History of Egypt: 3D Gallery

the map of Egypt

Egypt borders to the north-east with Israel, to the west with Libya and to the south with Sudan. It faces north on the Mediterranean and on the east on the Red Sea. The Egyptian territory is predominantly desert; only 5% of the territory is fertile and coincides with the Nile valley, its delta and the oases in the western part of the country. The Nile, which flows from south to north for 1500 km, crosses a valley made fertile by canals of irrigation and dams and flows into the Mediterranean Sea with a wide delta.

The Egyptian pharaoh

The pharaoh was the first historical example of divinity impersonated by a sovereign and from the earliest dynasties the concept of the pharaoh son of Ra developed, to be the incarnation of the solar god Horus son of Ra, with the task to be the only intermediary between men and deities and therefore the only high priest. As such he was the only person who could access the sacred ceremonies officiated in the temples and officiated himself dressed in a panther skin. The priestly class who performed the sacred rites in the divine temples did so on behalf of the pharaoh, who could not always be present. At his death he turned into Akh, climbed into Ra's boat and turned into Osiris. Guarantor of the cosmic order and incarnation of the Maat, the sovereign had to ensure the maintenance of the balance of nature and human events according to the will of the gods, who had entrusted the created world to him, in order not to make him fall into Chaos. Without the pharaoh, people and gods would have been overwhelmed by the Nun. He was the Lord of the waters and the Nile, so he controlled the floods, protected the world from disease and famine, and he depended on the prosperity of Egypt.

Statue of Ramses II called "the Great" (British Museum, London)The concept of divinity declined in the Late Period where the pharaoh no longer played the role of mediator with the deities, a role that was instead assumed directly by the local deities.

Egyptian women

In ancient Egypt women enjoy the same "juridical" relevance of man. However, "equality" only takes place in the upper classes. It seems - based on archaeological and historical sources - that among the Egyptians there is a division of labor based on sex and the type of job stems from the "social position occupied by her or her husband".
The Greek historian Herodotus is amazed at the freedom enjoyed by Egyptian women. In fact they are "landowners", they manage their own assets, they complete commercial agreements, they can inherit and leave their possessions.

The Egyptian sarcophagus

The Egyptian sarcophagus was the box designed to house the embalmed body of the deceased and his Ka. His Egyptian name was nebankh or "Owner of life"

food in Egypt

The most common ingredients in Egyptian cuisine are bread, meat, vegetables and fish. The bread, (in Arabic aysh), prepared with whole wheat flour (in Arabic aysh baladi) or white flour is filled with salads or sauces;The meat (in Arabic lahm) is mainly of lamb and mutton, and is almost always used for special occasions, usually accompanied by rice and vegetables; very common is the white meat of chicken (in Arabic firaakh) and pigeon (in Arabic hamaam) stuffed and roasted and the beef; remarkable is the variety of fish (in Arabic samak) of both sea and fresh water traditionally roasted in wheat bran; the tilapia of the Nile (a type of samak bolty fish), among the most consumed. The finest fish, consisting of eels, shrimps, perch and soles, is considered to be close to the coasts or to Lake Nasser.The most used vegetables are aubergines, but there is also an abundance of broad beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic and onions. The typical summer vegetable is the mallow served cooked in chicken, rabbit or lamb broth. Cooked mainly in tomato sauce and accompanied with meats.

The gibna beida cheeses (Arabic gibna) are not very different from the Greek feta, the gibna rumy, spicy, and the mish, spicy and dry.

the Egyptian hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs on an Egyptian funeral stele

The Egyptian hieroglyphs are the carved or pictorial signs that make up the monumental writing system used by the ancient Egyptians, which combines ideographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements. The use of this type of writing was reserved for monuments or any object, such as stele and statues, designed to be eternal; the current and everyday writing in Egypt was the hieratic one. A similar system was also used by the Minoan civilization, between 2000 BC. and 1650 BC about.

the book of the dead

The text of the dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, stabilized as foreseen by the New Kingdom (circa 1550 BC) until the middle of the 1st century BC. [3] The original title of the text has been translated for the first time [4], it is translatable as a Book to go out to the day [5] [6] [7] (other possible translation is Book to emerge in the light). "Book" is the term that is closest to the entire collection of texts: the "Book of the Dead" is composed of a collection of magical-religious formulas (also of considerable length: in a 2008 edition of Budger, the only text obtained from the 700 pages [8]) that were to serve the deceased as protection and help on his journey to the world, the world of the dead, which was considered fraught with pitfalls and difficulties, and towards immortality. It was composed of several Egyptian priests over a millennium, approximately from the 17th century BC.

The Egyptian people

The people are divided into six closed social classes: 1) priests (privileged, often hostile to the monarchy who wants to limit their great power); 2) scribes (officials in charge of the administration of the state: the few who can write); 3) warriors or nobles (with high commands in the army: the only military officers were the officers, the simple soldiers were recruited temporarily among the peasants, who were rewarded with portions of arable land, but there were also mercenaries, of which the the most important were the Nubian archers.The nobles govern the provinces); 4) specialized craftsmen (goldsmiths, potters, carpenters, painters ...); 5) peasants (few political rights, often in poor conditions, could have a small property and get married, they were obliged to stay in their villages of birth, they obviously had to give the state some of their fruits and were required to build the monuments desired by Pharaoh); 6) slaves (defeated enemies or insolvent debtors, responsible for the most difficult activities, not particularly numerous, in any case there was no "slave market" usually came from Nubia, to be able to free the statement was enough of the master in front of a witness

the sphinx of Egypt

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a limestone sculpture located in the Necropolis of Giza, depicting a lying sphinx, a mythological figure with the head of a man and the body of a lion (specifically it is also called androsfinge or sphinx andricefala). From a geographical point of view, the monument is located inside the Giza plateau (including the homonymous Necropolis), on the west bank of the river Nile, which separates Giza from the capital of Egypt, Cairo. Obtained from a rocky substratum, it is the largest monolithic statue among the Egyptian sphinxes: it is 73 meters long (from the tail to the front legs), 20 meters high (from the base to the tip of the head) and 19 meters wide; the head alone has a height of 4 meters.

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History of Egypt