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Elephantine Island

Elephantine Island

Elephantine is an island in the River Nile, located just downstream of the First Cataract at . It measures some 1.2 km from north to south, and is about 400 m across at its widest. It is a part of the modern Egyptian city of Aswan. Known to the Ancient Egyptians as Abu or Yebu, Elephantine stands at the border between Egypt and Nubia. The island was an excellent defensive site for a city and its location made it a natural transshipping point for river trade. According to Egyptian mythology, here was the dwelling place of Chnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts, who controlled the waters of the Nile from caves beneath the island: he was worshipped here as part of a triad comprising him, his wife Satis, and their daughter Anuket. There are records of a temple to Chnum here as early as the third dynasty, and most of the southern tip of the island is taken up by the ruins of the later temple to him that was completely rebuilt in the Late Period (30th dynasty). Ongoing excavations at the town by the German Archaeological Institute have uncovered many findings, including a mummified ram of Chnum, that are now on display in the museum located on the island. Artifacts dating back to predynastic times have been found on Elephantine. The oldest ruins still standing on the island are a granite step pyramid from the third dynasty and a small shrine, built for the local sixth-dynasty nomarch Hekayib. A rare calendar, known as the Elephantine Calendar, dating to the reign of Thutmose III, was found in fragments. Also on the island is one of the oldest nilometers in Egypt, last reconstructed in Roman times and still in use as late as the 19th century CE. The 90 steps that lead down to the river are marked with Arabic, Roman, and hieroglyphic numerals, and inscriptions carved deep into the rock during the 17th dynasty can be seen at the water's edge. There used to be temples to Thutmose III and Amenhotep III on the island prior to 1822, when they were destroyed by the Ottoman government, both were relatively intact at that time. The Elephantine papyri are caches of legal documents and letters written in Aramaic, which document the community of Jewish soldiers stationed here during the Persian occupation of Egypt. They maintained their own temple to their Lord, functioning alongside that of Chnum. The Jewish community at Elephantine was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign, to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. The documents cover the period 495 to 399 BCE. In addition to the archaeological site, the island today houses the Aswan Museum at the southern extreme, a sizable population of Nubians in three villages in the middle, and a large, dominating luxury hotel at the downstream end. Category:Geography of Egypt Category:Islands of Africa Category:Nile

Island

in New York, USA]] An island or isle is any piece of land that is completely surrounded by water. Very small islands are called islets. Although seldom adhered to, it is also proper to call an emergent land feature on an atoll an islet, since an atoll is a type of island. A key or cay is also another name for a relatively small island. Groups of related islands are called archipelagos. There are three main types of islands: continental islands, river islands, and volcanic islands. There are also some artificial islands. The word island derives ultimately from the Old English word igland. It was originally spelled phonetically: iland. The letter "s" was added out of the mistaken belief that it derived from isle (< Old French < Latin insula) + land, where no such etymological relationship existed.

Continental islands

Continental islands are bodies of land that are connected by the continental shelf to a continent. That is, these islands are part of an adjacent continent and are located on the continental shelf of that continent. Examples include Greenland and Sable Island off North America, Barbados and Trinidad off South America, Sicily off Europe, Sumatra and Java off Asia, New Guinea and Tasmania off Australia. A special type of continental island is the microcontinental island, which results when a continent is rifted. The best example is Madagascar off Africa. The Kerguelen Islands and some of the Seychelles are also examples. Another subtype is the barrier island: accumulations of sand on the continental shelf.

River islands

River islands occur in river deltas and in large rivers. They are caused by deposition of sediment at points in the flow where the current loses some of its carrying capacity. In essence, they are river bars, isolated in the stream. While some are ephemeral, and may disappear if the river's water volume or speed changes, others are stable and long-lived.

Volcanic islands

Volcanic islands are built by volcanoes. Mid-ocean examples are not geologically part of any continent. One type of volcanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring. Examples include the Mariana Islands, the Aleutian Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. Some of the Lesser Antilles and the South Sandwich Islands are the only Atlantic Ocean examples. Another type of volcanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples: Iceland, which is the world's largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen—both are in the Atlantic. The last type of volcanic island are those formed over volcanic hotspots. A hot spot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands results as the plate drifts. Over long periods of time, this type of island is eventually eroded down and "drowned" by isostatic adjustment, becoming a seamount. Plate movement across a hot-spot produces a line of islands oriented in the direction of the plate movement. An example is the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii to Kure, which then extends beneath the sea surface in a more northerly direction as the Emperor Seamounts. Another chain with similar orientation is the Tuamotu Archipelago; its older, northerly trend is the Line Islands. The southernmost chain is the Austral Islands, with its northerly trending part the atolls in the nation of Tuvalu. Tristan da Cunha is an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean. An atoll is an island formed from a coral reef that has grown on an eroded and submerged volcanic island. The reef rises above the surface of the water and forms a new island. Atolls are typically ring-shaped with a central, shallow lagoon. Examples include the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Bora Bora in the Pacific.

See also


- List of islands
- List of islands by area
- List of islands by population
- Reef
- Desert island
- Tidal island
- List of artificial islands
- List of divided islands
- Skerry

External links


- [http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part8.htm Definition of island] from United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Category:Islands Category:Landforms zh-min-nan:Tó-sū ko:섬 ms:Pulau ja:島 simple:Island th:เกาะ

Cataracts of the Nile

There are six classical Cataracts of the Nile between Aswan and Khartoum, counted upstream. The First Cataract is in modern Egypt; the rest are in Sudan.
- The First Cataract is near Aswan ()
- The Second Cataract was in Nubia, now submerged in Lake Nasser
- The Third Cataract is around Tombos / Hannek
- The Fourth Cataract is in the Manasir Desert and will be flooded by the Merowe Dam from 2006 onwards
- The Fifth Cataract is near the confluence with the Atbara ()
- The Sixth Cataract is where the Nile is cutting through the Sabaluka pluton near Bagrawiyah () These were the main obstacles for boats sailing on the Nile in antiquity. There are many minor cataracts not included in the count. The cataracts are described by Winston Churchill in The River War (1899), where he recounts the exploits of the British trying to return to Sudan between 1896 and 1898, after they were forced to leave in 1885.

See also


- Geography of Egypt
- Geography of Sudan

External links


- http://www.utdallas.edu/dept/geoscience/remsens/Nile/cataracts.html Category:Geography of Egypt Category:Geography of Sudan Category:Nile

Aswan

Aswan (Arabic: محافظة أسوان Aswān ) (, population 200,000) is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the governorate of the same name. It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist center. Aswan is one of the driest inhabited places in the world; as of early 2001, the last rain here was 6 years ago. In Nubian settlements they generally do not bother to roof all of the rooms in their houses. This is identified with the ancient city of Syene, which is famous for providing a basis on which Eratosthenes disputed the Flat Earth theory and attempted to determine the circumference of the Earth, using Syene as the originating point and Alexandria as the terminal point of a measured arc to make an accurate estimate of the circumference of the Earth. See also: Aswan Dam, Elephantine, Kitchener's Island, Nag Hammadi Category:Governorates of Egypt Category:Cities in Egypt ja:アスワン

Nubia

:This article is about the region in Africa, for other uses see Nubia (disambiguation) Today Nubia is the region in the south of Egypt, along the Nile and in northern Sudan, but in ancient times it was an independent kingdom. Sudan ]] Its people spoke at least two varieties of the Nubian language group, a Nilo-Saharan subfamily which includes Nobiin, Kenuzi-Dongola, Midob and several related varieties in the northern part of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan. A variety (Birgid) was spoken (at least until 1970) north of Nyala in Darfur but is now extinct. Old Nubian was used in mostly religious texts dating from the 8th and 9th centuries AD. It is considered ancestral to modern day Nobiin.

History

Pre-history

The earliest cultures of Nubia left no writings and are unreported in the annals of other nations. The first noticeable cultures in Nubia include first the Badarian culture, then the Amratian and finally the Gerzean. From the Gerzean the first native culture developed known as the A-Group, which began roughly at the same time as the First dynasty of Egypt around 3100 BC. It consisted of semi-nomadic groups who subsided by herding sheep, goats, and some cattle. It is known from its distinctive burial rituals and pottery. Prehistoric tools discovered in Nubia date to circa 65,000 BC, found along the Nile Valley [http://smu.edu/newsinfo/releases/01033.html]. This culture began to decline in the early 28th century BC. The succeeding culture is known as B-Group. Previously the B-Group people were thought to have invaded from elsewhere. Today most historians believe that B-Group was merely A-Group but far poorer. The causes of this is uncertain, but it was perhaps caused by Egyptian invasions and pillaging that began at this time. As trade between Egypt and Nubia increased so did wealth and stability. By the Egyptian 6th dynasty Nubia was divided into a series of small kingdoms. There is debate over whether these C-Group peoples, who flourished from c. 2240 BC to c. 2150 BC, were another internal evolution or invaders. There are definite similarities between the pottery of A-Group and C-Group, so it may be a return of the ousted Group-As, or an internal revival of lost arts. At this time the Sahara Desert was becoming too arid to support human beings and it is possible that there was a sudden influx of Saharan nomads. C-Group pottery is characterized by all over incised geometric lines with white infill and impressed imitations of basketry. A contemporaneous but distinct culture from the C-Group was the Pan Grave culture, so called because of their shallow graves. The Pan Graves are associated with the East bank of the Nile, but the Pan Graves and C-Group defintiely interacted. Their pottery is characterized by incised lines of a more limited character than the C-Group, generally having interspersed undecorated spaces within the geometric scheme. From the C-Group culture the first kingdom to unify much of the region arose, the Kingdom of Kerma, named for its presumed capital at Kerma. When Egyptian power revived under the New Kingdom they began to expand southwards. By the end of the reign of Thutmose I in 1520 BC all of northern Nubia had been annexed.

Kush

Thutmose I When the Egyptians pulled out, they left a lasting legacy that was merged with indigenous customs forming the kingdom of Kush. Kush adopted many Egyptian practices such as their religion and the practice of building pyramids. The kingdom of Kush survived longer than that of Egypt, even invading and controlling Egypt itself for a period (the Kushite dynasty) in the 8th century BC. Kush was never annexed by the Romans. The Kushites did trade with the Romans, and were also a source of mercenaries. During this time, the different parts of the region divided into smaller groups with individual leaders, or generals, each commanding small armies of mercenaries. They fought for control of what is now Nubia and its surrounding territories, leaving the entire region weak and vulnerable to attack. At some point, Kush was conquered by the Noba people, from which the name Nubia may derive (another possibility is that it comes from Nub, the Egyptian word for gold). From then on, the Romans referred to the area as the Nobatae. Indeed, recent studies in population genetics suggest that there was a south-north gene flow through the Nile Valley. Similarly, linguistic evidence suggests that the Nubians from the Nile Valley originally came from the south or southwest. Historical comparative research into the Nubian language group has indicated that the Nile-Nubian languages must have split off from the Nubian languages still spoken in the Nuba Mountains in Kordofan, Sudan, at least 2500 years ago.

Christian Nubia

Around AD 350 the area was invaded by the Ethiopian kingdom of Axum and the kingdom collapsed. Eventually three smaller kingdoms replaced it: northernmost was Nobatia between the first and second cataract of the Nile River, with its capital at Pachoras (modern day Faras); in the middle was Makuria, with its capital at Old Dongola; and southernmost was Alodia, with its capital at Soba (near Khartoum). King Silko of Nobatia crushed the Blemmyes, and recorded his victory in a Greek inscription carved in the wall of the temple of Talmis (modern Kalabsha) around AD 500. While bishop Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated one Marcus as bishop of Philae before his death in 373, showing that Christianity had penetrated the region by the fourth century, John of Ephesus records that a Monophysite priest named Julian converted the king and his nobles of Nobatia around 545. John of Ephesus also writes that the kingdom of Alodia was converted around 569. However, John of Bisclorum records that the kingdom of Makuria was converted to Roman Catholicism the same year, suggesting that John of Ephesus might be mistaken. Further doubt is cast on John's testimony by an entry in the chronicle of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria Eutychius, which states that in 719 the church of Nubia transferred its allegiance from the Greek Orthodox to the Coptic Church. By the 7th century Makuria expanded becoming the dominant power in the region. It was strong enough to halt the southern expansion of Islam after the Arabs had taken Egypt. After several failed invasions the new rulers agreed to a treaty with Dogomba allowing for peaceful coexistence and trade. This treaty held for six hundred years. Over time the influx of Arab traders introduced Islam to Nubia and it gradually supplanted Christianity. While there are records of a bishop at Qasr Ibrim in 1372, his see had come to include that located at Faras. It is also clear that the "Royal" church at Dongola had been converted to a mosque around 1350.

Modern Nubia

In the 14th century the Dongolan government collapsed and the region became divided and dominated by Egypt. The next centuries would see several invasions of the region, as well as the establishment of a number of smaller kingdoms. Northern Nubia was brought under Egyptian control while the south came under the control of the Kingdom of Sennar in the sixteenth century. The entire region would come under Egyptian control during the rule of Mehemet Ali in the early nineteenth century, and later became a joint Anglo-Egyptian condominium. With the end of colonialism Nubia was divided between Egypt and Sudan. Many Egyptian Nubians were forcibly resettled to make room for Lake Nasser after the construction of the dams at Aswan. Nubian villages can now be found north of Aswan on the west bank of the Nile and on Elephantine Island, and many Nubians live in large cities such as Cairo.

See also


- Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt
- Nubiology
- Nubian languages
- Pyramids of Nubia

Notes and references

Notes

# Fox, C.L., 'mtDNA analysis in ancient Nubians supports the existence of gene flow between sub-Sahara and North Africa in the Nile Valley', in Annals of Human Biology, 24, 3, 217–227. [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=9158841&itool=iconabstr (abstract)] # Joseph Greenberg as cited in Thelwall (1982).

References


- Thelwall, Robin (1978) 'Lexicostatistical relations between Nubian, Daju and Dinka', Études nubiennes: colloque de Chantilly, 2-6 juillet 1975, 265—286.
- Thelwall, Robin (1982) 'Linguistic Aspects of Greater Nubian History', in Ehret, C. & Posnansky, M. (eds.) The Archeological and Linguistic Reconstruction of African History. Berkeley/Los Angeles, 39–56. [http://www.thenubian.net/aspect.php online version]

External links


- http://www.napata.org
- [http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm Racism and the Rediscovery of Ancient Nubia]
- [http://impressions-ba.com/features.php?id_feature=10352 Kerma excavation] Category:Ancient peoples Category:Nubia

Chnum

In Egyptian mythology, Chnum (also spelled Khnum, Knum, or Khnemu) was one of the earliest Egyptian gods, originally the god of the source of the Nile River. Since the annual flooding of the Nile brought with it silt and clay, and its water brought life to its surrounds, he was thought to be the creator of human children, which he made at a potter's wheel, from clay, and places them in their mothers' uteruses. Indeed, before the cult of Ra gained prominence, he was said by those who worshipped him to have moulded the other Gods, and he had the titles Divine Potter and Lord of created things from himself. Ra In certain locations, such as Elephantine, since Chnum was thought of as a god pouring out the Nile, he was regarded as the husband of Satis (who did much the same), and the father of Anuket, who represented the Nile itself. In other locations, such as Antinoe, as the moulder and creator of the human body, he was sometimes regarded as the consort of Heget, since it was her responsibility for breathing life into his creations. Alternatively, in places such as Esna, due to his aspect as creator of the body, they viewed him as the father of Heka, who activated the Ka, and consequently as the husband of Menhit. Originally one of the most important gods, when other areas arose to greater prominence, it was the secondary function, as potter, that became his whole realm of authority, and instead, the Nile was considered the god Hapi, who was the Nile god in the more powerful areas. Khnum's name derives from this secondary association, – it means builder. However, Chnum's earlier position as 'moulder' of the other gods, leads to him being identified as Ra, or more particularly as the Ba of Ra. Since Ba is also the word for a Ram, he became thought of as having a Ram's head. In art, he was usually depicted as a Ram-headed man at a potter's wheel, with recently created children standing on the wheel, although he also appeared in his earlier guise as a water-god, holding a jar from which flowed a stream of water. However, he occasionally appeared in a compound image, depicting the elements, in which he, representing water, was shown as one of four heads of a man, with the others being, – Geb representing earth, Shu representing the air, and Osiris representing death. Some think this is a depiction which may have had an influence on Ezekiel and Revelations, as Chnum had a Ram's head, Shu sometimes appeared with a Lion's head, Osiris was a man, and Geb had a goose on his head. The worship of Chnum centred on two principal riverside sites, Elephantine Island and Esna, which were regarded as sacred sites. At Elephantine, he was worshipped alongside Anuket and Satis as the guardian of the sources of the River Nile. His significance led to early theophoric names of him, for children, such as Chnum-khufu – Chnum is Protector, the full name of Khufu, builder of the Great Pyramid. Due to his importance, as an aspect of the life-giving Nile, and also the creator, Chnum was still worshipped in some semi-Christian sects in the 2nd or 3rd Centuries. Category:Egyptian godsCategory:Creator gods

Satis

In Egyptian mythology, Satis (also spelt Satjit, Sates, and Sati) was the deification of the floods of the Nile River, and originated in the region around Aswan, the southern edge of Egypt. Her name means ejaculation (i.e. that which is ejected out), as many Egyptians believed that the annual flooding of the Nile was due to the masturbation of Atum. One of her titles was She Who Runs Like an Arrow, which is thought to refer to the river current, and her symbols became the arrow and the running river. Satis was pictured as a woman wearing the conical crown of Upper Egypt with antelope horns, or as an antelope, a fast moving creature living near the southern end of Egypt. She is als usually depicted as holding an ankh, due to her association with the life giving flooding of the nile. Consequently, it is true that Satis acted as a fertility goddess, thus granting the wishes of those who sought love. Satis is also described as offering jars of purifying water. She became regarded as the consort of Chnum, the deification of the source of the Nile, with whom she was worshipped at Elephantine (the 1st nome of Egypt), indeed the centre of her cult was nearby, at Sahal, another island of the Nile. Since she was most dominant at the southern end of Egypt, she became regarded as the guard of Egypt's border with Nubia. Satis's child was Anuket, goddess of the nile itself, who formed the third part of the Elephantine Trinity of gods. After Chnum became considered a form of Ra, Satis became known as the Eye of Ra. Category:Egyptian goddesses

Thirtieth dynasty of Egypt

Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Thirtieth Dynasty. The Twenty-Sixth, Twenty-Seventh, Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-First Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Late Period. The Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt followed Nectanebo I's deposition of Nefaarud II, the son of Hakor. Nectanebo was in control of all of Egypt by November of 380 BC, and spent much of his reign defending his kingdom from Persian reconquest with the occasional help of Sparta or Athens. In 365, Nectanebo made his son Teos co-king and heir, and until his death in 363 father and son reigned together. After his father's death, Teos invaded the Persian territories of modern Syria and Israel, during which campaign he lost his throne from the machinations of his own son Tjahepimu, who made Teos' grandson Nectanebo II king. Nectanebo II's reign was dominated by the efforts of the Persian rulers to reconquer Egypt, which they considered a satrapy in revolt. For the first ten years, Nectanebo avoided the Persian reconquest because Artaxerxes III was forced to consolidate his control of the realm. Artaxerxes then made an unsuccessful invasion of Egypt in the winter of 351/350 BC, and revolts in Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Cilicia followed. Although Nectanebo gave aid to these revolts, eventually Artaxerxes suppressed these rebellions and was once again able to invade Egypt. This second invasion proved successful, and Nectanebo was forced to withdraw from his defenses in the Nile Delta to Memphis, where he saw that his cause was lost. He thereupon fled south to Nubia, where he possibly found refuge at the court of King Nastesen of Napata. Although a shadowy rebel Khababash proclaimed himself king (338 - 336 BC), at least since Jerome Nectanebo has been considered the last pharaoh of Egypt, and his flight marked the end of Egypt as an independent entity.

See also


- History of Ancient Egypt#30th dynasty of Egypt

Third dynasty of Egypt

Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Third Dynasty. The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Old Kingdom.
Thirtieth Dynasty
Third Dynasty
Name Comments Dates
Sanakhte - 2686 – 2668 BC
Djoser Commissioned the Step Pyramid designed by Imhotep 2668 – 2649 BC
Sekhemkhet - 2649 – 2643 BC
Khaba - 2643 – 2637 BC
Huni - 2637 – 2613 BC
While Manetho names one Necherophes, and the Turin King List names Nebka, as the first pharaoh of the Third Dynasty of Egypt, some contemporary Egyptologists believe Djoser was the first king of this dynasty, pointing out that the order in which some predecessors of Khufu are mentioned in the Papyrus Westcar suggests that Nebka should be placed between Djoser and Huni, and not before Djoser. That the Turin King List has noted Djoser's name in red may also be significant. In any case, Djoser is the best known king of this dynasty, for commissioning his vizier Imhotep to build the earliest surviving pyramids, the Step Pyramid. Some authorities believe that Imhotep lived into the reign of the Pharaoh Huni. Little is known for certain of Sekhemkhet. However, it is believed that Khaba possibly built the Layer Pyramid at Zawyet el'Aryan. Huni, the last king of this dynasty, like Djoser had a renowned vizier, named Khagemni. In the Ramassid period, a text named the Instructions was ascribed to Kagemni. #03rd dynasty of Egypt

Sixth dynasty of Egypt

Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Sixth Dynasty. The Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Old Kingdom.
Sixth Dynasty
Name Comments Dates
Teti - 2345 BC – 2333 BC
Userkare - 2333 BC – 2332 BC
Pepi I Meryre - 2332 BC – 2283 BC
Merenre Nemtyemsaf I - 2283 BC – 2278 BC
Pepi II Neferkare - 2278 BC – 2184 BC
Merenre Nemtyemsaf II - 2184 BC
Nitiqret - 2184 BC – 2183 BC
The Sixth Dynasty of Egypt is considered by many authorities as the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom of anient Egypt, although The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (ed. Ian Shaw, 2000) includes the Seventh and Eighth Dynasties as part of the Old Kingdom. Manetho writes that these kings ruled from Memphis, or Egyptian Mennefer, taken from the name of the pyramid of Unas which was built nearby; archeologists concur with Manetho on this. This dynasty was founded by Teti, who had married Iput, commonly believed to be the daughter of King Unas of the Fifth Dynasty. Other notable members of this dynasty include Pepy II, who is credited with a reign of 94 years, the longest in the history of ancient Egypt; and the last ruler Nitiqret (also known by the Greek name Nitocris), who is believed by some authorities to have not only been the first female ruler of Egypt, but the first in the world. During this dynasty, expeditions were sent to Wadi Maghara in the Sinai to mine for turquoise and copper, as well as to the mines at Hatnub and Wadi Hammamut. Pharaoh Djedkara sent trade expeditions south to Punt and north to Byblos, and Pepy I not only sent expeditions to these locales, but also as far as Ebla. With a growing number of biographical inscriptions in non-royal tombs, our knowledge of the contemporary history broadens from the monolithically formal facade of earlier rulers. For example, we hear of an unsuccessful plot against Pepy I. We also read a letter written by the young king Pepy II, excited that one of his expeditions will return with a dancing pygmy from the land of Yam, located to the south of Nubia. These non-royal tomb inscriptions are but one example of the growing power of the nobility, which further weakened the absolute rule of the king. As a result, it is believed that on the death of the long-lived Pepy II his vassals were entrenched enough to resist the authority of his successors, leading to the rapid end of the Old Kingdom. #06th dynasty of Egypt

Nomarch

A nomarch in ancient Egypt was a provincial governor, the regional authority over one of the 40 or so nomes (Egyptian: sepat) into which the country was divided. The position of the nomarch was at times hereditary, while at others they were appointed by the pharaoh. The balance of power between nomarchs and the central government varied from one pharaoh's rule to the next. Generally, when the national government was stronger, nomarchs were appointed governors. But when the central government was weaker – at times of foreign invasion or civil war, for example – individual nomes would assert themselves and establish hereditary lines of succession. Conflicts between these different hereditary nomarchies were common during, for example, the First Intermediate Period – a time that saw a breakdown in central authority lasting from the sixth and eleventh dynasties, until one of the local rulers was able once again to assert control over the entire country as pharaoh.

Nilometer

:::::Now the Nile, when it overflows, floods not only the Delta, but also the tracts of country on both sides of the stream which are thought to belong to Libya and Arabia, in some places reaching to the extent of two days' journey from its banks. – Herodotus Nilometer is the name given to one of several devices that are different in design but that all serve the same function: measuring water levels in the River Nile and thus allowing the keeping of comparative historic records. Every summer, torrential rains in the highlands of Ethiopia cause a drastic increase in the volume of water flowing into the Nile from its tributaries. Between June and September, the reaches of the Nile running through Egypt would burst their banks and cover the adjacent flood plain. When the waters receded, around September or October, they left behind a rich alluvial deposit of exceptionally fertile black silt over the croplands. The inundation – akhet in the Egyptian language – was one of the three seasons into which the Ancient Egyptians divided their years. Ancient Egypt, 1840s lithograph]] It would be difficult to overstate the importance of the annual flood to Egyptian civilization. A moderate inundation was a vital part of the agricultural cycle; however, a lighter monsoon than normal would cause famine, and too much flood water would be equally disastrous, washing away much of the infrastructure built on the flood plain. Records from Pharaonic times indicate that on average, one year of out every five saw an inundation that was either over-abundant or fell short of expectations. The ability to predict the volume of the coming inundation was part of the mystique of the Ancient Egyptian priesthood. The same skill also played a political and administrative role, since the quality of the year's flood was used to determine the levels of tax to be paid, in kind, by the peasantry to their rulers. This is where the nilometer came into play, with priests monitoring the day-to-day level of the river and announcing the awaited arrival of the summer flood. The simplest nilometer design is a vertical column submerged in the waters of the river, with marked intervals indicating the depth of the water. One that follows this simple design, albeit housed in an elaborate and ornate stone structure, can still be seen on the island of Rodah in central Cairo. While this nilometer dates only as far back as 861 AD, when the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil ordered its construction, it was built on a site occupied by an earlier specimen. al-Mutawakkil The second nilometer design comprises a flight of stairs leading down into the water, with depth markings along the walls. The best known example of this kind can be seen on the island of Elephantine in Aswan. This location was also particularly important, since for much of Egyptian history Elephantine marked Egypt's southern border and was therefore the first place where the onset of the annual flood was detected. The most elaborate design involved a channel or culvert that led from the riverbank – often running for a considerable distance – and then fed a well, tank, or cistern. These nilometer wells were most frequently located within the confines of temples, where only the priests and rulers were allowed access. A particularly fine example, with a deep, cylindrical well and a culvert opening in the surrounding wall, can be seen at the Temple of Kom Ombo to the north of Aswan. While nilometers originated in Pharaonic times, they continued to be used by the later civilizations that held sway in Egypt. In the 20th century, the Nile's annual inundation was first greatly checked, and then eliminated entirely, with the construction of the Aswan dams. While the Aswan High Dam's impact on Egypt and its agriculture has been controversial for other, more complex reasons, it has also had the additional effect of rendering the nilometer obsolete. Category:Nile

Arabic numerals

Arabic numerals (also known as Indian numerals, Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals) are the most commonly used set of symbols used to represent numbers around the world. They are considered an important milestone in the development of mathematics.

History

The term "Arabic numerals" is actually a misnomer, since what are known in English as "Arabic numerals" were neither invented nor widely used by the Arabs. Instead, they were developed in India by the Hindus around 400 BC. However, because it was the Arabs who brought this system to the West after the Hindu numerical system found its way to Persia, the numeral system became known as "Arabic" [http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab34]. Arabs themselves call the numerals they use "Indian numerals", أرقام هندية, arqam hindiyyah). See also History of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system ---- Hindu numerals in the first century AD Image:Indian numerals 100AD.gif ----

Origins of the Numeral system

The first inscriptions using 0 in India have been traced to approximately 200 CE. Aryabhata's numerical code also represents a full knowledge of the zero symbol. By the time of Bhaskara I (i.e., the 7th century) a base 10 numeral system with nine symbols was widely used in India, and the concept of zero (represented by a dot) was known (see the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, or the definition by Brahmagupta). However, it is possible that the invention of the zero sign took place some time in the 1st century when the Buddhist philosophy of shunyata (zero-ness) gained ascendancy. How the numbers came to the Arabs can be read in the work of al-Qifti's "Chronology of the scholars", which was written around the end the 12th century but quoted earlier sources [http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2003/06/01-95210802.html]: :... a person from India presented himself before the Caliph al-Mansur in the year 776 who was well versed in the siddhanta method of calculation related to the movement of the heavenly bodies, and having ways of calculating equations based on the half-chord [essentially the sine] calculated in half-degrees ... Al-Mansur ordered this book to be translated into Arabic, and a work to be written, based on the translation, to give the Arabs a solid base for calculating the movements of the planets ... This book, which the Indian scholar presented from, was probably Brahmasphutasiddhanta (The Opening of the Universe) which was written in 628 by the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta and had used the Hindu Numerals with the zero sign. The numeral system came to be known to both the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, whose book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, and the Arab mathematician Al-Kindi, who wrote four volumes, "On the Use of the Indian Numerals" (Ketab fi Isti'mal al-'Adad al-Hindi) about 830, are principally responsible for the diffusion of the Indian system of numeration in the Middle-East and the West [http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/HistTopics/Indian_numerals.html]. In the 10th century, Middle-Eastern mathematicians extended the decimal numeral system to include fractions, as recorded in a treatise by Syrian mathematician Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi in 952-953. Fibonacci, an Italian mathematician who had studied in Bejaia (Bougie), Algeria, promoted the Arabic numeral system in Europe with his book Liber Abaci, which was published in 1202. The system did not come into wide use in Europe, however, until the invention of printing (See, for example, the [http://bell.lib.umn.edu/map/PTO/TOUR/1482u.html 1482 Ptolemaeus map of the world] printed by Lienhart Holle in Ulm, and other examples in the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany.) In the Arab World—until modern times—the Arabic numeral system was used only by mathematicians. Muslim scientists used the Babylonian numeral system, and merchants used a numeral system similar to the Greek numeral system and the Hebrew numeral system. Therefore, it was not until Fibonacci that the Arabic numeral system was used by a large population.

Description

The numeral set known in English as 'Arabic numerals' is a positional base 10 numeral system with ten distinct symbols representing the 10 numerical digits. Each digit has a value which is multiplied by a power of ten according to its position in the number; the left-most digit of a number has the greatest value. In a more developed form, the Arabic numeral system also uses a decimal marker (at first a mark over the ones digit but now more usually a decimal point or a decimal comma which separates the ones place from the tenths place), and also a symbol for “these digits repeat ad infinitum” (recur). In modern usage, this latter symbol is usually a vinculum (a horizontal line placed over the repeating digits); the need for it can be removed by representing fractions as simple ratios with a division sign, but this obviates many of Arabic numbers’ more obvious advantages, such as the ability to immediately determine which of two numbers is greater. Historically, however, there has been much variation. In this more developed form, the Arabic numeral system can symbolize any rational number using only 13 symbols (the ten digits, decimal marker, vinculum or division sign, and an optional prepended dash to indicate a negative number). It is interesting to note that, like many numbering systems, the numbers 1, 2, and 3 represent simple tally marks. 1 being a single line, 2 being two lines (now connected by a diagonal) and 3 being three lines (now connected by two vertical lines). After three, numbers tend to become more complex symbols (examples are the Chinese/Japanese numbers and Roman numerals). Theorists believe that this is because it becomes difficult to instantaneously count objects past three. The Arabic numeral system has used many different sets of symbols. These symbol sets can be divided into two main families — namely the West Arabic numerals, and the East Arabic numerals. East Arabic numerals — which were developed primarily in what is now Iraq — are shown in the table below as Arabic-Indic. East Arabic-Indic is a variety of East Arabic numerals. West Arabic numerals — which were developed in al-Andalus and the Maghreb —are shown in the table, labelled European. (There are two typographic styles for rendering European numerals, known as lining figures and text figures). Table of numerals

References


- [http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab34 History of Counting Systems and Numerals]. Retrieved 11 December 2005.
- [http://www.laputanlogic.com/articles/2003/06/01-95210802.html The Evolution of Numbers]. 16 April 2005.
- O'Connor, J. J. and Robertson, E. F. [http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/HistTopics/Indian_numerals.html Indian numerals]. November 2000.

External links


- History of the Numerals
  - [http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/HistTopics/Arabic_numerals.html Arabic numerals]:
  - [http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/university/scit/modules/mm2217/han.htm Hindu-Arabic numerals]: Category:Numeration Category:Elementary mathematics Category:Arabic language ko:아라비아 수 체계 ja:アラビア数字

Egyptian hieroglyph

:For the hip-hop collective, see Hieroglyphics (hip hop). Hieroglyphics (hip hop)Hieroglyphics (hip hop) statue on the back.]]Hieroglyphs are a system of writing used by the Ancient Egyptians, using a combination of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements.

Etymology

The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek ἱερογλύφος (hieroglúphos), from hiero- (ἱερός), meaning "sacred", and glyph (γλύφειν), meaning "carving". The Egyptian phrase for hieroglyphs is transliterated as mdw nṯr [often transcribed medu netjer; lit. "words of god"].

History and evolution

Symbols on Gerzean pottery, c.4000 BC, resemble traditional hieroglyph writing [http://www.touregypt.net/ebph5.htm]. For many years, the earliest known hieroglyphic inscription was the Narmer Palette, found during excavations at Hierakonpolis (modern Kawm al-Ahmar) in the 1890s, which has been dated to c.3200 BC. However, in 1998 a German archeological team under Gunter Dreyer excavating at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) uncovered tomb U-j which belonged to a Predynastic ruler, and recovered three hundred clay labels inscribed with proto-hieroglyphics, dating to the Naqada IIIA period, circa 33rd century BC [http://www.exn.ca/egypt/story.asp?st=Lifestyles], [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3657/is_200206/ai_n9107461]. The first full sentence written in hieroglyphs so far discovered was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Umm el-Qa'ab in Abydos, which dates from the Second Dynasty [http://xoomer.virgilio.it/francescoraf/hesyra/pribsn.htm]. Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of characters: phonetic characters, including single-consonant characters, like an alphabet, but also many representing two or three consonants, logographs, representing a word, and determinatives, which indicate the semantic category of a spelled-out word without indicating its precise meaning. As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified letter forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These forms were also more suited to use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed along side the other forms. The Rosetta Stone contains both hieroglyphic and demotic writing. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), after Alexander's conquest of Egypt, and during the ensuing Macedonian and Roman periods. It appears that the complexity of late hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believe that hieroglyphs functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from the foreign conquerors (and their local lackeys). This aspect may account for misleading quality of surviving comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs. Another factor is the pervasive attitude of "respect," coupled with a refusal to tackle a foreign culture on their own terms, which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as an allegorical, even magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge. This respect engendered not interest, but ignorance. By the fourth century, few Egyptians remained capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the "myth" of hieroglyphs was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in AD 391 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription is from a temple far to the south not long after 391. Also in the fourth century appeared the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, an "explanation" of nearly 200 signs. Authoritative yet largely false, the work was a lasting impediment to the decipherment of Egyptian writing. But whereas earlier scholarship emphasized its Greek origin, more recent work has emphasized remnants of genuine knowledge, and cast it as a "desperate" attempt by an Egyptian intellectual to rescue an unrecoverable past. The Hieroglyphica was a major influence on Renaissance symbolism, particularly the emblem book of Andrea Alciato, and including the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna. Various modern scholars attempted to decipher the glyphs over the centuries, notably Johannes Goropius Becanus in the 16th century and Athanasius Kircher in the 17th century, but such attempts either met with failure or were fictitious decipherments based on nothing but imaginative free-association. The most significant work on deciphering the hieroglyphs was done by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion beginning in the early 1800s. The discovery of the Rosetta stone by some of Napoleon's troops during the Egyptian invasion provided the critical information which allowed Champollion to make a nearly complete break into hieroglyphs by the 1830s. It was a major triumph for the young discipline of Egyptology. Hieroglyphs survive today in two forms: directly, through half a dozen Demotic glyphs added to the Greek alphabet when writing Coptic; and indirectly, as the inspiration for the Semitic alphabet that was ancestral to nearly every other alphabet ever used, including the Roman alphabet.

Script

The hieroglyphic script has 24 main uniliterals (symbols that stand for single sounds, much like English letters) for which we today associate with the 26 glyphs shown below. (Note that the glyph associated with the w/u sound also has a hieratic abbreviation.) However, in addition to the 24 main uniliterals shown below, the hieroglyphic script has many more biliterals -- symbols that stand for two sounds combined -- and also tri-literals -- three sounds. Tri-literals appear less frequently in hieroglyphic script than uni- or bi-literals. It should be pointed out that each glyph shown in the chart below may once have had associated with it each its own unique sound, much as the Old Egyptian voiceless alveolar fricative ([s]) and voiceless dental fricative ([θ]) sounds were once represented by each their own distinct images: folded cloth and door bolt. Eventually over time, Middle Egyptian replaced the Old, and some distinct sounds became fused (as [s] and [θ] did) while others may have been dropped altogether. Some of the glyphs shown below do not appear in Old Egyptian inscriptions surviving to the present day and are appropriately noted "no record." Note also that, in hieroglyphic script, most vowels are not written, and so pronunciation is aided by adding an e in between the consonants. For example: nfr -> nefer = beautiful, good. :It is a complex system, a writing figurative, symbolic, and phonetic all at once, in the same text, the same phrase, I would almost say in the same word - Letter to M. Dacier, September 271822 The transliteration system used in the chart below is over a century old but still reflects our best guess as to Egyptian pronunciation at the time, with several abstract symbols of unknown value such as "3". A lot of progress has been made since; though there is still debate as to the details. For instance, it's now thought the "3" may have been an [l] in Old Egyptian and was lost by Middle Egyptian. The consonants transcribed as voiced (d, g, dj) may actually have been ejective (or, less likely, pharyngealized as are the Semitic emphatic consonants). A good description can be found in Allen (2000). For details regarding other systems of transliteration, see the article Transliteration of ancient Egyptian.

Uniliteral signs

Examples

The word 'Ptolemy' is written in hieroglyphs thus: p:t-wA-l:M-i-i-s The letters in the above cartouche are: though EE is considered a single letter and transliterated I or Y. Another example of the way in which hieroglyphs work can be seen by looking at the two meanings of the Egyptian word pr (usually vocalised as per). Its first meaning is 'house', and its hieroglyphic representation is straightforward: pr:Z1 Here the 'house' hieroglyph works as an logogram: it represents the word with a single sign. The vertical stroke below the hieroglyph is a common way of indicating that a sign is working as an ideogram. The word pr can also mean 'to go out, leave'. When this word is written, the 'house' hieroglyph is used as a phonetic symbol: pr:r-D54 Here, the 'house' hieroglyph stands for the consonants pr. The 'mouth' hieroglyph below it is a phonetic complement: it is read as r, reinforcing the phonetic reading of pr. The third hieroglyph is the determinative - that is, it is an ideogram that gives the reader the broad meaning of what is written. Here it implies a verb of motion.

See also


- Ankh
- Demotic
- Egyptian language
- Egyptian languages
- Egyptian numerals
- Egyptology
- Hieratic
- Transliteration of ancient Egyptian

External links


- [http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4482/glyphs.html Glyphs and Grammars] Resources for those interested in learning hieroglyphs, compiled by Aayko Eyma.
- [http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/hieroglyphs/ Hieroglyphs!] Annotated directory of popular and scholarly resources.
- [http://www.jimloy.com/hiero/e-dict.htm Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary] by Jim Loy
- [http://personalwebs.myriad.net/steveb/egypt/kings.html Comprehensive Dictionary of Cartouches for all Egyptian Pharaohs]
- [http://www.greatscott.com/hiero/ GreatScott.com's Hieroglyphs] Commerical (free intro)
- [http://www.glyphdoctors.com Glyphdoctors: Study Egyptology Online!] Online courses in hieroglyphs and free discussion forums

References


-
- Category:Ancient Egypt Category:Egyptian languages Category:Writing systems ko:이집트 상형문자 ja:ヒエログリフ th:เฮียโรกลิฟ

Thutmose III

Menkheperre Thutmose III (also written as Tuthmosis III; called Manahpi(r)ya in the Amarna letters) (d. 1426 BC), was the sixth Pharaoh of Egypt in the Eighteenth Dynasty. He ruled from 1479 BC to 1425 BC, according to the Middle Chronology of Ancient Egypt. Thutmose III was the son of Pharaoh Thutmose II and Isis, a minor wife. When Thutmose II died in 1479 BC, Thutmose III became ruler. However, he shared power from the beginning of his reign with Hatshepsut, his father's wife, who acted as regent and eventually as the dominant co-ruler. For approximately 22 Years Thutmose III had little power over the empire. He married Hatshepsut's youngest daughter, Meritre, with whom he had a son named Amenhotep II. With the death of Hatshepsut, Thutmose III ruled by himself until his death in 1425 BC (some sources list his death ranging from 1430 BC to 1425 BC). Upon his accession to the throne, Thutmose took the praenomen Menkeperre, which is represented in the Amarna letters as Manahpi(r)ya. His praenomen and nomen in Egyptian hieroglyphs can be seen to the right. These are technically transliterated as mn-ḫpr-r‘ dḥwty-ms, which is usually realised to Menkheperre Djehutymes, meaning "Establisher of the form of Ra, Thoth bore him". Due to the influence of Greek transcriptions, Djehutymes is rendered as Thutmose, Thutmoses, or Thutmosis.

Thutmose's military campaigns

Widely considered a military genius by historians, he was an active expansionist ruler, sometimes referred to as the Napoleon of Egypt, because he was recorded to have captured 350 cities during his rule, conquering much of the Near East, from the Euphrates to Nubia. He was the first Pharaoh to cross the Euphrates, during his campaign against the Hanilgalbat. Thutmose III made a total of 17 known military campaigns. He defeated a large Canaanite coalition under the King of Kadesh in the Battle of Megiddo. After victory in battle, he conquered Megiddo after a siege of 7 or 8 Months (see Siege of Megiddo). Thutmose III is consistently regarded as one of Egypt's greatest Warrior Pharaohs and he made his country into an internationally respected World Superpower in the Ancient World. He was also a prolific builder of Temples throughout Egypt.

Controversy about relationship with Hatshepsut

After the death of her husband Thutmose II, Hatshepsut usurped the throne from Thutmose III and held it until her death. Although Thutmose III was a co-regent during this time, historians have speculated that Thutmose III never forgave his step-mother for denying him access to the throne for the first 2 decades of his reign.
Hatshepsut from the Red Chapel at Karnak.]]
After her death, many of Hatshepsut's monuments and depictions were subsequently defaced or destroyed, including those in her famous mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. These have traditionally been held to be evidence of acts of damnatio memoriae (condemning a person by erasing him or her from recorded existence) by Thutmose III. However, recent research by scholars such as that of Charles Nims and Peter Dorman have examined these erasures and found that those acts which could be dated occurred after the forty-second year of Thutmose's reign. This casts serious doubt upon the popular theory that Thutmose III ordered their destruction in a fit of vengeful rage shortly after his accession. Rather, it is more widely accepted today that Thutmose III may have simply decided to erase the memory of Hatshepsut's from Egypt's historical records because under his country's deeply conservative and hierarchical political system, only men were supposed to rule the state while women were expected to remain loyal to their husbands and nourish their households. Indeed, prior to Hatshepsut's reign only two other female Egyptian Pharaohs were known to exist: Nitocris and Sobekneferu. Unlike Hatshepsut however, both these queens only enjoyed a very brief reign.

See also


- History of Ancient Egypt
- Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree

Death and burial

Thutmose III's tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV34) is the first one in which Egyptologists find the complete Amduat, an important New Kingdom funerary text. A statement in a tomb biography of a state official named Amenemheb proves that Thutmose III died after a reign of precisely 53 Years 10 Months and 26 Days, or nearly 54 Years.

Further reading


- Redford, Donald B., The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III, [Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 16], Leiden: Brill, 2003. ISBN 9004129898

External links

[http://www.egyptologyonline.com/tuthmosis_iii.htm Tuthomosis III (Egyptology Online)] Category:1425 BC deaths Category:Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt ja:トトメス3世

Elephantine papyri

A Jewish community at Elephantine, the island in the Nile at the border of Nubia, was probably founded as a military installation in about 650 BCE during Manasseh's reign to assist Pharaoh Psammetichus I in his Nubian campaign. The dry soil of Upper Egypt preserved documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan). Hundreds of these Elephantine papyri, written in hieratic and Demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Greek, Latin and Coptic, span a period of 2000 years. The Elephantine documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives: divorce documents, the manumission of slaves, and other business, and are a valuable source of knowledge about law, society, religion, language and onomastics, the sometimes surprisingly revealing study of names. Though some fragments on papyrus are much older, the largest number of papyri are written in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire, and document the Jewish community among soldiers stationed at Elephantine under Persian rule, 495-399 BCE. The Jews had their own temple to Jahweh which functioned alongside that to the local ram-headed deity, Khnum. Legal documents and a cache of letters survived, turned up on the local 'gray market' of antiquities starting in the late 19th century, and were scattered into several Western collections. The "Petition to Bagoas" (Sayce-Cowley collection) is a letter written in 407 BCE to Bagoas, the Persian governor of Judea, appealing for assistance in rebuilding the Jewish temple in Elephantine, which had recently been badly damaged by an anti-Semitic rampage on the part of a segment of the Elephantine community. In the course of this appeal, the Jewish inhabitants of Elephantine speak of the antiquity of the damaged temple: :'Now our forefathers built this temple in the fortress of Elephantine back in the days of the kingdom of Egypt, and when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it built. They (the Persians) knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but no one did any damage to this temple." The 'Passover letter' of 419 BCE (discovered in 1907), which gives detailed instructions for properly keeping Passover is in the State Museums, Berlin. Further Elephantine papyri are at the Brooklyn Musem. The discovery of the Brooklyn papyri is remarkable story itself. The documents were first acquired in 1893 by New York journalist Charles Edwin Wilbour. After lying in a warehouse for more than 50 years, the papyri were shipped to the Egyptian Department of the Brooklyn Museum. It was at this time that scholars finally realized that "Wilbour had acquired the first Elephantine papyri".

Reference

The Elephantine papyri have been translated into English, indexed and published as The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, edited by Bezalel Porten, with J.J. Farber, C.J. Martin, G. Vittman, 1996.

External links


- [http://www.ancientneareast.net/elephantine_papyri.html Introduction and text of the 'Passover Papyrus'.] Category:Manuscripts

Aramaic

Aramaic is a Semitic language with a 3,000-year history. It has been the language of administration of empires and the language of divine worship. It is the original language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, and is the main language of the Talmud. Aramaic is believed to have been the language spoken by Jesus, and it is still spoken today as a first language by numerous small communities. Aramaic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family. Within that diverse family, it belongs to the Semitic subfamily. Aramaic is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes the Canaanite languages (including Hebrew).

Geographic distribution

During the twelfth century BCE, Aramaeans, the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in great numbers in modern-day Syria, Iraq and eastern Turkey. As the language grew in importance, it came to be spoken throughout the Mediterranean coastal area of the Levant, and spread east of the Tigris. Jewish settlers took the language with them into north Africa and Europe, and Christian missionaries brought Aramaic into Persia, India and even China. From the seventh century CE onwards, Aramaic was replaced as the lingua franca of the Middle East by Arabic. However, Aramaic remains a literary and liturgical language among Jews, Mandaeans and some Christians, and is still spoken by small isolated communities throughout its original area of influence. The turbulence of the last two centuries has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world.

Aramaic languages and dialects

Aramaic is really a group of related languages, rather than a single monolithic language. The long history of Aramaic, its extensive literature and its use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not. Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic of Christian communities. Most dialects can be described as either "Eastern"' or "Western," the dividing line being roughly the Euphrates, or slightly west of it. It is also helpful to draw a distinction between those Aramaic languages that are modern living languages (often called Neo-Aramaic), those that are still in use as literary languages, and those that are extinct and are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives "Modern," "Middle" and "Old" periods, alongside "Eastern" and "Western" areas, to distinguish between the various languages and dialects that are Aramaic.

Writing system

Euphrates] The earliest Aramaic alphabet was based on the Phoenician script. In time, Aramaic developed its distinctive 'square' style. The ancient Israelites and other peoples of Canaan adopted this alphabet for writing their own languages. Thus, it is better known as the Hebrew alphabet today. This is the writing system used in Biblical Aramaic and other Jewish writing in Aramaic. The other main writing system used for Aramaic was developed by Christian communities: a cursive form known as the Syriac alphabet (one of the varieties of the Syriac alphabet, Serto, is shown to the left). A highly modified form of the Aramaic alphabet, the Mandaic alphabet, is used by the Mandaeans. In addition to these writing systems, certain derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet were used in ancient times by particular groups: Nabataean in Petra, for instance, or Palmyrenean in Palmyra. In modern times, Turoyo (see below) has sometimes been written in an adapted Latin alphabet.

History

Here follows a comprehensive history of Aramaic. The history is broken down into three broad periods:
- Old Aramaic (1100 BCE–200 CE), including:
  - The Biblical Aramaic of the Hebrew Bible.
  - The Aramaic of Jesus.
  - The Aramaic of the Targums.
- Middle Aramaic (200–1200), including:
  - Literary Syriac.
  - The Aramaic of the Talmuds and Midrashim.
- Modern Aramaic (1200–present), including:
  - Various modern vernaculars. This classification is based on that used by Klaus Beyer
- .

Old Aramaic

Old Aramaic covers over thirteen centuries of the language. This vast time span is chosen as it includes all Aramaic that is now effectively extinct. The main turning point for Old Aramaic is around 500 BCE, when the Ancient Aramaic (the language of Aramaeans) moves into Imperial Aramaic (the language of powerful empires). The various spoken dialects of Old Aramaic come to prominence when Greek replaces Aramaic as the language of power in the region.

Ancient Aramaic

Ancient Aramaic refers to the Aramaic of the Aramaeans from its origin until it becomes the official 'lingua franca' of the Fertile Crescent. It was the language of the city-states of Damascus, Hamath and Arpad.

Early Ancient Aramaic

There are quite extensive inscriptions that evidence the earliest use of the language, dating from the tenth century BCE. These inscriptions are mostly diplomatic documents between Aramaean city-states. The orthography of Aramaic at this early period seems to be based on Phoenician, and there is a unity in the written language. It seems that, in time, a more refined orthography, suited to the needs of the language, began to develop from this in the eastern regions of Aram. Oddly, the dominance of Assyrian Empire of Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram in the middle of the eighth century led to the establishment of Aramaic as a lingua franca. lingua franca

Late Ancient Aramaic

From 700 BCE, the language began to spread in all directions, but lost much of its homogeneity. Different dialects began to emerge in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, the Levant and Egypt. However, the Akkadian-influenced Aramaic of Assyria, and then Babylon, started to come to the fore. As described in 2 Kings 18:26, Hezekiah, king of Judah, negotiates with Assyrian ambassadors in Aramaic so that the common people would not understand. Around 600 BCE, Adon, a Canaanite king, uses Aramaic to write to the Egyptian Pharaoh. 'Chaldee' or 'Chaldean Aramaic' used to be common terms for the Aramaic of the Chaldean dynasty of Babylonia. It was used to describe Biblical Aramaic, which was, however, written in a later style. It is not to be confused with the modern language Chaldean Neo-Aramaic.

Imperial Aramaic

Around 500 BCE, Darius I made Aramaic the official language of the western half of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The bureaucrats in Babylon were already using the local dialect of Eastern Aramaic for most of their work, but Darius's edict put Aramaic on firm, united foundations. The new, Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised; its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect, and the inevitable influence of Persian gave the language a new clarity and robust flexibility. Imperial Aramaic is sometimes called Official Aramaic or Biblical Aramaic. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 331 BCE), Imperial Aramaic as prescribed by Darius, or near enough for it to be recognisable, remained the dominant language of the region. 'Achaemenid Aramaic' is used to describe the Imperial Aramaic of the Achaemenid Empire. This period of Aramaic is usually dated from the proclamation of Darius (c. 500 BCE) to about a century after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BCE. Many of the extant documents witnessing to this form of Aramaic come from Egypt, and Elephantine in particular. Of them, the most well known is the 'Wisdom of Ahiqar', a book of instructive aphorisms quite similar in style to the biblical book of Proverbs. Achaemenid Aramaic is sufficiently uniform that it is often difficult to know where any particular example of the language was written. Only careful examination reveals the occasional loan word from a local language.

Post-Achaemenid Aramaic

book of Proverbs The conquest by Alexander the Great did not destroy the unity of Aramaic language and literature immediately. Aramaic that bears a relatively close resemblance to that of the fifth century BCE can be found right up to the early second century. The Seleucids imposed Greek in the administration of Syria and Mesopotamia from the start of their rule. In the third century, Greek overtook Aramaic as the common language in Egypt and northern Palestine. However, a post-Achaemenid Aramaic continued to flourish from Judaea, through the Syrian Desert, and into Arabia and Parthia. This continuation of Imperial Aramaic was a subversive, anti-Hellenistic statement of independence. Biblical Aramaic is the Aramaic found in four discrete sections of the Hebrew Bible:
- Ezra 4:8–6:18 and 7:12–26 — documents from the Achaemenid period (fifth century BCE) concerning the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem.
- Daniel 2:4b–7:28 — five subversive tales and an apocalyptic vision.
- Jeremiah 10:11 — a single sentence in the middle of a Hebrew text denouncing idolatry.
- Genesis 31:47 — translation of a Hebrew place-name. Biblical Aramaic is a somewhat hybrid dialect. Some Biblical Aramaic material probably originated in both Babylonia and Judaea before the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty. During Seleucid rule, defiant Jewish propaganda shaped Aramaic Daniel. These stories probably existed as oral traditions at their earliest stage. This might be one factor that led to differing collections of Daniel in the Greek Septuagint and the Masoretic Text, which presents a lightly Hebrew-influenced Aramaic. Under the category of post-Achaemenid is Hasmonaean Aramaic, the official language of Hasmonaean Judaea (142–37 BCE). It influenced the Biblical Aramaic of the Qumran texts, and was the main language of non-biblical theological texts of that community. The major Targums, translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, were originally composed in Hasmonaean. Hasmonaean also appears in quotations in the Mishnah and Tosefta, although smoothed into its later context. It is written quite differently from Achaemenid Aramaic; there is an emphasis on writing as words are pronounced rather than using etymological forms. Babylonian Targumic is the later post-Achaemenid dialect found in the Targum Onqelos and Targum Jonathan, the 'official' targums. The original, Hasmonaean targum had reached Babylon sometime in the second or third centuries CE. They were then reworked according to the contemporary, dialect of Babylon to create the language of the standard targums. This combination formed the basis of Babylonian Jewish literature for centuries to follow. third]] Galilean Targumic is similar to Babylonian Targumic. It is the mixing of literary Hasmonaean with the dialect of Galilee. The Hasmonaean targum reached Galilee in the second century CE, and were reworked into this Galilean dialect for local use. The Galilean Targum was never considered an authoritative work, and documentary evidence shows that its text was amended wherever and whenever 'improvement' was needed. From the eleventh century CE onwards, once the Babylonian Targum had become normative, the Galilean version became heavily influenced by it. Babylonian Documentary Aramaic is a dialect in use from the third century CE onwards. It is the dialect of Babylonian private documents, and, from the twelfth century, all Jewish private documents in Aramaic. It is based on Hasmonaean with very few changes. This was perhaps due to the fact that many of the documents in BDA are legal documents, the language in them had to be sensible throughout the Jewish community from the start, and Hasmonaean was the old standard. Nabataean Aramaic is the language of the Arab kingdom of Petra. The kingdom (c. 200 BCE–106 CE covered the east bank of the Jordan River, the Sinai Peninsula and northern Arabia. Perhaps because of the importance of the caravan trade, the Nabataeans began to use Aramaic in preference to Old North Arabic. The dialect is based on Achaemenid with a little influence from Arabic: 'l' is often turned into 'n', and there are a few Arabic loan words. Some Nabataean Aramaic inscriptions exist from the early days of the kingdom, but most are from the first four centuries CE. The language is written in a cursive script that is the precursor to the modern Arabic alphabet. The number of Arabic loan words increases through the centuries, until, in the fourth century, Nabataean merges seamlessly with Arabic. Palmyrene Aramaic is the dialect that was in use in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian Desert from 44 BCE to 274 CE. It was written in a rounded script, which later gave way to cursive Estrangela. Like Nabataean, Palmyrene was influenced by Arabic, but to a lesser degree. Arsacid Aramaic was the official language of the Parthian Empire (247 BCE–224 CE). It, more than any other post-Achaemenid dialect, continues the tradition of Darius I. Over time, however, it came under the influence of contemporary, spoken Aramaic, Georgian and Persian. After the conquest of the Parthians by the Persian-speaking Sassanids, Arsacid exerted considerable influence on the new official language.

Late Old Eastern Aramaic

Sassanids The dialects mentioned in the last section were all descended from Achaemenid Imperial Aramaic. However, the diverse regional dialects of Late Ancient Aramaic continued alongside these, often as simple, spoken languages. Early evidence for these spoken dialects is known only through their influence on words and names in a more standard dialect. However, these regional dialects became written languages in the second century BCE. These dialects reflect a stream of Aramaic that is not dependent on Imperial Aramaic, and shows a clear division between the regions of Mesopotamia, Babylon and the east, and Palestine and the west. In the east, the dialects of Palmyrene and Arsacid Aramaic merged with the regional languages to create languages with a foot in Imperial and a foot in regional Aramaic. Much later, Arsacid became the liturgical language of the Mandaean religion, Mandaic. In the kingdom of Osrhoene, centred on Edessa and founded in 132 BCE, the regional dialect became the official language: Old Syriac. On the upper reaches of the Tigris, East Mesopotamian Aramaic flourished, with evidence from Hatra, Assur and the Tur Abdin. Tatian, the author of the gospel harmony the Diatessaron came from Assyria, and perhaps wrote his work (172 CE) in East Mesopotamian rather than Syriac or Greek. In Babylonia, the regional dialect was used by the Jewish community, Jewish Old Babylonian (from c. 70 CE). This everyday language increasingly came under the influence of Biblical Aramaic and Babylonian Targumic.

Late Old Western Aramaic

The western regional dialects of Aramaic followed a similar course to those of the east. They are quite distinct from the eastern dialects and Imperial Aramaic. The Semitic languages of Palestine gave way to Aramaic during fourth century BCE; Phoenician, however, continued into the first century BCE. The form of Late Old Western Aramaic used by the Jewish community is best attested, and is usually referred to as Jewish Old Palestinian. Its oldest form is Old East Jordanian, which probably comes from the region of Caesarea Philippi. This is the language of the oldest manuscript of Enoch (c. 170 BCE). The next distinct phase of the language is called Old Judaean (into the second century CE). Old Judaean literature can be found in various inscriptions and personal letters, preserved quotations in the Talmud and receipts from Qumran. Josephus' first, non-extant edition of his Jewish War was written in Old Judaean. The Old East Jordanian dialect continued to be used into the first century CE by pagan communities living to the east of the Jordan. Their dialect is often then called Pagan Old Palestinian, and it was written in a cursive script somewhat similar to that used for Old Syriac. A Christian Old Palestinian dialect may have arisen from the pagan one, and this dialect may be behind some of the Western Aramaic tendencies found in the otherwise eastern Old Syriac gospels (see Peshitta).

The spoken dialects of Jesus' time

: See the Aramaic of Jesus for more information. Seven dialects of Western Aramaic were spoken in Jesus' time. They were probably distinctive yet mutually intelligible. Old Judaean was the prominent dialect of Jerusalem and Judaea. The region of Engedi had the South-east Judaean dialect. Samaria had its distinctive Samaritan Aramaic, where the consonants 'he', 'heth' and '`ayin' all became pronounced as 'aleph'. Galilean Aramaic, the language of Jesus' home region, is only known from a few place names, the influences on Galilean Targumic, some rabbinic literature and a few private letters. It seems to have a number of distinctive features: diphthongs are never simplified into monophthongs. East of the Jordan, the various dialects of East Jordanian were spoken. In the region of Damascus and the Anti-Lebanon, Damascene Aramaic was spoken (deduced mostly from Modern Western Aramaic). Finally, as far north as Aleppo, the western dialect of Orontes Aramaic was spoken. Besides these dialects of Aramaic, Greek was used extensively in urban centres. There is little evidence for the use of Hebrew during this period. Some Hebrew words continued as part of Jewish Aramaic vocabulary (mostly technical religious words, but also some everyday words like `ēṣ, tree), and the written language of the Tanakh was read and understood by the educated classes. However, the Hebrew language had ceased to be the language of everyday life. In addition, the various words in the Greek context of the New Testament</