No comments Tomb of Prince Amon-her-Khopechef (It should be noted that those of the pharaohs’ offspring who died in childhood were also buried in the Valley of the Queens). The decoration in this tomb intended for the son of Ramses III is exceptional both for the brilliance and the intensity of the colour which is dominated by a magnificent ultramarine blue. In the first room we see the Pharaoh presenting his son to various gods, Thot, Ptah and the four sons of Horus (Hapi, Amset, Duamutef and Keben- senuf). The latter four gods after taking part in the rite of mummification of Osiris with Anubis became the patrons of the canopic jars.
No comments The Tomb of Siremput II Siremput II was the «Hereditary Prince» during the reign of the Xllth dynasty pharaoh Amon- Emhat II. The hypogeum consists of an initial chamber with six pillars, a gallery flanked by six niches each with a mummy-shaped statue of the dead prince, a second square chamber with four pillars, each one decorated with a splendid picture of Siremput, and finally a frescoed chapel. In the latter is a scene showing the prince with his small son paying homage to him in front of a table laid for a meal with bread, sweets, fruit including bunches of grapes and even a duck. Beneath the table stand carafes of wine. The adjacent wall shows the prince’s wife, a priestess of Hathor, who is also seated before a ritual meal.
No comments Tombs of the Middle Kingdom (c. 1980-1920 BC) Tomb of Sirenput I Sirenput was a prince of Elephantine in the reign of Senusert I, at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. It was he who was encouraged by his sovereign to erect the sanctuary of Hekaib, and the royal artists he entrusted with the work on the sanctuary also decorated his own tomb.
Tomb of Sirenput I
The fa9ade is carefully and finely sculpted. Sirenput is shown in seated position at the top of the staircase. Behind is a court with six pillars, all bearing representations of him. On the rear wall (left) is a large relief showing him followed by his sandal-bearer and two dogs, and hunting in the marsh (above). Cattle, including some angry bulls, are brought to him. To the right, he is seated in a colonnade with four women: his wife, mother and two daughters who bear him flowers.
As in Africa below the Sahara, World War II was a turning point for North Africa and the Middle East.During the war, the British in particular had reestablished their control over strategic countries such as Egypt and Iran. Such control angered many and led to an even more intensive development of nationalism in the region after the war. In addition, the United Nations decision to grant independence to Italy’s former colony of Libya raised expectations and demands among the French North African peoples that they, too, should be free from colonial rule. Not least, the discovery of the extent of the Holocaust, which had almost destroyed the Jewish population of Europe, led to renewed conflict in Palestine and eventually the emergence of the new state of Israaeel.
French North Africa and the Middle East
Like Great Britain, France was exhausted by World War II. Yet also like the British, the French did not immediately expect to have to give up their colonies. The first successful challenge to French colonialism came in the Middle East, in Syria and Lebanon.Syria and Lebanon. France had first gained control of Syria and Lebanon as a mandate after World War I. In the 1920s, French policy had encouraged the development of a separate state in Lebanon, where there was a slight Christian majority. During World War II, Free French and British troops had taken control of both countries from the Vichy government. After the war, however, despite promises of independence, French troops remained in Syria and Lebanon. Only under British pressure and several brief but bloody battles with Arab nationalists did France finally agree to withdraw. In the mid-1940s both Lebanon and Syria became fully independent republics.Algeria. The success of Arab nationalism in Syria in particular proved an inspiration to Arab nationalists in French North Africa. The heart of the French colonial empire in North Africa was Algeria. Like South Africa within the British Empire, Algeria had a large European settler community, people known as colons, accounting for about 10 percent of the population. These settlers, many of whose families had lived in Algeria since the 1800s, owned most of the colony’s industry and its best land. Algeria was not just a colony, however, but had been legally absorbed into France. Algerian voters elected representatives to the French National Assembly in Paris, although voting restrictions limited the participation of the large majority of Muslim Arabs.As nationalism emerged in other parts of the Middle East after World War II, the Algerians also began to demand independence. When both the colons and the French authorities resisted these demands, Algerian nationalists formed an organization in 1954 to fight for independence. The Algerian National Liberation Front, or FLN ( its French initials), launched its revolution on November 1, 1954.The Algerian war became extremely brutal as both sides committed atrocities to gain their goals. The FLN waged a terror campaign not only against the French but also against less radical Algerian Arabs who opposed independence. Torture was used by both sides in the conflict. So severe was the war that in 1958 an uprising among the colons in Algiers, supported by many army leaders, contributed to the downfall of the French Fourth Republic and the return of General Charles de Gaulle to power in France. The military and the settlers expected de Gaulle to pursue the war against the FLN. Instead, he decided to negotiate a settlement, even if it meant granting Algeria independence. Despite resistance from the army and the settlers, including attempts on his own life, in 1962 de Gaulle did indeed grant Algeria independence.
Morocco and Tunisia. The Algerian war had a devastating impact on French colonialism everywhere. The war was an important factor in influencing de Gaulle to offer his terms for independence to the African territories south of the Sahara. It was also partly responsible for independence in Morocco and Tunisia. Neighbors of Algeria, these two Muslim states were French protectorates. French rule in Morocco, in fact, had only been established relatively recently in the 1920s and Moroccan resistance remained strong. In 1954 both Moroccan and Tunisian nationalists also launched guerrilla campaigns designed to drive the French from their countries. In 1956, as the war raged in Algeria, France finally gave in. Morocco became a constitutional monarchy under the sultan Sidi Muhammad ben Yusuf, who became King Muhammad V. Tunisia became a republic under Tunisian nationalist leader Flabib Bourguiba.
No comments Description of Monuments The monuments of Philae cover four major epochs: the last part of the Pharaonic era, the Ptolemaic period, the Roman epoch and the Christian period. The chief monuments are the Temple of Isis (i) and her son Horus (Harendotus) (2), the beautiful Arch of Hadrian (3), the Temple of Hathor (4) and the Kiosk (5), which is also known as Pharaoh’s Bed.
Philae Egypt
The Entrance to the island (a) was originally constructed by Nektanebos, the first ruler of the last Dynasty; it was designed with fourteen columns and two sandstone obelisks on the river front. Unfortunately, a particularly high flood swept the structure away soon after it was completed, and it lay in ruin until Ptolemy II had it restored; some of the columns were reconstructed. These have double capitals; the lower parts are decorated with different floral forms and the upper bear heads of Hathor. The screen walls between the columns, crowned with concave cornices bearing rows of uraeus serpents, show Nektanebos making offerings to the deities.
Philae Egypt
We now stand on the threshold of Philae. Before us a great Outer Court (b) opens up. This leads to the Temple of Isis about one hundred metres ahead. The court is flanked by colonnades. On the right only half a dozen of the planned sixteen columns were completed; also to the right are the temples of Arhesnofer (d), Mandolis (e) and Imhotep (f).
Philae Egypt
To the left, the thirty-two columns of the colonnade follow the shore line. No two capitals are alike. The shafts show Tiberius making offerings to the Egyptian gods. The ceiling is decorated with stars and flying vultures. The representations are all finely executed and mostly well preserved. For example, between the first two columns (c), above the window, Nero is depicted offering two eyes to Horus, Isis and ‘The Lord of the Two Lands’.
5 comments Anubis Lord of the Mummy Wrapping – Part 1
Primarily “Lord of the Mummy Wrapping” Anubis was one of the very old gods. He was depicted in the form of a dog or jackal, either as a man with a jackal head or as the full animal. Most likely jackals were associated with death because they had been observed eating corpses, but Flinders Petrie speculated that the animals assembled in graveyards to feed off the offerings left there to honor the dead. A possible explanation for the cult of Anubis God is that rituals in honor of the jackal were an attempt to put a benevolent interpretation on his practice of digging for bones in graveyards. In other words, if these macabre habits could be enshrined in mythology and religion, perhaps Anubis God would use them for good rather than evil. Hence Anubis God was given an important role in myths, especially in the underworld where he became responsible for caring for the bodies of the recently dead.
Anubis Egyptian god pictures
The earliest myths made Anubis God the son of Ra, but the chief stories of Anubis God gave him an altogether different genealogy, one in which he had a clearly benevolent role. By the time of the Coffin Texts he was involved in the myths of Osiris.
He was Nephthys’ son, supposedly by her husband, Seth, but in fact the child of her liaison with Osiris. The mother deserted her son in fear of Seth, but Isis found the child and raised him because he was the son of her now-dead husband. Anubis God became Isis’ faithful watchdog and protector and was rewarded with the ability to understand human speech and to study medicine and the art of embalming.
Following Osiris’ death, Anubis God was asked by Ra to assist Isis in reassembling the dismembered body. He and Horus, with Thoth’s advice and magic, were able to wrap the body in mummy’s cloth and restore it to its original shape. When he had finished his work, Anubis God said to his father: “Arise and live: Behold your new appearance. Avert the crime of him who did you wrong.” This act made Anubis God valuable to human beings who hoped that he would do the same for their bodies when the time came.
Anubis Egyptian God
As a result, he was assigned major roles in the afterlife in the Book of the Dead and elsewhere. Known as “Counter of Hearts,” he greeted the dead on their entrance into the underworld and worked along with Horus to embalm the bodies and preserve the mortal remains from decay. He presided over “God’s Booth,” which contained four jars holding the necessary ingredients to deify the dead king. Then he was shown as the weigher of hearts during the trial, and it was his hand that checked the balance beam to determine the results. Souls that failed to pass were devoured by Ammit, one of the more fantastic of mythological creatures. At the trial he stood near Anubis, eager for the tasty dish that was his should the soul fail the test. He was a composite of three ferocious animals: he had the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the backside of a hippopotamus; his name meant “eater of the dead.”
Sometimes Anubis God was thought of as the god who led the dead to the presence of Osiris for final judgment, although Horus also en had that assignment. Anubis God was also shown supporting the fright mummy during the episode of the Opening of the Mouth, symbolize the importance of this myth, during the actual embalming of the body a priest wore a jackal mask to indicate that he was Anubis’ representative in this ritual By the Twenty-first Dynasty Anubis God had become a generally popular god. The papyrus of Nisti-Ta-Nebet- Taui called him “Lord of the Holy Land” and claimed that “he gives gifts and food, all good and pure things, all things beautiful and sweet which the heaven gives, which are found on earth, which are brought by the Nile from his cave for Osiris.” Later still, Anubis God remained an important god for the Greeks and Romans and ancient Egypt . Plutarch reported that he was the one who connected the visible with the invisible world.
5 comments Anubis Lord of the Mummy Wrapping – Part 1
Primarily “Lord of the Mummy Wrapping” Anubis was one of the very old gods. He was depicted in the form of a dog or jackal, either as a man with a jackal head or as the full animal. Most likely jackals were associated with death because they had been observed eating corpses, but Flinders Petrie speculated that the animals assembled in graveyards to feed off the offerings left there to honor the dead. A possible explanation for the cult of Anubis God is that rituals in honor of the jackal were an attempt to put a benevolent interpretation on his practice of digging for bones in graveyards. In other words, if these macabre habits could be enshrined in mythology and religion, perhaps Anubis God would use them for good rather than evil. Hence Anubis God was given an important role in myths, especially in the underworld where he became responsible for caring for the bodies of the recently dead.
Anubis Egyptian god pictures
The earliest myths made Anubis God the son of Ra, but the chief stories of Anubis God gave him an altogether different genealogy, one in which he had a clearly benevolent role. By the time of the Coffin Texts he was involved in the myths of Osiris.
He was Nephthys’ son, supposedly by her husband, Seth, but in fact the child of her liaison with Osiris. The mother deserted her son in fear of Seth, but Isis found the child and raised him because he was the son of her now-dead husband. Anubis God became Isis’ faithful watchdog and protector and was rewarded with the ability to understand human speech and to study medicine and the art of embalming.
Following Osiris’ death, Anubis God was asked by Ra to assist Isis in reassembling the dismembered body. He and Horus, with Thoth’s advice and magic, were able to wrap the body in mummy’s cloth and restore it to its original shape. When he had finished his work, Anubis God said to his father: “Arise and live: Behold your new appearance. Avert the crime of him who did you wrong.” This act made Anubis God valuable to human beings who hoped that he would do the same for their bodies when the time came.
Anubis Egyptian God
As a result, he was assigned major roles in the afterlife in the Book of the Dead and elsewhere. Known as “Counter of Hearts,” he greeted the dead on their entrance into the underworld and worked along with Horus to embalm the bodies and preserve the mortal remains from decay. He presided over “God’s Booth,” which contained four jars holding the necessary ingredients to deify the dead king. Then he was shown as the weigher of hearts during the trial, and it was his hand that checked the balance beam to determine the results. Souls that failed to pass were devoured by Ammit, one of the more fantastic of mythological creatures. At the trial he stood near Anubis, eager for the tasty dish that was his should the soul fail the test. He was a composite of three ferocious animals: he had the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the backside of a hippopotamus; his name meant “eater of the dead.”
Sometimes Anubis God was thought of as the god who led the dead to the presence of Osiris for final judgment, although Horus also en had that assignment. Anubis God was also shown supporting the fright mummy during the episode of the Opening of the Mouth, symbolize the importance of this myth, during the actual embalming of the body a priest wore a jackal mask to indicate that he was Anubis’ representative in this ritual By the Twenty-first Dynasty Anubis God had become a generally popular god. The papyrus of Nisti-Ta-Nebet- Taui called him “Lord of the Holy Land” and claimed that “he gives gifts and food, all good and pure things, all things beautiful and sweet which the heaven gives, which are found on earth, which are brought by the Nile from his cave for Osiris.” Later still, Anubis God remained an important god for the Greeks and Romans and ancient Egypt . Plutarch reported that he was the one who connected the visible with the invisible world.
No comments The Tombs of the Caliphs, 1873 Gabriel Charmes
Tombs of the Caliphs
All at once, between the two walls of sand, appear the Tombs of the Caliphs. Nothing can give an idea of this sight, the most melancholy and the finest I have ever met with in my life. The background of the picture is formed on the left by a fiery-red hill, named the Montagne-Rouge; it joins the bluish escarpments of the Mokatam, bathed in a transparent vapour, which gives them a fairy aspect; on the right, the Citadel, more gloomy, lifts its great walls into the azure of the sky. Before the girdle of rocks, which seem to be arranged like reflectors of light, an immense group of minarets and cupolas, crowded together, glitter like a magic apparition. It is the Necropolis of the Caliphs a city of tombs, a cemetery of a special kind, that resembles in no way Turkish cemeteries, since it does not contain a blade of verdure, since one sees there only walls and dust, but the debris of construction scattered in the desert. The Arabs desired to place their tombs in the solitude, far from the eyes of the world, in the centre of a valley of sand, as if to hinder the busy noise of life from troubling their last sleep. The environs of the Caliphs are formed of mounds, amid which one often loses himself without seeing any other object around than a yellowish rampart that surrounds him everywhere. I remember having tarried for a long time in one of these numerous promenades at the Tombs of the Caliphs, in the bottom of a sort of funnel of an intense colour, like the brightest gold; the sky, of an intense blue, seemed superposed on the summit of this funnel, which it closed in hermetically. This contrast of two tones equally violent, deprived of any shade, would have been anywhere else offensive and insufferable; it was there, without knowing why, of marvellous harmony. Nature alone can permit herself such liberties; Art would be impotent to imitate them. But when one encounters them in reality, they produce a mixture of inexpressible surprise and admiration; they are impressions that partake of a dream, the remembrance of which, though always intense, leaves on the mind the sentiment of a prodigious illusion. When you advance amid the Tombs of the Caliphs, you soon find yourself surrounded by a crowd of children, who frolic merrily on these sepulchral ruins. Through a sort of caprice of fortune, dawning life bursts forth everywhere in this great cemetery; never has the antithesis of youth and death taken a more tangible or striking form. They are the guardians of the tombs and the few inhabitants of this mortuary city that people it with this numerous offspring. Surrounded with the desert, without wants like all other Arabs, working consequently seldom, they bring forth children, it seems, in order to pass away the time. I asked one day a guardian of one of the tombs, who was walking about, surrounded with an immense family, whence came the prolific ardour, the results of which I witnessed.
“What should I do?” he replied. “It is so wearisome here.”
No comments Temple of Deir el Medina at Luxor The area of Luxor, with its powerful priesthood and marvellous monuments on both sides of the Nile, was not the scene of much Graeco-Roman reconstruction. The small, elegant and beautifully preserved temple in the necropolis, known as Deir el Medina, is an exception. It was founded by Ptolemy IV on a site with a long history. It honoured two of Egypt’s great sages. These were Amenhotep, son of Hapu, who lived in the reign of Amenhotep III (1390 BC), and Imhotep, builder of the Step Pyramid of Sakkara, wise sage and physician of Zoser’s Court well over a thousand years earlier (2686 BC).
Temple of Deir el Medina at Luxor Map
Over the doorway from within the First Court is a representation of the rising sun, symbolically depicted as a scarab, being praised by eight sacred apes. The scenes on all the walls depict Ptolemy IV and his wife Arsinoe making offerings to Egyptian deities: Amon-Ra, Hathor and Shu, god of the atmosphere (right-hand wall).
Temple of Deir el Medina at Luxor
On the screen walls with Hathor-shaped pillars that separate the First from the Second Court, are the two honoured sages, Amenhotep, son of Hapu, and Imhotep. The three chambers to the rear of the temple are all in painted relief and in a fine state of preservation. The left-hand chamber has a particularly noteworthy judgement scene. It shows the soul of the deceased, followed by Maat, walking towards the Court of Justice. A second figure of Maat stands on the threshold in welcome. In the scene of the weighing of the heart of the deceased against the feather of Truth in the scales of justice, Horus and Anubis stand witness. Thoth, the god of wisdom, notes the verdict. Beside the scales are a youthful Horus seated upon the crook that symbolises power, and a fearful monster. In the case of a favourable judgement, it is the young Horus who claims the soul; in the case of failure, the monster has his claim.
Temple of Deir el Medina at Luxor
Presiding over the trial is, of course, Osiris, god of the underworld. Before him are four genii rising out of a lotus flower. These are the children of Horus, guardians of the Canopic jars, where the viscera removed during embalming were placed. Above Osiris are the forty-two judges of the dead.
Temple of Deir el Medina at Luxor
On the opposite, right-hand wall, is a representation of a large sacred barge, belonging to Soker-Osiris, resting on a pedestal. In front of it are two standards bearing the emblem of Wepwawat, the ancient god of Abydos, and three other standards behind it. Towards the end of the wall Ptolemy burns incense in an elaborate censer before the figure of the god Min in a shrine. Anubis is clad in a red robe and holds a disc in his hand.
No comments Tomb of Prince Amon-her-Khopechef (It should be noted that those of the pharaohs’ offspring who died in childhood were also buried in the Valley of the Queens). The decoration in this tomb intended for the son of Ramses III is exceptional both for the brilliance and the intensity of the colour which is dominated by a magnificent ultramarine blue. In the first room we see the Pharaoh presenting his son to various gods, Thot, Ptah and the four sons of Horus (Hapi, Amset, Duamutef and Keben- senuf). The latter four gods after taking part in the rite of mummification of Osiris with Anubis became the patrons of the canopic jars.
