Innholdsfortegnelse for AH 36 i Ancient History Magazine

EDITORIAL – STUCK IN THE MIDDLE Ancient Egypt’s history spans over 3000 years. This gives an editor plenty to choose from when trying to decide on a topic. While I’m interested in most of its incredibly long history, I decided to pick a period that I initially knew relatively little about: The Middle Kingdom. I’d heard plenty about the Old Kingdom, which was renowned for its pyramid-building titans – giving it the well-earned name, “The Age of Pyramids” – and the New Kingdom, known for its prosperity and a slew of famous pharaohs such as Tutankhamun, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, and Akhenaten. So what was the Middle Kingdom known for? It is celebrated for its cultural revival: the flourishing of literature and art, and profound changes to worship and funerary practices…

“Man perishes, his corpse becomes dust. All of his family have died. But it is a book that makes him remembered in the mouth of the reciter. More effective is a book than a solid house, than tombs in the West.” Written about 1250 BC, this quotation is part of a passage extolling the immortality of writers. It conveys a surprising ancient Egyptian perspective about the afterlife: a reed pen is mightier than a pyramid. Stone tombs might crumble, but an author whose writings continue to be recited achieves lasting fame If we knew the name of the man who wrote The Story of Sinuhe, he would be immortal indeed. This fictional tale, composed about 1850 BC, has survived in five papyrus copies from the Middle Kingdom – a remarkable…

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of the nameless medieval scribes who copied ancient texts and made sure they survived. However, these unsung heroes were only human. They made mistakes and copied only texts they believed to be useful. Fortunately, archaeologists frequently find original, ancient texts. Even though they are often damaged, they offer useful information. Those who study the civilizations of the ancient world have access to several types of information. For example, classicists and other philologists study written texts, while archaeologists are interested in material remains. Although philology and archaeology are taught in separate university departments, they have much in common. For example, an ancient text can be studied as text – who wrote it? when was it written? what did the author intend to convey? did…

ANCIENT EGYPT: ANATOMY OF A CIVILIZATION By Barry Kemp Routledge, 2018 ISBN: 978-0415827263 This updated edition seeks to identify what gave ancient Egypt its distinctive and enduring characteristics. Kemp explores the ideas and experience of the Egyptian world using texts as well as art and archaeological evidence. In several case studies, he seeks to broaden our understanding of the Egyptian world. ANCIENT EGYPT TRANSFORMED: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM Edited by Adela Oppenheim, Dorothea Arnold, Dieter Arnold, and Kei Yamamoto The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015 ISBN: 978-1588395641 Drawing on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s vast collection, this book explores the art of the Middle Kingdom when artistic conventions (and almost everything else) were revived and reimagined. With accompanying essays, the book offers 300 items to reveal the era’s compelling artistic tradition.…

Ancient Egyptians clearly knew how to throw a party. When people came together for festivities, they had good fun with lots of entertainment and great food. Maybe there was too much fun, because some texts on tomb walls, known as Wisdom Literature, discourage excess. Looking at the big piles of food on those walls, we see why these admonitions were necessary! At parties in ancient Egypt, food was involved most of the time and banquets were often part of the festivities. Tomb paintings show us that there were a lot of rituals, rules, and expectations at these feasts. Guests were led to their seats at the table by the host’s servants. There, they were given perfumed cones of fat to place on their heads, and garlands with fragrant flowers or…

Some 500 years before Tutankhamun was buried with jewellery that would become renowned worldwide, the artisans of the Middle Kingdom created refined and elegant pieces. These are beautiful examples of adornment, but besides that, they also tell us about the world their wearers lived in. Jewellery in that respect is a historic source. We will have a look at royal jewellery created during the twelfth dynasty. To describe the topsy-turvy state of affairs after the end of the Old Kingdom, a man named Ipuwer lamented that “gold, lapis lazuli, silver and turquoise, carnelian, amethyst […] were fastened around the neck of slave women”. In these lines, Ipuwer mentions the three main colours of the ancient Egyptian colour palette in jewellery. This colour scheme of light blue, dark blue, and red,…

Next to statuary and stelae production, other arts flourished too. The production of faience is remarkable. Small figures made of faience showing animals, such as hippopotami, mice, dogs, and cats, have been found in many tombs. The function of these figures remains unclear; perhaps they had some protective purpose in daily life and in burials to help the deceased against evil spirits in the underworld. Other highlights of faience production are small vessels, sometimes decorated with figures of animals and demons, the latter again important for the protection of the deceased when placed into a burial. Another object type common in Thirteenth Dynasty burial is the magical wand. These are wands made of hippopotamus ivory and used as magical objects during childbirth to protect mother and child. The curved surface…

‘Pyramid cake’ sounds like a real treat to me! Because there are no ancient Egyptian recipes handed down to us, I looked at other sources for some clues. I found a recipe for ‘pyramides’ in Athenaeus of Naucratis’ Deipnosophistae (second century AD): cakes in the shape of a pyramid, made from toasted wheat soaked in honey. I put some dried fruits and nuts in them for extra flavour. Cakes and breads with fillings are actually found in Egypt. These cakes are delicious and really worthy of a celebration. Ingredients (makes ten pyramids) » 100 g spelt or wheat flakes » 100 g honey » 4 tbsp water » 60 g emmer or wheat flour » 2 dried figs, finely chopped » 4 dried dates, finely chopped » 1 tbsp chopped…

1 Egyptian mythology Our first example comes from the Egyptian town of Hermopolis and contains the myth of the battle between the gods Horus and Seth, a story we know primarily thanks to papyri. This fragment is not written in hieroglyphs. That script was designed for inscriptions carved in stone, but the Egyptians also wrote with ink on papyrus and simplified their picture script. Egyptologists call the simplified types of writing hieratic and demotic. Although they look less artistic, you don’t have to be able to read Egyptian to see that the writer of this mythological papyrus had a nice hand. That’s not a coincidence. In a society where most people were illiterate, clerks possessed a rare skill and they let it be known. For centuries, literacy was a status…

The Cult of Castor and Pollux in Ancient Rome: Myth, ritual, and society By Amber Gartrell ISBN: 978-1108477550 Cambridge University Press (2021) – $99.99 www.cambridge.org Once upon a time there were two brothers. The Greeks knew them as the Dioskouroi, the Romans as the Dioscuri. Sons of Leda, queen of Sparta, they had different fathers: Castor, fathered by Tyndareus, the Lacedaemonian king, was mortal; his brother, Polydeukes (or Pollux), fathered by the god Zeus in the guise of a swan, was immortal. Castor grew up to be a fine horseman, Pollux a boxer. They were crew members of Jason aboard the Argo who hunted down the terrifying Calydonian boar and saved the ship when it sailed into a fierce storm. In a final armed conflict with the Ampharidae brothers, Castor…