РефератыИностранный языкAnAncient Egypt Essay Research Paper One of

Ancient Egypt Essay Research Paper One of

Ancient Egypt Essay, Research Paper


One of the greatest and most enduring human civilizations


established itself in the Nile Valley. Over thousands of years


the Egyptians shaped their civilization and have portrayed their


canonical nature within their art, literature, and architecture.


The Egyptians adhered to their rules and their standards of


belief and behavior in their daily lives. The artistic canon is


well represented in Egyptian tomb paintings. For the Egyptians,


art was made to serve a particular purpose, usually a religious


one. Religious beliefs largely dictated what artists created,


especially the paintings that filled Egyptian temples and tombs.


Temples were decorated with paintings and filled with statues of


gods and kings in the belief that doing this served the gods,


showed devotion to the king, and maintained the order of the


universe. The Egyptian belief in life after death was perhaps


the most important part of their culture and probably helped to


stabilize their society for so many centuries. The laws and rules


of code the ancient Egyptian’s lived by daily also helped them to


understand the seemingly ambiguous nature in The Tale of Sinuhe


(1875 BC). The Egyptian pyramids were royal tombs for pharaohs.


The Great Pyramid is considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of


the Ancient World. The pyramids are said to have built Egypt by


being the force that knit together the kingdom’s economy. These


building projects took a high degree of architectural and


engineering skill, and the organization of a large workforce


consisting of highly trained craftsmen and laborers. Ancient


Egypt has captured the imagination of scholars and laymen alike


because of the canonical nature which surrounds its art, its


literature, and its monumental architecture.


In ancient Egypt, there was a strong belief in the


afterlife. Death was considered a necessary transition to the


next world where the dead would lead a life similar to life as


they knew it. This belief was the reason for the embalming of


bodies, the abundance of funerary offerings, the statues, the


relief carvings, the inscriptions and, of course, the paintings.


The relief painting “Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt” was painted


in the year 2400 BCE. This was during the time of the Old


Kingdom ( Dynasty V), when Egyptians were constructing their


mastabas (or tombs) out of limestone (Lesko). The Egyptians


built their mastabas as comfortable homes for the dead to live in


during the afterlife. These tombs were filled with many


treasures, paintings and messages. The painting “Ti Watching a


Hippopotamus Hunt” is from one such tomb at Saqqara; The Mastaba


of Ti. Ti was the royal hairdresser during the early V Dynasty,


as well as the controller of the farms and stock that belonged to


the royal family. In the tomb paintings, the important people


portrayed were given a large, out of scale size. The overlapping


of outlines was avoided and all parts of the body were


represented as flatly as possible. By portraying the Egyptians


in this way [Profile of the face, frontal view of the eye,


frontal view of the upper body, arms - one in front, one at the


side, and a profile of the legs] all the body parts needed in the


afterlife would be properly expressed and thus, available to the


deceased (Lesko). The consistency of ancient Egyptian funerary


traditions as well as the consistency within the tomb paintings


clearly define the artistic canon found in ancient Egyptian


culture.


Egyptian writers created many stories that featured


imaginary characters, settings, or events. The Tale of Sinuhe


(1875 BC), has been acclaimed as the masterpiece of Ancient


Egyptian poetry and a passionate probing of its culture’s ideals.


Written by an anonymous author in the form of an autobiography


the tale tells how the courtier Sinuhe flees Egypt at the death


of his king. Sinuhe was an official of the harem maintained for


Amenemhet I by his queen. While on an expedition to Libya he


learned of the king’s assassination (1908 BC) and fled, either


from fright or because of his complicity. In his reply to the


decree sent by King Senusret he states, “I do not know what


separated me from my place. It was like some sort of dream, as


when a man of the Delta marshes sees himself in Elaphantine, or a


man of the northern swamps in Nubia. I did not take fright, no


one was pursuing me, I had heard no reviling word. My n

ame had


not been heard in the mouth of the herald.”(Legacy) He intended


to travel southward but was blown to the north while crossing the


Nile, and he passed into Palestine. After much wandering in


Palestine and Lebanon, he was invited to settle with a chieftain


of southern Syria, who adopted him and married him to his eldest


daughter. In that land he raised a family and became a


patriarch. He defended his father-in-law’s territory and


entertained emissaries traveling to and from Egypt. The pharaoh


Sesostris I invited Sinuhe to return to Egypt and Sinuhe


accepted. The king forgave him his real or imagined crimes and


welcomed him with rich gifts; thereafter Sinuhe remarried in his


homeland, while the pharaoh ordered a tomb be built for him.


While this story may seem ambiguous and obscure, the Egyptians


rules and codes for daily life may have helped them to understand


why Sinuhe fled. The canonical nature and way of life of the


Egyptians helped them to perceive the author’s intended messages.


The Ancient Egyptians canonical nature is depicted well in


the design, construction and the functions of the pyramids. The


Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest monument of the Seven Ancient


Wonders. The monument was built by the Egyptian pharaoh Khufu of


the Fourth Dynasty around the year 2560 BC to serve as a tomb


when he died. The tradition of pyramid building started in


Ancient Egypt as a sophistication of the idea of a mastaba or


“platform” covering the royal tomb. The Great Pyramid is believed


to have been built over a 20 year period. Several theories have


been proposed to conclude how the blocks were put in place for


the pyramid. One theory involves the construction of a straight


or spiral ramp that was raised as the construction proceeded.


This ramp, coated with mud and water, eased the displacement of


the blocks which were pushed into place. A second theory suggests


that the blocks were placed using long levers with a short angled


foot (Clare). When it was built, the Great pyramid was 481 ft


high. Each side is carefully oriented with one of the cardinal


points of the compass. The horizontal cross section of the


pyramid is square at any level, with each side measuring 751 ft


in length. The structure consists of approximately two million


blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tons. The


overwhelming scientific and historic evidence still supports the


conclusion that, like many smaller pyramids in the region, the


Great Pyramids were built by the Ancient Egyptian civilization


off the West bank of the Nile as tombs for their Kings; Tombs


where Khufu, Khefre, and Menkaure could start their mystic


journey to the afterlife. After a ruler died, his or her body


was carefully treated and wrapped to preserve it as a mummy.


According to ancient Egyptian belief, the pyramid, where the


mummy was placed, provided a place for the monarch to pass into


the afterlife. In temples nearby, priests performed rituals to


nourish the dead monarch’s spirit, which was believed to stay


with the body after death. In the Old Kingdom, Egyptian artists


painted and carved on the walls of the burial chamber, designed


to safeguard the dead monarch’s passage into the afterlife


(Macaulay). All the pyramids were aligned to the cardinal


directions, meaning that their sides ran almost exactly due


north-south and east-west. Most pyramids rose from desert


plateaus on the west bank of the Nile River, behind which the sun


set. The Egyptians believed that a dead monarch’s spirit left


the body and traveled through the sky with the sun each day.


When the sun set in the west, the royal spirits settled into


their pyramid tombs to renew themselves.


The Egyptians canonical nature was well represented in their


art, literature, and clearly in the pyramids. The methods used


to create the Egyptian tomb paintings as well as the messages


embedded within them are excellent representations of the


artistic canon in Egyptian life as well as Egyptian after-life.


The seemingly ambiguous “Tale of Sinhue” may have been much less


ambiguous to the ancient Egyptian civilizations due to their


daily rules and codes to which they firmly abided by. The design


and construction of the Great Pyramid clearly portray the


canonical nature of the ancient Egyptians. The Ancient Egyptian


civilization that inhabited the Nile Valley clearly adhered to


their canonical nature in their daily lives.

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