A unique study of the engineering and tools used to create Egyptian monuments
- Presents a stone-by-stone analysis of key Egyptian monuments, including the statues of Ramses II and the tunnels of the Serapeum
- Reveals that highly refined tools and mega-machines were used in ancient Egypt
From the pyramids in the north to the temples in the south, ancient artisans left their marks all over Egypt, unique marks that reveal craftsmanship we would be hard pressed to duplicate today. Drawing together the results of more than 30 years of research and nine field study journeys to Egypt, Christopher Dunn presents a stunning stone-by-stone analysis of key Egyptian monuments, including the statue of Ramses II at Luxor and the fallen crowns that lay at its feet. His modern-day engineering expertise provides a unique view into the sophisticated technology used to create these famous monuments in prehistoric times.
Using modern digital photography, computer-aided design software, and metrology instruments, Dunn exposes the extreme precision of these monuments and the type of advanced manufacturing expertise necessary to produce them. His computer analysis of the statues of Ramses II reveals that the left and right sides of the faces are precise mirror images of each other, and his examination of the mysterious underground tunnels of the Serapeum illuminates the finest examples of precision engineering on the planet. Providing never-before-seen evidence in the form of more than 280 photographs, Dunn's research shows that while absent from the archaeological record, highly refined tools, techniques, and even mega-machines must have been used in ancient Egypt.

Middle Egyptian introduces the reader to the writing system of ancient Egypt and the language of hieroglyphic texts. It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary. It also includes a series of twenty-six essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion, literature, and language. Grammar lessons and cultural essays allows users not only to read hieroglyphic texts but also to understand them, providing the foundation for understanding texts on monuments and reading great works of ancient Egyptian literature. This third edition is revised and reorganized, particularly in its approach to the verbal system, based on recent advances in understanding the language. Illustrations enhance the discussions, and an index of references has been added. These changes and additions provide a complete and up-to-date grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt for specialists in linguistics and other fields.

Cleopatra of Egypt is one of history's most famous rulers, but who was responsible for founding the Ptolemaic dynasty from which she came, how, and when? For the answers we go back 300 years before Cleopatra's time, to Ptolemy of Macedonia. He was a friend of Alexander the Great, fighting with him in the epic battles and sieges, which toppled the Persian Empire, and after Alexander's death taking over Egypt after the dead king's commanders carved up his vast empire among themselves. They were soon at war with each other, the co-called Wars of the Successors, as each man fought to increase his share of the spoils. They made and broke alliances with each other cynically and effortlessly, with Ptolemy showing himself no different from the others. But unlike them he had patience and cunning that arguably made him the greatest of the Successors. He built up his power base in Egypt, introduced administrative and economic reforms that made him fabulously wealthy, and as a conscious imperialist he boldly attempted to seize Greece and Macedonia and be a second Alexander. As well as his undoubted military prowess, Ptolemy was an intellectual. He founded the great Library and Museum at Alexandria, making that city the intellectual center of the entire Hellenistic age, and even patronized the mathematician Euclid. Ptolemy ruled Egypt first as satrap and then as its king and Pharaoh for forty years, until he died of natural causes in his early eighties. On his death, his son, Ptolemy II, succeeded him, and the Ptolemaic dynasty was thus established. It was the longest-lived of all the Hellenistic dynasties, falling with Cleopatra three centuries later. As a king, soldier, statesman, and intellectual, Ptolemy was one of a kind, but, unlike Alexander, he never forgot his Macedonian roots. Against all odds, Ptolemy fought off invasions, invaded opponents' territories, and established an Egyptian empire, making his adopted country a power with which to be reckoned. His achievements shaped both Egypt's history and that of the early Hellenistic world.

The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1076-664 BCE) has been characterised previously by political and social changes based upon the introduction of Libyan social and cultural influences. In this book, James Bennett analyses the concepts of 'transition' and 'continuity' within the cultural and societal environment of Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period and provides an up-to-date synthesis of current research on the settlement archaeology of the period. This is done through the assessment of settlement patterns and their development, the built environment of the settlements, and their associated material culture. Through this analysis, Bennett identifies several interconnected themes within the culture and society of the Twenty-First to Twenty-Fifth Dynasties. They are closely related to the political and economic powers of different regions, the nucleation of settlements and people, self-sufficiency at a collective and individual level, defence, both physical and spiritual, regionality in terms of settlement development and material culture, and elite emulation through everyday objects.

This book presents a concise account of the lives and times of some of the more significant occupants of the Egyptian throne, from the unification of the country around 3000 BC down to the extinction of native rule just under three millennia later. Some, such as Thutmose III, had a major impact on their time, and were remembered by their own people until the very civilization collapsed. Others, such as Tutankhamun, were soon forgotten by the Egyptians themselves, only to burst into popular culture thousands of years after their deaths, as a result of the labors of modern archaeologists. Still more remain unknown outside the small circle of professional archaeologists, but led lives that call out for wider dissemination. This book sets out to provide a mix of all three categories, in an attempt to present a balanced view of Egyptian kings and their range of achievements.First published in 1995, Monarchs of the Nile has now been extensively revised and rewritten to take into account two further decades of research and excavation.

The ancient Egyptian kingdoms, at their greatest extent, stretched more than 2000 kilometres along the Nile and passed through diverse habitats. In the north, the Nile traversed the Mediterranean coast and the Delta, while further south a thread of cultivation along the Nile Valley passed through the vast desert of the Sahara. As global climate and landscapes changed and evolved, the habitable parts of the kingdoms shifted. Modern studies suggest that episodes of desertification and greening swept across Egypt over periods of 1000 years. Rather than isolated events, the changes in Egypt are presented in context, often as responses to global occurrences, characterised by a constant shift of events, so although broadly historic, this narrative follows a series of habitats as they change and evolve through time.

Egypt played a crucial role in the Roman Empire for seven centuries. It was wealthy and occupied a strategic position between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean worlds, while its uniquely fertile lands helped to feed the imperial capitals at Rome and then Constantinople. The cultural and religious landscape of Egypt today owes much to developments during the Roman period, including in particular the forms taken by Egyptian Christianity. Moreover, we have an abundance of sources for its history during this time, especially because of the recovery of vast numbers of written texts giving an almost uniquely detailed picture of its society, economy, government, and culture. This book, the work of six historians and archaeologists from Egypt, the US, and the UK, provides students and a general audience with a readable new history of the period and includes many illustrations of art, archaeological sites, and documents, and quotations from primary sources.

Originally published 1961, this volume is being reissued to make the entire series available to students and scholars of biblical and post-biblical Judaism and early Christianity. A companion volume contains the text found in the original one-volume publication.

This volume explores the earliest appearances and functions of the five major Egyptian goddesses Neith, Hathor, Nut, Isis and Nephthys. Although their importance endured throughout more than three millennia of ancient Egyptian history, their origins, earliest roles, and relationships in religion, myth, and cult have never before been studied together in detail. Showcasing the latest research with carefully chosen illustrations and a full bibliography, Susan Tower Hollis suggests that the origins of the goddesses derived primarily from their functions, as, shown by their first appearances in the text and art of the Protodynastic, Early Dynastic, and Old Kingdom periods of the late fourth and third millennia BCE. The roles of the goddess Bat are also explored where she is viewed both as an independent figure and in her specific connections to Hathor, including the background to their shared bovine iconography. Hollis provides evidence of the goddesses' close ties with royalty and, in the case of Neith, her special connections to early queens. Vital reading for all scholars of Egyptian religion and other ancient religions and mythology, this volume brings to light the earliest origins of these goddesses who would go on to play major parts in later narratives, myths, and mortuary cult.

Steve D. Fraade offers a new translation, with notes, and detailed commentary to the Dead Sea Scroll most commonly called the Damascus Document, based on both ancient manuscripts from caves along the western shore of the Dead Sea, and medieval manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza. The text is one of the longest and most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Its importance derives from several aspects of its contents: its extensive collections of laws, both for the sectarian community that authored it and for the rest of Israel; some of the oldest examples of scriptural interpretation, both legal and narrative, both implicit and explicit, with important implications for our understanding of the evolving status of the Hebrew canon; some of the clearest expressions, often in hortatory form, of the community's self-understanding as an elect remnant of Israel that understands itself in dualistic opposition to the rest of Israel, its practices, and its leaders; important expressions of the community's self-understanding as a priestly alternative to the sacrificial worship in the Jerusalem Temple; expressions of an apocalyptic, eschatological understanding of living as the true Israel in the "end of days;" important expressions of attitudes toward woman, sexual activity, and marriage; importance for our understanding of ancient modes of teaching and of ritual practice; importance for the study of the history of the Hebrew language and its scribal practices. The volume contains a substantial introduction, dealing with these aspects of the Damascus Document and locating its place within the Dead Sea Scrolls more broadly as well as the historical context of ancient Judaism that gave rise to this text.

In Mittani Palaeography, Zenobia Homan analyses cuneiform writing from the Late Bronze Age Mittani state, which was situated in the region between modern Aleppo, Erbil and Diyarbakir. The ancient communication network reveals a story of local scribal tradition blended with regional adaptation and international political change, reflecting the ways in which written knowledge travelled within the cuneiform culture of the Middle East. Mittani signs, their forms, and variants, are described and defined in detail utilising a large digital database and discussed in relation to other regional corpora (Assyro-Mittanian, Middle Assyrian, Nuzi and Tigunanum among others). The collected data indicate that Mittanian was comparatively standardised - an innovation for the period - signifying the existence of a centralised system of scribal training.

From the dawn of history to the death of Cleopatra, ancient Egypt was home to larger-than-life personalities. Across one hundred lives, Toby Wilkinson explores the true character and diversity of human experience in the ancient world's greatest civilization. Some of those profiled are famous: pharaohs and queens such as Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Ramesses II and Tiye. Others are lesser known but equally engaging: Imhotep, architect of the first pyramid; Perniankhu, the court dwarf; and the royal sculptor Bak. Equally illuminating are the lives of commoners, so rarely given their own voice: ordinary men and women who include a doctor, a dentist, a housewife, a musician - and a serial criminal.

This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a diverse, international team of leading scholars whose expertise brings to life the people, places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying particular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed. The fifth and final volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East covers the period from the second half of the 7th century BC until the campaigns of Alexander III of Macedon (336-323 BC) brought an end to the Achaemenid Dynasty and the Persian Empire. Tying together areas and political developments covered by previous volumes in the series, this title covers also the Persian Empire's immediate predecessor states: Saite Egypt, the Neo-Babylonian Empire, and Lydia, among other kingdoms and tribal alliances. The chapters in this volume feature a wide range of archaeological and textual sources, with contributors displaying a masterful treatment of the challenges and advantages of the available materials. Two chapters focus on areas that have not enjoyed prominence in any of the previous volumes of this series: eastern Iran and Central Asia. This volume is the necessary and complementary final component of this comprehensive series.

The Ptolemaic period in Egypt (332-30 BC) is one of the most well-documented periods of the Hellenistic age: in addition to the papyrological record there are more than 600 surviving Greek and Greek/Egyptian bilingual and trilingual inscriptions, ranging from massive public monuments, such as the Rosetta Stone, to small private dedications, funerary plaques, and metrical epigrams for the deceased. This volume offers a series of detailed studies of the historical and cultural contexts of these important inscriptions and is intended to complement the multi-volume Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions edition, in which the Greek and Egyptian texts will be presented together for the first time. The subjects discussed in the twelve chapters range widely across a variety of sub-disciplines, from advances in new technologies of image-capture, the juxtaposition of Greek and Egyptian elements in the layout and iconography of the monuments, and the palaeography of the Greek texts, to the history of the acquisition and study of the great bilingual decrees voted by the priests of the indigenous Egyptian cults, the introduction of Greek civic administration and communal associations in the cities and villages, and the role of the military in monumental commemoration. Particular attention is given to the role of indigenous and Greek religious institutions in Alexandria and the towns and villages of the Nile Delta and Valley, in which commemorative dedications to divinities of temples and statues by the monarchs and by private individuals are numerous and prominent. In a period shaped by the interplay between Egyptian and Greek culture, the existence of public and private inscribed monuments was a vital element of dynastic control. The unique insights offered by this thorough examination of the epigraphical landscape of Ptolemaic Egypt are invaluable to understanding the ways in which the Greek immigrant rulers and population established and reinforced their social and cultural dominance of an indigenous population which had its own long-established and traditional written and iconographic mode of public and private communication.

This groundbreaking, five-volume series offers a comprehensive, fully illustrated history of Egypt and Western Asia (the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran), from the emergence of complex states to the conquest of Alexander the Great. Written by a diverse, international team of leading scholars whose expertise brings to life the people, places, and times of the remote past, the volumes in this series focus firmly on the political and social histories of the states and communities of the ancient Near East. Individual chapters present the key textual and material sources underpinning the historical reconstruction, paying particular attention to the most recent archaeological finds and their impact on our historical understanding of the periods surveyed. The fourth volume of the Oxford History of the Ancient Near East covers the period from the end of the second to the middle of the first millennium BC, ca. 1100-600 BC, corresponding with Egypt's "Third Intermediate Period". Fifteen chapters present the history of the Near East during "The Age of Assyria," from the formative period of the Assyrian Empire to this influential state's disintegration. Several of the chapters discuss the challenges of reconstructing the sequence of local rulers and the various sources and diverse strategies harnessed in order to overcome these difficulties, notably for Egypt, for Elam, for Urartu and on northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia. This volume offers new and complementary perspectives on the history of northeastern Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East from the 11th to the 7th century BC.

Now in present day Iraq, Ur was a city that rose from the "Mounds of Pitch" half way between Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, ten miles west of the Euphrates. Sir Leonard Woolley documents his experience as leader of the great expedition that carried on without interruption until 1934. Before its closure, this significant archaeological dig on the part of both museums established an image of Ur throughout its four thousand years in existence. Indeed, the excavators unearthed much more than they ever expected. This book follows this expedition, recording its every detail. These findings reveal the impressive history of Ur: its beginning, the flood, the Uruk and Jamdat Nasr periods, Al 'Ubaid and the first dynasty of Ur, the Dark Ages, the third dynasty of Ur, the Isin and Larsa periods, the Kassite and Assyrian periods, and finally Nebuchadnezzar and the last days of Ur. Although written earlier in the last century, this treatise is particularly relevant today, in an age when it becomes essential to remember the great treasures yielded from this cradle of civilization that is now modern-day Iraq.

This volume offers the first comprehensive look at the role of women in the monarchies of the ancient Mediterranean. It consistently addresses certain issues across all dynasties: title; role in succession; the situation of mothers, wives, and daughters of kings; regnant and co-regnant women; role in cult and in dynastic image; and examines a sampling of the careers of individual women while placing them within broader contexts. Written by an international group of experts, this collection is based on the assumption that women played a fundamental role in ancient monarchy, that they were part of, not apart from it, and that it is necessary to understand their role to understand ancient monarchies. This is a crucial resource for anyone interested in the role of women in antiquity.

In this lively treatment of one of antiquity's most mysterious civilizations, whose history disappeared from the records over 3,000 years ago, Trevor Bryce sheds fresh light on Hittite warriors as well as on the Hittites' social, religious and political culture and offers new solutions to many unsolved questions. Revealing them to have been masters of chariot warfare, who almost inflicted a disastrous defeat on Rameses II at the Battle of Qadesh (1274 BCE), he shows the Hittites also to have been devout worshippers of a pantheon of storm-gods and many other gods, and masters of a new diplomatic system which bolstered their authority for centuries. Drawing authoritatively both on texts and on ongoing archaeological discoveries, while at the same time offering imaginative reconstructions of the Hittite world, Bryce argues that while the development of a warrior culture was essential, not only for the Empire's expansion but for its very survival, this by itself was not enough. The range of skills demanded of the Hittite ruling class went way beyond mere military prowess, while there was much more to the Hittites themselves than just skill in warfare. This engaging volume reveals the Hittites in their full complexity, including the festivals they celebrated; the temples and palaces they built; their customs and superstitions; the crimes they committed; their social hierarchy, from king to slave; and the marriages and pre-nuptial agreements they contracted. It takes the reader on a journey which combines epic grandeur, spectacle and pageantry with an understanding of the intimacies and idiosyncrasies of Hittite daily life.

Has the ancient Egyptian cult of immortality resurfaced in Brighton? When a freshly-mummified body is discovered at the Brighton Museum of Natural History, Detective Francis Sullivan is at a loss to identify the desiccated woman. But as Egyptian burial jars of body parts with cryptic messages attached start appearing, he realises he has a serial killer on his hands. Revenge, obsession and an ancient religion form a potent mix, unleashing a wave of terror throughout the city. Caught in a race against time while battling his own demons, Francis must fight to uncover the true identity of the Embalmer before it's too late...

Sometime in the early fourth century bc, an unknown Egyptian master carved an exquisite portrait in dark-green stone. The statue that included this remarkably lifelike head of a priest, who was likely a citizen of ancient Memphis, may have been damaged when the Persians conquered Egypt in 343 bc before it was ritually buried in a temple complex dedicated to the worship of the sacred Apis bull. Its adventures were not over, though: after almost two millennia, the head was excavated by August Mariette, a founding figure in French Egyptology, under a permit from the Ottoman Pasha. Returned to France as part of a collection of antiquities assembled for the inimitable Bonaparte prince known as Plon-Plon, it found a home in his faux Pompeian palace. After disappearing again, it resurfaced in the personal collection of Edward Perry Warren, a turn-of-the-twentieth-century American aesthete, who sold it to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Along the way, this compelling and mysterious sculpture, known worldwide as the Boston Green Head, has reflected the West's evolving understanding of Egyptian art - from initial assertions that it was too refined to be the product of a lesser civilization, to recognition of the sophistication of the culture that produced it.

A sweeping and lavishly illustrated survey of nearly four thousand years of human settlement and building activity in Jerusalem, from prehistoric times through the Ottoman period In this sweeping and lavishly illustrated history, Katharina Galor and Hanswulf Bloedhorn survey nearly four thousand years of human life and material culture in Jerusalem. They have organized their book chronologically, exploring fortifications and water systems as well as key sacred, civic, and domestic architecture. Distinctive finds such as paintings, mosaics, pottery, and coins highlight each period. They provide a unique perspective on the emergence and development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the relationship among the three religions and their cultures into the modern period.

The iconic minaret of Jam stands in a remote mountain valley in central Afghanistan, the finest surviving monument of the enigmatic 12th-century Ghurid dynasty. The rediscovery of the minaret half a century ago prompted renewed interest in the Ghurids, and this has intensified since their summer capital at Jam became Afghanistans first World Heritage site in 2002.Two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at Jam, the detailed analysis of satellite images and the innovative use of Google Earth have resulted in a wealth of new information about known Ghurid sites, and the identification of hundreds of previously undocumented archaeological sites across Afghanistan.Drawing inspiration from the Annales school and the concept of an archipelagic landscape, David Thomas has used this data to reassess the Ghurids and generate a more nuanced understanding of this significant Early Islamic polity.Some supplementary appendices for this title can be found at https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/17842