New Governor Appointed to Luxor

The article says the following " The new appointment has created controversy already in the tourism industry inner circles as the new governor is a part of the Islamic group which claimed responsibility for Luxor massacre in 1997. " 

Luxor Times

The Civilization of Ancient Egypt

Paul Johnson
Seven Dials
Wellington House
London
2005
ISBN: 184188068X


This attractive book is filled with numerous colored pictures which accompany a text of some sophistication explaining the foundations of the Egyptian culture and its desire to live in memory and in the soul for eternity, that is, an eternity engraved in stone. Mr. Johnson deals with men in his shifting environment.


"As the savannah turned into a desert, and paleolithic man began to descend to the Nile terraces and then to the valley bottom. Of course, the valley was initially marshy. For many millennia, the tract from the First Cataract to Thebes was a lake, and much of the delta remained marsh throughout our period."


The rise and fall of the Nile River determine the seasons in an agricultural civilization, which now flourishes in the valley as hunter-gatherers become farmers.  Among the beautiful pictures accompanying the text is one from the tomb of Nakht of men gathering grapes, its caption telling us that it is from the time of Thutmosis V?


The author puts forward the acknowledgment that the birth of civilization occurred much earlier in areas of Mesopotamia and the Middle East, where excavations at Jericho and in Turkey at sites like Catal Huyuk have evidence going back to 8000 BC, whereas no evidence at this early date is known in Egypt. From the dawn of the Egyptian state came about a dozen stunning votive cosmetic palettes, which deal with the unification of the peoples of Upper and Lower Egypt and the establishment of the office of the king at around 3100 BC.


The theology of these early people is beautifully explained by the author.


"it was only in the closing stages of the development in predynastic times that force seems to have been employed to group medium-sized units into two large ones, and eventually into a united country. In this process, gods fought alongside men, in the sense that village and district totem-figures cannibalized subject deities and absorbed their power. These obscure struggles formed the basis of later myths and emerged in historic times to constitute the structure of Egypt's polytheology."


The battle of Osiris and Seth comes to symbolize the tale of good and evil with Horus, the mythical embodiment of almost all of Egypt's mortal kings. In the death of Osiris, we find the Lord of the Underworld and the one through whom all souls must pass to find eternity in the allusian fields.


The shaping of stone tools leads to the supernatural art of creating stone vases, which were meant never to be seen or used except to be buried in a dark tomb. The power of royal authority culminates in the god-kings of Dynasty 4 and their pyramids on the Giza plateau.


Mr. Johnson presents a good read moving through developments in kingship and government from the god-king's and their families who hold the offices of government, on to the decline of the centralized king to a population of provincial kings, ultimately unifying in a prince of Thebes at the start of the second millennium BC. The book is wonderfully thought-provoking on elements of the Egyptian civilization which are rarely dealt with; the nuances and laws written or, more often, not written, which governed the state of Maat, are well put forward and developed.


Having said this, it must be mentioned that the book is not for kids, as the language and content would be more appropriate to someone with a more advanced education. I loved the consecutive pictures of the Abydos Kings Lists from the incredibly delicate raised relief of Seti I's list to the crude sunk relief of Ramesses II's list.


One of my favorite chapters was on hieroglyphs and linguistic developments not only in Egypt but among its neighbors as well. While the hieroglyphs remain static and in finished development for their sacred purpose, the civil off-springs of hieratic, demotic, and Coptic in turn develop the script into the Roman period and on into the Christian Era. The stele that accompanies this chapter is are stunning and unusual example, as is the granite statue of Dersenedj from Giza.


A stele of a married couple on page 172 is a masterpiece of austerity where pictograph meets inscription to produce a primitive yet modern/timeless image to please gods and ancestors.  There again appear the mistakes; a picture of the famous model of Meketre and his scribes doing the cattle count is mistakenly referred to as terracotta.


The sitting statue of Sekhema, supervisor of the writers, is an amazing example of sculpture and the strict conventions with which the Egyptian artist followed faithfully. In this case of Sekhema and his family, the artist has overcome a complex composition to create a state of authority and serene presence, a state of Maat.


In chapter 8, the author deals with the decline of royal authority, which, as usual, is the result of the lack of wealth, as the kings of the late Ramesside period lost the rich booty that had been the result of the dominance of Egypt's neighbors by the 18th Dynasty kings at the beginning of the New Kingdom.


Now, at the end of the second millennium BC, Egypt's economy is eventually stabilized by the liberation of precious metals and objects stored away in tombs. Hence, the assets of the glory days became a major force in the weak economy. From here, Egypt would go through many occupations that would complete the last millennium of pharaohs with kings who would hold on to the Bronze Age and Egypt's glorious past as the rest of the world ran headlong into the Iron Age.


In the final chapter, Mr. Johnson brings us back to our own time with the rediscovery of the hieroglyphs, bringing a renewed appreciation of the value, tradition, and the function of the art of the ancient Egyptian's and their desire for their destinies of eternity to which they have succeeded.


"The Civilization of Ancient Egypt," though sprinkled with many big words and small technical irregularities, was thoughtful and thought-provoking, a read that one day I may visit again!


Make a holiday, have a good time without wearying. For it is not given to man to take his property with him. No one who leaves this life ever comes back.

Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage

"The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization meeting in Paris from 17 October to 21 November 1972, at its seventeenth session,

Noting that the cultural heritage and the natural heritage are increasingly threatened with destruction not only by the traditional causes of decay, but also by changing social and economic conditions which aggravate the situation with even more formidable phenomena of damage or destruction,

Considering that deterioration or disappearance of any item of the cultural or natural heritage constitutes a harmful impoverishment of the heritage of all the nations of the world,

Considering that protection of this heritage at the national level often remains incomplete because of the scale of the resources which it requires and of the insufficient economic, scientific, and technological resources of the country where the property to be protected is situated,

Recalling that the Constitution of the Organization provides that it will maintain, increase, and diffuse knowledge, by assuring the conservation and protection of the world's heritage, and recommending to the nations concerned the necessary international conventions,

Considering that the existing international conventions, recommendations and resolutions concerning cultural and natural property demonstrate the importance, for all the peoples of the world, of safeguarding this unique and irreplaceable property, to whatever people it may belong,

Considering that parts of the cultural or natural heritage are of outstanding interest and therefore need to be preserved as part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole,

Considering that, in view of the magnitude and gravity of the new dangers threatening them, it is incumbent on the international community as a whole to participate in the protection of the cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value, by the granting of collective assistance which, although not taking the place of action by the State concerned, will serve as an efficient complement thereto,

Considering that it is essential for this purpose to adopt new provisions in the form of a convention establishing an effective system of collective protection of the cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value, organized on a permanent basis and in accordance with modern scientific methods,

Having decided, at its sixteenth session, that this question should be made the subject of an international convention,

Adopts this sixteenth day of November 1972 this Convention."(1)

Notes:

(1). UNESCO

Akhmim's Collosal Head Put in Storage

The colossal head of Ramesses II, found a few years back in a modern cemetery in the city of Akhmim along with the sculptures from the temple, has been removed from the site and placed in storage for its protection. The temple on the site was described by Herodotus as larger than the Karnak temple, and no doubt much of the temple still lies buried beneath.

Since the January 2011 revolution, there has been no money to continue excavations, and left unprotected locals have turned the site into a garbage dump.