The Famous Egyptian Architect

He is the vizier of the Third Dynasty Pharaoh Djoser, credited with commissioning the first pyramid, the step pyramid at Saqqara.

Imhotep was chief architect to the Third Dynasty King Djoser (2687-2668 BC). He is the first master architect we know by name, and was in charge of building the original step pyramid at Saqqara. This pyramid also set a precedent by including a collection of temples, pavilions, corridors, chapels and halls within the enclosure walls.

A commoner by birth, Imhotep's intelligence and determination enabled him to rise through the ranks to become one of the king's most trusted advisors.

He eventually held the offices of High Priest of Heliopolis and Lector Priest, making him a very powerful and influential man whose name is given the great honor of being inscribed on the base of one of the statues of King Djoser

Imphotep was also the physician to King Djoser. Imphotep was considered so important that he was, after his death, was worshipped as a god of healing.

Imhotep's influence lived on well after his death. In the New Kingdom he was venerated as the patron of scribes, personifying wisdom and education.

During the Late Period his veneration extended to deification and he became a local god at Memphis where he was glorified for his skills as a physician and a healer. He is said to have extracted medicine from plants and treated diseases such as appendicitis, gout and arthritis. At Memphis he was served by his own priesthood and he was considered to be an intermediary between men and the gods. It was believed that he could help people solve difficulties in their daily lives and cure medical problems. His tomb has never been found it is likely to be in Saqqara, but he is thought to have served fewer than four kings and lived until the end of the third dynasty (2649 BC).

Although Imphotep played a very important part of Ancient Egypt, good documentation regarding this Third Dynasty vizier is scarce. For this reason I recommended Imhotep: The Egyptian God of Medicine . Although this book is relatively short at 120 pages it is well written and invigorating, which makes Imhotep: The Egyptian God of Medicine an excellent read.

Courtesy of www.kingtutshop.com

EGYPTIAN FOOD

The Ancient land of Egypt was one of the most fertile valleys in the world and supported one of the world’s greatest civilizations. Rich soil, provided by the river’s annual flooding, deposited thick silt over the land providing sometimes two, or even three, harvests a year. Herodotus, a famous Greek historian, once wrote that Egypt was the Gift of the Nile.

Bread and beer was the main elements to an Egyptians diet, no matter how rich or poor the Egyptian was. Bread was the main meal for most Egyptians, and a meal could not be complete without it. Most kitchens were usually situated at the rear of the house, or on the roof. Egyptians cooked food in simple clay pots, using wooden utensils and jars for storage.

Beer (known to the ancient Egyptians as hqt) was a very popular drink in Ancient Egypt. It was made from barley and sometimes to improve the taste the Egyptians would add spices. The importance of beer to the ancient Egyptians should not be underestimated as it was esteemed so highly that it was regularly offered as offerings to the gods. Even wages were sometimes paid by beer.

Even the poor people of Ancient Egypt ate a fairly healthy diet including vegetables, fruit and fish. But it was only the larger plantations that grazed animals, mainly because the average farmer had to use his limited land to grow crops. Poultry was mostly roasted for the table, but meat was mainly the privilege of the rich. Seasoning included; salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, sesame, dill, fennel, fenugreek, seeds etc.

All of the big festivals of the year were religious and organised by the temple priests. The biggest of these was the festival of the god Amun that lasted a whole month. Music, dancers, singers, acrobats and jugglers would accompany the religious procession. Much feasting and partying went on with a great deal of wine and beer being consumed. There would be; music, singing, story telling and the younger members of the family would dance to entertain the guests.

Although the ancient people did not write down their recipes, or use cook books, the ingredients needed to make most of the dishes are well known, many of which are still used in Egypt today.

There are plenty of books regarding the Ancient Egyptians diet and culture, but I recommend The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt (Landmark Books) as a solid introduction to Ancient Egypt as it covers just about everything, and it is quite cheap!!!.

This was a very interesting reply to a post regarding the Ancient Egyptians and their controversial relationship with the Nubians.

Q. When people say that the ancient Egyptians were Nubian, are they talking about the period of time, cerca the 800s b.c., when Nubia conquered Egypt? What else could they be referring to when they say that ancient Egyptians were Nubian?

A. Any of several things:

1) Most likely, they're referring to one of the many myths people have entertained about ancient Egypt. This one, popular with Afrocentrists in the US at least, holds that the ancient Egyptians looked just like West Africans, and makes about as much sense as any other of the Egypt-myths floating around (namely, not quite zero sense; most of the myths have some sort of seed of truth, the relevant one in this case being that the Egyptians did not look like most Europeans).

2) Alternatively, they may be referring to something real. Egypt ruled Nubia (which is, technically, an area on the border between Egypt and the Sudan, along the Nile) much of the time; the episode in the 800s BC is just when Nubia returned the favor. It's reasonable to assume that there was a certain amount of population mixing that went on - in fact, one standard reply scholars make to the Afro centric cookery is to note that Egyptian tomb paintings seem to show that the Egyptians thought of a wide range of skin colors as normal, which suggests that in fact residents of Egypt *were* reasonably familiar with Nubians, and not just as exotic others. So they may simply mean that some particular ancient Egyptian was Nubian (although what on Earth that would *mean*, I'm not sure - would they be claiming to have evidence of what that particular person's native language was? or what?) Or they may mean that some ancient Egyptians in general were Nubians. This is, however, the interpretation of the idea you're inquiring about that requires the most violence to the phrasing you're using, so I dunno.

3) As you note, they may simply be referring to the 8th century BC or thereabouts. This, however, also requires a certain amount of violence to the phrasing.

4) I attended a lecture years ago that proposed a notion I haven't seen repeated since. I don't know enough to comment on its plausibility, but can comment on, if you will, its *probability*. First, however, the idea. This is that we have an archaeological sequence in Nubia, and we have an archaeological sequence in Egypt, but the one in Nubia, per lecturer Carter Lupton years ago, becomes a whole lot scantier right around the time the First Dynasty gets going. Now, the standard interpretation of this, per Lupton, is that Narmer and co. went and conquered Nubia. But he wanted to suggest that instead, the Nubians had gone and *become* Narmer & Co., that is, had invaded en masse. Now, as origin stories go, this sort of works. I mean invaders as founders of states is a pretty common pattern, and in terms of what I know of theories of state origins, works reasonably well. *But*. The evidence on offer, far as I recall, is basically that there's this gap in Nubia. In general, gaps in the archaeological record are things it's unwise to argue from. If you have really *good* archaeology of your region, and you have at least a few examples of what kind of site you should be looking for so you can be pretty sure you're not just missing something exotic, OK; but I have no reason to think these conditions should hold for Nubia, much of which, after all, is now under Lake Nasser. And in *particular*, my understanding is that the Nubian archaeological record has gotten a great deal less gappy that it was when I heard that lecture. So even in the unlikely case that this is what these people mean, the idea is also unlikely to be true.

Anyway, that's what I can come up with.

Joe Bernstein

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.ancient/browse_thread/thread/386994dcefb0d45b/26ce7d3236802977?lnk=gst&q=ancient+egypt&rnum=2#26ce7d3236802977

Tefillin - made in Egypt?
By STEPHEN GABRIEL ROSENBERG

So many Jewish cultic practices come from ancient Egypt that it's not surprising to see Egyptian monuments showing the Pharaoh wearing a headdress that looks like the tefillin - phylacteries - worn during prayer by observant Jews.

In many depictions, Pharaoh is shown wearing a snake crown from which there projects above his brow a sacred asp or viper and a cobra in aggressive attitudes. They represent the Pharaoh's power of protecting his land by means of serpents that can both defend the land and attack the enemy when necessary.

Such powers were essential to the rulers of Egypt, whose rich but extended land was always in danger of invasion from the less fortunate peoples of the surrounding deserts.

The deities that supported the Pharaoh also wore appropriate headgear, but in their case not on the brow but further up on the head, above the hairline. In many cases this headgear was in the form of an animal's head, such as the jackal or the ibis-bird; but in some cases it was just a small black box on a black plate.

Was this a form of tefillin?

A case in point is the goddess Isis, who stands behind her deceased husband, the Pharaoh Osiris, wearing such a black box on her head, as depicted on the mummy of Kep-ha-eses of the second century BCE in the Copenhagen Glyptotek Museum.

Another example comes from the tomb of Anher-Khaou in Thebes, of 1,000 years earlier, where it is again the lady Isis wearing a black, box-like headdress, leading a boat-load of gods that take the deceased to his place in the next world.

What was this black box?

It has a stepped profile and represents the royal throne of the dead Pharaoh Osiris, who ruled over the next world. Isis, his sister and wife, by wearing this black box, could assist the suppliant to reach the world of everlasting life presided over by Osiris.

THE CHILDREN of Israel during their sojourn in Egypt must have been familiar with such depictions, and with the concept of the ruling classes of the country wearing headgear symbolic of their physical and cultic functions. Whether we see these local customs in a positive or negative light, they were representative of the country from which the Israelites were being evacuated. Indeed, a reminder of such customs was to be one purpose of the tefillin, which were to be a "remembrance between your eyes... that with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt" (Exodus 13:9).

However, in another passage the tefillin to be worn on the head are described as totaphot (Deut. 11:18), which is a completely obscure biblical word. Much later, the rabbis of the Mishna take it to mean just an ornament, but the great Rabbi Akiva looks at the origin of the word and derives it from a doubly foreign source. Alluding to the four sections of the head tefillin, he claims it means two and two in the languages of "Katpi" and "Afriki" (Talmud Sanhedrin 4B), which sound like Coptic and Egyptian. In Rabbi Akiva's view, then, the connection to Egypt is clear.

THIS CONNECTION of one of our most sacred artifacts to Egypt should not surprise Orthodox Jews. It is a connection that applies throughout our religion, and is especially manifest in the details of the Tabernacle that travelled throughout the wilderness with the Children of Israel.

The Tabernacle, being a tent in a large courtyard, is very similar in layout to the camp of Rameses II before the battle of Kadesh in Syria.

The Hebrew Tabernacle, after all, was also a shrine that was carried out to battle, but the analogy goes deeper. The tent of Rameses is divided into two parts, and the smaller inner sanctum contains a deity protected by two winged beings, not unlike the cherubim described as guarding the Holy Ark.

Just as only the High Priest was allowed into the inner sanctum, so it was only Rameses, earthly representative of his god, who was allowed to enter this chamber.

THE OUTER altar of the Tabernacle is clearly related to other religious practices, but it is interesting that the inner, or golden, altar was only for incense and spice offerings. This was unusual in pagan practices except in Egypt, where animal sacrifices were frowned upon and often forbidden, and where most altars were devoted to meal and incense offerings.

More controversial is the source of the table of bread offerings, the Lehem Hapanim - literally "bread of faces" - that was to be renewed by the priests on a weekly basis. We see from the story of the young David running away from Saul that this was the practice among the priests of Nob (1 Samuel 21:7), but what was its origin? Did the priests need this bread? Or, indeed, did the Lord need it?

IN ANCIENT Egypt, during the Old and Middle Kingdoms, every person of importance was given a handsome tomb with a door through which the relatives could feed the deceased in his afterlife. Obviously this became a bit of a burden for the living, to feed the dead every week, so the task was given over to the priests, but they also found it to be a burden.

Eventually it was done symbolically by erecting a stone table at the door of the tomb and showing a whole collection of food that was considered to have been given to the occupant. At the centerpiece of this carving there was always a table of bread, consisting of a number of loaves, varying from 16 to eight, always arranged in pairs, facing in opposite directions, on top of the table. The bread was facing in two directions; it was literally "bread of facings."

THE INTIMATE relationship of the Tabernacle and other items of our sacred artifacts to Egyptian models may, on the surface, be anathema to our Orthodox brethren. But it should not be so.
On the contrary, it is evidence that our people did come out from an Egyptian culture, and so refutes Bible scholars who seek to discount the story of the Exodus.

The details of the Exodus may be unverified, but those of the Sojourn are clear. Our own Book of Books, pointing again and again to the intimate connection with the most highly developed culture of its time, should convince critics that the Israelites did indeed do time in Egypt.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1154525979109&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The writer is a Fellow of the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, Jerusalem.

Archaeologists unearth Pharaonic statues in Egypt's Luxor

Archaeologists have discovered five complete Pharaonic statues and four statue heads in the Avenue of the Ram-Headed Sphinxes in Karnak in Egypt's Luxor, MENA news agency reported Monday.

The statues were in an astonishingly very good shape and had hieroglyphic inscriptions on them, MENA said, adding the new finding proved the importance of excavations at the site.

It, however, didn't give more details about the newly- discovered statues.

The avenue of ram-headed sphinxes led the visitor to the massive front of the first pylon of the Karnak Temple in the ancient city of Luxor, some 690 km away from the capital Cairo.

The huge Karnak Temple, covering an area of 1.2 square kilometers, has sanctuaries, huge columns, obelisks and even a sacred lake. Its main entrance is lined by the ram-headed sphinxes.

Built 3,000 years ago, the Karnak Temple is a vast open-air museum and the largest ancient religious site in the world, and is probably the second most visited ancient sites in Egypt, second only to the Giza Pyramids in western Cairo.

Egyptologist-Jean-Francois Champollion 1790-1832 by Dr. Sherin ElKhawaga

Champollion was a French Egyptologist, who is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology. He achieved many things during his short career, but he is best known for his work on the Rosetta Stone. It was his deciphering of the hieroglyphics contained on the Stone that laid the foundations for Egyptian archaeology. He was born in 1790. His oldest brother educated him until he turned 10, at which time he was enrolled in the Lyceum in Grenoble. His brother was also an archaeologist, and it is probably from his influence that he developed a passion for languages in general and for Egypt in particular. While he was at the Lyceum, he presented a paper in which he argued that the language of the Copts in contemporary Egypt was in essence the same as that used by the Egyptians of antiquity. His education continued at the College de France, where he specialized in languages of the Orient. He knew bits and pieces of many languages, and was fluent in several others. A partial listing of the languages he was familiar with is astounding: Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Chaldean, Chinese, Coptic, Ethiopic, Sanskrit, Pahlevi, and Persian. When he finished his education, he was invited to teach Royal College of Grenoble, where he taught history and politics. By the age of 19, he had earned his Doctor of Letters and his career began really taking off. He continued to teach at Grenoble until 1816. In 1818, he was appointed to a chair in history and geography at the Royal College of Grenoble, and taught there until 1821. While he was teaching, he continued his research on ancient Egypt. He began to be noticed by others, and that resulted in his appointment as the conservator of the Louvre Museum's Egyptian Collection in 1826. In 1828, he began a year-long trip to Egypt. He traveled with one of his students, Ippolito Rosellini. Rosellini was an Italian, who became a fairly well-known archaeologist in his own right. While they toured Egypt, Champollion took detailed notes of what he saw. Rosellini did the same, although his medium was engravings/drawings, and not words. The notes and engravings they left behind are still regarded as some of the best ever done. Together, they preserved a lot of information that otherwise would have been lost. In 1831, the First Chair of Egyptian antiquities was created for him at the College de France, and he became a member of the French Academy. Sadly, he didn't get to enjoy this coveted post very long. He died of a stroke in 1832

This article is courtesy of www.kingtutshop.com, home of handmade crafts and educational kits.

Ramses II was King Solomon

Ramses II was King Solomon

This is another great article by Andis Kaulins at www.ancientegyptweblog.blogspot.com

Very few equivalences in ancient times are so certain as the equivalence of Ramses II with King Solomon. Indeed, no mainstream scholar has been able to present even the most minimal requisite evidence necessary to rebut my challenge to current chronology as posted at https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2003-July/009941.html

Egyptologists, Oriental and Biblical scholars do not like to be confronted with facts - rather, they continue to build their nice little houses of cards as if facts contrary to their ill-conceived theories and chronologies simply did not exist. The closed-minded majority of Egyptologists seem to have a limited capacity for critical thinking.

Just how long did Ramses reign? They assume it is 67 years of sole regency, but the evidence is against them.

It is quite clear that Ramses did not rule alone for 67 years but like Solomon only ruled 40 years as a sole regent.36 of these 40 years were peacefully ruled after his reaching the age 30 (when the 30-year ceremony was held). After the success of the battle (and peace) of Kadesh (which led to peace in the ancient Near East), Solomon could build the Temple in celebration, indeed 480 years after the Exodus from THEBES (= EGYPT, eTHEBETE) which in ancient times was "Egypt", whereas the Delta-region was "Judah" and so also was always marked on the ancient hieroglyphs, i.e. as SUTah (from Gardiner: su-plant phon: sw log: sut-rush (swt), king (nsw), see in this regard http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/people/gardiner/m.htm ).

It is a hieroglyph which the helpless Egyptologists now write totally incorrectly with a preceding N, even though the hieroglyphs place the N at the end - how foolish on the part of the scholars. The original Indo-European-based Pharaonic term is similar to the Baltic term SUTENIS which means "hot humid area, marshy region" i.e. the Nile Delta, and which is a homophonic term also for SUTNIS "envoy, ambassador", which the king of the Delta was in ancient days to this region. The N which the Egyptologists now artificially set in front of these hieroglyphs - in the totally faulty reading "nesubait" - is sheer idiocy, misunderstanding the placement of the Indo-European prefix no- as identical to Baltic no- ("from, off, out of, with, of, out of, etc.") in front of Pharaonic viz. similar Baltic words sach as SUT- "to send", whence SUTNIS "envoy, ambassador" and NOSUTIT "to send off" but also SVET- "holy" and whence NOSVET- "holy of, to celebrate something holy" and ZIB "to shine" whence NOZIBET "to flash, twinkle", with the latter accounting for the NESUBAIT of "star names" of the Pharaohs. What the Egyptologists have made of this simple grammatical Indo-European construction is an Alice in Wonderland creation wondrous to be behold for its lack of relation to actual reality.

But to return to the matter at hand. There is in fact substantial evidence - acknowledged but ignored by the mainstreamers - that the early years of rule of Ramses II were a coregency with Sethos (King David), whose daughter he married (as Solomon also married the daughter of the pharaoh). Is it not remarkable that a Jewish king is marrying into the royal "Egyptian" Pharaonic family, which allegedly was not Jewish - come on, what nonsense is that? The scholars are clueless.

It was during the rule of Sethos (Seti, Setoy, i.e. King David) that the war and conquering took place. Ramses did not rule for 67 years ALONE but rather ruled 27 in coregency with King David and then ruled 40 years alone. Indeed, Clayton in Chronicle of the Pharaohs writes that Ramses took sole regency at age 25. These ca. 40 years of sole regency by Ramses II (i.e. King Solomon) were also peaceful (except for the battle of Kadesh) and marked the greatest period of building by any pharaoh since the days of the pyramids - this was the reign of Solomon (Ramses II, i.e RA-Messias "born of the Sun") and such an era of construction could only have occurred in a time of peace.

One should also point out in this connection that Ramses had already married two of his wives ten years before he became the sole Pharaoh, which, presuming that he became sole regent at the age of 27, would have meant that he was 17 at the time of first marriage, which makes sense, given the age at which it made biological sense for a man to take a woman for a wife.As written at http://www.touregypt.net/magazine/ancientegyptianpeople.htm:

"Ramesses II probably married the first two principal wives at least ten years prior to the death of his father, Seti I, before Ramesses II actually ascended the throne."

Ramses as Solomon thus ruled only 40 years ALONE (36 years of peace) plus 27 as coregent, during the war period.

More Evidence on the Age and Reign of Ramses II (who was King Solomon)

The Abydos Stela of Ramses IV refers to Ramses II as "living" 67 years. 'The Abydos stela of Ramses IV reads, according to this website as follows:"those things which King Ramses II, the Great God, did for thee in his sixty-seven years".

This is the main source for the idea that Ramses II reigned for 67 years, but it is quite clear from the context that these 67 years apply to the length of his life.

Anniversary Feasts celebrated by Ramses II point to a reign of 40 years. According to the table of important dates of Ramses' life in Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, the FIRST anniversary feast (for the celebration of Ramses II sole ascension to the throne) took place 25 years AFTER the oldest date given, which can only be his birth, and NOT, as Clayton writes, the begin of his sole reign. He celebrated 13 such anniversaries during his reign, each of which - not understood by the Egyptologists - took place every 3 years = 39 years, and there was no 14th anniversary celebrated, so that Ramses ruled ca. 40 years, as did Solomon.

The term Egypt in ancient sources referred to THEBES and not to the Nile Delta region. I repeat again for the naysayers that in the ancient texts EGYPT was THEBES but did not include the NILE DELTA which was GATH, JUDAH, SUT viz. GOSHEN, from which the GIZA plateau takes its name. That knowledge is necessary to mesh the hieroglyphic and Biblical accounts together as one.

As I have written here at the LexiLine website (with some new corrections to the text):

WHERE WAS JUDAH?

An analysis of the the ancient terms Shihor, Yamsuf (Jamsuf), Idj-Taui and Fayyum (Fay-yum) gives us a clear answer.

SHIHOR (Nile waters of the Nile Delta plus Fayyum)

SHIHOR or SCHIHOR in Joshua 13,3 defines a water "flowing before Egypt" and Isaiah 23,3 mentions Shihor in connection with the Nile.

I Chronicles 13,5 states that the Kingdom of David (!) extended from the Shihor of Egypt to the road to Hamat (the land of the Hittites).

Fayyum (Lake Fayyum, viz. Fayoum) and Bahr Yusuf (the correct Biblical Beersheba)

In Egyptian sources Shihor referred to the waters of the Nile Delta together with Lake Fajum (Fayyum) INTO WHICH the ancient channel of the Nile flowed (today this is the canal Bahr Yusuf = Biblical Beersheba, i.e. Bahr (yu)SUF. (Sivan in his work on North Semitic dialects says that the yu syllable was added in later Semitic and was not a part of the word originally). Hellenistic sources say it WAS an arm of the Nile.

Scholars think that the Kingdom of David, i.e. Judah, ended at what is modern (non-biblical) Beersheba in current Israel.That unproven assumption is the greatest historical geographic error ever committed and runs directly contrary to the actual written sources available. Judah included Fayyum.

Jam Suf (the Sea of Reeds)

In Biblical Exodus, Fayyum is Hebrew JAM SUF "the sea of reeds" which can ONLY be Fayyum (the only sea of reeds in Egypt) and SUF is the place where Moses repeated "the law" to the children of Israel.

THE SOUTHERN TRIBES

Judah and Benjamin (the southern tribes which united as Judah) were only 2 of the 12 tribes of the Hebrews and the other 10 tribes rebelled at the time of Rehoboam (Merentptah), Jerobeam (Priam, King of Lydia (Troy)) and Ramses III (Shishak). The invasion of the sea peoples during the reign of Ramses III was part of the Trojan War.

The name Israel derives from an Indo-European term similar e.g. to the example of Latvian Izrauji "rebels".

When we speak in modern times about Israel and the Jews, we have completely FORGOTTEN about Judah which in fact is the more important of the two historically because it existed prior to the name "Israel" ever appearing on any monument. The first appearance of the name "Israel" on any monument occurred on the Merenptah Stela of defeated enemies.

Idj-TauiJudah was Idj-taui (= Ju-dah)

IDJ-TAUI was the Nile Delta, including Per-Ramses (Pi-Ramesse), historically the home of the Hebrews in what we "today" call "Egypt", but which was actually the Nile Delta region called Judah (SUT viz. SHUT) in ancient days.

JUDAH in hieroglyphic writing is symbolized by the raised cobra hieroglyph, DJD.

Judah's geographical boundaries extended from Hebron (city of the unification of Judah and Israel)to the "Brook of Egypt", i.e. the Nile arm at Fayyumand to Beer Es Sebua = Bahr Yusuf - the ancient channel of the Nile into Fayyum.

It was at Fayyum that the last pyramids were built, two of them alone for Amenemhet III (one at Dashur and other at Hawara), with the end of this overdone pyramid-building period marked by the sudden abandonment of the worker-city Kahun. Our explanation is that the workers had had enough of Amenemhet III and that was the end of the pyramid-building age. No more pyramids were ever built. Amenemhet was thus the Pharaoh of Exodus.

The era of Moses (who is found in the hieroglyphs erroneously transcribed by the Egyptologists as Sobekhotep II) and his short-term allies, the Hyksos (Palestinians, Midians) had dawned.