Egypt

The Nile Delta adjoins the only part of modern Egypt where there is a significant population that does not live on the  Nile: the Mediterranean coast.  This area  came to be populated only after Egypt fell to the Greeks. Its most  notable city  is Alexandria, named after Alexander the Great.  In Alexandria, the  Greeks   developed one of the biggest  and  most notable libraries of the ancient  world. By   that  time, Egypt had  long been considered a center  of learning. The Greeks  and later the Romans greatly admired  the achievements of the Egyptians, particularly in the areas of art and  architecture. The influence of Egypt on their cultures—and through Greece and Rome, on the rest of the world—was wide-ranging. Among  the debts civ- ilization  owes to the Egyptians are  their invention of one of the world’s first systems of writing, hieroglyphics. Along  with their well-known triumphs in  engineering and  architecture, the Egyptians  made  developments in agriculture, in metal- lurgy  (pronounced  MEH-tuhl-ur-gee; the science of  metals), and in glass-blowing. In fact, they were the first civilization to make and use glass.

The Egyptians gave the world the concept of govern- ment administration: bureaucracy,  with  its  good  and   bad points, as well as the ideas of a census (a count of all the citi- zens) and a postal system; on the bad side, bureaucracy. Theirs was  the first national  government  of any  significance. They became  the first  to put in place  a  civil-service system, or a means of  testing the qualifications of government workers. Later the  Persian postal  system  would become  much  more notable, as  would the  Chinese civil-service system, but  the seeds of these ideas were sowed in Egypt long before.

Before  the time of the Hebrews, the Egyptians  devel- oped a monotheistic  religion. Long   before the  Greeks, they had  great poetic  tales of national   heroes.  Long   before the philosophical movements of latter-day  Rome, the Egyptians had  experienced disillusionment  and loss of faith in the old  ways  of doing things.  When  modern people  look  at  their ancient society, existing as it did  on a narrow  river valley in a

40            Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

desert thousands of years before Christ, it is hard  for them not to be  awed by the Egyptians.

Some people have claimed that the Egyptians did   not  develop  their civilization on their own, but that they had  help from alien visitors who built the  pyramids for  them. This  sort  of thinking goes against  serious historical study. Like claims that the Greeks  sim- ply stole their whole civilization from Egypt, such  thinking insults the achievements of a  great ancient  cul- ture. Yet when one looks at the majesty of the pyramids, one can  understand why  people  would   find   it  hard   to believe the  Egyptians built  them on their own.

As     the old   saying   goes,  “the pyramids laugh   at  time.”  For  thou- sands  of years they  have stood, the most  notable  but  far from  the only symbol of Egypt’s great achievements. From  across the sands and  across the

years, they seem to call out to those who are  curious and brave enough to explore their mysteries. It is a call that  has  been answered time and again.

The continuing discovery of Egypt

Many secrets of Thebes  disappeared forever when that city  was  destroyed in an earthquake in 27  B.C.  Knowledge  of Egypt as a whole began to fade away with the end of the Roman Empire, which  brought on a period of decreased learning and scholarship. For  many centuries, Europeans tended to think of Egypt merely as a former colony of Greece and Rome. As  for the question of who built the pyramids, they had no idea, because  they were completely ignorant  of Cheops and Khafre.

During  that period, Egypt was ruled first by the Arabs, who converted the country to Islam, and  later by a group of Egyptian warlords.  From the 1500s,  the  Ottoman (OTT-uh-

Jean-Francois Champollion deciphered and translated the Rosetta Stone.

Library of Congress.

Egypt          41

The Rosetta Stone. The stone was carved by priests as a thank you note to Ptolemy V.  Corbis-Bettmann. Reproduced by permission.

mun) Empire of  the Turks  held the country,  but  by  the late  1700s  their power had   begun  to  decline. Great Britain had  begun to show an interest in Egypt, so in 1798 a French  invasion force arrived with the aim of defeating British    ambitions.  The  leader of this force  was  an  officer named Napoleon Bonaparte,    who    would  one   day become  his nation’s  greatest leader. In Africa he  proved his ability as a mili- tary  commander—and  changed   the world’s understanding of Egypt.

Napoleon  brought  with  him men to survey and  map  the area,  and among    them  were  many   with   an intense interest in learning more about Egypt’s history. By   that time, the west- ern world was in the midst of a period of accelerated learning called  the Enlight- enment.  People were curious  as  never before to  learn about the past. Out  of the French  studies of the country came

Description  of Egypt  (1813), the first significant modern  book about ancient Egyptian civilization.

One  of  the most   important developments   that emerged from the French   expedition was  the  discovery  of what came to be known as the Rosetta (pronounced roe-ZEH- tah) Stone. A  large rock discovered near the town of Rosetta on the Nile, it was  covered with writing in what  appeared to be three languages, but the only recognizable script was ancient Greek. A    French  archaeologist  named Champollion  (shom- POE-lee-ahn) set himself to figuring out what the strange writ- ing  said.  Since the Greek  portion made several mentions  of Ptolemy,  the Greek  ruler of Egypt, Champollion  looked for recurring symbols among  the other two ”languages.”

As  it would turn out, these were not two languages, but one  language in  two  different  forms: hieroglyphics  and  demotic. Eventually  Champollion deciphered, or translated, the entire Rosetta Stone, which turned out to be a long thank- you note from a group of priests to Ptolemy V (r. 203–180 B.C.)

42            Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

—who, like all the Ptolomies, spoke Greek rather than Egypt- ian. Through  his tireless efforts,  Champollion unlocked  the secret  of hieroglyphics and founded the branch of archaeology called Egyptology, the study of ancient Egypt.

After Champollion, by far the most important Egyptol- ogist was  Howard Carter, a British   archaeologist  who in 1922 discovered the tomb of the boy-king  Tutankhamen.  By   that time,  Egyptology had  progressed to  the point  that  people believed there were no more undiscovered pharaonic tombs. So far, it appeared that the robbers  had  gotten there long before the  archaeologists. It seemed that  the treasures of the kings’ tombs were lost to history. Then Carter made his discovery.

After six hard  years of searching, Carter finally discov-  ered a hidden burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings. It con- tained all manner of archaeological treasures, including a gor- geous golden mask  of “King   Tut,”  as  he  came  to be  called. Because he had reigned such a short time, and because  he had

Howard Carter  examines coffin in Burial  Chamber of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Archive Photos. Reproduced

by permission.

Egypt          43

followed the despised Akhenaton, Tut had  been forgotten by history; but in the 1920s, he became  one of the most famous pharaohs in all of Egyptian history. The King Tut exhibit went  on tour,  and  the 1920s saw  a  growing interest in Egypt that affected the architecture and even the fashions of the day.

Egypt in modern times

During  World War II (1939–1945), American and  Ger- man forces first fought each other in North Africa. Britain had made a colony of Egypt after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I (1914–1918), and  in October of 1941, British troops  defeated the Germans  at  the Egyptian  town  of El- Alamein (pronounced el-ahl-uh-MAIN). It was to be one of the war’s  most  important battles. The  North  African campaign involved an instrument of warfare that, had  it existed in the time of the pharaohs, would have changed the future of Egypt: the tank.  Only  with  tanks  was  it  possible to  invade Egypt across the great expanses of desert that protected it.

The  pharaohs were  long gone, but Egyptian  leaders remained powerful figures in world history. The nation gained its  independence after  the  war,  and   Gamal  Abdel Nasser (1918–1970) came to power in 1954. Under Nasser, Egypt built the Aswan High   Dam in what  was  once Upper  Egypt. Com- pleted in the 1960s, the dam harnessed the flow of the Nile for hydroelectric   power,  and  provided  irrigation for farmers in Egypt and  Sudan, ending the pattern of seasonal flooding. It also created Lake Nasser, which spans the Egypt-Sudan border and covers the Second Cataract.  In 1956, Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal, which had  opened the way for a sea  route from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Egypt closed the canal in 1967, after a war with Israel, and did not open it until 1975.

Nasser became  the most important of all Arab  leaders during his time, and  his funeral in 1970 was the largest in his- tory. It was a fitting tribute to the leader of the land once ruled by the pharaohs. Whereas Nasser built his career  by waging  war on Israel, his successor, Anwar  Sadat  (pronounced  AHN-wahr suh-DOT, 1918–1981) reversed the trend. In 1978, he signed a historic  treaty with Israel, which  earned  a  joint Nobel Peace Prize for Sadat and Israeli leader Menachem Begin (pronounced men-AH-kem  BAY-gin,  1913–). But  Muslim   radicals  did   not

44            Ancient  Civilizations: Almanac

Ancient  Egypt at the Movies

During  the  1950s, Hollywood produced a number of movies about the ancient world. Most   of these  films, called Biblical epics, were extremely expensive to make. Elaborate sets represented the cities of ancient Egypt, Judea, Greece, or Italy. In many cases the stories themselves were not  very well written. A  typical  example was Cleopatra (1963), one of  the most costly flops of all time, which Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever  (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999)  describes as “a blimp-sized, multicolored sleeping tablet.”

Director Cecil B. DeMille, who had made a version of Cleopatra in the 1930s, filmed  the  stor y  of  Moses   as  The  Te n Commandments  in  1923.  In 1956  he remade  The  Ten  Commandments  in  a version which proved to be one of the few Biblical epics   that   succeeded   both artistically and commercially. The Golden Movie Retriever notes its “exceptional cast,” including Charlton  Heston   as Moses  and Yul Brynner as Pharaoh, and  commented that the scene showing the parting  of the Red Sea  “rivals  any  modern   special effects.” The  costumes, architecture,  and other features of the movie make it highly educational as well as entertaining, though it does  present the false impression that slave labor built the pyramids. The story of Moses, as well as that of Joseph, has  been

interpreted for young viewers in movies such as Disney’s The Prince of Egypt (1998).

Moviemakers    have  often  used ancient  Egypt as a backdrop for fantasy.  From  The Mummy in 1932,  a film for which actor Boris Karloff  modeled his appearance on the actual mummy of Ramses III, to The Mummy in 1999, there have been plenty of horror  films  that make use of the fright inspired  by  the Egyptians’ fascination with death. Less chilling, but plenty suspenseful,

is Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981),  which involves a brilliant plot concerning  the whereabouts of the Israelite’s  Ark  of the Covenant—in  a tomb deep  beneath the sur face of the ancient  Egyptian city of Tanis. Likewise  Stargate (1994), a science- fiction  movie that has little to do with the reality  of  ancient  Egypt, provides  an intriguing scenario regarding the identity of the sun god  Ra. In the 1970s, there was even a popular Saturday morning children’s show,  Isis, about an archaeologist who could  change into the ancient Egyptian goddess and perform superhero-like feats.

There have been at least seventy films that involve Egypt in some way or another.  In addition, ancient  Egypt has been celebrated in popular songs  such as Steve Martin’s  comedy hit “King  Tut” (1977) and the Bangles’  “Walk Like  an Egyptian” (1986).

Egypt          45

want peace with Israel, and one of them assassinated Sadat   in  1981.  President Hosni Mubarak  (HAWS-nee  moo-BAR- ek, 1928– ) has continued Sadat’s policy of better relations with Israel.

The Washington Monument is an example of an obelisk. Archive Photos. Reproduced

by permission.

Egypt lives on

Meanwhile,  through  all   the years and  the changes  in  Egypt,  the impact of its ancient  culture lives  on. One symbol of Egypt is as common as it is important: the domestic house cat, first tamed by the Egyptians, who wor- shiped the cat goddess Bastet. Egypt is a part of everyday language; terms such as   pharaoh, mummy,   pyramid, and paper—none  of which   is  Egyptian  in origin, but all of which describe Egypt- ian concepts—are household words.

Towns    throughout    America have their Shriners’ organizations, clubs that  contribute to the community  by organizing charity events. The Shriners

are   associated  with  the Masons  (also called  Freemasons),  a worldwide organization that claims a link with the masons who helped build  the pyramids, though in fact  it originated much later.  Both   the Shriners and, to a greater  extent, the Masons make considerable use of images from ancient Egypt.

The  towns of America  reflect their Egyptian cultural heritage in their names. There  is a Cairo, Illinois and  a Cairo, Georgia. (Cairo, Egypt was founded in A.D. 642; that makes it a young city  by Egyptian standards.) Much  older  is the  name Alexandria, of which there is a famous town in Virginia, along with Alexandrias in four other states. Still older, of course, is the name Memphis. Memphis, Tennessee is the more famous city in the United States, though there is also a Memphis in Texas.

In the nation’s  capital, one can find a great example of an obelisk, the Washington Monument. Likewise the back of a dollar bill shows a  pyramid with the all-seeing eye  of  God above it. Far  from Washington, in a desert near a great river,