Geography played a vital part in shaping early human societies. Landscape, climate, wildlife, vegetation, and the availability of natural resources all helped influence what early societies looked like, whether they were nomadic units that kept animals and survived by hunting and foraging or settled communities that grew crops, tended herds or flocks, and built shelters. Such characteristics depended on factors like weather patterns and soil fertility, as well as the proximity of drinking water and toolmaking resources.
Well-watered regions in Africa, such as the grassy plains of the savannas and the northern and southern fringes of the continent, have historically produced environments that foster settled human communities. Here abundant rain, adequate forestation, and a host of wildlife provided conditions that could support ever-growing populations over long periods of time. More arid regions, such as the narrow transitional belts separating the savannas from Africa’s deserts, experience less rain and have less fertile soil, producing land that cannot be successfully farmed. These areas lent themselves to nomadism and the herding of grazing animals to provide many of the necessities of life, from milk and meat for food to leather and fur for clothing and bones for toolmaking. Throughout most of human history, geography has been an important factor in human development. As a result, exploring Africa’s diverse geography opens a window into the development of the earliest human civilization on the continent.
Geographic Diversity on the African Continent
Owing to its position across the equatorial and subtropical latitudes of both the northern and southern hemispheres, Africa is home to a range of climates, including searing deserts, frozen glaciers, sweltering rainforests, and lush grasslands. These divergent environments exist because most of the continent lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, in the tropical climate zone. Only its northernmost and southernmost fringes are beyond the tropical area.
Across the center of Africa, stretching like a band from Guinea in the northwest to parts of Mozambique in the southeast, lies a swath of wet, tropical land subject to extremely heavy rainfall. Here we find the deep canopy and undergrowth of Africa’s equatorial rainforest. Centered on the Congo River Basin, the rainforest is densest in the present-day central state of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Here there is very little space between trees, resulting in thick layers of leaf covering that prevent much sunlight from reaching the forest floor. Approximately 386,000 square miles in extent, the Congo rainforest is the second largest in the world. Overall, it receives between sixty-three and seventy-eight inches of rain every year.
The Congo River, which forms the heart of the rainforest region, is the second-longest river in Africa; only the Nile is longer. The geographic differences between the environments of these rivers produced vastly different societies. The Nile River and its predictable flood patterns allowed Egyptian civilization to flourish for centuries. Large cities and grand architecture were features of the region due to readily available and plentiful food supplies, and hieroglyphs remained that left a clear and permanent record of key moments of its history. The Congo, however, flows through a tropical region, where dense forests created a very different kind of society, and the moist environment did not allow for recorded history but rather oral stories passed down through generations. Thus, while both regions had a human past, we know far more about one than we do about the other.
Africa’s tropical band is further divided into the monsoon area and the tropical savanna. Wetter than temperate savannas, tropical savannas are characterized by tall grasses, sparse trees, and greater rainfall and are found bordering the equator. The monsoon area is subject to seasonal wind changes that produce wetter and drier periods in isolated locations of the West African coast and the Central African interior. In the tropical savanna, on the other hand, rainfall diminishes considerably, and the dense stands of thickly layered trees that characterize the rainforest give way to forested pockets and lush grasslands.
The savanna is a grassy plain that constitutes another of Africa’s immense biomes. A biome is a community of vegetation and wildlife adapted to a particular climate. At around five million square miles in size, the savanna covers almost half the surface of the continent and has been home to more people and history than any other part of Africa. Stretching from the warm and humid reaches of the rainforest to the torrid zone of the Sahara, it is wetter than the desert but drier than the rainforest and presents a striking geographic contrast to the landscapes of the desert and rainforest. Unlike those areas, the savanna landscape encompasses snow-capped mountains, vast expanses of grassy plains dotted with trees, and marshy tropical areas.
Geographers consider the savanna a region of transitions, with three successive belts running east–west: the Sahel, the tropical grassland savanna, and the woodland savanna. The Sahel, the northernmost band, is a semiarid belt between the Sahara and the grassland savannas to the south. It is the driest part of the savanna and experiences rain only periodically during six months of the year.
The African Sahel. This photograph shows acacia trees that grow on the road to Timbuktu in the African Sahel, between the Sahara and the grasslands. (credit: modification of work “The road to Timbuktu in the Sahel, Mali” by Annabel Symington/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
The people of the Sahel have historically been seminomadic—that is, they have adopted a mixed-farming system of crop production and the breeding and raising of livestock. Although the soil of the Sahel lacks sufficient nutrients to grow forests of trees, it is rich in the kind of nutrients that support the growth of plants in gardens as well as those that allow for small-scale farming and foster the growth of abundant grasses for the grazing of larger animals, particularly cattle and sheep. These herding animals also provide a key ingredient to help African farmers grow crops: manure. With the use of manure and the process of composting, the people of the region successfully navigate the challenges posed by their environment. Its conditions have tended to produce limited agriculture and smaller homesteads that are spaced farther apart to accommodate livestock. Many people of the region continue to live a seminomadic lifestyle rooted in animal husbandry. They do not cling to the past, a recurring myth about Africa; rather, their lifestyle is still the best way to harness what their climate provides.
The Sahel gradually gives way in the south to a grassland savanna carpeted by short grasses and studded by scattered trees. At the extreme, this area can see as much as forty-eight inches of rain per year (the rainy season lasts from May to October). The most famous of all Africa’s tropical savannas is the Serengeti. Located in northern Tanzania, the Serengeti is a tremendously diverse ecosystem that witnesses some of the world’s largest mass migrations of animals. In January each year, for example, nearly 1.75 million wildebeests begin migrating out of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area at the southern extreme of the Serengeti, following the rainfall in search of food .
Migrating Wildebeests. Every year between January and November, nearly two million wildebeests migrate in a great circular sweep across the Serengeti, arcing from northern Tanzania through southern Kenya and returning to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area nearly eleven months later. (credit: “Wildebeest Migration in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania” by Daniel Rosengren/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
Moving clockwise in a northerly direction toward the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya, along the way these wildebeests encounter hundreds of thousands of other animals, including zebras and gazelles, that preceded them on their migration. They confront many obstacles and dangers on their trek, including rivers that hide dangerous hippopotamuses and crocodiles, not to mention numerous predators they face on land. When they finally arrive in Kenya, the female wildebeests birth around half a million calves. Their migration comes to an end in early November, after months spent grazing in the savanna grasslands of the Masai Mara Reserve. The herds then migrate south on their return trip to northern Tanzania from Kenya.
The woodland savanna is the last of the belts separating the great northern desert from the equatorial rainforest. It is characterized by tall grasses occasionally interrupted by scattered trees, and corridors of gallery forests along streams and rivers. The area receives plentiful rainfall, usually nine months of the year, and farmers in the region cultivate palm oil trees and root crops such as yams.
As distance from Africa’s tropical zone increases, so too does the unpredictability of the rainfall. Progressively, to the north and south of this region, the bands of tropical and temperate climate give way to increasingly drier environments. Limits on resource availability in the more arid parts of Africa, as elsewhere in the world, have necessarily restricted the growth and expansion of civilizations. Regions that lack accessible supplies of water in the form of underground aquifers or wells, rivers, or lakes or that receive little rainfall are ill-suited to farming. Because only farming can support larger human population centers, the lack of accessible water is a barrier to human settlement. This helps explain why no large civilizations emerged in the more obviously arid parts of Africa, such as the Sahara and the Kalahari Desert and also why certain of the drier transitional zones between savanna and desert remain so thinly populated.
The Sahel transitions to desert in the extreme north of the savanna belt. Deserts are the sunniest and driest parts of the continent. Africa’s largest desert—in fact, the world’s—is the Sahara. At 3.6 million square miles, about the size of the United States, the Sahara covers much of North Africa (excluding the fertile coastal zones along the Mediterranean and the Nile delta) and stretches from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The Sahara has not always been a vast desert, however. In the period following the last Ice Age, this was a lush region that experienced monsoon-like weather conditions and was home to pastoralists and large herds of cattle. In fact, the earliest evidence we have of the domestication of cattle was discovered on Saharan rock art. But between 6000 and 2500 BCE, the region witnessed a great drying, which resulted in the retreat of the rainforest and the expansion of desert zones. These changes prompted crises for the human inhabitants of the formerly tropical zones, who found their old hunting and gathering techniques no longer suitable in the changed environment.
This desertification is what produced the modern Sahara, which receives less than an inch of precipitation per year with variations of some regions experiencing up to four inches per year, while other places go decades with no rain. The average daytime high is 99°F, and average nighttime lows are as cool as 68°F, but highs can reach up to 120°F during the warmer months from April to June, and lows can dip below 37°F in the cooler period between December and January. The only plants that can survive in this hostile environment rely on the water that collects in dry riverbeds during the exceptional periods of rain, but they are few.
The Sahara Desert. Aside from its rare oases, the Sahara is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, with sparse rainfall and extreme temperature swings from day to evening. (credit: modification of work “Sahara” by “Not So Dusty”/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
Among the Sahara’s thousand-foot-tall sand dunes, hard stony surfaces, and vast mountain ranges with peaks as high as eleven thousand feet are oases, green dots of civilization formed around underground water sources that reach the surface via wells or springs. Although together these oases take up only eight hundred square miles—about 0.02 percent of the desert’s total landmass—they are home to some three-quarters of the people living in the desert. The remainder of the population are nomads, including the Tuareg and Teda. These peoples engage in a range of economic activities, such as farming and herding, but on a severely restricted basis. Pasturage, for example, exists only in marginal areas such as mountain borders and the somewhat moister areas to the west, limitations that govern the herders’ nomadic lifestyle.
As famous as it is, the Sahara is not Africa’s only desert; there is also a desert region in the African Horn (the area corresponding to Somalia, Ethiopia, and northern Kenya), as well as the Namib and the Kalahari Desert, Africa’s great southwestern desert. The Kalahari Desert presents perhaps the most interesting contrast to the extremes of the Sahara.
The Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari in southwest Africa is the second largest of Africa’s deserts. (credit: modification of work “Kalahari Desert and Kalahari Basin map” by “Quadell”/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
The Kalahari is a semiarid sandy savanna some 350,000 square miles across. Occasionally referred to as the southern African equivalent of the Sahel, it stretches south from modern-day Namibia into South Africa’s Northern Cape province, extends deep into the interior of the South African veld or grassland, and covers almost the whole of Botswana. While Saharan sand dunes are typically large, in the Kalahari they are much smaller, ranging between twenty and two hundred feet high and measuring at least one mile in length and several hundred feet in width. The landscape is also distinguished by numerous “dry lakes” or pans, evidence of a wetter period earlier in the region’s history. Even today, some of the northeastern parts of the Kalahari receive more than ten inches of water per year and thus climatically do not qualify as “desert.” However, they do lack surface water. When they experience rain, it drains instantly through the deep sands, leaving the soil completely devoid of moisture.
Precipitation in the Kalahari depends largely on weather patterns influenced by the Indian Ocean and is highly variable. While the northeastern part receives comparatively abundant rainfall, the southern fringe of the desert sees less than five inches of rain per year. This rainfall accompanies severe thunderstorms, which often appear suddenly and produce violent downpours that deluge the landscape. Still, for six to eight months of the year, the region receives no rainfall. As a result, there is very little ecologically to distinguish the southwestern landscape beyond flat sand plains—aside from a few drought-resistant shrubs and bushes. On the other hand, the central Kalahari, which enjoys more rain, is dotted with scattered trees, shrubs, and grasses. At the extreme end, the northern reaches of the Kalahari appear to be an entirely different biome with woodlands, palm trees, and forests.
The final major climate in Africa is the Mediterranean climate, found only on the northernmost and southernmost fringes of the continent in the coastal regions of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the north, and in South Africa. The combination of dry summers with lower humidity (relative to the tropical band) and mild rainy winters makes them ideal environments for the growing of olive trees, cereal grains, and grapes—the so-called Mediterranean triad of crops that dot the landscapes of both regions. The temperatures there are pleasant, with average daily highs of 77°F and average nightly lows hovering around 60°F.
Africa also offers regional climates, each with its own local variations. East Africa, for example, straddles the equator and includes Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Along the coast and around Lake Victoria, hot and humid conditions prevail, but there are much cooler climates in the highlands and mountains. Many areas of the region experience extreme amounts of rainfall. Coastal islands and the tropical area around Lake Victoria, for example, receive upward of fifty-nine inches of rain per year. To the north, the Ethiopian highlands form a drier climate region, thanks to the influence of the eastern desert. Locally, Africa’s diverse microclimates belie the continent’s broad regional climate patterns and suggest the impressive variety of ecosystems that span it—and to which people have adapted over the millennia.
Lake Victoria. Hot and humid Lake Victoria, home to one of Africa’s regional climates, is centrally located in East Africa and bordered by Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. (credit: modification of work “Lake Victoria 1968” by U.S. Army/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
A staggering variety of wildlife has also adapted to these climates. Because of the abundance there of grasses as sources of food, Africa’s savannas are home to a range of large grazing mammals including gazelles, wildebeests, elephants, ostriches, and zebras. Large herds of these animals are commonly seen in the savanna, none more spectacular than the wildebeests on their annual migration in East Africa. Although giraffes, elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses can be found in many places on the continent, including modern-day Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia in the interior of south-central Africa and East Africa, one of the greatest concentrations of these animals on the continent is found in the sub-Saharan savanna.
Types of Ancient African Societies
The variety of African climates directly influenced the evolution of human societies there. People adapted to these climates in many ways, developing techniques and technologies that both helped them survive and altered their surroundings. Understanding the connection between climate, geography, and humans opens the way to understanding Africa’s early history.
Before the domestication of plants and animals, life in prehistoric Africa was characterized by the hunter-gatherer stage of human civilization. Hunter-gatherers survive by hunting prey and foraging for fruits and vegetables, or by exchanging game for crops grown by others. In some regions, such as Tanzania and Kenya in East Africa and Botswana in southern Africa, hunter-gatherers followed the seasonal migrations of large game animals, such as wildebeests and elephants. Hunter-gatherers do not plant crops or build permanent shelters but rather live nomadic lifestyles guided by the seasons, limited resource availability, conflict with other groups, or a combination of these factors. They must be highly mobile so their communities tend to be small, consisting of only several dozen interrelated people. Their mobility means that they often play an important role in connecting different regions and cultures and in transmitting goods and ideas across great distances.
Hunting and gathering peoples of Africa have historically included the rainforest-dwelling Baka of Central Africa and the San people of the Kalahari Desert. The Baka, found today in Cameroon, Gabon, and northern Congo, eat wild roots, nuts, fruits, vegetables, a variety of insect species, fish, and wild game they hunt using bows, poison-tipped arrows, and traps. Baka villages are made up of small single-family huts of branches and leaves, built predominantly by women and usually dismantled after about a week so the Baka can follow the available food supply. Baka society has a well-defined structure. In addition to building the family hut, women also dam small streams to catch fish and carry material gathered while foraging with their husbands. Men hold a higher social status derived from the fact that they engage in the more hazardous task of hunting and trapping animals.
The Baka People of Central Africa. Peoples such as the Baka have historically dwelled in the rainforest regions of Gabon, Cameroon, and northern Congo. This photo of Baka people was taken in 1904. (credit: modification of work “Group of Pygmies from the Department of Anthropology at the 1904 World’s Fair) by Missouri History Museum/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Like that of many other African peoples, the Baka religion was and remains centered on a belief in animism—that is, it teaches that certain objects, places, and creatures have spirits. Those who can interpret what those spirits desire have positions of leadership. Animism is also polytheistic, meaning it has numerous gods, each of whom typically personifies a natural force such as rain, wind, or lightning. Given the impact of weather on survival, it is not surprising that trying to control the natural environment was a key factor in religious observance. Among the gods of the Baka are Kamba, the creator of all things, and Jengi, the spirit of the forest. The Baka live in and rely on the forest for their survival, so they view Jengi as a parental figure and, perhaps most importantly, the protector of the forest.
Although ancient African religions were remarkably complex, and their rituals, practices, and beliefs varied greatly among the continent’s diverse populations, some commonalities can be identified in the pre-Judaic, pre-Christian, and pre-Islamic periods, including polytheism. Another typical feature of the pantheon of traditional African deities is a supreme being, like the Ngai of the Kikuyu, held to be the creator god from whom the universe originated. The supreme being was a distant deity who played no role in the ordinary affairs of Africans. Instead, management of the day-to-day fell to specialized secondary deities, such as Obatala, the Yoruba god of earth, and Makasa, the Baganda god of harvest and fertility. Other shared features of many ancient African religions include the worship of ancestors as protectors and guides and ceremonial practices to mark important life events, such as the Bantu Okuyi, a rite of passage celebrating the transition between youth and adolescence.
The San people of southwest Africa were and remain seminomadic hunter-gatherers and are polytheistic. Their diet is dictated by the arid conditions in which they live. Lack of water in the Kalahari Desert means there are fewer vegetables and fruits to forage, although seasonal nuts, plant buds, and certain roots are food staples. The San also hunt a variety of big game animals, including giraffe and antelope species such as kudu and hartebeest, using poison-tipped arrows and traps. They do not build permanent homes. Rather, their shelter types vary by season: they erect nightly rain shelters in the spring, when they move constantly in search of budding greens, and in the dry season, when water is scarce and most plants are dead or dormant, they congregate around the only permanent water holes in the area.
The San. A San family in present-day South Africa. (credit: “Bushman family” by Aino Tuominen/Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0)
The hunt is a key part of San society, and all the San gods have jobs related to it. The supreme deity Cagn ensures a successful hunt, often by protecting the San hunters from animals or people who could endanger the hunt. Hei-tusi the hero god assists Cagn in leading and protecting the hunt. To these are added a host of lesser spirits, including predators and tricksters.
The most important of the San religious rituals depends on the hunt. The curing or great trance dance is initiated by a San shaman through the hunting of a “power animal” such as an antelope, whose fat is believed to have supernatural potency and is used in different ritualistic settings, including rites of passage. The shaman enters a trance-like state after a night-long dance around a fire surrounded by clapping women. The San believe the trance dancers can be affected physiologically and mystically by the ritual, giving them powers to heal or provoking in them an out-of-body experience. The dance, often depicted on ancient San rock art, is the key source of all spiritual knowledge for the San and is often prompted at times of great social stress such as during times of settler incursion, outbreaks of disease or illness, and poverty.
Source: Adapted from World History, Vol. 1: to 1500, edited by Kordas, et.al., Open Stax, 2023, License: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Historical overview: to 1600
by Dr. Christa Clarke
Humankind’s origins and the beginnings of cultural expression may be traced to Africa. Recent discoveries in the southern tip of Africa provide remarkable evidence of the earliest stirrings of human creativity. Ocher plaques with engraved designs, made some 70,000 years ago, represent some of humankind’s earliest attempts at visual expression. Although much remains to be learned about Africa’s ancient civilizations through further archaeological research, such discoveries suggest tantalizing possibilities for rich insights into human as well as artistic evolution.
Rock paintings depicting domesticated animals provide artistic evidence of the existence of agricultural communities that developed in both the Sahara region and southern Africa by around 7000 B.C.E. As the Sahara began to dry up, sometime before 3000 B.C.E., these farming communities moved away. In the north, this led to the emergence of art-producing civilizations based along the Nile, the world’s longest river. Egypt, one of the world’s earliest nation-states, was unified as a kingdom by 3100 B.C.E. Further south along the Nile, one of the earliest of the Nubian kingdoms was centered at Kerma in present-day Sudan and dominated trade networks linking central Africa to Egypt for almost one thousand years beginning around 2500 B.C.E.
A corpus of sophisticated terracotta sculptures found over a broad geographic area in present-day Nigeria provides the earliest evidence of a settled community with ironworking technology south of the Sahara. The artistic creations of this culture are referred to as Nok, after the village where the first terracotta was discovered, and date to 500 B.C.E. to 200 C.E., a period of time coinciding with ancient Greek civilization. Although Nok terracottas continue to be unearthed, no organized excavations have been undertaken and little is known about the culture that produced these sculptures. Terracotta heads, buried around 500 C.E., have also been found in north eastern South Africa.
Seated Figure, 13th century (Djenné peoples, Jenne-jeno, Mali, Inland Niger Delta region), terracotta, 25.4 x 29.9 x 28.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Head of staff (detail), Linguist Staff(Okyeame), 19th–early 20th century (Akan peoples, Asante, Ghana), gold foil, wood, nails, 156.5 x 14.6 x 5.7 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
The 1st millennium C.E. witnessed the urbanization of a number of societies just south of the Sahara, in the broad stretch of savanna referred to as the western Sudan.
The strategic location of the Inland Niger Delta, lying in a fertile region between the Bani and Niger rivers, contributed to its emergence as an economic and cultural force in the area. Excavations there at the site of Jenne-jeno (“Old Jenne,” also known as Djenne-jeno) suggest the presence of an urban center populated as early as 2,000 years ago. The city continued to thrive for many centuries, becoming an important crossroads of a trans-Saharan trading network. Terracotta figures and fragments unearthed in the region reveal the rich sculptural heritage of a sophisticated urban culture.
Trans-Saharan trade and the introduction of Islam
By the 9th century, trade across the Sahara had intensified, contributing to the rise of large state societies with diverse cultural traditions along trade routes in the western Sudan as well as introducing Islam into the region. Initially traversed by camel caravans beginning around the 5th century, established trans-Saharan trade routes ensured the lucrative exchange of gold mined in southern West Africa and salt from the Sahara, as well as other goods. Ghana, one of the earliest known kingdoms in this region, grew powerful by the 8th century through its monopoly over gold mines until its eventual demise in the 12th century.
The present-day nation of Ghana takes its name from this ancient empire, although there is no historical or geographic connection.
A view of the Great Mosque of Djenné, Jenne-jeno, Mali, designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1988 (photo: UN Photo/Marco Dormino, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In the early 13th century, the kingdom of Mali ascended under the leadership of Sundiata Keita, who is still revered as a culture hero in the Mande-speaking world. At its height, this Islamic empire, which flourished until the 17th century, encompassed an area larger than western Europe and established Africa’s first university in Timbuktu. Under the Songhai empire of the 15th and 16th centuries, one of the largest in Africa, the cities of Timbuktu and Jenne (also known as Djenné) prospered as major centers of Islamic learning.
Shrine head, 12th–14th century (Yoruba, Nigeria), terracotta, 31.1 x 14.6 x 18.4 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art)
West Africa
Beyond the kingdoms of the western Sudan, other centers of cultural and artistic activity emerged elsewhere in western Africa. The art of metalworking flourished as early as the 9th century at a site called Igbo-Ukwu, in what is now southern Nigeria. Hundreds of intricate copper alloy castings discovered there provide artistic evidence of a sophisticated and technically accomplished culture.
Nearby to the west, the ancient site of Ife, considered the cradle of Yoruba civilization, emerged as a major metropolis by the 11th century. Artists working for the royal court in Ife produced a large and diverse corpus of masterful work, including magnificent bronze and terracotta sculptures renowned for their portrait-like naturalism. The rich artistic traditions of the Yoruba continue to thrive in the present day.
The neighboring kingdom of Benin, which traces its origins to Ife, established its present dynasty in the 14th century. Over the next 500 years, specialist artisans working for the Benin king created several thousand works, mostly made of luxury materials such as ivory and brass, that offer insights into life at the royal court. Other state societies emerged in the eastern and southern parts of the continent.
Queen Mother Pendant Mask (Iyoba), 16th century (Edo peoples, Court of Benin, Nigeria), ivory, iron, copper, 23.8 x 12.7 x 8.3 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Bet Giyorgis Church, Lalibela, Ethiopia, c. 1220 (photo: Henrik Berger Jørgensen, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
East Africa
The Aksum empire (also known as Axum), one of the earliest Christian states in Africa, flourished from the 1st century C.E. into the 11th century, producing remarkable stone palaces and enormous granite funerary monoliths.
Christian faith inspired the artistic creations of later dynasties, including the extraordinary churches of Lalibela hewn from solid rock in the 13th century, and the illuminated manuscripts and other liturgical arts of the later Solomonic era.
Southern Africa
Notable among the kingdoms that emerged in southern Africa is Mapungubwe in present-day Zimbabwe, a stratified society that arose in the 11th century and grew wealthy through trade with Muslim merchants along the eastern African coast.
Just to the north are the remains of an ancient city known as Great Zimbabwe, considered one of the oldest and largest architectural structures in sub-Saharan Africa. This massive complex of stone buildings, spread over 1,800 acres, was constructed over 300 years beginning in the 11th century.
Conical Tower, Great Zimbabwe (photo: amanderson2, CC BY 2.0)
Lidded Saltcellar, 15th–16th century (Sierra Leone, Sapi-Portuguese), ivory, 29.8 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
Trade with Europe
In the 15th century, the age of exploration ushered in a period of sustained engagement between Europe and Africa. The Portuguese, and later the Dutch and English, began trade with cities along the western coast of Africa around 1450. They returned from Africa with favorable accounts of powerful kingdoms as well as examples of African artistry commissioned from local sculptors. These exquisitely carved ivory artifacts, now known as the “Afro-Portuguese” ivories, were brought back from early visits to the continent and became part of the curiosity cabinets of the Renaissance nobles who sponsored exploration and trade.
Through trade, African artists were also introduced to new materials, forms, and ideas. Although historically glass and shell beads were made indigenously, trade with Europe in the 16th century introduced large quantities of manufactured glass beads that became widely used throughout Africa. European imports of copper and coral made these luxury materials more plentiful, and artists used them in greater quantities. Artifacts of European manufacture, such as canes and chairs, served as prototypes for the development of new prestige items for regional leaders. Along with goods imported from Europe, the travelers also brought with them their systems of belief, including Christianity. In some cases, such as in the central African kingdom of Kongo, Christianity was embraced and its iconography integrated into the artistic repertoire. In other parts of Africa, the foreign traders themselves were sometimes represented in artworks.
Crucifix, 16th–17th century (Kong Peoples, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo), solid cast brass, 27.3 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
View of the South Court after leaving the entrance colonnade, Step Pyramid of Djoser, Old Kingdom, c. 2675–2625 B.C.E., Saqqara, Egypt (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Egypt’s impact on other cultures was undeniably immense. From the earliest periods of Predynastic Egypt, there is evidence of trade connections that extended as far east as the Indus Valley. These trade routes passed through the Near East, resulting in an early exchange of motifs and ideas between the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt. The New Kingdom brought even more active connections with Western Asia, including robust commercial and diplomatic relationships as well as a mutual exchange of imagery and concepts with cultures like the Assyrians and the Hittites. Lively interactions with the south contributed to dynamic cultures, such as the Kushites, who ruled Egypt during the 25th Dynasty and whose monuments displayed an innovative blend of local Nubian and pharaonic imagery.
Pyramids of Meroe, Northern Cemetery, Archaeological Sites of the Island of Meroe (Sudan) (photo: UNESCO, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Rulers and the elite from Meroe, in modern Sudan, were buried in pyramid tombs for many centuries—with more than 200 having been identified, that country actually contains more pyramids within its borders than Egypt does. Egypt also provided some of the building blocks for the Aegean, Greek, and Roman cultures and, through them, influenced many aspects of Western tradition.
Today, Egyptian imagery, concepts, and perspectives are found everywhere; when you know what to look for, you will see them in architectural forms, on money, and in our day-to-day lives. Many cosmetic surgeons, for example, use the silhouette of Queen Nefertiti (whose name means “the beautiful one has come”) in their advertisements.
Longevity
Ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for more than 3,000 years and showed a stunning level of continuity. That is more than 15 times the age of the United States, and consider how often our culture shifts; as recently as 2003, there was no Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.
While today we consider the Greco-Roman period to be in the distant past, it should be noted that Cleopatra VII’s reign is closer to our own time than it was to that of the construction of the pyramids of Giza. It took humans nearly 4,000 years to build something—anything—taller than the Great Pyramid. Contrast that span to modern times; we get excited when a record lasts longer than a decade.
Left: Palette of Narmer, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E. (photo: Nicolas Perrault III); right: Ramses III smiting at Medinet Habu, 1160 B.C.E. (photo: Terry Feuerborn, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Consistency and stability
Egypt’s stability is in stark contrast to the Ancient Near East of the same period, which endured an overlapping series of cultures and upheavals with amazing regularity. The earliest royal monuments, such as the Narmer Palette carved around 3100 B.C.E., display identical royal costumes and poses as those seen on later rulers, even Ptolemaic kings and Roman emperors on their temples more than three millennia later.
This consistency and stability is closely linked with one of the central foundational concepts in the way ancient Egyptians saw the world around them. In their view, creation occurred when order triumphed over chaos and harnessed that amorphous power to bring the land of Egypt into existence. The perfect cosmic balance that resulted created the consistent cycles they saw in their natural world, such as the daily rising and setting of the sun and the Nile’s annual inundation. This divine order was known as ma’at—embodying truth, righteousness, justice, and cosmic law—and was eventually personified as a goddess. There was a perpetual struggle between ma’at and the chaos, known as isfet. From early in Egypt’s history, a primary role of the pharaoh was to be the champion of ma’at and preserve that cosmic order to help protect Egypt from the isfet that surrounded them. The ongoing preservation of ma’at was seen as fundamentally important and the drive to maintain that perfect cosmic balance permeated the culture on multiple levels.
A vast amount of Egyptian imagery, especially royal imagery that was governed by decorum (a sense of what was ‘appropriate’), remained extraordinarily consistent throughout its history. This is why, especially to the untrained eye, their art appears extremely static—and in terms of symbols, gestures, and the way the body is rendered, it was. It was intentional, as the consistency was the whole point. The Egyptians were well aware of their consistency, which they viewed as stability, divine balance, and clear evidence of ma’at and the correctness of their culture.
New Kingdom graffiti inside Step Pyramid complex (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
This consistency was also closely related to a fundamental belief that depictions had an impact beyond the image itself—tomb scenes of the deceased receiving food or temple scenes of the king performing perfect rituals for the gods were functionally causing those things to occur in the divine realm. If the image of the bread loaf was omitted from the deceased’s table, they had no bread in the afterlife; if the king was depicted with the incorrect ritual implement, the ritual was incorrect and could have dire consequences. This belief led to active resistance to change in codified depictions.
The earliest recorded “tourist graffiti” on the planet came from a visitor from the time of Ramses II, who left their appreciative mark at the already 1300-year-old site of the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, the earliest of the massive royal stone monuments. They were understandably impressed by the works of their ancestors and wrote of their desire to continue that ancient legacy.
Egypt is a land of duality and cycles, both in topography and culture. The geography is almost entirely rugged, barren desert, except for an explosion of green that straddles either side of the Nile as it flows the length of the country. The river emerges from far to the south, deep in Africa, and empties into the Mediterranean sea in the north after spreading from a single channel into a fan-shaped system, known as a delta, in its northernmost section. The river valley is flanked by imposing cliffs of limestone and sandstone, with deposits of other, harder stones like granite and granodiorite being found in the area of Aswan to the south.
One of the reasons for the overall stability of Egyptian culture was that it was largely isolated by virtue of its geography. With high cliffs and expansive deserts bordering the east and west, the sea at the north, and a series of huge rapids in the Nile to the south (known as cataracts), the stretch of the river valley that gave rise to dynastic Egypt was quite closed off from the outside. Egypt was undoubtedly the “gift of the Nile,” as the Greek historian Herodotus famously wrote. The influence of this river on Egyptian culture and development cannot be overstated without its presence, the civilization would have been entirely different. The Nile provided not only a constant source of life-giving water, but created the fertile lands that fed the growth of this unique (and uniquely resilient) culture.
View from the Nile River looking towards the Valley of Kings, showing the sharp delineation between the lush fertile land and the barren desert. (photo: Norman Walsh, CC BY-NC 2.0)
Each year, fed by melting snow in the far-off headlands deep in Africa, the Nile overflowed its banks in an annual flood that covered the ground with rich, black silt and produced incredibly fertile fields. The Egyptians referred to this area as Kemet, the “Black Lands,” and contrasted this dense, dark soil against the Deshret, the “Red Lands” of the sterile desert; the line between these zones was (and in most cases still is) a literal line. The visual effect is stark, appearing almost artificial in its precision.
Time—cyclical and linear
The annual inundation of the Nile was also a reliable and measurable cycle that helped form their concept of the passage of time. In fact, the calendar we use today in the west is derived from one developed by the ancient Egyptians. They divided the year into 3 seasons: akhet (“inundation”), peret (“growing/emergence”), and shemw (“harvest”); each season was divided into four 30-day months.
Although this annual cycle, paired with the daily solar cycle that is so evident in the desert, led to a powerful drive to see the universe in terms of cyclical time, this idea existed simultaneously with the reality of linear time. These two concepts—the cyclical and the linear—came to be associated with two of their primary deities: Osiris, the eternal lord of the dead, and Ra, the sun god who was reborn with each dawn.
The pharaoh—not just a king
Bronze figure of Isis nursing Horus, c. 4th century–3rd century B.C.E., bronze, 23.6 cm high, Egypt (British Museum)
Rulers in Egypt were complex intermediaries that straddled the terrestrial and divine realms. They were, obviously, living humans, but upon accession to the throne, they also embodied the eternal office of kingship itself. The ka, or spirit, of kingship was often depicted as a separate entity standing behind the human ruler. This divine aspect of the office of kingship was what gave authority to the individual person who was the king. The living king was associated with the god Horus, the powerful, virile falcon-headed god who was believed to bestow the throne to the first human king.
Horus’s immensely important father, Osiris, was the lord of the underworld. One of the original divine rulers of Egypt, this deity embodied the promise of regeneration. Cruelly murdered by his brother Seth, the god of the chaotic desert, Osiris was revived through the potent magic of his wife Isis. Through her knowledge and skill, Osiris was able to sire the miraculous Horus, who avenged his father and threw his criminal uncle off the throne to take his rightful place.
Osiris became ruler of the realm of the dead, the eternal source of regeneration in the afterlife. Deceased kings were identified with this god, creating a cycle where the dead king fused with the divine ruler of the dead, and his successor “defeated” death to take his place on the throne as Horus.
The development of ancient Egypt
The civilization of Egypt obviously did not spring fully formed from the Nile mud; although the massive pyramids at Giza may appear to the uninitiated to have appeared out of nowhere, they were founded on thousands of years of cultural and technological development and experimentation.
Ancient Egyptian chronology and historical framework
by Dr. Amy Calvert
Great Pyramids of Giza with modern Cairo in the foreground: Khufu (c. 2600–550 B.C.E.), Khafre (c. 2575–2525 B.C.E.) and Menkaure (c. 2525–2475 B.C.E.) (photo: Tim Kelley, CC BY-ND 2.0)
Beginnings
The civilization of ancient Egypt obviously did not spring fully formed from the Nile mud; although the massive pyramids at Giza may appear to the uninitiated to have appeared out of nowhere, they were founded on thousands of years of cultural and technological development and experimentation. “Dynastic” Egypt—sometimes referred to as “Pharaonic” (after “pharaoh”, the Greek title of the Egyptian kings derived from the Egyptian title per aA, “Great House,” which was used from the New Kingdom on)—which was the time when the country was largely unified under a single ruler, begins around 3000 B.C.E.
The period before this, lasting from about 5,000 B.C.E. until the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under one ruler, is referred to as Predynastic by modern scholars. Prior to this were thriving Paleolithic and Neolithic groups, stretching back hundreds of thousands of years, descended from northward migrating homo erectus who settled along the Nile Valley. During the Predynastic period, ceramics, figurines, mace heads, and other artifacts such as slate palettes used for grinding pigments, begin to appear, as does imagery that will become iconic during the Pharaonic era and we can see the first hints of what is to come.
Dynasties, periods, and reigns
It is important to recognize that the dynastic divisions modern scholars use were not used by the ancients themselves. These divisions were created in the first chronological history of Egypt, written by an Egyptian priest named Manetho in the 3rd century B.C.E. Each of the 30 dynasties included a series of rulers usually related by family connections or the location of their seat of power. Egyptian history is also divided into larger chunks, known as “kingdoms” and “periods,” to distinguish times of strength and unity (kingdoms) from those of change, foreign rule, or disunity (periods).
Like many other ancient cultures, the Egyptians themselves referred to their history in relation to the ruler of the time. Years were recorded as the regnal dates of the ruling king, so that with each new reign, the numbers began anew. The usual dating format included the day of the month and season, along with the regnal year of the king—for example, “day 4 of the second month of the season peret in the third year of Khafre.” This ancient practice creates challenges for modern historians, making it difficult to determine exact dating for many events and reigns; this is the reason that different resource books on ancient Egypt may provide slightly different dates for the same object. Generally, dates are provided here as “circa,” (c.) or approximate, for this reason.
by Dr. Amy Calvert
Seti I kneels before the god Amun and receives emblems of kingship conveying his authority to rule. In his left hand the king grasps a rekhyt bird, which represents the general population that is being brought under the king’s control. This elegant scene is packed with symbols of stability, life, and eternal rejuvenation, all directed at the king. Temple of Seti I at Abydos, Dynasty 19.
A hierarchy
Ancient Egyptian society was a strictly divided hierarchy. The king, chosen by the gods to rule, was at the top with layers underneath—including officials like the vizier, scribes, overseers, and regional governors (called “nomarchs”), priests, the military, and the general population of artists, tradespeople, craftspeople, agricultural workers, laborers, and enslaved people.
This hierarchical society flourished for much of ancient Egypt’s very long history largely because of the central cultural principle of ma’at—the cosmic force of order and balance that Egyptians believed governed their world. The economy was centrally organized, with a fixed wage and state distribution system. Through this process, the properly functioning state (proof of the king being in accord with ma’at) provided for the populace. The king officially owned all the land and the state received goods and services through taxation. Taxes were levied, collected, and recorded by the offices of the vizier and placed in centralized storehouses. These goods were then redistributed back to the people.
Palette of King Narmer, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E., Predynastic, greywacke (slate), from Hierakonpolis, 2′ 1″ high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Pharaoh—Top of the Food Chain
Many aspects of royal ideology and iconography were visible from the earliest monuments and continued to be used for thousands of years. The Narmer Palette for example, includes the iconic smiting pose, elements of regalia like crowns, weapons, and the ceremonial beard, and a blending of divine and terrestrial elements in the same scene in support of the king’s efforts.
The ruler’s role as the champion of ma’at was paramount, as was the expectation that a ruler would protect Egypt from its enemies and administer the vast resources of the Two Lands to the benefit of the people. As time passed, the ruler had additional expectations, including being a good shepherd and protector and, in the militaristic period of the New Kingdom, to display great skill in battle and physical prowess.
Statue of King Khafre (Chephren), detail, 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom, diorite, Giza, Egypt (photo: kairoinfo4u, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Kings in ancient Egypt were living humans, but they also embodied the eternal office of kingship itself. The ka, or spirit, of kingship was often depicted as a separate entity standing behind the human ruler, and it was this divine aspect of the office that gave authority to the individual person who was the king. The living ruler was viewed as the embodiment of the god Horus, the powerful, falcon-headed god who was believed to have bestowed the throne to the first human king, Menes. Once they died, the ruler became connected with Osiris, the eternal Lord of the Underworld, and their successor rose as the new Horus.
The ka of Senusret I stands behind the king and wears Senusret’s Horus-name in its serekh on his head, with the ka hieroglyph (a pair of upright arms) wrapped around the base. The ka holds an oversized ma’at feather and the standard of divine kingship (White Chapel, Karnak Temple)
Over time, the royal title developed so that each individual king had five names that emphasized different aspects of kingship and highlighted the king’s relationships with the gods.
Horus name of Ramses VI in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Tomb of Ramses V/VI
Horus-name
The earliest of the five names to appear was the Horus-name (also known as the ka-name). This name identified the king as the earthly embodiment of Horus, the patron god of kingship, and was enclosed in a serekh (a paneled rectangular form that likely represents a stylized palace gateway) topped with the Horus falcon.
Detail from the White Chapel of Senusret I, Karnak, Dynasty 12
The Two Ladies-name (nebty)
This name demonstrated that the Two Lands were unified under the king’s rule. This name was topped by the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet, usually represented in the title as a vulture and a cobra wearing the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt, the White and Red crown, respectively.
Detail from the White Chapel of Senusret I, Karnak, Dynasty 12
Golden Horus-name
The title of the Golden Horus-name was written as a falcon seated atop the hieroglyph for gold; the meaning of this name is unclear but likely indicates a wish for the king to be an “eternal Horus.”
Detail from the White Chapel of Senusret I, Karnak, Dynasty 12
nesu-bjt-name Often referred to as the prenomen, the nesu-bjt-name is titled by hieroglyphs of a sedge and bee. Often translated as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt,” it seems instead to be closer in meaning to a merging of the eternal aspect of divine kingship (nesu) with the ephemeral human ruler holding power at that moment in time (bit).
Detail on a loose block in the Open Air Museum at Karnak, Dynasty 12
The birth name or nomen
This was the only one of the five that was given to a king at their birth; the rest being given when they took the crown. The nomen is the Son of Ra-name, titled by a goose and sun disc —the hieroglyphs that spell out “son of Ra.”
Both the nomen and prenomen were enclosed in the elongated cartouche (an oval shape). This device, which may signify the infinite expanse of the king’s realm, clearly distinguished royal names from surrounding text.
Detail of an elaborately patterned niched facade, known as a serekh, from the White Chapel of Senusret I, Karnak, Dynasty 12
Old Kingdom: First Dynasty through the First Intermediate Period
From the First Dynasty onwards, kings were known by the Horus-name. They served as political, religious, and military leaders. The ruler was expected to be the powerful champion of ma’at and capable of wielding that divine strength to protect Egypt from her foes.
Detail of Statue of Khasekhemwy, Old Kingdom, Second Dynasty (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University)
Statue of King Khasekhem with images showing crushed enemies on the top of base along with the number of dead recorded along the front by danderson4 on Sketchfab
The earliest sculptures of a specific ruler anywhere in the world may be two images of the Second Dynasty king Khasekhemwy wearing the White Crown and crushing chaotic enemies under his feet (one is pictured above) as an agent of ma’at. By the Fourth Dynasty, the king was viewed as the “Son of Ra,” acting as a deputy of the sun god on earth.
King Menkaura (Mycerinus) and queen (Old Kingdom), 2490–2472 B.C.E. (Menkaura Valley Temple, Giza), greywacke, 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
Kings of the Old Kingdom were viewed almost as divine; statuary of this time shows them with perfected bodies and serene faces (like Menkaura and his queen) that seemed focused on the world beyond. Toward the end of the Sixth Dynasty, several factors (including low Nile inundations that may suggest famine and apparent disorganization), led to the loss of centralized control and the end of the Old Kingdom. Simultaneously, the prominence of local governors (nomarchs) began to increase in their individual regions and rise in importance. They became increasingly independent from the king and central administration, leading to a politically fractured period we call the First Intermediate Period.
Middle Kingdom through Second Intermediate Period
After the disunity of the First Intermediate Period, we see the democratization of previously royal prerogatives (such as the assumption of royal titles, regalia, and mortuary practices by local nomarchs), and the role of the pharaoh shifted. Kings of the Middle Kingdom focused more attention on being responsible protectors of Egypt, rather than on their divinity. Statues of the pharaohs from this time convey the heaviness of the crown and the role of kingship, the weight of their responsibilities evident on the face. The ears of these figures are also distinctly oversized—the better, it is believed, to hear the pleas of their people.
Face of Senwosret III (Middle Kingdom), c. 1878–1840 B.C.E., red quartzite, 16.5 × 12.6 × 11.4 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
During the Second Intermediate Period, peoples from western Asia took control of the Nile delta region. During this disjointed period, there was an Egyptian pharaoh ruling the south from Thebes and a Hyksos king ruling the north from a city called Avaris. Military conflicts between the two groups extended for generations and were fierce; one of the royal Egyptian mummies from this period shows severe injuries that indicate a violent death on the battlefield. Eventually, the pharaoh Ahmose was able to drive the occupiers out of the delta, re-unify the country under his rule, and establish the New Kingdom.
New Kingdom
After successfully regaining their country, New Kingdom rulers placed extra emphasis on military capabilities and were expected to be skilled in battle as the supreme commander of the armies. Perhaps in response to being invaded and occupied, the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty led numerous military campaigns and expanded the borders of Egypt north all the way to the Euphrates river, and south deep into Nubia. Even after the borders were stabilized, this role of the king as Egypt’s protector was paramount, as evidenced by the huge numbers of triumphant battle scenes that appear on temple walls.
Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Dayr al-Baḥrī, Egypt, c. 1470 B.C.E. (photo: Nuță Lucian, CC BY 2.0)
Female rulers
Female rulers, although rare, controlled the country at several points in Egypt’s history. One of the most famous of these was the powerful Hatshepsut, who reigned for around 20 years during the New Kingdom. A prolific builder, Hatshepsut’s magnificent terraced mortuary temple cut into the cliffs in west Thebes remains one of the most stunning structures from the ancient world.
Large Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut, c. 1479–1458 B.C.E., Dynasty 18, New Kingdom (Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt), granite, 261.5 x 80 x 137 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Many of Hatshepsut’s images show her as a masculine ruler, with her feminine characteristics deemphasized and wearing all the same royal regalia as male kings. Texts on these images, however, clearly identify her properly as female. As always before the gods, it was her capabilities as a good king that was of the greatest import; her gender was not an issue.
Even rulers of non-Egyptian origin, including the much later Roman emperors who appear in temple relief carvings, presented themselves with the traditional iconography and regalia that clearly identified them as an Egyptian pharaoh. This practice linked them with the long line of kings that came before them and helped legitimize their rule to the illiterate populace. Rulers from Kerma, whose own culture displayed a fascinating blend of Nubian and Egyptian imagery, emphasized Egyptian deities in their monuments. These Kushite kings ruled Egypt for around 75 years. They were especially devoted to the god Amun, who had a well-established and important cult in their homeland.
King List, from the Temple of Seti I, Abydos, Egypt (photo: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0)
King Lists
Kings recorded the names of their predecessors in vast “king-lists” on the walls of their temples and depicted themselves making offerings to the rulers who came before them—one of the best known examples is in the temple of Seti I at Abydos. These lists were often condensed, with some rulers (such as the contentious and disruptive Akhenaten and his successor, Tutankhamun) and even entire dynasties omitted from the record; they are not truly history, rather they are a form of ancestor worship, a celebration of the consistency of kingship of which the current ruler was a part.
Ancient Egyptian society has been portrayed as a pyramid, with the king at the very top and the population layered beneath them. Egypt was a theocratic monarchy, where the king ruled by the command of the gods and served as intermediary between the people and the divine. He was maintainer of ma’at, chief officiant in all ritual actions before the gods, military commander and protector of Egypt, living Horus, and provider for the people. If he fulfilled all his required roles to the satisfaction of the gods, then the land flourished and the people prospered. In general, the society was divided into those who administered (the officials) and those who were administered (the masses of the population). Given that there was no “church and state” separation, the temples were also part of the administration, lending divine oversight to state activities. All large-scale ventures, whether quarrying expeditions, building projects, or the maintenance of workshops of artisans, were controlled by the state.
Ancient Egyptian society was a theocratic monarchy with a strict hierarchical structure. Below the king were administrative officials, such as the vizier, overseers, scores of scribes, and regional governors (called “nomarchs”) who handled local resource management. There were also priests dedicated to the divine and royal cults, ranks of the military, and the general population of artists, tradespeople, craftspeople, agricultural workers, laborers, and slaves.
The Egyptians believed their world was governed by ma’at, a divine force of cosmic balance, which is what provided stability. The centrally-organized storehouse economy and state-run distribution system supplied the people with a fixed wage based on their labor type and skill level. In general, there was little social mobility or free choice of career; instead, sons followed their fathers in their professions.
Granary official Nikare with his family (his wife, Khuennub, kneels at his left and a daughter, Khuennebti stands at his right), c. 2420–2389 B.C.E. or later, limestone and paint, 57 x 22.5 x 32.5 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Administration—viziers, officials, and overseers
Egyptian bureaucracy was hierarchical, with the pharaoh at the top and layers of administrators beneath them that governed on the king’s behalf. This group of elites were among the very small portion of the population that was literate. The top official below the king was known in Egyptian as tjaty; this individual is now referred to as the vizier (Arabic for “high official”) and was much like a modern prime minister. During the Old and Middle Kingdoms there was one vizier for the whole country, but during the New Kingdom this position was split into a vizier of Upper Egypt and another for Lower Egypt (from the beginning of its history, Egypt was viewed as being two lands: Upper Egypt in the south, and Lower Egypt in the north), while a third, the Viceroy of Kush, oversaw the valuable lands of Nubia south of the First Cataract.
These high-ranking figures functioned as the king’s representatives and directed the administration of the country. Below them were the local officials and provincial governors who performed a range of responsibilities—most importantly the collection of taxes, oversight of local granaries and storehouses, and drafting of labor for state projects. They were accountable to the vizier for any failures. Civil justice was meted out by councils of local officials and high-ranking priests. The vizier served as the chair of the “Great Council,” which oversaw cases that affected the state, such as property disputes that could impact taxation and serious crimes like murder. Local councils oversaw social claims such as theft, adultery, and wife-beating—both men and women had the right to seek redress in court.
The ibis-headed god Thoth, patron of scribes, stands behind a prince and grasps a scribal palette in his hand. Temple of Ramses II at Abydos, Dynasty 19.
Scribes and priests—holders of secret knowledge
The scribal class was part of the administration and they were high-ranking professionals. These individuals could understand and write hieroglyphs, which the ancient Egyptians called medu netjer or “words of the gods.” The word for scribe was written hieroglyphically as a scribal palette with ink recesses and an attached stylus.
Seated Scribe, c. 2500 B.C.E., c. 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom, painted limestone with rock crystal, magnesite, and copper/arsenic inlay for the eyes and wood for the nipples (Louvre)
Seated Scribe, c. 2500 B.C.E., c. 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom, painted limestone with rock crystal, magnesite, and copper/arsenic inlay for the eyes and wood for the nipples
Scribes served an essential function in society and were often portrayed as serene, confident, and self-assured in their elevated position. They were trained in special schools associated with the court and certain temples, with students focused on copying existing texts. Training seems to have been based on memorizing entire sections of text rather than individual signs. The Egyptian language developed over time and was not only written in the fully pictorial hieroglyphic script, but also in other forms of the language. Although the hieroglyphic script is entirely made up of images, it was not pictographic writing. Instead, these signs stood for sounds or groups of sounds that were clustered together to form words. Scrolls of papyrus were the usual surface for formal texts, although many informal texts were jotted down on sherds of pottery or flakes of stone known as ostraca. Ink was applied using a reed stylus; black for the primary writing and red for headings and corrections.
Scribal training was required to become an official, a physician, or a priest. As most diseases were thought to have come as a punishment from the gods or divine lesson, there was little distinction between priests and physicians and in some sects, like that of the goddess Serket, all the priests were also doctors. Priests needed to be able to read and write in order to perform their duties; many of the rituals had long incantations that had to be read. It is interesting to note that no separate priestly class existed until the New Kingdom. Prior to this time, priestly duties were performed by civil officials who served for a period of months and then returned to their regular, secular tasks.
New Kingdom priests were trained as scribes and then submitted to a series of ritual purifications and annointings along with vows of purity and obedience. There were strict requirements for purity, including shaved heads and regular washings, as well as proscriptions from certain foods and activities while in the service of the gods.
Several different types of priests are known from early times. For instance, there were lector priests, who wore a diagonal sash across their chest and recited the formulas that accompanied cult rituals, while sem priests wore leopard skins and were associated with funerary rites and the essential Opening of the Mouth ritual.
At the numerous divine and royal temples throughout the country, the administrations included overseers and inspectors of the priests who were responsible for the organization and management of the daily operations of each temple. At the top of the hierarchy was the high priest who was referred to as the hem-netjer-tepy or “first servant of god.” This position was frequently appointed by the king but over time it became more hereditary. Priestesses are known from the Old Kingdom onwards, with many elite females holding the title of hemet-netjer, “(female) servant of god.” Usually, women served female deities although some seem to have served as priestesses of Thoth and Ptah.
Map of Egypt during the New Kingdom, c. 1450 B.C.E. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Bocio, 19th–early 20th century, Fon peoples, Republic of Benin, wood, bone, metal wire, sacrificial materials (including dog skull), 49.5 x 14.6 x 14.3 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Military—shield of Egypt
We know little about the military until the New Kingdom and there was apparently no standing army until at least the Middle Kingdom. Prior to this, if troops were needed they were conscripted, armed—with hide-covered shields, clubs, battle-axes, daggers, simple bows and arrows, slings, and lances—and placed under the command of a local official who was their superior in civil life. After the Old Kingdom, mercenaries and professional soldiers appeared and a permanent fighting force developed. In addition to forts in the eastern desert and along trade routes, Middle Kingdom rulers established a series of riverine forts in Nubia that were well-manned and used to establish control of the valuable resources in the region, especially gold.
Models from the Middle Kingdom tomb of Mesehti show 2 units of armed soldiers (40 Egyptian foot soldiers and 40 Nubian archers) preserving their costumes and weapons. During the New Kingdom, the military machine massively expanded. Major military campaigns were carried out throughout this period and supported a mass of professional troops. The New Kingdom was founded on generations of battle, with the need to drive the Hyksos out of the Nile delta. The Egyptian military embraced the weapons that had been introduced by the Hyksos, including the scimitar, horse-drawn chariot, and composite bow, and made them their own. New Kingdom kings greatly expanded the borders of their influence. A rare gateway to social mobility, prowess in battle and military capabilities could elevate the status of even the lowest-born soldier to that of a distinguished veteran.
Artisans and Craftspeople—Creators of Beauty and Function
Below the scribal layer were semi- or non-literate skilled artisans and craftspeople who produced the goods required by the elite. Although for most of Egypt’s history, we know little about individual craftspeople, surviving examples show that some were honored with statues and private tombs—one early, 3rd Dynasty example being a ship-builder and smith named Akhwa who was identified as a “Royal Acquaintance.”
Deir el Medina
View of the village at Deir el Medina, Thebes, New Kingdom
The special village of Deir el-Medina on the west bank at Thebes provides a unique view into the daily lives of this class during the New Kingdom. For many generations, the artisans who dug out and decorated the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings lived with their families in this isolated village on the edge of the desert. Due to their professions, a significant portion of the population of this village could read and write and excavations have revealed tens of thousands of ostraca (texts were jotted down on sherds of pottery or flakes of stone).
Limestone flake (ostraca) with an enigmatic drawing of a cat herding geese. Deir el Medina, Ramesside Period, Egyptian Museum Cairo
Basically the “post-its” of the ancient world, there were used for all sorts of lists, letters, simple notes, and creative drawings and provide an intimate look at their day-to-day interactions. One of the most fascinating events recorded was a worker’s strike that occurred at Deir el Medina in around 1150 B.C.E. A state shortfall had resulted in a delay of the worker’s wages and the royal artisans stopped working until the matter was addressed. The vizier himself came to the village to assure them assistance was coming, but when that fell through they struck again and even took control of the royal mortuary temples. Eventually, their demands were met and they returned to work, having successfully won the first recorded labor strike in history.
Agricultural workers and laborers—producers of the bounty
The largest portion of Egypt’s population were the illiterate masses who worked the land as independent farmers or agricultural laborers. This strata generated the crops, produced the foodstuffs, and raised the animals that supplied the populace and elite classes with the bounty of the land. This is also the group that provided much of the paid labor force for state building projects, such as the pyramids. During the annual flooding of the Nile, when it became impossible to work in the fields, these laborers were conscripted to go work on the king’s state-funded projects instead. Much less is directly recorded by this class, as they did not have the resources to commission monuments nor the knowledge to write texts. We do have some information about their lives and work through the viewpoint of the elite, although these representations depict them in terms of their service to and supporting the nobles rather than in their own right.
Appearing during the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, models made of wood were placed in the burial chamber to furnish provisions for the deceased. Functioning much like the painted scenes of these activities that had appeared in Old Kingdom tombs, these models symbolically provided for the tomb owner’s needs in the afterlife. Model scene of workers ploughing a field, Middle Kingdom, late Dynasty 11 – early Dynasty, 2010–1961 B.C., wood, 54 cm (MFA Boston)
Images of these classes in private tombs, whether in relief or in statuary, tend to show great freedom in the way they are rendered in pose, action, and realism. They are depicted in a wide range of activities—such as gathering fish from the Nile, herding cattle, weaving cloth, making bricks, hewing wood, grinding grain, baking bread, and brewing beer—which were intended to provide benefit for the deceased in the afterlife. It was their actions performed on behalf of the deceased, rather than the figure itself, that was considered important. Regardless of the level to which they are recorded, it is clear that this group—responsible for maintaining agricultural production—was the backbone of Egyptian society.
Slaves—through capture and debt
Given that the Egyptian population was not “free” in the modern sense (in general, they could not move freely around the country or change their professions) the idea of “servitude” was viewed quite differently. Tied to the land, the vast majority of the population were considered “possessions”of the king, temple estates, or high-ranking officials, somewhat like serfs in the feudal society of medieval Europe. These peasants worked the land and paid tribute to their masters as a form of social insurance; in times of drought the landowner would open their storehouses and granaries to provide for their people. Through this administrative structure, subjects were provided with a sense of security that fostered stability and growth.
In Egypt, as elsewhere, the oldest and primary cause of slavery was capture in battle. Conquered soldiers and their communities were taken as a royal resource. Those captives who weren’t retained by the royal administration would be distributed to various towns, quarries, and temples to augment their labor forces. They were also dispersed to victorious soldiers as war booty and to deserving individuals as awards of merit. While individuals could be endowed by the king with up to 19 captives, temples could receive unlimited numbers—some texts refer to bequests of thousands of people. Native and non-native servants intermingled. For native Egyptians, the main pathway to enter the state of slavery was an inability to pay off debt; in many of these cases, the creditor not only took the debtor as a slave, but their families as well. Criminal activities could also result in a life of servitude, often for the convicted and their families both.
Model of a brewery, first Intermediate Period or Middle Kingdom2040–1991 B.C.E., painted wood, 28.5 x 32.5 x 53.5 cm (MFA Boston)
Slaves could be employed in domestic activities, such as cooking, brewing, cleaning, or caring for children, or in manual labor, such as farming, making bricks, gardening, or tending the animals. They were sometimes trained in particular crafts as skilled labor, which increased their value, or could be taught to read and write. Some slaves even rose to management positions on their master’s estates. Slaves could be handed down along with other property as part of an inheritance. In general, it appears that slaves assimilated quickly into the local population; they were not viewed as a separate social group. Their legal situation was not always clear, but they were capable of owning land, negotiating transactions, and had the right to private property.
Seti I kneels before the god Amun and receives emblems of kingship conveying his authority to rule. In his left hand the king grasps a rekhyt bird, which represents the general population that is being brought under the king’s control. This elegant scene is packed with symbols of stability, life, and eternal rejuvenation, all directed at the king. Temple of Seti I at Abydos. Dynasty 19.
Ensuring order
Ancient Egyptian society hinged on the king, who ruled by the command of the gods and served as intermediary between the people and the divine. If the king lived in ma’atand fulfilled all his required roles to the satisfaction of the gods, then the land flourished and the people prospered. The ruler and officials who administered the country had clear directives regarding maintaining proper societal function and a specific responsibility to provide for the needs of the entire population. The Egyptians seem to have largely embraced and supported this hierarchy, falling in line with ma’at. Every occupation—whether scribe, potter, soldier, weaver, doctor, or farmer—was believed to play an equally important role in the smooth functioning of society.
Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs created a fascinating foundation for their society.
Death Mask from innermost coffin, Tutankhamun’s tomb, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, photo: Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0)
When most people think of ancient Egypt, the images that arise are usually pyramids, temples, tombs, and treasure. While daily life in Egypt left little trace archaeologically, tombs and temples are generally well preserved and provide a useful lens for understanding this complex civilization. As dazzling as many ancient Egyptian artifacts, images, and spaces are, and as aesthetically-pleasing as they may be, it is important to remember that most were not produced for a human audience. Instead, these are expressions of the primary driver in Egyptian culture—religion.
Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs created the foundation for their unique, largely theocratic, society. Despite being surrounded in layers of mystery, these beliefs shaped and directed the culture at almost every imaginable level. There were nearly 1,500 deities known by name, and they were believed to not only be responsible for creation but also involved in every aspect of the continued existence of the functioning cosmos. A closer examination of these deities reveals a sophisticated web of connections that only got richer as the centuries passed.
This chapter aims to provide a very basic introduction and general overview of the religious life of the ancient Egyptians. Inextricably linked with their daily lives as well as their afterlives, religious beliefs formed the primary framework around which everything else in this fascinating and long-lived culture grew.
Temples and priests
View of sphinxes, the first pylon, and the central east-west aisle of Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak in Luxor, Egypt (photo: Mark Fox, CC: BY-NC 2.0)
Interactions with deities at their cult spaces (shrines) began very early in Egypt’s history. From the Predynastic period, the ancient Egyptians established shrines (made initially from reeds and mud) at sacred sites where the gods were believed to dwell. With the founding of the state, subsidized cults developed and the earliest kings of the unified Egypt traveled through the land, visiting cult sites and establishing their relationship with the gods. Over time, these simple structures eventually evolved into massive stone complexes.
These shrines were not merely places of worship—their primary function was to house the gods and serve as miniature models of the perfected cosmos. They provided an interface between the terrestrial and celestial realms. These structures, and the rituals that took place within them, functioned to preserve the proper cosmic order.
Model of the Precinct of Amon-Re, Karnak (photo: Rémih, CC: BY-SA 3.0)
Temple architecture was explicitly designed to express this idea of the cosmos made manifest. This included temenos walls that separated the everyday world from the sacred space inside, pylon gateways shaped like the hieroglyph for “horizon,” an axial processional way that mirrored the path of the sun, and the dark, small, hidden space of the inner sanctuary that represented the mound of creation.
Column scene of Ramesses II burning incense and pouring libation, in the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak, Thebes
Carved on the walls were scenes depicting ritual actions being performed before the gods; in nearly all cases, the king was shown as chief officiant. These reliefs assisted in the perpetual enactment of the necessary rituals that kept the gods provisioned and ensured the perpetuation of the cosmos. By keeping the gods satisfied and serviced through the daily rituals that tended to their basic needs, they in turn were willing and able to sustain the functioning of the universe.
While in theory the king and the deities were the sole participants in the daily ritual cycle, in reality this function would have been served by priests. Priests acted as the king’s surrogates within the temples and performed the required daily cult activities. While in earlier periods temple service was performed as one of the rotational duties expected of local officials along with their more secular tasks, by the New Kingdom temple activities were undertaken by a professional, often hereditary, priesthood.
Cult Image of the God Ptah, c. 945–600 B.C.E., Third Intermediate Period–early Dynasty 26, lapis lazuli, height of figure 5.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The focal point of the daily rituals was a cult image of the deity that was kept in the inner sanctuary of the temple. Often crafted from precious materials like gold, silver, and lapis lazuli, very few of these cult images have been preserved (they are small, so easily transportable). They were not viewed as gods themselves, but instead provided a ritually perfected place to house their spirits or manifestations. The daily rituals indicate that these cult images of the deity were treated almost as though they were alive. Rituals included washing the statues, anointing them, clothing them, adorning them with jewelry, censing them, and providing offerings of food and drink before returning them to their shrines again.
Personal ritual and daily magic
Kings Hatshepsut (front) and Thutmosis III (rear) perform rituals before the divine bark of Amun during a festival procession. Red Chapel of Hatshepsut, Dynasty 18, Karnak Open Air Museum (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Most people primarily interacted with the official cults during public festivals and processions that served to rejuvenate the gods. These festivals included removing the cult image from its shrine, often placing it on a special boat-shaped palanquin (known as a bark), and processing it along proscribed routes to visit other deities in their temples or to certain sacred locations. These public processions permitted the general population, which was denied access to the temple proper, to “interact” with their gods.
The general population could also gain access to the temple gods via special shrines placed outside the temple walls (often at the rear of the structure, lined up with the inner sanctuary) and at the feet of the colossal statues that stood at the front entrance and served as mediators.
Palette of King Narmer, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E., Predynastic Egypt, greywacke (slate), from Hierakonpolis, 2′ 1″ high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
While the vast majority of the population played no role in temple rituals, they could engage with formal religious spaces by presenting votive offerings as an expression of piety and dedication. Wealthy individuals donated statues of themselves presenting offerings to be placed in the temple. Other votive objects included stelae, statuettes, food offerings, mold-made faience amulets, and mummified sacred animals. Vast numbers of such votive objects were donated in temples over the millennia.
Many of these objects survive because after a period of time votive offerings would begin to fill the temple space, which then needed to be cleared out to make room for new offerings. Having been dedicated to the gods, these objects could not simply be discarded; instead, large collections were ritually buried on the temple grounds. Several examples of these ritual pits have been discovered and excavated. Referred to as caches, they preserved many exquisite statues as well as some of the most important ceremonial objects to have survived from antiquity—including the extraordinary Narmer Palette.
The wider concept of personal piety seems to have emerged during the First Intermediate Period (c. 2150–2030 B.C.E.). This practice permitted more direct divine access for common people via small local shrines, developing alongside the state temples, where prayers could be offered and votive objects dedicated. Many Egyptians also venerated personal deities in household shrines. Houses excavated in the New Kingdom village of Deir el-Medina provide numerous examples of such shrines, with niches where images of deceased relatives and household deities like Bes and Taweret were venerated. These deities were believed to have the ability to ward off evil and also appear in the form of wearable amulets intended to serve the same function.
Mortuary Practices
Body and identity
Funerary beliefs developed that required the body of the deceased to be preserved and kept identifiable so the spirit could return to it. In the earliest burials, bodies were dried out by desiccation in the arid desert conditions; some of these natural mummies are quite well preserved. The processes used to preserve the body became quite complex. Performed by a special class of priests, there were different levels of mummification depending on economic status, with a wide range in cost and overall success.
Tombs
The earliest burials were simple pits dug out of the sand in which the body and a few grave goods (such as pottery, basic palettes, and tools) were placed. Over time, these became larger and more elaborate, eventually including multiple rooms with plaster walls and complex painted scenes. The range of grave goods and the quality of the burial varied considerably depending on the economic status and wealth of the deceased.
Interior view of standing enclosure of Khasekhemwy (Shunet), a large rectangular enclosure that probably contained small shrines inside for ritual function. Early Dynastic, Abydos, Egypt (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Most Egyptian tombs had two primary components: 1) a sealed-off subterranean chamber containing the body and grave goods, and 2) a superstructure with a chapel that could be visited by family and friends to perform rituals and leave offerings.
View of the South Court after leaving the entrance colonnade, Stepped Pyramid complex, Saqqara, Egypt (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Royal mortuary monuments of the Early Dynastic period (c. 3000–2686 B.C.E.) at the site of Abydos consisted of a large mud brick ritual enclosure near the cultivated land and a subterranean tomb dug several kilometers to the west near an opening in the desert cliffs believed to be the entrance to the netherworld. With Djoser at the beginning of the Third Dynasty, these mortuary features were combined into a single, massive complex at Saqqara.
Pyramid of Khufu, c. 2551–2528 B.C.E. (photo: Hungarian Snow, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Pyramid complexes of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2150 B.C.E.), including the well-known Great Pyramid at Giza, consisted of several elements besides the pyramid itself, including multiple temples, stone-lined causeways, smaller subsidiary pyramids and chapels, and buried boats.
Drawing of Vizier Ptah-Wash’s mastaba, from Vesiren Ptah-wash’ sjæledør og hans sørgelige skæbne by Elin Rand Nielsen, vol. I: Nationalmuseets arbejdsmark (Nationalmuseet : Poul Kristensens Forlag, 1993; CC0)
Elites were buried in large cemeteries that surrounded the tombs of their kings, in flat-topped brick structures known as mastabas. Nearly solid, these private tombs consisted of the sealed burial, below ground, and a chapel cut into the side of the mastaba for the veneration of the deceased.
King Unas’s burial chamber displaying the sarcophagus, royal palace facade motif, west gable inscriptions, and starry ceiling (photo: Vincent Brown, CC BY 2.0)
Royal burial chambers came to be covered with lines of text by the Fifth Dynasty, such as those in the pyramid of King Unas. Pyramid Texts, as they are now known, were among the earliest religious writings on the planet. This collection of recitations and instructions was designed to help the deceased in their afterlife journey.
Royal pyramid tombs of the Middle Kingdom did not contain inscriptions. These complexes, with their elaborate mortuary temples, are unfortunately not well preserved. This was largely due to the construction methods used during this period, where the pyramids had a core of mud brick encased in stone blocks. Later looting of the casing stones resulted in extreme weathering of the exposed mud brick. Many private burials were better preserved and included painted coffins covered with texts and scenes intended to aid the deceased in the afterlife. This collection of funerary literature is now referred to as the Coffin Texts.
Valley of the Kings and Memorial Temples on the edge of cultivation, Thebes, Egypt (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
During the New Kingdom, royal tombs were carved deep into the hills of western Thebes, in a place now known as the Valley of the Kings. These hidden burials were conceptually paired with large memorial temples constructed closer to the land of the living on the edge of the cultivated land. These structures were used for the king’s mortuary cult, providing the deceased ruler with all the offerings and necessary rituals to ensure their idealized continuation in the netherworld.
Private tombs in the New Kingdom continued to include elaborately decorated chapels with scenes and texts related to important events from the life of the deceased and ritual scenes designed to provide for them in the afterlife. Some preserved scenes depict lively and vibrant representations of their life on earth.
Journey of the Deceased
After the funeral rites and burial, the deceased began their netherworld journey toward the land of Osiris, aided by mortuary texts like the Book of the Dead that would be included in their tomb. These texts provided a sort of road map and specified the spells needed to successfully traverse this dangerous realm and get past the guardians and gatekeepers they encountered along the way.
Eventually, the deceased reached the last judgment. This vitally important moment decided their fate. As they stood before the enthroned Lord of the Dead, Osiris, their heart was weighed on a scale against the feather of ma’at. Usually, a small image of Ma’at, the goddess of truth and cosmic balance, stood atop the scales to confirm the correctness of the weighing. The jackal-headed funerary god Anubis oversaw the weighing of the heart while the ibis-headed Thoth recorded the verdict. If their heart was “light as a feather,” the blessed dead were permitted to enter the idealized afterlife known as the Field of Reeds. For the unfortunate Egyptian whose heart was heavier than the feather of truth, a horrific monster with the head of a crocodile, body of a lion, and hindquarters of a hippopotamus—known as Ammit—waited eagerly to devour their heart and damn them to eternal oblivion. Obviously, in scenes of this judgment, the Egyptians always portrayed the scales balancing or with the heart even slightly lighter than the feather.
Religion was woven into every aspect of life for the ancient Egyptian, whether king or commoner. The complex web created by the layers of rituals and stories that developed over the millenia provided the flexible structure that functioned as the psychological core for this enigmatic culture. Striving for the cosmic balance of ma’at in their daily lives, Egyptian society achieved largely-stable longevity and enjoyed great peaks that would suggest that they were doing at least something right.
Lord of Chaos, the god Seth was associated with a distinctive and unidentified animal with squared-off ears and an elongated, down-curved snout, Karnak, Egypt (Open Air Museum, Karnak; photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Egypt’s mythic world, rich with creative imagery, was deeply informed by the natural world that surrounded them. The divine landscape and the stories about the beings that inhabited it continued to evolve through Egyptian history. Over time, these myths wove an elaborate tapestry of meaning and significance, often presenting layered, seemingly contradictory viewpoints that existed simultaneously without apparent conflict.
Ourobos (detail), a shrine from the tomb of Tutankhamun, 18th dynasty, New Kingdom of Egypt (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; photo: Djehouty, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Similarly, the concept of time in ancient Egypt was rather fluid; it was believed to move at different rates for certain beings and regions of the cosmos and was viewed as simultaneously linear and cyclical. Obviously, individual Egyptians experienced linear time—living their lives from birth to death—but they were also intimate with cyclical time, as evidenced in nature by the solar cycles, annual floods, and repeating astronomical patterns. They believed that an ongoing cycle of decay, death, and rebirth was what provided for the eternal consistency of the stable universe and allowed it to flourish. Fittingly, the ouroboros—the image of a snake eating its own tail and potent symbol of regeneration—originated in Egypt.
The prehistoric peoples of the Nile region, like many other early populations, revered powers of the natural world, both animate and inanimate. While some deities, like the sun god Ra, were linked with inanimate natural phenomena, most of the first clear examples of divinities were connected to animals. Falcon gods and cattle goddesses were among the earliest and may well have developed in the context of Neolithic cattle herding.
Narmer Macehead, Early Dynastic Period, c. 31st century B.C.E., found in Hierakonopolis (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)
Already in the Early Dynastic period (c. 3100–2686 B.C.E.), there is significant evidence for the existence of many deities that were represented in human, animal, or hybrid forms (usually with human bodies and animal heads). Cult objects (statues of gods) in their local shrines shown being revered by the king were depicted on objects found in royal tombs of this period and may record actual visits by the ruler to different parts of the country to engage with those deities. The dedication of such cult images and participation in their rituals by the king was one of the most essential royal duties. Around 3000 B.C.E. when Egypt was unified under a single ruler, these disparate local deities appear to have been organized into a pantheon with relationships created between them, and these connections may have sparked various mythic stories.
The Turin king list, or the Royal Canon of Turin, papyrus
There are great challenges in the study of Egyptian mythology, not the least of which are the large gaps in our knowledge due to the whims of preservation. Our most cohesive records are texts from the later periods, which often record detailed stories that present seemingly contradictory accounts. For example, there were diverse and complementary creation myths and cosmogonies (stories about the origins of the universe) that overlap to present different aspects of their understanding of how the world and the gods came into being. In the view of the ancient Egyptians, there were seven stages to the mythical timeline of the world:
the chaos that existed pre-creation,
the emergence of the creator deity,
the creation (by various means) of the world and the differentiation of beings,
the reign of the sun god,
direct rule by other deities,
rule by human kings, and
a return to the chaos of the primeval waters.
At different times and in various locations, a variety of deities were identified with the creator god who emerged from the primordial waters to initiate and differentiate the cosmos. These included Ra, Atum, Khnum, Ptah, Hathor, and Isis. These myriad versions of the process of creation were connected to and promoted by cult centers, that emphasized the role of their patron deity in the process.
The three major variations of the Egyptian creation story are commonly referred to today by the cult locations where these variations were most heavily promoted: Hermopolis (Khemnu), Heliopolis (Iunu), and Memphis (Ineb-hedj).
While they differ in the details and focus on the primacy of their own local deities, all these creation systems are also quite similar in their approach, where a chaotic, amorphous watery mass of potentiality was brought under control through the establishment of ma’at and given form through the will of a creator. Many variations on these themes appeared that fit into the basic frameworks—the emerging sun god was sometimes visualized as a falcon, a scarab beetle, or a child (among other manifestations)—but all materialized from a mound and/or primeval waters. An understanding of these overlapping creation myths, and a recognition of the fact that they existed simultaneously with no apparent conflict, hints at the complexity of the mythological world of ancient Egypt.
Creation Myths
Hermopolis—cult center of the Eight
The sun rises from the mound of creation at the beginning of time. The central circle represents the mound, and the three orange circles are the sun in different stages of its rising. At the top is the “horizon” hieroglyph with the sun appearing atop it. At either side are the goddesses of the north and south, pouring out the waters that surround the mound. The eight stick figures are the gods of the Ogdoad, hoeing the soil. “The Creation of the World,” detail in the Book of the Dead of Khensumose, c. 1075–945 B.C.E., Twenty-first Dynasty (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)
The Hermopolitan view (centered in Hermopolis) presented a vision of creation as a mound of earth that emerged from the primordial waters of chaos. A lotus blossom grew from this mound, opened, and revealed the newborn sun god, which brought light to the cosmos and initiated creation. Within the primeval waters were believed to be four pairs of male and female deities, known as the Ogdoad (“group of eight”) who represented elements of the pre-creation cosmos. Often represented with the heads of frogs and snakes, these chthonic beings as being associated with the primeval flood. Until the first light appeared, these beings were viewed as inert, containing the potential of creation but only “activated” when the young sun emerged from the lotus. The names of these deities, who were considered the “mothers” and “fathers” of the sun god, were masculine and feminine versions of the elements: Water (Nun & Nunet), Infinity (Heh & Hauhet), Darkness (Kek & Kauket), and Hiddenness (Amun & Amaunet).
The sun god plays a primary role in the Heliopolitan creation theology. In this system, creation was enacted by a group of deities referred to as the Great Ennead. This “group of nine” consisted of the sun god, in his form as Atum, and a series of eight descendents. In this story, Atum already existed in the primordial waters (sometimes said to have been “in his egg”) and emerged alone to initiate creation. Atum was said to be “he who came into being by himself”and he then created his first two descendants, Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture) from his bodily fluids. Shu and Tefnut then created the next pair of gods, Geb (earth) and Nut (sky), providing the physical framework for the world. Geb and Nut then produced the gods Osiris and Isis, and Seth and Nephthys. These pairs, in one sense, represented the fertile Nile valley (Osiris & Isis) and the desert that surrounded it (Seth & Nephthys), completing the primary elements of the Egyptian cosmos. As all these deities were viewed as being extensions of and proceeding from the sun god, he was generally portrayed as the ruler of the gods.
The Memphite Theology is recorded on an important artifact now known as the Shabaka Stone. This black basalt stelae was originally set up in the ancient temple of Ptah at Memphis and preserves the only surviving copy of this religious text. According to the inscription, which is heavily damaged, the text of the stelae was copied from an ancient worm-eaten papyrus that the pharaoh Shabaka ordered to be transcribed in order to preserve it (this story, however, is debatable). The text contains references to the Heliopolitan account but then claims that the Memphite god, the chthonic Ptah, preceded the sun god and created Atum. Ptah was viewed as the “great craftsman” and the text alludes to creation being enacted through his conscious will and rational thought—the form of the earth was described as being brought about via his creative speech.
These variations on core mythic elements may have resulted from attempts to incorporate deities that emerged at various times and locations into an existing framework of creation stories.
Netjer hieroglyph written as a wrapped pole with a flag on top. A row of netjer signs from the tomb of Ramses VI (KV9). Painted details show the pattern of the wrapping used on these divine symbols (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
The form(s) of the gods
The Egyptian word that modern scholars translate as “god” is netjer, which is written in hieroglyphs as a wrapped pole with a flag on top—a symbol of divine presence that dates back to Predynastic times. However, it is clear that this term encompassed not only what we would consider gods, but also deified humans, other types of supernatural beings, and even chaotic monsters (like the great serpent Apophis who was the chief foe of the sun god Ra). Spirits of the deceased (akhu), demon-like dwellers of the underworld, and beings called bau, which were manifestations of the gods that served as their messengers, were also feared and revered.
The human Hunefer being led by Horus (falcon-headed) to stand before Osiris (seated), with Isis and Nephthys behind him. Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead, 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, c. 1275 B.C.E., papyrus, Thebes, Egypt (British Museum)
The gods took various physical forms: anthropomorphic (human), zoomorphic (animal), hybrid (with the head of either a human or animal and the body of the opposite type), and composite (where characteristics of different deities were merged into one form). Many deities were fluid in the way they were represented and a truly fixed form for any deity was quite uncommon—sometimes, only the name clearly specifies which deity is being represented. The god Thoth, for example, was often depicted with a human body and the head of an ibis but could also be represented in fully-animal form as an ibis or as a baboon.
Capital of Hathor with a human head and bovine ears (left) and Hathor in Bovine form (right), both from the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, Dayr al-Baḥrī, Egypt, c. 1470 B.C.E. (photos: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Few deities were shown in all three main representational modes, but there were exceptions, such as the goddess Hathor, who could be portrayed fully human, fully bovine, or as a woman with a cow head. Keep in mind that these representations were not what the gods actually looked like in the Egyptian conception. Instead, they were visualizations of the deities’ characteristics, providing physical forms that allowed for interaction with the gods.
Wall relief of The Theban Triad, Amun, Mut, and Khonsu (left to right), mortuary temple of Ramses III, Medinet Habu, Theban Necropolis, Egypt (photo: Rémih, CC BY-SA 3.0)
There were also many other types of groupings of deities, especially triads. These father-mother-child groupings, like the Theban Triad of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu, were viewed collectively in certain contexts but each still maintained their individuality. Rather different was a practice known as syncretism where different deities were merged into one body. This appears to have been an effort to acknowledge when a deity was dwelling “within” another deity when performing roles that were primarily functions of the other. Often these were combinations of similar deities or different aspects of the same god, such as Atum-Khepri, which combined the dusk and dawn manifestations of the sun god. Other examples merged deities of very different nature, such as Amun-Ra, where the “hidden one” (mentioned above) was combined with the visible power of the sun to create the “King of the Gods.”
Ra and Osiris merged into one (center figure), tomb of Nefertari, 19th dynasty c 1290 1220 BCE, Middle Kingdom, West Thebes Egypt
Death, cycles, and the end of time
Egyptian deities were not static beings. Osiris, one of their most important gods, actually died (although the texts never directly say this, they do refer to him being dismembered, mummified, and buried) and then was transformed into the Lord of the Underworld. Others, like the sun god Ra, had cycles—Ra was believed to reach his zenith at midday (as Harakhti), grow old at the end of the day (as Atum), “die” at night, merging with Osiris in the depths of the netherworld to enact regeneration, and then was resurrected again with the dawn (as Khepri). In the Egyptian view, life led to death and then death re-emerged as new life; this cycle applied to humans and the gods alike, enabling them to become young again with eternal sameness.
At the end of time, the Egyptians believed that all the variety of the cosmos, including the gods, would revert to the undifferentiated condition of time before creation, with everything merging back into the primeval waters of potentiality.
Mummy of Herakleides, 120–140 C.E., Romano-Egyptian, human and bird remains; linen, pigment, beeswax, gold, and wood, 175.3 x 44 x 33 cm (Getty Villa, Los Angeles; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Little evokes ancient Egypt more quickly for more people than mummies. Over the millennia, scores of them have been unearthed and these complex echoes from the past have been handled in very different ways during that time. Often viewed more as artifacts and curios rather than as human remains, they were ground to powder for use in medicinal concoctions for many centuries (and, later, oil paints!), sometimes burned unceremoniously as fuel, and unwrapped with great fanfare at fashionable parties in the Victorian era. Today, mummies are treated with far greater respect and have provided deep insights and a vast amount of information about these ancient people, but their display and presentation remains a controversial topic.
The earliest burials known from Egypt were simple pits scooped out of the desert sand. These contained the bodies of the deceased, usually curled on their side in a fetal position, and often included objects of daily life such as pots, beads, tools, and other small items. Dated prior to the time of unification (well before 3000 B.C.E.), early cemeteries were located along the edge of the desert near settlements, the desert west of the Nile was already considered the land of the dead. Over time, the continued existence of the body on earth came to be viewed as essential for a successful afterlife. The physical corpse (or an inscribed image, or even one’s written name) served as a conduit with earth that allowed sustenance from offerings and magical spells included in the tomb or inscribed on its walls to flow to the deceased in the netherworld. Given the importance placed on the body, it is not surprising that the art of mummification developed to such an exceptional degree. There was a huge range of experimentation that occurred over Egypt’s long history of mummification, some techniques being far more successful than others.
Mummification
Sadly, no step-by-step guide to mummification has yet been discovered. Some 3rd–1st century B.C.E. papyri record wrapping instructions, amulet placement, and some spells, but the most detailed textual description of the process comes from the 5th-century B.C.E. Greek historian Herodotus in Book II of his Histories. He describes three different types of embalming, varying in expense, complexity, and quality of result.
Canopic Jar with a Lid in the Shape of a Royal Woman’s Head, c. 1352–1336 B.C.E., reign of Akhenaten, Dynasty 18, New Kingdom, Amarna Period Egypt, Upper Egypt; Thebes, Valley of the Kings, Tomb KV 55, Davis/Ayrton 1907 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
In its full-fledged incarnation, the high-quality process of mummification took around 70 days and entailed:
Death Mask from innermost coffin, Tutankhamun’s tomb, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, photo: Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Removing the viscera (liver, lungs, intestines, and stomach) through an incision in the left side; these organs were mummified separately and placed in four canopic jars. The heart, considered the seat of intelligence, was usually left inside the body.
The mysterious brain, a wet organ that encouraged putrification (which was anathema to the mummification process), was removed through the nostrils using a long metal hook and discarded.
The body was washed with palm wine, dried, and then covered with natron (netjry, in ancient Egyptian, which translates to “divine salt”). This powdery salt, derived from an oasis near the delta called the Wadi Natrun, desiccated the body over a period of up to 40 days.
Once dried out, the body was uncovered, ritually cleaned, and then anointed with fragrant oils and a thick coating of resin.
Then the body was wrapped with many layers of linen strips—a process that could take more than two weeks. Between the layers, various amulets were placed in specific locations with the hopes that they would aid the deceased in their netherworld journey. In royal burials, precious jewelry and regalia were included in these layers; the intact mummy of Tutankhamun included more than 150 objects wrapped in his linen. When the wrapping was complete, the bandages were thoroughly soaked with liquified resin.
To maintain the identity of the body, a mask could be placed on the mummy’s head. In later periods, a portrait was painted on a wood panel and inserted into the bandages. The mummy was then encased in a coffin, usually covered with amuletic scenes and texts that identified the deceased and provided them with the magical spells needed to safely traverse the dangerous netherworld.
Mummy with a portrait of Herakleides, 120–140 C.E., Romano-Egyptian, human and bird remains, linen, pigment, beeswax, and wood (The Getty Villa; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The mid-range method omitted steps, such as the incision and manual removal of the viscera, while the least expensive option entailed the body simply be washed, dried in natron, and then wrapped.
Mask likely to be worn by a male priest playing the part of Anubis in a temple during mummification or burial ritual. Probably buried with the priest who had worn it in life. Anubis mask, 8–4 B.C.E., cartonnage, coarse linen, mud plaster mixed with straw, probably excavated in Thebes, Egypt, 24 x 36 cm (Harrogate Museums and Arts)
Archeological evidence has provided a great deal of additional information about this complex process beyond what was written in antiquity. For instance, although there are no texts referring to the practice, numerous discoveries of caches of carefully buried used embalming materials have given valuable insight into the techniques used. Not much is known about the ancient embalmers, except that wrapping was typically performed by a special class of priests, one of whom seems to have been masked and performed as the god Anubis.
Mourners in the funerary procession of Ramose, Tomb of the Vizier Ramose (TT 55), Western Thebes, Dynasty 18. Note the white sandals and other grave goods being carried by figures around the mourners (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Funerary rites
Once the mummy was prepared, it was retrieved from the embalmers by the family. The mummy was placed in its prepared coffin and taken in procession to the tomb along with all the items destined to join the deceased in the afterlife. Included in this mournful group would be friends and family, along with priests to perform the funerary rituals and (if the deceased was wealthy) professional mourners who wailed and tore their clothing in anguish. Expressive tomb paintings of funerary processions show these figures with disheveled hair and tears streaming down their faces as they accompany the deceased on their final terrestrial journey.
The last stage before burial was a special ceremony performed by the heir and a priest wearing a panther skin wrapped around their torso. This “Opening of the Mouth” ritual was considered essential as it allowed the deceased to fully engage in the afterlife. The ceremony involved touching the organs related to the senses—eyes, ears, nose, and mouth—with special instruments, such as an adze (a woodworking tool) and a double-forked knife called a pesesh-kef. It is fascinating to note that these instruments were related to those used during childbirth, like the pesesh-kef that was also used to cut the umbilical cord. These ritual actions allowed the mummy’s senses to become magically useful again and permitted the deceased to be a fully functional being and an effective akh in the afterlife.
Once all the necessary rites had been completed, there was a funerary feast held in front of the tomb with the mummy, often draped in flower garlands, as guest of honor. Then, the mummy—along with its offerings and grave goods—was placed into the burial chamber and sealed away. This final act initiated the deceased’s passage into the netherworld, providing spells, guides, protective amulets, and tools in their tombs to aid them along that dangerous journey. Their eventual goal was to reach the idealized Field of Reeds (the Egyptian version of heaven) and enjoy an eternity in that place of perfection, sustained for all time through their terrestrial link to the tomb reliefs, grave goods, and ongoing offerings provided.
Although the living went back to their lives when they left the funeral, the deceased was far from forgotten. Regular festival occasions included visits to the tomb by family, sometimes with memorial picnics taking place in the area before the chapel, and gifts and offerings were left. Once a deceased Egyptian was perceived to have successfully navigated the dangerous pathways of the netherworld and achieved their place in the Field of Reeds, their living relatives and descendants would sometimes approach with petitions or requests for guidance. Often referred to as “Letters to the Dead,” these written requests for otherworldly intervention in the affairs of the living were usually written on small clay bowls filled with a food offering to entice the deceased spirit to help bring about the desired result.
For the ancient Egyptians, the dead were never truly forgotten. Even by speaking the name of an individual, the living helped guarantee eternal existence of that being in the afterlife.
Religion and the Spiritual Realm (Sub-Saharan Africa)
by Dr. Christa Clarke
Seated (Dogon) Couple, 18th-early 19th century (Dogon peoples), Mali, wood and metal, 73 x 23.7 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Traditional religions in Africa
Most traditional religions in Africa have developed at the local level and are unique to a particular society. Common elements include a belief in a creator god, who is rarely if ever represented in art and directly approached by worshipers. Instead, the supreme deity is petitioned through intermediaries, or lesser spirits. These spirits may be related to the natural world and have control over powerful natural phenomena. For instance, Nwantantay masks used by the Bwa of Burkina Faso represent various flying spirits that inhabit the natural world and can offer protection. These flying spirits are believed to take physical form as insects or water fowl. In Guinea, Baga beliefs describe local water spirits, called Niniganné, associated with both wealth and danger that take symbolic form as snakes. Nature spirits, appealed to by Baule diviners in Côte d’Ivoire for spiritual insights, are conceived of as grotesque beings associated with untamed wilderness.
Ci wara kun (Male and Female Antelope Headdresses), 19th – 20th century, Bamana peoples, wood, 90.7 x 40 x 8.5 cm, Segou region, Mali (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Male and Female Poro Altar Figures (Ndeo), 19th–mid-20th century, Senufo peoples, Korhogo region, Bandama River region, Côte d’Ivoire, wood, pigment, 60.2 x 14 x 11.8cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, female figure and male figure)
Other spirits represent founding ancestors, whose activities are described in stories about the creation of the world and the beginnings of human life and agriculture. The Dogon of Mali recount their genesis story with reference to Nommo, a primordial being who guided an ark with the eight original ancestors from heaven to populate the earth (top of page). Also in Mali, Bamana agricultural ceremonies invoke Ci Wara, the half man and half antelope credited with introducing agriculture to humanity (above). The original ancestors in Senufo (Côte d’Ivoire) belief are represented by a monumental pair of male and female figures exemplifying an ideal social unit (example left).
The category of spirits believed to be most accessible to humans is that of recently deceased ancestors, who can intercede on behalf of the living community. Among the Akan in Ghana, ancestors are commemorated by terracotta sculptures that, when placed in a sacred grove near the cemetery, serve as a focal point for funeral rites and a point of contact with the deceased . Fang societies preserved the bones of important deceased individuals in bark containers in the belief that their relics held great spiritual power . In many large states, a living king and leader may be regarded as divine as well. In the kingdom of Benin, in today’s Nigeria, the Oba historically was considered semi-divine and therefore constituted the political and spiritual focus of the kingdom .
Christianity in Africa
In addition to indigenous religions at a local level, other religions are also practiced throughout Africa. Christianity has existed in Egypt and northern Africa since the second century. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church was established in the fourth century by King Ezana, who adopted Christianity as the state religion. In the late fifteenth century, Christianity was introduced into sub- Saharan Africa by Portuguese explorers and traders. Although most African cultures did not adopt the religion, the Kongo king Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga established Christianity as the state religion in the early sixteenth century. During the colonial period, Christianity gained converts throughout the continent.
Crucifix, 16th-17th century, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Angola; Republic of the Congo, solid cast brass, 27.3 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Islam came to Egypt after 640, then spread below the Sahara in the eighth and ninth centuries through traders and scholars. On the east coast, Arab and Persian colonizers introduced Islam beginning in the eighth century. Although the acceptance of Islam or Christianity sometimes precluded the practice of traditional religions, in many cases they coexisted or were incorporated into preexisting beliefs. The adoption of Islam and Christianity also led to the abandonment of many earlier forms of artistic expression.
Head of an Oba, Nigeria, Court of Benin, 16th century, brass, 23.5 x 21.9 c 22.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Religious practice in Africa centers on a desire to engage the spiritual world in the interests of social stability and well-being. Annual rites of renewal among the Bwa, for example, are designed to seek the continued goodwill of nature spirits. Political leaders also seek religious guidance to ensure the success of their reign. Fon kings, for example, referenced a divination process known as fa, which predicted the nature and character of their reign . Personal misfortune, such as illness, death, or barrenness, or community crises, including war or drought, are also cause to petition the spirits for guidance and assistance. Art objects are employed as vehicles for spiritual communication in diverse ways. Some are created for use in an altar or shrine and may receive sacrificial offerings. The Dogon of Mali, for example, show gratitude to the ancestors by offering pieces of meat in a monumental container presented to the family altar (below). In the kingdom of Benin (Nigeria), cast brass heads commemorating deceased kings are placed on royal ancestral altars, where they serve as a point of contact with the king’s royal ancestors (above).
Ritual Vessel (Aduno Koro): Horse, 19th–20th century, Mali, Dogon peoples, wood, 18.4 x 56.9 x 10.8 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Other objects are used by diviners to attract and tap into spiritual forces. The dazzling beauty of an expertly carved Baule figure sculpture lures a nature spirit into inhabiting the sculpture, thereby aiding a diviner’s work Such objects themselves are often not inherently powerful but must be activated through ritual offerings or by a knowledgeable religious specialist.
Fon diviners empower figurative sculptures called bocio with organic substances that ensure their client’s health and well-being (left). Similarly, Kongo ritual objects known as nkisi derive their potency from various substances, both organic and man-made, added to a carved figure by a ritual specialist. The unseen forces of nature or the spiritual world are called upon to serve a variety of purposes, including communicating with the spirits, honoring ancestors, healing sickness, or reinforcing societal standards, through masked performances. Masquerades involve the active participation of dancers, musicians, and even the audience, in addition to the masked dancer, who serves as the vehicle through which these invisible powers become manifest. By donning a mask and its associated costume, the dancer transcends his own identity and is transformed into a powerful spiritual being. Among the Dogon, masks are worn at dama, a collective funerary rite for men whose goal is to ensure safe passage of the deceased’s spirit to the world of the ancestors. Masked performances by members of the Bamana Komo association convey knowledge of their history, beliefs, and rituals to initiated members. The massive sculpted headdress known as D’mba among the Baga is seen as a symbol of cultural reinvention and appears on various occasions marking personal and communal growth . Among the Mende and their neighbors, masquerades of the Sande society encourage and celebrate young female initiates and offer a model of feminine beauty and spiritual powe
African Pantheons and the Orishas (Yoruba People, Nigeria)
So, today we’re talking about African Pantheons. Now, you might say, that’s ridiculous. Africa isn’t a single place with a single pantheon, and we’d be fools to try and cover all that in an eleven-minute video. You’d be right. Instead, we’re going to focus on the Yoruba religion from west Africa, and the Orishas that populate Yoruba stories. The many, many Orishas cover all aspects of life and can be pretty specialized. We’re going to focus on a dozen or so.
In which Mike Rugnetta teaches you about the hero of The Congo, Mwindo! Mike will tell you the stories of Mwindo’s birth, his many deaths, and his evolution from a braggy superhuman baby to a wise, superhuman leader of his people. Along the way, we’ll learn about the Wiki game, and when you should and shouldn’t drink banana beer.
Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead of Hunefer, 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, c. 1275 B.C.E., papyrus, Thebes, Egypt (British Museum)
It is not known exactly where and when Egyptian writing first began, but it was already well-advanced two centuries before the start of the First Dynasty that suggests a date for its invention in Egypt around 3,000 B.C.E. The most well-known script used for writing the Egyptian language was in the form of a series of small signs, or hieroglyphs.
Some signs are pictures of real-world objects, while others are representations of spoken sounds. These sound signs are pictures that get their meaning from how the word for the object they represent sounds when said aloud. Some signs write one letter, some more, while others write whole words.
Like cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs were used for record-keeping, but also for monumental display dedicated to royalty and deities. The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek hieros ‘sacred’ and gluptien ‘carved in stone’. The last known hieroglyph inscription was 394 C.E.
Other scripts used to write Egyptian were developed over time. Hieratic was handwritten and easier to write so was used for administrative and non-monumental texts from the Old Kingdom (about 2613–2160 B.C.E.) to around 700 B.C.E. Hieratic was replaced by demotic, which means popular, in the Late Period (661–332 B.C.E.), and was a more abbreviated version. In turn demotic was replaced by Coptic, which may have been introduced to record the contemporary spoken language, in the first century C.E.
Most ivory plaques dating to the First Dynasty were made as labels. The pair of sandals incised on the back of this one indicates that it was a label for sandals, which were extremely prestigious items.
Labels such as these were usually decorated with representations of important events and this example shows Den, the fifth king of the First Dynasty, about to bring his mace down on the head of his vanquished enemy. The name of the king is written in the rectangular frame in front of his face, with the figure of a falcon, a symbol of royalty, above. The hieroglyphs behind the king give the name of one of his high officials, Inka.
This label is one of the few sources for information about activity inside or outside Egypt in the Early Dynastic period. The hieroglyphs on the right-hand side of the label read ‘first occasion of smiting the East’. That the enemy is an Easterner is indicated by his long locks and pointed beard. The gravel-spotted desert which serves as a ground-line rises to a hill on the right, suggestive of Egyptian depictions of foreign lands.
Such illustrations are a standard way of depicting kings and do not necessarily mean that any such campaign ever took place. Kings are shown, over a period of 2,000 years, smiting Libyan chiefs—some with the same name! However, all standard motifs must have a prototype, and, being one of the earliest known, this example might refer to a real historical event.
The hieroglyphic sign for ‘write’ was formed from an image of the scribal palette and brush case. Statues of scribes are sometimes shown with a papyrus across their knees and a palette, the scribe’s trademark, over one shoulder.
From the late Old Kingdom on, the basic palette was made of a rectangular piece of wood, with two cavities at one end to hold cakes of black and red ink. Carbon was used to make the black ink and iron-rich red ochre to make the red. Both pigments were mixed with gum so that they congealed rather than turned to dust when they dried. The cakes of ink were moistened with a wet brush, rather like modern watercolors or Chinese ink. Brush-pens were made of rushes, the tip cut at an angle and chewed to separate the fibers. These were kept in a slot in the middle of the palette.
Black was the normal color for writing. Red was used to mark the start of a text, or to highlight key words and phrases, like quantities in medicines, or for the names of demons in religious papyri. More colors were needed for illustrations, such as those in the Book of the Dead.
by The British Museum, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of the Rosetta Stone, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 196 B.C.E., granodiorite, 112.3 x 28.4 x 75.7 cm (The British Museum)
A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of the Rosetta Stone, Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 196 B.C.E., granodiorite, 112.3 x 28.4 x 75.7 cm (The British Museum)
The Rosetta Stone, 196 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Period, 112.3 x 75.7 x 28.4 cm, Egypt (British Museum, London) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). The Rosetta Stone was discovered in Egypt, at Fort St Julien in el-Rashid, known as Rosetta.
The key to translating hieroglyphics
A reconstruction of the stela of which the Rosetta Stone was originally a part (A. Parrot, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most important objects in the British Museum as it holds the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs—a script made up of small pictures that was used originally in ancient Egypt for religious texts. Hieroglyphic writing died out in Egypt in the fourth century C.E.. Over time the knowledge of how to read hieroglyphs was lost, until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 and its subsequent decipherment.
The Stone is a tablet of black rock called granodiorite. It is part of a larger inscribed stone that would have stood some 2 meters high. The top part of the stone has broken off at an angle—in line with a band of pink granite whose crystalline structure glints a little in the light. The back of the Rosetta stone is rough, where it has been hewn into shape, but the front face is smooth and crammed with text, inscribed in three different scripts. These form three distinct bands of writing.
The Rosetta Stone (detail), 196 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Period, 112.3 x 75.7 x 28.4 cm, Egypt (British Museum, London) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The Rosetta Stone, 196 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Period, 112.3 x 75.7 x 28.4 cm, Egypt (British Museum, London) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Part of grey and pink granodiorite stela bearing priestly decree concerning Ptolemy V in three blocks of text: Hieroglyphic (14 lines), Demotic (32 lines) and Greek (53 lines).
Three translations of the same decree
The inscriptions are three translations of the same decree, passed by a council of priests, that affirms the royal cult of the thirteen-year-old Ptolemy V on the first anniversary of his coronation. The decree is inscribed on the stone three times, in hieroglyphic (suitable for a priestly decree), demotic (the native script used for daily purposes), and Greek (the language of the administration). The importance of this to Egyptology is immense. In the early years of the nineteenth century, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to deciphering the others.
Opposition to the Ptolemies
In previous years the family of the Ptolemies had lost control of certain parts of the country. It had taken their armies some time to put down opposition in the Delta, and parts of southern Upper Egypt, particularly Thebes, were not yet back under the government’s control.
Before the Ptolemaic era (that is before about 332 B.C.E.), decrees in hieroglyphs such as this were usually set up by the king. It shows how much things had changed from Pharaonic times that the priests, the only people who had kept the knowledge of writing hieroglyphs, were now issuing such decrees. The list of good deeds done by the king for the temples hints at the way in which the support of the priests was ensured.
The end of hieroglyphics
Soon after the end of the fourth century C.E., when hieroglyphs had gone out of use, the knowledge of how to read and write them disappeared. In the early years of the nineteenth century, some 1400 years later, scholars were able to use the Greek inscription on this stone as the key to decipher them.
The discovery
Thomas Young, an English physicist, was the first to show that some of the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone wrote the sounds of a royal name, that of Ptolemy. The French scholar Jean-François Champollion then realized that hieroglyphs recorded the sound of the Egyptian language and laid the foundations of our knowledge of ancient Egyptian language and culture.
Soldiers in Napoleon’s army discovered the Rosetta Stone in 1799 while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of el-Rashid (Rosetta). On Napoleon’s defeat, the stone became the property of the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria (1801) along with other antiquities that the French had found.
The Rosetta Stone has been exhibited in the British Museum since 1802, with only one break. Towards the end of the First World War, in 1917, when the Museum was concerned about heavy bombing in London, they moved it to safety along with other, portable, ‘important’ objects. The Rosetta Stone spent the next two years in a station on the Postal Tube Railway 50 feet below the ground at Holborn.
The Rosetta Stone (detail with Greek), 196 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Period, 112.3 x 75.7 x 28.4 cm, Egypt (British Museum, London) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Analyzing the Rosetta Stone
When the Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, the carved characters that covered its surface were quickly copied. Printer’s ink was applied to the Stone and white paper was laid over it. When the paper was removed, it revealed an exact copy of the text—but in reverse. Since then, many copies or “facsimiles” have been made using a variety of materials. Inevitably, the surface of the Stone accumulated many layers of material left over from these activities, despite attempts to remove any residue. Once on display, the grease from many thousands of human hands eager to touch the Stone added to the problem.
An opportunity for investigation and cleaning the Rosetta Stone arose when this famous object was made the centerpiece of the Cracking Codes exhibition at The British Museum in 1999. When work commenced to remove all but the original, ancient material, the stone was black with white lettering. As treatment progressed, the different substances uncovered were analyzed. Grease from human handling, a coating of carnauba wax from the early 1800s and printer’s ink from 1799 were cleaned away using cotton wool swabs and liniment of soap, white spirit, acetone and purified water. Finally, white paint in the text, applied in 1981, which had been left in place until now as a protective coating, was removed with cotton swabs and purified water. A small square at the bottom left corner of the face of the Stone was left untouched to show the darkened wax and the white infill.
Left: Detail of the right side of the Rosetta Stone; Right: Detail of the Rosetta Stone with Demotic script. The Rosetta Stone, 196 B.C.E., Ptolemaic Period, 112.3 x 75.7 x 28.4 cm, Egypt (British Museum, London) (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
The Stone has a dark grey-pinkish tone with a pink streak running through it. Today you can see traces of a reddish brown in the text. This material was analyzed and found to be a clear mineral known as hydroxyapatite; the color may be due to iron traces. The mineral may have been applied deliberately, but there is no proof of this. This substance is not known by experts to have been used as a pigment, nor to have been used as a base for painting (a ground) in ancient Egypt.
Translation of the demotic text
[Year 9, Xandikos day 4], which is equivalent to the Egyptian month, second month of Peret, day 18, of the King “The Youth who has appeared as King in the place of his Father,” the Lord of the Uraei “Whose might is great, who has established Egypt, causing it to prosper, whose heart is beneficial before the gods…”
The British Museum, Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “The Rosetta Stone,” in Smarthistory, August 29, 2016, accessed August 12, 2024, https://smarthistory.org/the-rosetta-stone/.
Given the number of tombs, mortuary temples, and funerary artifacts that have survived from ancient Egypt, it is not surprising that many people mistakenly believe that ancient Egyptian society was obsessed with death. This could not be further from the truth—the Egyptians were obsessed with life, and specifically the life they experienced in the Nile valley, which was viewed as the ideal existence on earth. Every Egyptian wanted the desired afterlife: an eternal, perfected, effortless version of life along the Nile, including a river teeming with abundant fish, fields overflowing with a variety of produce, and deserts full of animals to hunt.
A collection of rituals and texts
The earliest known burials at all social strata contained grave goods and offerings to provide for the deceased in the afterlife. From the Old Kingdom onwards, tombs—royal and non-royal alike—included chapels where the living could come to present offerings and perform ritual actions to support the deceased in their journey. Over time, a collection of rituals and texts developed that were specifically intended to help the deceased become an effective being in the afterlife. Modern scholars divided this collection into the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and Book of the Dead, largely aligning with periods of time (Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom) and the most popular presentation of the texts (in pyramids, on coffins, or on papyri).
Despite the modern convention of dividing these texts, the ancient Egyptians viewed these compositions as a single continuum. By carving these essential spells on tomb walls or including them on coffins, papyri, and other objects, the goal was to ensure their eternal effectiveness in providing for the deceased in the afterlife.
Detail of Pyramid Text inscribed on the wall of a subterranean room in Teti’s pyramid, at Saqqara, Dynasty 6, Teti’s reign c. 2345–2323 B.C.E. (photo: Chipdawes)
Pyramid Text inscribed on the wall of a subterranean room in Teti’s pyramid, at Saqqara (photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0)
Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom
The massive pyramids at Giza included no inscriptions, but beginning with King Unas of the Fifth Dynasty (c 2375–2345 B.C.E.), the walls of the royal burial chamber were covered with vertical columns of text written in monumental hieroglyphs and often outlined in blue-green (a color of regeneration).
These Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom were initially preserved only inscribed on the walls of the burial chambers of royal pyramid tombs. Over time these became more available for display in private tombs and began appearing on objects in the tombs of elite individuals. From the surviving evidence, however, it is clear that there was a common collection of mortuary rites—equally valid for king and commoner—that were being used by both groups as early as the Fourth Dynasty.
Unas’ burial chamber displaying the sarcophagus, royal palace facade motif, west gable inscriptions, and starry ceiling, Dynasty 5 (Unas, c. 2375–2345 B.C.E.) (photo: Vincent Brown, CC BY 2.0)
These are among the earliest religious writings from anywhere in the world. The text was written in sections, each beginning with the phrase “words to be spoken.” They are often referred to by modern scholars as “spells” but are in fact religious texts. The texts probably derived from a variety of sources, like hymns, lists of divine epithets, daily life magical spells, and phrases that accompanied ritual actions. This collection of texts had clearly been in use for quite some time for both royal and non-royal burials before they were inscribed on the walls of Unas’s burial chamber and antechamber. Their goal was to aid the deceased in avoiding decay and to help their spirit ascend to the celestial realm, taking their place among the gods as one of the “imperishable stars.”
The Pyramid Texts present a mix of spell types—some were written in first person, meant to be spoken by the spirit of the deceased, while others were in second person, intended to be spoken by a lector priest or heir as part of the funerary rituals. These spells likely were recited as part of the funerary rites. The mortuary rituals probably began in the memorial temple or chapel and moved inward toward the burial chamber with the interment; there is often a locational element to spell placement, like the protective spells that are inscribed near the entrance and offering spells inscribed on the north walls of the burial chambers while the “Morning” ritual appears on the east wall. The offering rituals included texts related to presenting offerings, libations, and incense to the deceased and the performance of the Opening of the Mouth ritual.
Beyond the funerary rituals and spells, the text focused on assisting the deceased in ascending to the sky to join the gods, providing useful knowledge such as the names of gatekeepers they might encounter and helpful guides to avoid obstacles along the path. These “spells” helped ensure the success of the cycle of rebirth, supporting the daily journey from death to life. The entire goal of the Pyramid Texts was to enable the deceased to become an effective being (called an akh) in the afterlife.
Some 200 deities are mentioned in the Pyramid Texts and several of the major mythic themes of Egyptian religion are alluded to (such as the murder of Osiris, the conflict between Horus and Seth, and the daily journey of the sun god). The earliest references to Osiris as king of the netherworld appear as well.
King Unas’s burial chamber was inscribed with around 300 of these spells, but more than 800 are known today. They can be found in ten of the late Old Kingdom pyramids, none of which display an identical version. The perceived magical nature of hieroglyphic signs—something so important to Egyptian culture—is already evident here. It was their belief that images could animate in certain contexts, either to help or possibly hinder. For instance, repeated symbols for “bread” stacked on a table before the deceased provided that individual unlimited bread in the afterlife, which was viewed as an idealized version of life in Egypt and required provisioning and sustenance. In King Unas’s burial chamber inscription, certain signs like humans and dangerous scorpions were modified to render them harmless. There is a striking level of human and animal signs that are rendered as incomplete, missing arms, stingers, and other vital body parts. Later variations of this practice with mortuary inscriptions saw the horned viper that served as the letter “f” often carved as though they were sliced in half and birds were shown with no legs to prevent them from animating in the tomb and harming the body of the deceased.
A number of the Pyramid Texts were composed from the perspective of a non-royal individual or refer to the king as someone separate from the beneficiary of the spell, characteristics that make no sense if the spells were purely for royal usage, as was once believed by modern scholars. As early as the Fourth Dynasty, tomb biographies of officials include references to their status as an akh, suggesting that the same rites of transfiguration spelled out in the Pyramid Texts had been performed for them. Commonalities between royal and non-royal mortuary practices are also evident in the shared elements of the funerary service, including the ubiquitous offering lists—specifying the numbers of each type of good (bread, jars of beer, hanches of cattle, etc.) hoped to be available in the afterlife—that were included in every tomb, scenes of the deceased seated at a table piled high with offerings, and ritualists shown performing the actions necessary to help the deceased transform into an akh.
While only a few spells were selected for any given burial, more than 1,100 spells have been identified with around 400 of these reused verbatim from the Pyramid Texts. There was considerable local variation, however, and many spells are only found at one location. Coffin Texts from the Tomb of Harhotep, c. 2008–1630 B.C.E., limestone wall, pigment, 99.1 x 9.9 x 52.7 cm (Brooklyn Museum)
The Pyramid Texts eventually developed into a collection of spells now referred to as the Coffin Texts, since they were often painted on coffins and other grave goods. The Coffin Texts were directly derived from the Pyramid Texts and represent a continuation of the older tradition rather than a distinct and new corpus. They illustrate how important the promise of immortality and the protection of the soul was to all ancient Egyptians across time.
The Coffin Texts emerged during the First Intermediate Period and were used by a wide range of Egyptian society. They were used throughout the Middle Kingdom for private burials; royal pyramid burials during this period did not include mortuary texts inscribed on their walls.
Usually painted in closely spaced columns, the texts are initiated by the term dd-mdw (usually translated as “recitation” or “words to be spoken”) emphasizing their primary purpose as utterances, meant to be spoken aloud rather than just read. Perhaps due to the different local cultic practices and regional styles, the Coffin Texts are highly individualized in terms of which spells were selected, and this selection varied from coffin to coffin—there are around 100 coffins with these texts that are known, and each is quite different.
Coffin Texts were mostly discovered in elite cemeteries in Middle Egypt, such as at Deir el-Bersha and Beni Hasan, where the powerful nomarchs cut elaborate tombs into the cliffs for themselves and their families.
The essential content of the Pyramid Texts continued in the Coffin Texts, including the material basis for continued existence in the afterlife (i.e. the need for offerings, shabtis, and other grave goods), protection of the body and spirit from dangerous beings and locations, and a goal of admission into the cyclical solar journey that rejuvenated the soul. New were transformation spells to help the deceased change into a bird—ascending to the sky and also into various forms, including certain deities.
Another new motif was an expressed desire to reunite with family and loved ones in the afterlife. Apophis, the giant chaos serpent who endangered the course of the sun god’s nocturnal journey through the underworld and had to be defeated every night, makes its first appearance in these spells. Osiris, and the merging of the deceased with this god, increases in importance. Important spells and emphasized words were often written in red to highlight them. The deceased was referred to throughout the texts in first person.
In contrast to the Pyramid Texts that were unillustrated, in Coffin Texts a few spells were accompanied by vignettes (illustrations) that were considered an integral part of the spell. Especially amazing are the maps that are part of the spell known as the Book of Two Ways. Often painted on the interior bottom of coffins, these maps are the earliest known from any culture. They provide guides for two possible routes—by land and by water—through the dangerous realm of the netherworld, with accompanying spells intended to aid the deceased in overcoming obstacles and getting past the dangerous guardians they would encounter on the path. If successful in this endeavor, the deceased would enter an eternal paradise.
Early in the New Kingdom, a collection of mortuary spells, commonly referred to as the Book of the Dead, developed from the Coffin Texts and began to appear in private tombs, usually painted on papyrus scrolls. Known to the Egyptians as the “Spells for Going Forth by Day,” the so-called Book of the Dead was used for non-royal burials from around Dynasty 17 through the Roman era.
Amduat on both walls down to burial chamber, originally tomb of Ramses V (KV9), 20th dynasty, c. 1145 B.C.E., Valley of the Kings, Egypt (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Parallel with this development, a new almost completely royal genre of mortuary texts appeared called “That which is in the Duat.” These complex and enigmatic depictions of the netherworld and the nocturnal solar journey were only placed on the walls of kings tombs throughout the New Kingdom.
Spells from the Book of the Dead also appeared in royal New Kingdom tombs. These evolving texts provided a collection of rituals and practical instructions intended to support the deceased in their dangerous netherworld journey, with the goal of enabling them to enter an eternally effortless and perfected afterlife.
A continuation of the earlier Coffin Texts and the even earlier Pyramid Texts, the Book of the Dead made afterlife texts available to a wider range of Egyptian society. Each copy was different, with passages and illustrations selected on an individual basis. Some of these scrolls were gorgeously produced and lavishly painted with personal details, clearly very expensive, elite items; other examples were extremely basic and contained only the most essential spells—conceptually, both served the deceased Egyptians identically in their function of helping them navigate the afterlife. This collection included nearly 200 spells, although individual copies vary greatly in the number of spells they contained. Sometimes the spells were inscribed on grave goods and funerary equipment, like coffins, but most were written on papyrus scrolls and placed in tombs.
Increasingly, the spells were accompanied by vignettes; eventually, these illustrations could stand alone for the spells and were also portrayed on tomb walls. The spells mention many different deities, but the text was dominated by the gods Ra and Osiris and was focused on outlining the ways that the deceased could become part of the crew on Ra’s solar boat or find a place in Osiris’s court. Spells were set apart by titles in red and many included colophons with specific instructions on their use. These spells were practical in their intent, providing magical assistance to the deceased on their netherworld journey. There appears to have been no required sequence, but there were groupings and preferences that became apparent.
Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead, 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, c. 1275 B.C.E., papyrus, Thebes, Egypt (British Museum)
Detail of Ammit. Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead, 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, c. 1275 B.C.E., papyrus, Thebes, Egypt (British Museum)
Spell 125 was undoubtedly the most vital section of the text. A beautifully painted example can be seen in the papyrus of Hunefer, a Royal Scribe and steward of King Seti I in Dynasty 19. This spell for “descending to the great hall of the Double Ma’at” is now sometimes referred to as the Great Judgment. Standing before the throne of Osiris and a divine jury in the Hall of Justice, the deceased declared themselves innocent of a list of sins. After completing this negative confession, the weighing of the heart on the scales of ma’attook place. This moment decided the fate of the deceased in the netherworld—if their heart was lighter or balanced with the feather of truth, the deceased was allowed into the idyllic Field of Reeds, the Egyptian version of heaven, and lived eternally in bliss. However, if their heart was heavier than the feather, the deceased was condemned to the worst fate an Egyptian could envision: oblivion. Their heart was devoured by a horrifying monster called Ammit—a composite being merging lion, crocodile, and hippopotamus that waited beneath the scales—and they utterly ceased to exist.
An ongoing, evolving tradition
Ancient Egyptian mortuary texts represent an ongoing, ever-evolving tradition that provides valuable insight into the afterlife beliefs and goals of the ancient Egyptians. From the beginnings of its history, the afterlife was available to all segments of Egyptian society. What changed over time was the access to practices that were believed to be necessary to successfully achieving full rebirth and an idealized ongoing existence in the afterlife. The afterlife manuals and collections of mortuary spells included with burials and intended to assist the deceased in their netherworld journey became highly personalized and individual. For example, even after the development of the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead, spells from the Pyramid Texts continued to be used until the Late Period by those who chose to include them in their burials. An idealized afterlife as an effective akh was the goal of all Egyptians, no matter their status, and these texts were specifically developed to help make that goal a reality. As such, Egyptians did all they could to include as much of this helpful information in their burials as possible to support them on their dangerous journey to the Field of Reeds.
Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris
by The British Museum
Did Hunefer live an ethical life? See the judgment of the Egyptian gods—who weigh Hunefer’s heart.
Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 B.C.E. (19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Thebes, Egypt), papyrus (The British Museum). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
Erratum: near the end of the video we say that Nephthys and Anubis are siblings; this is not correct.
Hunefer: an ancient Egyptian official
Hunefer and his wife Nasha lived during the Nineteenth Dynasty, in around 1310 B.C.E. He was a “Royal Scribe” and “Scribe of Divine Offerings.” He was also “Overseer of Royal Cattle,” and the steward of King Sety I. These titles indicate that he held prominent administrative offices and would have been close to the king. The location of his tomb is not known, but he may have been buried at Memphis.
Hunefer’s high status is reflected in the fine quality of his Book of the Dead, which was specially produced for him. This, and a Ptah-Sokar-Osiris figure, inside which the papyrus was found, are the only objects which can be ascribed to Hunefer. The papyrus of Hunefer is characterized by its good state of preservation and the large, and clear vignettes (illustrations) are beautifully drawn and painted. The vignette illustrating the “Opening of the Mouth” ritual is one of the most famous pieces of papyrus in The British Museum collection, and gives a great deal of information about this part of the funeral.
The centerpiece of the upper scene is the mummy of Hunefer, shown supported by the god Anubis (or a priest wearing a jackal mask). Hunefer’s wife and daughter mourn, and three priests perform rituals. The two priests with white sashes are carrying out the Opening of the Mouth ritual. The white building at the right is a representation of the tomb, complete with portal doorway and small pyramid. Both these features can be seen in real tombs of this date from Thebes. To the left of the tomb is a picture of the stela which would have stood to one side of the tomb entrance. Following the normal conventions of Egyptian art, it is shown much larger than normal size, in order that its content (the deceased worshipping Osiris, together with a standard offering formula) is absolutely legible.
At the right of the lower scene is a table bearing the various implements needed for the Opening of the Mouth ritual. At the left is shown a ritual, where the foreleg of a calf, cut off while the animal is alive, is offered. The animal was then sacrificed. The calf is shown together with its mother, who might be interpreted as showing signs of distress.
The scene reads from left to right. To the left, Anubis brings Hunefer into the judgement area. Anubis is also shown supervising the judgement scales. Hunefer’s heart, represented as a pot, is being weighed against a feather, the symbol of Maat, the established order of things, in this context meaning ‘what is right’. The ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of the emotions, the intellect and the character, and thus represented the good or bad aspects of a person’s life. If the heart did not balance with the feather, then the dead person was condemned to non-existence, and consumption by the ferocious “devourer,” the strange beast shown here which is part-crocodile, part-lion, and part-hippopotamus.
However, as a papyrus devoted to ensuring Hunefer’s continued existence in the Afterlife is not likely to depict this outcome, he is shown to the right, brought into the presence of Osiris by his son Horus, having become “true of voice” or “justified.” This was a standard epithet applied to dead individuals in their texts. Osiris is shown seated under a canopy, with his sisters Isis and Nephthys. At the top, Hunefer is shown adoring a row of deities who supervise the judgement
The Great Pyramids at Giza, Egypt (photo: KennyOMG, CC BY-SA 4.0)
One of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world
The last remaining of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, the great pyramids of Giza, are perhaps the most famous and discussed structures in history. These massive monuments were unsurpassed in height for thousands of years after their construction and continue to amaze and enthrall us with their overwhelming mass and seemingly impossible perfection. Their exacting orientation and mind-boggling construction has elicited many theories about their origins, including unsupported suggestions that they had extra-terrestrial impetus. However, by examining the several hundred years prior to their emergence on the Giza plateau, it becomes clear that these incredible structures were the result of many experiments, some more successful than others, and represent an apogee in line with the development of the royal mortuary complex.
Pyramid of Khafre (photo: MusikAnimal, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The causeway of the Khafre (Chephren) pyramid complex, taken from the entrance of the Khafre Valley Temple (photo: Hannah Pethen, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Three pyramids, three rulers
The three primary pyramids on the Giza plateau were built over the span of three generations by the rulers Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure. Each pyramid was part of a royal mortuary complex that also included a temple at its base and a long stone causeway (some nearly 1 kilometer in length) leading east from the plateau to a valley temple on the edge of the floodplain.
Other (smaller) pyramids, and small tombs
In addition to these major structures, several smaller pyramids belonging to queens are arranged as satellites. A large cemetery of smaller tombs, known as mastabas (Arabic for ‘bench’ in reference to their shape—flat-roofed, rectangular, with sloping sides), fills the area to the east and west of the pyramid of Khufu. These were arranged in a grid-like pattern and constructed for prominent members of the court. Being buried near the pharaoh was a great honor and helped ensure a prized place in the Afterlife.
Map of Giza pyramid complex (map by: MesserWoland, CC BY-SA 3.0)
A reference to the sun
The shape of the pyramid was a solar reference, perhaps intended as a solidified version of the rays of the sun. Texts talk about the sun’s rays as a ramp the pharaoh mounts to climb to the sky—the earliest pyramids, such as the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara—were actually designed as a staircase. The pyramid was also clearly connected to the sacred ben-ben stone, an icon of the primeval mound that was considered the place of initial creation. The pyramid was viewed as a place of regeneration for the deceased ruler.
View up the side of Khufu’s pyramid showing scale of the core blocks (Photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Construction
Many questions remain about the construction of these massive monuments, and theories abound as to the actual methods used. The workforce needed to build these structures is also still much discussed. Discovery of a town for workers to the south of the plateau has offered some answers. It is likely that there was a permanent group of skilled craftsmen and builders who were supplemented by seasonal crews of approximately 2000 conscripted peasants. These crews were divided into gangs of 200 men, with each group further divided into teams of 20. Experiments indicate that these groups of 20 men could haul the 2.5 ton blocks from quarry to pyramid in about 20 minutes, their path eased by a lubricated surface of wet silt. An estimated 340 stones could be moved daily from quarry to construction site, particularly when one considers that many of the blocks (such as those in the upper courses) were considerably smaller.
Backstory
We are used to seeing the pyramids at Giza in alluring photographs, where they appear as massive and remote monuments rising up from an open, barren desert. Visitors might be surprised to find, then, that there is a golf course and resort only a few hundred feet from the Great Pyramid, and that the burgeoning suburbs of Giza (part of the greater metropolitan area of Cairo) have expanded right up to the foot of the Sphinx. This urban encroachment and the problems that come with it—such as pollution, waste, illegal activities, and auto traffic—are now the biggest threats to these invaluable examples of global cultural heritage.
The pyramids were inscribed into the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979, and since 1990, the organization has sponsored over a dozen missions to evaluate their status. It has supported the restoration of the Sphinx, as well as measures to curb the impact of tourism and manage the growth of the neighboring village. Still, threats to the site continue: air pollution from waste incineration contributes to the degradation of the stones, and the massive illegal quarrying of sand on the neighboring plateau has created holes large enough to be seen on Google Earth. Egypt’s 2011 uprisings and their chaotic political and economic aftermath also negatively impacted tourism, one of the country’s most important industries, and the number of visitors is only now beginning to rise once more.
UNESCO has continually monitored these issues, but its biggest task with regard to Giza has been to advocate for the rerouting of a highway that was originally slated to cut through the desert between the pyramids and the necropolis of Saqqara to the south. The government eventually agreed to build the highway north of the pyramids. However, as the Cairo metropolitan area (the largest in Africa, with a population of over 20 million) continues to expand, planners are now proposing a multilane tunnel to be constructed underneath the Giza Plateau. UNESCO and ICOMOS are calling for in-depth studies of the project’s potential impact, as well as an overall site management plan for the Giza pyramids that would include ways to halt the continued impact of illegal dumping and quarrying.
As massive as they are, the pyramids at Giza are not immutable. With the rapid growth of Cairo, they will need sufficient attention and protection if they are to remain intact as key touchstones of ancient history.
Thebes, the city of the god Amon, was the capital of Egypt during the period of the Middle and New Kingdoms. With the temples and palaces at Karnak and Luxor, and the necropolises of the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, Thebes is a striking testimony to Egyptian civilization at its height
.Temple of Amun-Re and the Hypostyle Hall, Karnak
by Dr. Elizabeth Cummins
View of sphinxes, the first pylon, and the central east-west aisle of Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak in Luxor, Egypt (photo: Mark Fox, CC: BY-NC 2.0)
The massive temple complex of Karnak was the principal religious center of the god Amun-Re in Thebes during the New Kingdom (which lasted from 1550 until 1070 B.C.E.). The complex remains one of the largest religious complexes in the world. However, Karnak was not just one temple dedicated to one god—it held not only the main precinct to the god Amun-Re—but also the precincts of the gods Mut and Montu. Compared to other temple compounds that survive from ancient Egypt, Karnak is in a poor state of preservation but it still gives scholars a wealth of information about Egyptian religion and art.
Google Earth view of Karnak
“The Most Select of Places”
The site was first developed during the Middle Kingdom (2055–1650 B.C.E.) and was initially modest in scale but as new importance was placed on the city of Thebes, subsequent pharaohs began to place their own mark on Karnak. The main precinct alone would eventually have as many as twenty temples and chapels. [1] Karnak was known in ancient times as “The Most Select of Places” (Ipet-isut) and was not only the location of the cult image of Amun and a place for the god to dwell on earth but also a working estate for the priestly community who lived on site. Additional buildings included a sacred lake, kitchens, and workshops for the production of religious accoutrements.
Model of the Precinct of Amon-Re, Karnak (photo: Rémih, CC: BY-SA 3.0)
“Tent pole” columns, Festival Temple of Thutmose III, c. 1479–25 B.C.E., sandstone, mud brick, paint, Karnak, at Luxor, Egypt (photo: Dennis Jarvis, CC: BY-SA 2.0)
The main temple of Amun-Re had two axes—one that went north/south and the other that extended east/west. The southern axis continued towards the temple of Luxor and was connected by an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes.
While the sanctuary was plundered for stone in ancient times, there are still a number of unique architectural features within this vast complex. For example, the tallest obelisk in Egypt stood at Karnak and was dedicated by the female pharaoh Hatshepsut who ruled Egypt during the New Kingdom. Made of one piece of red granite, it originally had a matching obelisk that was removed by the Roman emperor Constantine and re-erected in Rome. Another unusual feature was the Festival Temple of Thutmose III, which had columns that represented tent poles, a feature this pharaoh was no doubt familiar with from his many war campaigns.
Hypostyle hall
One of the greatest architectural marvels of Karnak is the hypostyle hall (a space with a roof supported by columns) built during the Ramesside period. The hall has 134 massive sandstone columns with the center twelve columns standing at 69 feet. Like most of the temple decoration, the hall would have been brightly painted and some of this paint still exists on the upper portions of the columns and ceiling today. With the center of the hall taller than the spaces on either side, the Egyptians allowed for clerestory lighting (a section of wall that allowed light and air into the otherwise dark space below). In fact, the earliest evidence for clerestory lighting comes from Egypt. Not many ancient Egyptians would have had access to this hall, since the further one went into the temple, the more restricted access became.
Hypostyle Hall, c. 1250 B.C.E. (hall), 18th and 19th Dynasties, New Kingdom, sandstone and mud brick, Karnak, at Luxor, Egypt
Temple as cosmos
Conceptually, temples in Egypt were connected to the idea ofzep tepi, or “the first time,” the beginnings of the creation of the world. The temple was a reflection of this time, when the mound of creation emerged from the primeval waters. The pylons, or gateways in the temple represent the horizon, and as one moves further into the temple, the floor rises until it reaches the sanctuary of the god, giving the impression of a rising mound, like that during creation. The temple roof represented the sky and was often decorated with stars and birds. The columns were designed with lotus, papyrus, and palm plants in order to reflect the marsh-like environment of creation. The outer areas of Karnak, which was located near the Nile River, would flood during the annual inundation—an intentional effect by the ancient designers no doubt, in order to enhance the temple’s symbolism. [2]
Tutankhamun’s tomb (innermost coffin and death mask)
by Dr. Elizabeth Cummins
Harry Burton, Howard Carter with Innermost Coffin of Tutankhamun, 1922 (Tutankhamun Archive, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford)
Nearly lost to history
Tutankhamun was only the age of nine when he became king of Egypt during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom (c. 1332–1323 B.C.E.). His story would have been lost to history if it were not for the discovery of his tomb in 1922 by the archaeologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. His nearly intact tomb held a wealth of objects that give us unique insights into this period of ancient Egyptian history.
New Kingdom of the Egyptian Empire, c. 1500 B.C.E.
Tutankhamun ruled after the Amarna age, when the pharaoh Akhenaten, Tutankhamun’s probable father, turned the religious attention of the kingdom to the worship of the god Aten, the sun disc. Akhenaten moved his capital city to the site of Akhetaten (also known as Amarna), in Middle Egypt—far from the previous pharaoh’s capital. After Akhenaten’s death and the rule of a short-lived pharaoh, Smenkhkare, Tutankhamen shifted the focus of the country’s worship back to the god Amun and returned the religious center back to Thebes.
Tutankhamun married his half-sister, Ankhesenamun, but they did not produce an heir. This left the line of succession unclear. Tutankhamun died at the young age of eighteen, leading many scholars to speculate on the manner of his death—chariot accident, murder by blow to the head, and even a hippopotamus attack! The answer is still unclear. Tutankhamun’s much-older advisor (and possible step-grandfather), Ay, married the widowed Ankhesenamun and became pharaoh.
Valley of the Kings, Egypt (photo: Troels Myrup, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The tomb
During the early twentieth century, Howard Carter, a British Egyptologist, excavated for many years in the Valley of the Kings—a royal burial ground located on the west bank of the ancient city of Thebes. He was running out of money to support his archaeological digs when he asked for funding for one more season from his financial backer, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon granted him one more year—and what a year it was!
George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, with Howard Carter during his initial visit to the tomb, 1922, 7 5/8 x 9 5/8 inches (National Portrait Gallery, London; photo: Keystone Press Agency Ltd.)
At the beginning of November 1922, Carter came upon the first of twelve steps of the entrance that led to the tomb of Tutankhamun. He quickly recovered the steps and sent a telegram to Carnarvon in England so they could open the tomb together. Carnarvon departed for Egypt immediately and on November 26, 1922, they made a hole in the entrance of the antechamber in order to look in. Carter states:
At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the lights, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold—everywhere the glint of gold.[1]
Harry Burton, View of tomb interior, 1922 (Tutankhamun Archive, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford)
The task of cataloging the finds was an immense undertaking for the team. Carter spent a decade systematically recording the finds and having them photographed.
Howard Carter, Drawing of Tutankhamun’s tomb (Tutankhamun Archive, Griffith Institute, University of Oxford)
The innermost coffin
Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus (a box-like stone container) held not one but three coffins in which to hold the body of the king. The outer two coffins were crafted in wood and covered in gold along with many semiprecious stones, such as lapis lazuli and turquoise.
Tutankhamun’s tomb, innermost coffin, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
The inner coffin, however, was made of solid gold. When Howard Carter first came upon this coffin, it was not the shiny golden image we see in the Egyptian Museum today. In his excavation notes, Carter states, it was
covered with a thick black pitch-like layer which extended from the hands down to the ankles (top image). This was obviously an anointing liquid which had been poured over the coffin during the burial ceremony and in great quantity (some two buckets full).[2]
Egyptian crook and flail (by: Jeff Dahl, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The image of the pharaoh is that of a god. The gods were thought to have skin of gold, bones of silver, and hair of lapis lazuli—so the king is shown here in his divine form in the afterlife. He holds the crook and flail, symbols of the king’s right to rule. The goddesses Nekhbet (vulture) and Wadjet (cobra), inlaid with semiprecious stones, stretch their wings across his torso. Beneath these goddesses are two more—Isis and Nephthys—etched into the gold lid.
Death Mask from innermost coffin, Tutankhamun’s tomb, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo) (photo: Roland Unger, CC BY-SA 3.0)
The death mask of Tutankhamun
The death mask is considered one of the masterpieces of Egyptian art. It originally rested directly on the shoulders of the mummy inside the innermost gold coffin. It is constructed of two sheets of gold that were hammered together and weighs 22.5 pounds (10.23 kg). Tutankhamen is depicted wearing the striped nemes headdress (the striped head-cloth typically worn by pharaohs in ancient Egypt) with the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet depicted again protecting his brow. He also wears a false beard that further connects him to the image of a god as with the inner coffin. He wears a broad collar, which ends in terminals shaped as falcon heads. The back of the mask is covered with Spell 151b from the Book of the Dead, which the Egyptians used as a road map for the afterlife. This particular spell protects the various limbs of Tutankhamun as he moves into the underworld.
Africa is the second largest continent in the world, and home to a tenth of the world’s population and at least a thousand different indigenous languages. Therefore, it is impossible to describe a single entity called “African music.” One need only compare the sacred music of the Gnawa musicians of Morocco with the choral traditions that arose in the townships of South Africa to see the vast range of musical practices found throughout this huge and complex region.
Especially during the last century, however, scholars have tried to find ways to talk in general ways about Africa’s rich traditions, while always acknowledging the sometimes very subtle differences between countries and ethnic groups. Beyond the recognition that African musicians maintained a vibrant and very distinct art, it has also been noted that this music — especially that of West Africa, from where the majority of slaves were taken — has played a significant role in the black cultural Diaspora, with important implications for the music of Latin America, the Caribbean (see page 59), and a variety of African American traditions (see American vernacular traditions; Jazz). Thus, understanding a few concepts that are shared by much African music helps listeners appreciate not only the continent’s music itself but a host of related traditions. Fortunately, in today’s digital age, recordings of music from virtually all corners of Africa — both traditional repertoires and styles influenced by Western popular music — are readily available.
The Sahara Desert, which takes up almost the entire northern third of the continent, is perhaps the most important dividing line that comes into play when discussing music in Africa. Countries that lie partly or entirely north of the Sahara (Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, etc.) tend to share many qualities with music of the Middle East. The rainforests and grasslands of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Cameroon, The Congo, Zambia, etc.) have produced very different traditions. In addition, distinctions are often made between Sub-Saharan musical traditions of Western, Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa.
As different as African musical traditions may sound from each other, they do tend to share both cultural and musical elements. However, one must always be cautious when trying to view these traditions through a Western musical or aesthetic lens.
Music and dance. Linguistic scholars have been hard-pressed to find a single word that means “music” in many African languages. Music and bodily movement are usually considered part of a single whole, and sound cannot be separated from the cultural (and often religious) function of musical performances.
In many African cultures, music and dance are considered communal activities; the Western idea of sitting silently while a performance is taking place is an anathema to these traditions. Many musical techniques that are shared by African musics — particularly the idea of “call and response,” where a soloist or group of performers will engage in short exchanges with other performers — seem to have arisen from this communal attitude toward music-making.
Oral traditions. Nearly all African traditions have been passed down orally, and their study by Western scholars has often involved the transcription of performances into Western musical notation, which often proves woefully inadequate for the job. The influx of Christian choral music, especially in the southern regions of Africa, has resulted in music somewhat more easily notatable, and some African musicians do now use the familiar five-line system to capture their art.
In many African traditions, rhythm — the way music moves through time — seems to be privileged over melody and harmony. Many African performances are highly polyphonic and made up of several layers of interlocking rhythmic ostinatos, which are combined to create an overall effect suitable for the religious or cultural ceremony for which the sounds are being produced.
Instruments. The variety of instruments found throughout Africa is astounding. Perhaps most impressive is the range of percussion instruments (both idiophones and membranophones) that are often combined with distinctive uses of the human voice. In listening to performances of African music, those of us immersed in the Western musical tradition may be initially drawn to the vocal line as the most prominent feature, yet it may just be one element of a larger, complex musical texture.
Source: Douglas Cohen, LibreTexts Humanities, Africa. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
VISUAL ARTS
Rock Art in the Green Sahara (Africa)
by THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Rock art is one of the best records of the life of past peoples who lived across the Sahara.
The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert, spanning the entire northern part of Africa. Yet it hasn’t always been dry — archaeological and geological research shows that it has undergone major climatic changes over thousands of years. Rock art often depicts extraordinary images of life, landscape and animals that show a time when the Sahara was much greener and wetter than it is now.
In an ancient North African “rock city,” modern explorers wetted a wall with water—revealing this graceful image.
Running Horned Woman, 6,000–4,000 B.C.E., pigment on rock, Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria
“Discovery”
Between 1933 and 1940, camel corps officer Lieutenant Brenans of the French Foreign Legion completed a series of small sketches and hand written notes detailing his discovery of dozens of rock art sites deep within the canyons of the Tassili n’Ajjer. Tassili n’Ajjer is a difficult to access plateau in the Algerian section of the Sahara Desert near the borders of Libya and Niger in northern Africa.
Brenans donated hundreds of his sketches to the Bardo Museum in Algiers, alerting the scientific community to one of the richest rock art concentrations on Earth and prompting site visits that included fellow Frenchman and archaeologist Henri Lhote. Lhote recognized the importance of the region and returned again and again, most notably in 1956 with a team of copyists for a 16-month expedition to map and study the rock art of the Tassili. Two years later Lhote published A la découverte des fresques du Tassili. [1] The book became an instant bestseller, and today is one of the most popular texts on archaeological discovery.
Tassili N’Ajjer National Park (photo: hanming_huang, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Lhote made African rock art famous by bringing some of the estimated 15,000 human figure and animal paintings and engravings found on the rock walls of the Tassili’s many gorges and shelters it to the wider public. Yet contrary to the impression left by the title of his book, neither Lhote nor his team could lay claim to having discovered Central Saharan rock art: long before Lhote, and even before Brenans, in the late 19th century a number of travelers from Germany, Switzerland, and France had noted the existence of “strange” and “important” rock sculptures in Ghat, Tadrart Acacus, and Upper Tassili. But it was the Tuareg—the Indigenous peoples of the region, many of whom served as guides to these early European explorers—who long knew of the paintings and engravings covering the rock faces of the Tassili.
Running Horned Woman (detail), 6,000–4,000 B.C.E., pigment on rock, Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria (photo: András Zboray, FJ Expeditions)
The “Horned Goddess”
Lhote published not only reproductions of the paintings and engravings he found on the rock walls of the Tassili, but also his observations. In one excerpt he reported that with a can of water and a sponge in hand he set out to investigate a “curious figure” spotted by a member of his team in an isolated rock shelter located within a compact group of mountains known as the Aouanrhet massif, the highest of all the “rock cities” on the Tassili. Lhote swabbed the wall with water to reveal a figure he called the “Horned Goddess”:
On the damp rock surface stood out the gracious silhouette of a woman running. One of her legs, slightly flexed, just touched the ground, while the other was raised in the air as high as it would normally go. From the knees, the belt and the widely outstretched arms fell fine fringes. From either side of the head and above two horns that spread out horizontally was an extensive dotted area resembling a cloud of grain falling from a wheat field. Although the whole assemblage was skillfully and carefully composed there was something free and easy about it . . .
The Running Horned Woman, the title by which the painting is commonly known today, was found in a massif so secluded and so difficult to access that Lhote’s team concluded that the collection of shelters was likely a sanctuary and the female figure—“the most beautiful, the most finished and the most original”—a goddess:
Perhaps we have here the figure of a priestess of some agricultural religion or the picture of a goddess of such a cult who foreshadow—or is derived from—the goddess Isis, to whom, in Egypt, was attributed the discovery of agriculture.
Lhote’s suggestion that the painting’s source was Egyptian was influenced by a recently published hypothesis by his mentor, the French anthropologist Henri Breuil, the then undisputed authority on prehistoric rock art who was renowned for his work on Paleolithic cave art in Europe. In an essay titled, “The White Lady of Brandberg, South-West Africa, Her Companions and Her Guards,” Breuil famously claimed that a painting discovered in a small rock shelter in Namibia showed influences of classical antiquity and was not African in origin, but possibly the work of Phoenician travelers from the Mediterranean. Lhote, equally convinced of outside influence, linked the Tassili painting’s provenance with Breuil’s ideas and revised the title to the “White Lady” of Aouanrhet:
In other paintings found a few days later in the same massif we were able to discern, from some characteristic features, an indication of Egyptian influence. Some features are, no doubt, not very marked in our ‘White Lady’; still, all the same, some details as the curve of the breasts, led us to think that the picture may have been executed at a time when Egyptian traditions were beginning to be felt in the Tassili.
Foreign influence?
Time and scholarship would reveal that the assignment of Egyptian influence on the Running Horned Woman was erroneous, and Lhote the victim of a hoax: French members of his team made “copies” of Egyptionized figures, passing them off as faithful reproductions of authentic Tassili rock wall paintings. These fakes were accepted by Lhote (if indeed he knew nothing of the forgeries), and falsely sustained his belief in the possibility of foreign influence on Central Saharan rock art. Breuil’s theories were likewise discredited: the myth of the “White Lady” was rejected by every archaeologist of repute, and his promotion of foreign influence viewed as racist.
The Tassili plateau, hailed as “the greatest center of prehistoric art in the world:” undercuts at cliff bases have created rock shelters with smooth walls ideal for painting and engraving. The Tassili’s unique geological formations of eroded sandstone rock pillars and arches—“forests of stone”—resemble a lunar landscape. (photo: magharebia, CC BY 2.0)
Yet Breuil and Lhote were not alone in finding it hard to believe that ancient Africans discovered how to make art on their own, or to have developed artistic sensibilities. Until quite recently many Europeans maintained that art “spread” or was “taken” into Africa, and, aiming to prove this thesis, anointed many works with classical sounding names and sought out similarities with early rock art in Europe. Although such vestiges of colonial thinking are today facing a reckoning, cases such as the “White Lady” (both of Namibia and of Tassili) remind us of the perils of imposing cultural values from the outside.
Crouching giraffe giving birth, Oued In Djerane, Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Nigeria (photo: András Zboray, FJ Expeditions)
Chronology
While we have yet to learn how, and in what places, the practice of rock art began, no firm evidence has been found to show that African rock art—some ten million images across the continent—was anything other than a spontaneous initiative by early Africans. Scholars have estimated the earliest art to date to 12,000 or more years ago, yet despite the use of both direct and indirect dating techniques very few firm dates exist (“direct dating” uses measurable physical and chemical analysis, such as radiocarbon dating, while “indirect dating” primarily uses associations from the archaeological context). In the north, where rock art tends to be quite diverse, research has focused on providing detailed descriptions of the art and placing works in chronological sequence based on style and content. This ordering approach results in useful classification and dating systems, dividing the Tassili paintings and engravings into periods of concurrent and overlapping traditions (the Running Horned Woman is estimated to date to approximately 6,000 to 4,000 B.C.E.—placing it within the “Round Head Period“), but offers little in the way of interpretation of the painting itself.
Advancing an interpretation of the Running Horned Woman
Visible in this reproduction of the original rock painting are two groupings in red ochre of small human figures superimposed onto the horned goddess. Based on Running Horned Woman, 6,000–4,000 B.C.E., pigment on rock, Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria
Who was the Running Horned Woman? Was she indeed a goddess, and her rock shelter some sort of sanctuary? What does the image mean? And why did the artist make it? For so long the search for meaning in rock art was considered inappropriate and unachievable—only recently have scholars endeavored to move beyond the mere description of images and styles, and, using a variety of interdisciplinary methods, make serious attempts to interpret the rock art of the Central Sahara.
Lhote recounted that the Running Horned Woman was found on an isolated rock whose base was hollowed out into a number of small shelters that could not have been used as dwellings. This remote location, coupled with an image of marked pictorial quality—depicting a female with two horns on her head, dots on her body probably representing scarification, and wearing such attributes of the dance as armlets and garters—suggested to him that the site, and the subject of the painting, fell outside of the everyday. More recent scholarship has supported Lhote’s belief in the painting’s symbolic, rather than literal, representation. As Jitka Soukopova has noted, “Hunter-gatherers were unlikely to wear horns (or other accessories on the head) and to make paintings on their whole bodies in their ordinary life.” [2] Rather, this female horned figure, her body adorned and decorated, found in one of the highest massifs in the Tassili—a region is believed to hold special status due to its elevation and unique topology—suggests ritual, rite, or ceremony.
Archers, Tassili n’Ajjer (photo: Patrick Gruban, CC BY-SA 2.0)
But there is further work to be done to advance an interpretation of the Running Horned Woman. Increasingly scholars have studied rock shelter sites as a whole, rather than isolating individual depictions, and the shelter’s location relative to the overall landscape and nearby water courses, in order to learn the significance of various “rock cities” in both image-making and image viewing.
Archaeological data from decorated pottery, which is a dated artistic tradition, is key in suggesting that the concept of art was firmly established in the Central Sahara at the time of Tassili rock art production. Comparative studies with other rock art complexes, specifically the search for similarities in fundamental concepts in African religious beliefs, might yield the most fruitful approaches to interpretation. In other words, just as southern African rock studies have benefitted from tracing the beliefs and practices of the San people, so too may a study of Tuareg ethnography shed light on the ancient rock art sites of the Tassili. [3]
Paintings at Akaham Ouan Elbered, Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Algeria (photo: András Zboray, FJ Expeditions)
Afterword: the threatened rock art of the Central Sahara
Tassili’s rock walls were commonly sponged with water in order to enhance the reproduction of its images, either in trace, sketch, or photograph. This washing of the rock face has had a devastating effect on the art, upsetting the physical, chemical, and biological balance of the images and their rock supports. Many of the region’s subsequent visitors—tourists, collectors, photographers, and the next generation of researchers—all captivated by Lhote’s “discovery”—have continued the practice of moistening the paintings in order to reveal them. Today scholars report paintings that are severely faded while some have simply disappeared. In addition, others have suffered from irreversible damage caused by outright vandalism: art looted or stolen as souvenirs. In order to protect this valuable center of African rock art heritage, Tassili N’Ajjer was declared a National Park in 1972. It was classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982 and a Biosphere Reserve in 1986.
Notes:
[1] Henri Lhote, A la découverte des fresques du Tassili [The Search for the Tassili Frescos] (Arhaud, 1958).
[2] Jitka Soukopova, “The Earliest Rock Paintings of the Central Sahara: Approaching Interpretation,” Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture 4, no. 2 (2011), p. 199.
[3] Read more about how southern African rock studies have benefitted from tracing the beliefs and practices of the San people in Jamie Hampson, “Discovering Southern African Rock Art.”
Group of stones collected in Egypt showing the range of colors and textures available to the ancient artists (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
A wide variety
Egyptian artists used a wide array of materials, both local and imported, from very early in their history. For instance, already in the Predynastic period, we find figurines carved from lapis lazuli—a lustrous blue stone that originates in what is now Afghanistan and indicates the early presence of robust trade routes.
Stone
There were numerous native stones used for statuary, including the ubiquitous soft limestone of the desert cliffs that line most of the Nile valley, as well as sandstone, calcite, and schist.
Harder stones include quartzite, diorite, granite, and basalt. Carving on softer stones was done using copper chisels and stone tools; hard stone required tools of yet harder stone, copper alloys, and the use of abrasive sand to shape them. Polishing was achieved with a smooth rubbing stone and abrasive sands with a fine grit.
Menkaure (Mycerinus) and Khamerernebty(?), graywacke, c. 2490–2472 B.C.E. (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Painted statuary
Most statuary was painted; even stones selected for the symbolism of their color were often painted. For instance, the exemplary statues of Menkaure, builder of the smallest of the three major pyramids at Giza, were executed in dark schist (also called greywacke). This smooth black stone is connected with Osiris, resurrected god of the dead, who was often shown with black or green skin referring to the fertile silt and lush vegetation of the Nile valley.
These images preserve traces of red paint on the king’s skin, indicating that, when completed and placed in his memorial temple near his pyramid, they would have appeared lifelike in coloration. With time, the paint would have flaked away, revealing the black stone underneath and explicitly linking the deceased king with the Lord of the Underworld.
Ceremonial gilded wooden shield from the tomb of Tutakhamun (New Kingdom) (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; photo: B, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Wood
Egyptian artists also used a variety of woods in their work, including the native acacia, tamarisk, and sycamore fig, as well as fir, cedar, and other conifers imported from Syria. Artisans excelled at puzzling together small, irregular pieces of wood and pegged them into place to create statuary, coffins, boxes, and furniture.
Tutankhamun’s lunar pectoral in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo (New Kingdom) (photo: Mary Harrsch, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Metals
They also executed pieces in various metals, including copper, copper alloys (such as bronze), gold, and silver. Cult statues of gods were made in gold and silver—materials identified by myth as their skin and bones—and were often quite small. Very few metal statues survive because they were often melted down and the material reused, although preserved examples from the Old and Middle Kingdoms demonstrate that they were skilled not only in sheet metal forming, but also practiced complex casting.
Jewelry work was quite sophisticated even in the Old Kingdom, as demonstrated by some highly creative pieces depicted in tomb scenes. A cache of royal jewelry from the tombs of Middle Kingdom princesses displays extremely high levels of skill in terms of design as well as precisely cut stone inlays, repoussé, and cloisonné.
Many objects, especially small amulets and inlays, were made from a manufactured material known as Egyptian faience. This quartz-based medium could be easily shaped, molded, and mass-produced. The glaze coating could be almost any color, depending on the minerals used in the composition, although turquoise blue is the most common.
Relief sculpture
Relief was usually carved before being painted. The two primary classes of relief are raised relief (where the figures stand up out from the surface) and sunk relief (where the figures are cut into and below the surface). The surface would be smoothed with a layer of plaster and then painted. If the surface was not carved before painting, several layers of mud plaster would be applied to create a flat plane.
Painted raised relief in the Temple of Seti I at Abydos (New Kingdom)
The drawing surface would be delineated using gridded guidelines, snapped onto the wall using string coated in red pigment dust (very much like chalk lines used by modern carpenters). This grid helped the artists properly proportion the figures and lay out the scenes. Scene elements were drafted out using red paint, corrections noted in black paint, and then the painting was executed one color at a time. Even on carved relief, many elements in a scene would be executed only in paint and not cut into the surface.
Iron oxide nodules, source of a range of red pigments, Thebes (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Pigments
Most pigments in Egypt were derived from native minerals. White was often made from gypsum, black from carbon, reds, and yellows from iron oxides, blue and green from azurite and malachite, and bright yellow (representing gold) from orpiment. These minerals were ground and then mixed with a plant or animal-based glue to make a medium able to attach to the walls. They could be applied as a single plane, but were also layered to create subtle effects and additional colors, such as pink or grey.
Ancient Egyptian art
by Dr. Amy Calvert
Beautifully preserved life-size painted limestone funerary sculptures of Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret. Note the lifelike eyes of inlaid rock crystal (Meidum, Old Kingdom) (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; photo: Panegyrics of Granovetter, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Appreciating and understanding ancient Egyptian art
Ancient Egyptian art must be viewed from the standpoint of the ancient Egyptians to understand it. The somewhat static, usually formal, strangely abstract, and often blocky nature of much Egyptian imagery has, at times, led to unfavorable comparisons with later, and much more “naturalistic,” Greek or Renaissance art. However, the art of the Egyptians served a vastly different purpose than that of these later cultures.
Art not meant to be seen
While today we marvel at the glittering treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun, the sublime reliefs in New Kingdom tombs, and the serene beauty of Old Kingdom statuary, it is imperative to remember that the majority of these works were never intended to be seen—that was simply not their purpose.
Painted sunk relief of the king being embraced by a goddess. Tomb of Amenherkhepshef (QV 55) (New Kingdom, Ramesside) (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
The function of Egyptian art
These images, whether statues or reliefs, were designed to benefit a divine or deceased recipient. Statuary provided a place for the recipient to manifest and receive the benefit of ritual action. Most statues show a formal frontality, meaning they are arranged straight ahead, because they were designed to face the ritual being performed before them. Many statues were also originally placed in recessed niches or other architectural settings—contexts that would make frontality their expected and natural mode.
Statuary, whether divine, royal, or elite, provided a kind of conduit for the spirit (or ka) of that being to interact with the terrestrial realm. Divine cult statues (few of which survive) were the subject of daily rituals of clothing, anointing, and perfuming with incense and were carried in processions for special festivals so that the people could “see” them—they were almost all entirely shrouded from view, but their “presence” would have been felt.
Royal and elite statuary served as intermediaries between the people and the gods. Family chapels with the statuary of a deceased forefather could serve as a sort of “family temple.” There were festivals in honor of the dead, where the family would come and eat in the chapel, offering food for the Afterlife, flowers (symbols of rebirth), and incense (the scent of which was considered divine). Preserved letters let us know that the deceased was actively petitioned for their assistance, both in this world and the next.
What we see in museums
Generally, the works we see on display in museums were products of royal or elite workshops; these pieces fit best with our modern aesthetic and ideas of beauty. Most museum basements, however, are packed with hundreds (even thousands!) of other objects made for people of lower status—small statuary, amulets, coffins, and stelae (similar to modern tombstones) that are completely recognizable, but rarely displayed. These pieces generally show less quality in the workmanship; sometimes being oddly proportioned or poorly executed, they are less often considered “art” in the modern sense. However, these objects served the exact same function of providing benefit to their owners, and to the same degree of effectiveness, as those made for the elite.
Hard stone group statue of Ramses II with Osiris, Isis, and Horus (New Kingdom). (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Modes of representation for three-dimensional art
Three-dimensional representations, while being quite formal, also aimed to reproduce the real-world—statuary of gods, royalty, and the elite was designed to convey an idealized version of that individual. Some aspects of ‘naturalism’ were dictated by the material. Stone statuary was quite closed, with arms held close to the sides, limited positions, a strong back pillar that provided support, and with the fill spaces left between limbs.
Model scene of workers ploughing a field, Middle Kingdom, late Dynasty 11, 2010–1961 B.C.E., painted wood, 54 cm (MFA Boston)
Wood and metal statuary, in contrast, was more expressive—arms could be extended and hold separate objects, spaces between the limbs were opened to create a more realistic appearance, and more positions were possible. Stone, wood, and metal statuary of elite figures, however, all served the same functions and retained the same type of formalization and frontality. Only statuettes of lower-status people displayed a wide range of possible actions, and these pieces were often focused on the actions which benefited the elite owner, not the people involved.
Detail of Hunefer’s Book of the Dead showing an upper and lower register. Hunefer’s Judgement in the presence of Osiris, Book of the Dead, 19th Dynasty, New Kingdom, c. 1275 B.C.E., papyrus, Thebes, Egypt (British Museum; photo: Steven Zucker; CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Modes of representation for two-dimensional art
Two-dimensional art was quite different in the way the world was represented. Egyptian artists embraced two-dimensionality and attempted to provide the most representational aspects of each element in the scenes rather than attempting to create vistas that replicated the real world.
Each object or element in a scene was rendered from its most recognizable angle, and these were then grouped together to create the whole. This is why images of people show their face, waist, and limbs in profile, but eye and shoulders frontally. These scenes are complex composite images that provide complete information about the various elements, rather than ones designed from a single viewpoint, which would not be as comprehensive in the data they conveyed.
Registers
Chaotic fighting scene on a painted box from the tomb of Tutankhamen (New Kingdom). (Egyptian Museum, Cairo; photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Scenes were ordered in parallel lines, known as registers. These registers separate the scene as well as provide ground lines for the figures. Scenes without registers are unusual and were generally only used to specifically evoke chaos; battle and hunting scenes will often show the prey or foreign armies without groundlines. Registers were also used to convey information about the scenes—the higher up in the scene, the higher the status; overlapping figures imply that the ones underneath are further away, as are those elements that are higher within the register.
Hierarchy of scale
Difference in scale was the most commonly used method for conveying hierarchy—the larger the scale of the figure, the more important they were. Kings were often shown at the same scale as deities, but both are shown larger than the elite and far larger than the average Egyptian.
Text and image
Highly detailed raised relief hieroglyphs on the White Chapel of Senusret I at Karnak (Middle Kingdom). (photo: Dr. Amy Calvert)
Text accompanied almost all images. In statuary, identifying text will appear on the back pillar or base, and relief usually has captions or longer texts that complete and elaborate on the scenes. Hieroglyphs were often rendered as tiny works of art in themselves, even though these small pictures do not always stand for what they depict; many are instead phonetic sounds. Some, however, are logographic, meaning they stand for an object or concept.
The lines blur between text and image in many cases. For instance, the name of a figure in the text on a statue will regularly omit the determinative (an unspoken sign at the end of a word that aids identification—for example, verbs of motion are followed by a pair of walking legs, names of men end with the image of a man, names of gods with the image of a seated god, etc.) at the end of the name. In these instances, the representation itself serves this function.
Palette of King Narmer, from Hierakonpolis, Egypt, Predynastic, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E., slate, 2′ 1″ high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Vitally important, but difficult to interpret
Some artifacts are of such vital importance to our understanding of ancient cultures that they are truly unique and utterly irreplaceable. The gold mask of Tutankhamun was allowed to leave Egypt for display overseas; the Narmer Palette, on the other hand, is so valuable that it has never been permitted to leave the country.
Discovered among a group of sacred implements ritually buried in a deposit within an early temple of the falcon god Horus at the site of Hierakonpolis (a capital of Egypt during the Predynastic period), this large ceremonial object is one of the most important artifacts from the dawn of Egyptian civilization. The beautifully carved palette, 63.5 cm (more than 2 feet) in height and made of smooth greyish-green siltstone, is decorated on both faces with detailed low relief. These scenes show a king, identified by name as Narmer, and a series of ambiguous scenes that have been difficult to interpret and have resulted in a number of theories regarding their meaning.
The high quality of the workmanship, its original function as a ritual item dedicated to a god, and the complexity of the imagery clearly indicate that this was a significant object, but a satisfactory interpretation of the scenes has been elusive.
What was the palette used for?
The object itself is a monumental version of a type of daily use item commonly found in the Predynastic period—palettes were generally flat, minimally decorated stone objects used for grinding and mixing minerals for cosmetics. Dark eyeliner was an essential aspect of life in the sun-drenched region; like the dark streaks placed under the eyes of modern athletes, black cosmetic lines around the eyes served to reduce glare. Basic cosmetic palettes were among the typical grave goods found during this early era.
In addition to these simple, purely functional, palettes however, there were also a number of larger, far more elaborate palettes created in this period. These objects still served the function of being a ground for grinding and mixing cosmetics, but they were also carefully carved with relief sculpture. Many of the earlier palettes display animals—some real, some fantastic—while later examples, like the Narmer Palette, focus on human actions. Research suggests that these decorated palettes were used in temple ceremonies, perhaps to grind or mix makeup to be ritually applied to the image of the god. Later temple rituals included elaborate daily ceremonies involving the anointing and dressing of divine images; these palettes likely indicate an early incarnation of this process.
A ceremonial object, ritually buried
The Narmer Palette was discovered in 1898 by James Quibell and Frederick Green. It was found with a collection of other objects that had been used for ceremonial purposes and then ritually buried within the temple at Hierakonpolis.
Two Dogs Palette, Hierakonpolis, Egypt c. 3100 B.C.E. (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)
Temple caches of this type are not uncommon. There was a great deal of focus on ritual and votive objects (offerings to the gods) in temples. Every ruler, elite individual, and anyone else who could afford it donated items to the temple to show their piety and increase their connection to the deity. After a period of time, the temple would be full of these objects and space needed to be made for new votive donations. However, since they had been dedicated to a temple and sanctified, the old items that needed to be cleared out could not simply be thrown away or sold. Instead, the general practice was to bury them in a pit dug under the temple floor. Often, these caches include objects from a range of dates and a mix of types, from royal statuary to furniture.
The “Main Deposit” at Hierakonpolis, where the Narmer Palette was discovered, contained many hundreds of objects, including a number of large relief-covered ceremonial mace-heads, ivory statuettes, carved knife handles, figurines of scorpions and other animals, stone vessels, and a second elaborately decorated palette (now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford) known as the Two Dogs Palette.
Conventions that remain the same for thousands of years
There are several reasons the Narmer Palette is considered to be of such importance. First, it is one of very few such palettes discovered in a controlled excavation, which means that we know it is authentic. Second, there are a number of formal and iconographic characteristics appearing on the Narmer Palette that remain conventional in Egyptian two-dimensional art for the following three millennia. These include the way the figures are represented, the scenes being organized in regular horizontal zones known as registers, and the use of hierarchical scale to indicate relative importance of the individuals. In addition, much of the regalia worn by the king, such as the crowns, kilts, royal beard, and bull tail, as well as other visual elements, including the pose Narmer takes on one of the faces where he grasps an enemy by the hair and prepares to smash his skull with a mace, continue to be utilized from this time all the way through the Roman era more than 3000 years later.
What we see on the palette
The king is represented twice in human form, once on each face, followed by his sandal-bearer. He may also be represented as a powerful bull, destroying a walled city with his massive horns, in a mode that again becomes conventional—pharaoh is regularly referred to as “Strong Bull” in later texts.
In addition to the primary scenes, the palette includes a pair of fantastic creatures, known as serpopards—leopards with long, snaky necks—who are collared and controlled by a pair of attendants. Their necks entwine and define the recess where the makeup preparation took place. The lowest register on both sides include images of dead foes, while both uppermost registers display hybrid human-bull heads and the name of the king. The frontal bull heads are connected to a sky goddess known as Bat and are related to heaven and the horizon. The name of the king, written hieroglyphically as a catfish and a chisel, is contained within a squared element that represents a palace facade.
Possible interpretation: unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
As mentioned above, there have been a number of theories related to the scenes carved on this palette. Some have interpreted the battle scenes as a historical narrative record of the initial unification of Egypt under one ruler, supported by the general timing (as this is the period of the unification) and the fact that Narmer sports the crown connected to Upper Egypt on one face of the palette and the crown of Lower Egypt on the other—this is the first preserved example where both crowns are used by the same ruler. Other theories suggest that, rather than an actual historical representation, these scenes were purely ceremonial and related to the concept of unification in general.
Detail, Palette of King Narmer, from Hierakonpolis, Egypt, Predynastic, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E., slate, 2′ 1″ high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Another interpretation: the sun and the king
More recent research on the decorative program has connected the imagery to the careful balance of order and chaos (known as ma’at and isfet) that was a fundamental element of the Egyptian idea of the cosmos. It may also be related to the daily journey of the sun god that became a central aspect in the Egyptian religion in the subsequent centuries.
Detail, Palette of King Narmer, from Hierakonpolis, Egypt, Predynastic, c. 3000–2920 B.C.E., slate, 2′ 1″ high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
The scene showing Narmer wearing the Lower Egyptian Red Crown* (with its distinctive curl) depicts him processing towards the decapitated bodies of his foes. The two rows of prone bodies are placed below an image of a high-prowed boat preparing to pass through an open gate. This may be an early reference to the journey of the sun god in his boat. In later texts, the Red Crown is connected with bloody battles fought by the sun god just before the rosy-fingered dawn on his daily journey and this scene may well be related to this. It is interesting to note that the foes are shown as not only executed, but rendered completely impotent—their castrated penises have been placed atop their severed heads.
On the other face, Narmer wears the Upper Egyptian White Crown* (which looks rather like a bowling pin) as he grasps an inert foe by the hair and prepares to crush his skull with a mace. The White Crown is related to the dazzling brilliance of the full midday sun at its zenith as well as the luminous nocturnal light of the stars and moon. By wearing both crowns, Narmer may not only be ceremonially expressing his dominance over the unified Egypt, but also the early importance of the solar cycle and the king’s role in this daily process.
This fascinating object is an incredible example of early Egyptian art. The imagery preserved on this palette provides a peek ahead to the richness of both the visual aspects and religious concepts that develop in the ensuing periods. It is a vitally important artifact of extreme significance for our understanding of the development of Egyptian culture on multiple levels.
*The Red Crown of Lower Egypt and the White Crown of Upper Egypt were the earliest crowns worn by the king and are closely connected with the unification of the country that sparks full-blown Egyptian civilization. The earliest representation of them being worn by the same ruler is on the Narmer Palette, signifying that the king was ruling over both areas of the country. Soon after the unification, the fifth ruler of the First Dynasty is shown wearing the two crowns simultaneously, combined into one. This crown, often referred to as the Double Crown, remains a primary crown worn by pharaoh throughout Egyptian history. The separate Red and White crowns, however, continue to be worn as well and retain their geographic connections. There are a number of Egyptian words used for these crowns (nine for the White and 11 for the Red), but the most common—deshret and hedjet—refer to the colors red and white, respectively. It is from these identifying terms that we take their modern name. Early texts make it clear that these crowns were believed to be imbued with divine power and were personified as goddesses.
King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490–2472 B.C.E., greywacke, 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Serene ethereal beauty, raw royal power, and evidence of artistic virtuosity have rarely been simultaneously captured as well as in this breathtaking, nearly life-size statue of the pharaoh Menkaure and a queen from c. 2490–2472 B.C.E. Smooth as silk, the meticulously finished surface of the dark stone captures the physical ideals of the time and creates a sense of eternity and immortality even today.
Undoubtedly, the most iconic structures from Ancient Egypt are the massive and enigmatic Great Pyramids that stand on a natural stone shelf, now known as the Giza plateau, on the south-western edge of modern Cairo. The three primary pyramids at Giza were constructed during the height of a period known as the Old Kingdom and served as burial places, memorials, and places of worship for a series of deceased rulers—the largest belonging to King Khufu, the middle to his son Khafre, and the smallest of the three to his son Menkaure.
Giza plateau (photo: Ikiwaner, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Head and torso (detail), Khafre enthroned, from Giza, Egypt, c. 2520–2494 B.C.E., diorite. 5’ 6 inches high (Egyptian Museum, Cairo)
Pyramids are not stand-alone structures. Those at Giza formed only a part of a much larger complex that included a temple at the base of the pyramid itself, long causeways and corridors, small subsidiary pyramids, and a second temple (known as a valley temple) some distance from the pyramid. These Valley Temples were used to perpetuate the cult of the deceased king and were active places of worship for hundreds of years (sometimes much longer) after the king’s death. Images of the king were placed in these temples to serve as a focus for worship—several such images have been found in these contexts, including the magnificent enthroned statue of Khafre with the Horus falcon wrapped around his headdress.
On January 10, 1910, excavators under the direction of George Reisner, head of the joint Harvard University-Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Expedition to Egypt, uncovered an astonishing collection of statuary in the Valley Temple connected to the Pyramid of Menkaure. Menkaure’s pyramid had been explored in the 1830’s (using dynamite, no less). His carved granite sarcophagus was removed (and subsequently lost at sea), and while the Pyramid Temple at its base was in only mediocre condition; the Valley Temple was—happily—basically ignored.
George Reisner and Enno Littmann at Harvard Camp, looking E toward Khufu and Khafre pyramids, 1935, photo by Albert Morton Lythgoe (Giza archives)
Reisner had been excavating on the Giza plateau for several years at this point; his team had already explored the elite cemetery to the west of the Great Pyramid of Khufu before turning their attention to the Menkaure complex, most particularly the barely-touched Valley Temple.
Four greywacke triads, Menkaure valley temple, S magazines, corridor III 4, photo: 1908 (The Giza Archives). View one of the triads in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In the southwest corner of the structure, the team discovered a magnificent cache of statuary carved in a smooth-grained dark stone called greywacke or schist. There were a number of triad statues—each showing 3 figures; the king, the fundamentally important goddess Hathor, and the personification of a nome (a geographic designation, similar to the modern idea of a region, district, or county). Hathor was worshipped in the pyramid temple complexes along with the supreme sun god Re and the god Horus, who was represented by the living king. The goddess’s name is actually ‘Hwt-hor’, which means “The House of Horus”, and she was connected to the wife of the living king and the mother of the future king. Hathor was also a fierce protector who guarded her father Re; as an “Eye of Re” (the title assigned to a group of dangerous goddesses), she could embody the intense heat of the sun and use that blazing fire to destroy his enemies.
There were 4 complete triads, one incomplete, and at least one other in a fragmentary condition. The precise meaning of these triads is uncertain. Reisner believed that there was one for each ancient Egyptian nome, meaning there would have originally been more than thirty of them. More recent scholarship, however, suggests that there were originally 8 triads, each connected with a major site associated with the cult of Hathor. Hathor’s prominence in the triads (she actually takes the central position in one of the images) and her singular importance to kingship lends weight to this theory.
In addition to the triads, Reisner’s team also revealed the extraordinary dyad statue of Menkaure and a queen that is breathtakingly singular.
Heads and torsos (detail), King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490–2472 B.C.E., greywacke, 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Death Mask from innermost coffin, Tutankhamun’s tomb, New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, c. 1323 B.C.E., gold with inlay of enamel and semiprecious stones (Egyptian Museum, Cairo, photo: Mark Fischer, CC BY-SA 2.0)
The two figures stand side-by-side on a simple, squared base and are supported by a shared back pillar. They both face to the front, although Menkaure’s head is noticeably turned to his right—this image was likely originally positioned within an architectural niche, making it appear as though they were emerging from the structure.
The broad-shouldered, youthful body of the king is covered only with a traditional short pleated kilt, known as a shendjet, and his head sports the primary pharaonic insignia of the iconic striped nemes headdress (so well known from the mask of Tutankhamun) and an artificial royal beard. In his clenched fists, held straight down at his sides, Menkaure grasps ritual cloth rolls. His body is straight, strong, and eternally youthful with no signs of age. His facial features are remarkably individualized with prominent eyes, a fleshy nose, rounded cheeks, and full mouth with protruding lower lip.
Heads (detail), King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490–2472 B.C.E., greywacke, 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Menkaure’s queen provides the perfect female counterpart to his youthful masculine virility. Sensuously modeled with a beautifully proportioned body emphasized by a clinging garment, she articulates ideal mature feminine beauty. There is a sense of the individual in both faces. Neither Menkaure nor his queen are depicted in the purely idealized manner that was the norm for royal images. Instead, through the overlay of royal formality we see the depiction of a living person filling the role of pharaoh and the personal features of a particular individual in the representation of his queen.
King Menkaure (Mycerinus) and queen, 2490–2472 B.C.E., greywacke, 142.2 x 57.1 x 55.2 cm (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Menkaure and his queen stride forward with their left feet—this is entirely expected for the king, as males in Egyptian sculpture almost always do so, but it is unusual for the female since they are generally depicted with feet together. They both look beyond the present and into timeless eternity, their otherworldly visage displaying no human emotion whatsoever.
The dyad was never finished—the area around the lower legs has not received a final polish, and there is no inscription. However, despite this incomplete state, the image was erected in the temple and was brightly painted; there are traces of red around the king’s ears and mouth and yellow on the queen’s face. The presence of paint atop the smooth, dark greywacke on a statue of the deceased king that was originally erected in his memorial temple courtyard brings an interesting suggestion—that the paint may have been intended to wear away through exposure and, over time, reveal the immortal, black-fleshed “Osiris” Menkaure.
Unusual for a pharaoh’s image, the king has no protective cobra (known as a uraeus) perched on his brow. This notable absence has led to the suggestion that both the king’s nemes and the queen’s wig were originally covered in a sheath of precious metal and that the ubiquitous cobra would have been part of that addition.
Based on comparison with other images, there is no doubt that this sculpture shows Menkaure, but the identity of the queen is a different matter. She is clearly a royal female. She stands at nearly equal height with the king and, of the two of them, she is the one who is entirely frontal. In fact, it may be that this dyad is focused on the queen as its central figure rather than Menkaure. The prominence of the royal female—at equal height and frontal—in addition to the protective gesture she extends has suggested that, rather than one of Menkaure’s wives, this is actually his queen-mother. The function of the sculpture in any case was to ensure rebirth for the king in the Afterlife.
Seated cross-legged, with rolls of belly fat, this painted statue differs from the ideal statues of pharaohs.
Seated Scribe, c. 2500 B.C.E., c. 4th Dynasty, Old Kingdom, painted limestone with rock crystal, magnesite, and copper/arsenic inlay for the eyes and wood for the nipples, found in Saqqara URL: https://youtu.be/IKkcop-dlUY
Source: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, “The Seated Scribe,” in Smarthistory, November 25, 2015, accessed January 6, 2025, https://smarthistory.org/seated-scribe/.
The fragments from the wall painting in the tomb-chapel of Nebamun are keenly observed vignettes of Nebamun and his family enjoying both work and play. Some concern the provision of the funerary cult that was celebrated in the tomb-chapel, some show scenes of Nebamun’s life as an elite official, and others show him and his family enjoying life for all eternity, as in the famous scene of the family hunting in the marshes. Together they decorated the small tomb-chapel with vibrant and engaging images of an elite lifestyle that Nebamun hoped would continue in the afterlife.
Hunting in the marshes
Nebamun is shown hunting birds from a small boat in the marshes of the Nile with his wife Hatshepsut and their young daughter. Such scenes had already been traditional parts of tomb-chapel decoration for hundreds of years and show the dead tomb-owner “enjoying himself and seeing beauty,” as the hieroglyphic caption here says.
This is more than a simple image of recreation. Fertile marshes were seen as a place of rebirth and eroticism. Hunting animals could represent Nebamun’s triumph over the forces of nature as he was reborn. The huge striding figure of Nebamun dominates the scene, forever happy and forever young, surrounded by the rich and varied life of the marsh.
There was originally another half of the scene which showed Nebamun spearing fish. This half of the wall is lost, apart from two old photographs of small fragments of Nebamun and his young son. The painters have captured the scaly and shiny quality of the fish.
A tawny cat catches birds among the papyrus stems. Cats were family pets, but in artistic depictions like this they could also represent the Sun-god hunting the enemies of light and order. His unusual gilded eye hints at the religious meanings of this scene.
The artists have filled every space with lively details. The marsh is full of lotus flowers and Plain Tiger butterflies. They are freely and delicately painted, suggesting the pattern and texture of their wings.
Nebamun’s garden in the afterlife is not unlike the earthly gardens of wealthy Egyptians. The pool is full of birds and fish, and surrounded by borders of flowers and shady rows of trees. The fruit trees include sycamore-figs, date-palms and dom-palms—the dates are shown with different degrees of ripeness.
On the right side of the pool a goddess leans out of a tree and offers fruit and drinks to Nebamun (now lost). The artists accidentally painted her skin red at first but then repainted it yellow, the correct color for a goddess’ skin. On the left, a sycamore-fig tree speaks and greets Nebamun as the owner of the garden; its words are recorded in the hieroglyphs.
Here the pool is shown from above, with three rows of trees arranged around its edges. The waves of the pool were painted with a darker blue pigment; much of this has been lost, like the green on the trees and bushes.
Nebamun was the accountant in charge of grain at the great Temple of Amun at Karnak. This scene from his tomb-chapel shows officials inspecting fields. A farmer checks the boundary marker of the field.
Nearby, two chariots for the party of officials wait under the shade of a sycamore-fig tree. Other smaller fragments from this wall are now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Germany and show the grain being harvested and processed.
The old farmer is shown balding, badly shaven, poorly dressed, and with a protruding navel. He is taking an oath saying: “As the Great God who is in the sky endures, the boundary-stone is exact!”
“The Chief of the Measurers of the Granary,” (mostly lost) holds a rope decorated with the head of Amun’s sacred ram for measuring the god’s fields. After Nebamun died, the rope’s head was hacked out, but later, perhaps in Tutankhamun’s reign, someone clumsily restored it with mud-plaster and redrew it.
This fragment is part of a wall showing Nebamun inspecting flocks of geese and herds of cattle. Hieroglyphs describe the scene and record what the farmers say as they squabble in the queue. The alternating colors and patterns of cattle create a superb sense of animal movement.
The herdsman is telling the farmer in front of him in the queue:
Come on! Get away! Don’t speak in the presence of the praised one! He detests people talking …. Pass on in quiet and in order … He knows all affairs, does the scribe and counter of grain of [Amun], Neb[amun].
The name of the god Amun has been hacked out in this caption where it appears in Nebamun’s name and title. Shortly after Nebamun died, King Akhenaten (1352–1336 B.C.E.) had Amun’s name erased from monuments as part of his religious reforms.
This scene is part of a wall showing Nebamun inspecting flocks of geese and herds of cattle. He watches as farmers drive the animals towards him; his scribes (secretaries) write down the number of animals for his records. Hieroglyphs describe the scene and record what the farmers say as they squabble in the queue.
This scribe holds a palette (pen-box) under his arm and presents a roll of papyrus to Nebamun. He is well dressed and has small rolls of fat on his stomach, indicating his superior position in life. Beside him are chests for his records and a bag containing his writing equipment.
Farmers bow down and make gestures of respect towards Nebamun. The man behind them holds a stick and tells them: “Sit down and don’t speak!” The farmers’ geese are painted as a huge and lively gaggle, some pecking the ground and some flapping their wings.
An entire wall of the tomb-chapel showed a feast in honor of Nebamun. Naked serving-girls and servants wait on his friends and relatives. Married guests sit in pairs on fine chairs, while the young women turn and talk to each other. This erotic scene of relaxation and wealth is something for Nebamun to enjoy for all eternity. The richly-dressed guests are entertained by dancers and musicians, who sit on the ground playing and clapping. The words of their song in honor of Nebamun are written above them:
The earth-god has caused
his beauty to grow in every body…
the channels are filled with water anew,
and the land is flooded with love of him.
Some of the musicians look out of the paintings, showing their faces frontally. This is very unusual in Egyptian art, and gives a sense of liveliness to these lower-class women, who are less formally drawn than the wealthy guests. The young dancers are sinuously drawn and are naked apart from their jewelry.
A rack of large wine jars is decorated with grapes, vines and garlands of flowers. Many of the guests also wear garlands and smell lotus flowers. All the guests wear elaborate linen clothes. The artists have painted the cloth as if it were transparent, to show that it is very fine. These elegant sensual dresses fall in loose folds around the guests’ bodies.
Men and women’s skins are painted in different colors: the men are tanned and the women are paler. In one place the artists altered the drawing of these wooden stools and corrected their first sketch with white paint.
A procession of simply-dressed servants bring offerings of food to Nebamun, including sheaves of grain and animals from the desert. Tomb-chapels were built so that people could come and make offerings in memory of the dead, and this a common scene on their walls. The border at the bottom shows that this scene was the lowest one on this wall.
One servant holds two desert hares by their ears. The animals have wonderfully textured fur and long whiskers. The superb draughtsmanship and composition make this standard scene very fresh and lively.
The artists have even varied the servants’ simple clothes. The folds of each kilt are different. With one of these kilts, the artist changed his mind and painted a different set of folds over his first version, which is visible through the white paint.
House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters
by Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris
House Altar depicting Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Three of their Daughters, limestone, New Kingdom, Amarna period, 18th dynasty, c.1350 BCE (Ägyptisches Museum/Neues Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) URL: https://youtu.be/ryycDVWXDvc