Friday, January 15, 2016

Ancient Egypt: Kingdom of the Pharaohs


R. Hamilton
Parragon Publishing
United Kingdom
2005
ISBN 1-40545-057-6

This attractive book is filled with many colored photographs that appear on the majority of pages. The introduction to the book lays down a timeline representing the achievements in Egypt's long history. Unfortunately, I am half way through chapter one and the book has so far been riddled with type set issues. This has me immediately looking at editorial problems that hopefully will not haunt the authors contribution throughout.



By the second chapter, the author is laying out a respectable recanting of the Old Kingdom with its pyramid building god-kings and the first buildings in stone. The format is such that the chapter is broken down opening with a description of the Old Kingdom followed by short sections on some of the highlights of the period. From here most of the rest of the chapter is occupied with nice colored images accompanied by short descriptions that make this book teenage and up friendly.


As the Old Kingdom fell into decline a series of provincial dynasties divided up royal authority with king's ruling often concurrently with each other. This situation ran for well over a century until a prince of Thebes named Mentuhotep II regained control of the entire land. The capital became Thebes, and the god Amun took on national prominence becoming king of the gods.


With the end of the reign of Mentuhotep IV, in the 20Th century BC, a coup appears to have taken place with the kings Vizier Amenemhet seizing power and ruling as King Amenemhet I. This begins a golden age in the arts especially where the art of written composition moved from letters, dossiers, and accounting, to literature containing aesthetic qualities. Among the many colored photographs of this chapter are some unusual objects that are new to me. A sycamore tree from the tomb of Meketre is very beautifully made, while the carved wooden model of a starving man with his begging bowl is very unusual, just to mention two of many.


The end of the Middle Kingdom brought in another period of decline with multiple provincial rulers, and the domination of foreign king's known as the Hyksos. Once again, as in the Middle Kingdom, it is the royal line at Thebes that eventually defeats the Hyksos reuniting the country under one ruler, Ahmosis I. The following line of king's each extend Egypt's borders in the north and the south creating the greatest empire in the countries long history.


The revenues pouring in from Egypt's vassal states enriched not only the king but also huge tributes are given to the god Amun and his priesthood. Each king now outdoes his predecessor in building works particularly at Karnak temple. The pictures contain the usual suspects, though taken from unusual angles with details of monuments, such as a lovely intaglio of the goddess Seshat, who was a chronicler of the pharaoh's inscribing their deeds on the leaves of the Ished tree.


The funerary temple of Hatschepsut occupies much of a page in a beautiful color photograph, except here the temple has only two of its terraces completed. So much tribute is paid to Amun that after nine generations of the 18Th Dynasty the power of the high priest of Amun compares in power to that of the king. It is the dynasties tenth king Akhenaten who rebels closing the temples, and vandalizing Amun's name wherever it is found. The king departs Thebes for a site at Amarna in Middle Egypt where he sets up his capital, establishing a home for his solar deity the Aten. Many images of the unique Amarna period art accompanied with short descriptions occupy the following pages.


Akhenaten's revolution was a failure with the boy Tutankhamun's advisers left to restore royal authority while re-establishing the temples and their priesthoods. The death of Tutankhamun brought an end to the patriarchal line and the next king's obliterated the memory of Tutankhamun and the Amarna kings. A new line of pharaoh's under Rameses I, would temporarily bring back the glory of the 18Th Dynasty.


It is within the reign of the third king of the 19Th Dynasty Rameses II, who lived out Egypt's fleeting glory until his death brought in a period of decline. By the following 20Th Dynasty another nine kings named Rameses finally ended Egypt's period of empire dividing rule between the high priest of Amun at Thebes, and a king named Smendes ruling in the delta.


A remarkable series of images from a number of tombs in the cemetery of the workers village at Deir el-Medina follow. A large photograph in the burial chamber of Pashedu displays the famous scene of him drinking water beneath a date palm. The photograph also gives the view looking out of the burial chamber through crude antechambers to the tombs entrance staircase. Beneath the grapevine of the vaulted ceiling in the tomb of Inherkha there is back to back scenes of the tomb owner worshiping to the left Anubis and to the right Osiris. The scene is beautifully preserved except someone has destroyed the faces of Inherkha and both gods.


The author writes in detailed sections on the daily life of the peoples and their economy, its technologies and commodities, including rituals accorded the individual classes. The reader is presented with a lovely picture of the ivory box created for Ramses IX and found with the king's mummy in the royal cache at Deir el Bahri tomb 320. The Third Intermediate Period brought a division to royal authority with the high priests of Amun-Re  ruling at Thebes, while the most legitimate pharaoh was ruling at Tanis in the delta. The royal prerogative at Thebes faded away after the reign of Pinudgem I until the king's at Tanis held sole authority over the two lands.


A Libyan Dynasty followed with a brief reclamation of glory brought to the office of pharaoh by Sheshonq I, and again a series of foreign and domestic rulers divided up the two lands. The arrival of Alexander the great brought the establishment of a new capital on the Mediterranean, while Alexander's general Ptolemy founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Pharaonic history closes with the famous suicide of the last ruler of the Ptolemy's, Cleopatra VII.


The book closes with a section on the most important gods with descriptions of their attributes as well as the place they held to the ancient Egyptians. The spacing errors continued throughout the book but thankfully it alone was the only editing lapse. The authors presentation was of much interest as were the photographs that accompanied the text. The book was a quick read and I might even lower the age of reader down to ten and up, with the book containing a number of unusual details that will interest older readers too.


The value of the knowledge to be found in this book outweighed the ongoing spacing issues to make Ancient Egypt: Kingdom of the Pharaohs well worth a read.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

The Royal Tombs of Egypt


Zahi Hawass
Thames & Hudson Ltd.
London
2006
ISBN-13:   978-0-500-51322-4

This large book from 2006 is by Dr. Zahi Hawass with photography by Sandro Vannini. The books pictures are stunning with large multi-page pullouts of the decoration found in the royal tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. The folding images also include a nice two-page image of the mummy believed by some, but not me, to be the Pharaoh Ramses I.


The publication opens with the founding of the royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings beginning with the tomb of Thutmosis I. A three-page photograph shows one of the walls in the tomb of Amenhotep III. The grey-blue background color of the wall sets off the six figures of the king greeting the gods and goddess's including Anubis and Osiris, and everywhere the king's names in the cartouches have been destroyed.


Dr. Hawass lays forth the standard of requisite for tombs beginning with the 18Th Dynasty through the 19Th and 20Th Dynasties. The author moves onto the architecture and names of each part of the tomb, as well as the furnishings including the sarcophagus, and canopic chest on down to the king's favorite wine. The gods of Egypt and their attributes are put forward in tomb decoration according to the needs and safety of the deceased king.


Some of the books best content come in Dr. Hawass's explanations of the hours from the book of the Amduat. The various hours are presented to the reader as to the stages of the sun god Re's journey through the netherworld. Accompanying these texts are the beautiful images displaying the relevant hours from a number of the king's tombs in the valley.


The reader is next presented with, The Book of Gates, a document first used in the partially decorated tomb of the 18Th Dynasty King Horemheb, and of which was continued in use through the next two dynasties.


     "The sarcophagus of Seti I, which is decorated with a complete version of this composition, shows the Duat in the shape of the arched body of Osiris, bending from the west, where the sun sets, then north, then finally to the east toward the sunrise."


Like the Amduat, The Book of Gates travels through the environs of the hours of the night, passing through gates guarded by serpents whose names must be spoken in order to pass to the next hour. In the fourth hour, the book presents two images of the nine mummies known as the followers of Osiris. These mummies are awaiting in their shrines to be resurrected. One in the tomb of the first king of the 19Th Dynasty, Ramses I, and the other in the tomb of the 20Th Dynasty king's Ramses V and VI.


A little past the halfway point the book likely could be enjoyed by teenagers and up, be that its content is so esoteric, and its photographs so outstanding. From here the Book of the Caverns and the Book of the Earth become even more abstract as the hours of the night have been discarded in these texts, and the names given these books are modern, and even the order of the chapters in one of the books are in doubt.


Here the pages are filled with sublime images from the tombs of Tausert and Sethnakht, and again the tomb of King's Ramses V and VI. In the burial chamber of the latter, the reader is presented with the reconstructed sarcophagus of Ramses VI, a pathetic heap of smashed fragments, and of whose face is in the British Museum.


Next, the author is on to the Litanies of Re which first appears in the Valley of the Kings on pillars in the burial chamber in the tomb of Thutmosis III.


     "...it describes the various forms of the sun god, beginning by listing his seventy-five names, and specifically identifies the deceased king with Re and his ba, linked with Osiris. The principal purposes of these texts were the symbolic union of Re and Osiris and the identification of the deceased king with this integrated being, in whom is inherent the power of resurrection."


Another beautiful four-page foldout displays a wall with this theme from the entrance corridor in the tomb of King Seti II. Dr.Hawass moves on to the best known of the books of the netherworld with the Book of the Dead. Vignettes from this text appear on objects found in many of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings including shabti figures, heart scarabs, papyrus's, and shrouds.


Many of Sandro Vaninni's photographs are now of the lovely tomb in the Valley of the Queens of Ramses II's great wife Nefertari, including the seven sacred cows and the bull. In chapter eight Dr. Hawass puts forward a number of other books used in the decorating of the king's tombs with these books being referred collectively as the Books of the Heavens.


The main characters of these books do not include Osiris but revolve around Re, and the goddess Nut, who is known as the vault of heaven. These books can be found on the ceilings of the Ramesside era tombs in the valley displaying one or two versions of Nut stretched out across the ceiling ready to swallow the sun god Re at the beginning of his night journey through her so that she can give birth to him again in the morning. A stunning weathered, and vandalized image from the tomb of King Ramses III shows the king offering incense to the god Ptah.


The author closes his book with the measures that are being employed in the preservation of the Valley of the Kings, and its tombs so that they will not sustain more damage than what has already done. Only a man of Zahi Hawass's stature could have put this book together, with the wonderful photographs by Sandro Vannini, The Royal Tombs of Egypt is a must have for any Egyptian collection.