Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt - An Introduction:
When someone mentions ancient Egypt, you might think of the pyramids and pharaohs of ancient times, or maybe Napoleon discovering for his own the wonders of the Great Sphinx. You might tend to have this certain belief that its the past, and the past stays behind us. That ancient Egyptian wonders have no ideal influence on todays technological advances. Although, as many egyptologists would agree, ancient Egypt was actually more advanced for its times, than we are for ours. Even so, without the widely spread influence of ancient Egyptian culture, today, archaeology would probably have no place in the world, since it began with Egyptian discoveries around the Roman Era.
The ancient Egypt most people know about is built on a basic structure consisting of purely generalized facts. There is much more to ancient Egypt than people think. Ancient Egypt's mysteries range from many to more. Like an endless map, that new continents are being uncovered through the passing time. From the mystery of the Sphinx at Giza, to the secrets of Tomb 55. We can only begin to decifer the hidden secrets behind many of these mysteries through archaeology and egyptology. Those two important fields of professionality play some of the most important key roles in discovering and uncovering the great mysteries that cloud our knowledge of ancient civilization.
Let your holy Light shine from the height of heaven,
O living Aton,
Source of all life!
From eastern horizon risen and streaming,
you have flooded the world with your beauty.
You are majestic, awesome, bedazzling, exalted,
overlord over all earth,
yet your rays, they touch lighly, compass the lands
to the limits of all your creation.
There in the Sun, you reach to the farthest of those
you would gather in for your Son,
whom you love;
Though you are far, your light is wide upon earth;
and you shine in the faces of all
who turn to follow your journeying.
That is a peice of Akhenaten's Hymn to the Sun. It expresses the beauty and passion in ancient Egyptian literature, and its influence in everyday lives. From prayers, ancient Egyptians would sing to their local deities, in cases of drought, sickness, or simply worship. With poems, they would read to each other with feeling and emotion, fall in a concious sleep where they had everything they wanted and dreamed of. With stories and fairy tailes, ancient Egyptians would teach morals and lessons to their young, so their society would be built on a strong structure of knowledge with right and wrong.
Their majestic sense of art and architecture was another way to express their feelings and philosophy. For their buildings did not only represent housing facilities, but centres for worship in which the building itself stood in a certain angle or position with relations to their gods and goddesses. Such as Akhetaten and the Colossi of Memnon in Luxor. From royal palaces, beastly fortifications and centres of worship, ancient Egyptians put many years on their own expense to build these magnificant structures to favor their kings and gods. Whatever the architects dreamed up, it was built! A strong example of such supremacy in architectual status would be an architect named Imhotep, later acknowledged as a god for his constuction of the Step Pyramid, the first of all pyramids. His imagination brought him to build mastaba over mastaba until he reached 6 mastaba's layered one over the other.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs is one of many examples of how complex social society was in ancient Egypt. The teachings of writing in scribal schools and temples required a strong knowledge in hieroglyphics and cuneiform (Sumerian text, widely spread throughout ancient Mesopotamia) because of outside influence in ancient Egypt, such as negotiations and encounters. Very difficult although vital to the political status of ancient Egypt.
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