Social History (Ancient Egypt)

The terms Dt and nHH have often been treated as synonyms reflecting notions related to the vastness of time. However, from the study of original source material – the texts and iconography compiled over some three millennia, and authored by those who surely had complete understanding of their subject matter – it becomes clear that those modern interpretations are somewhat questionable. Clues to the connotations which may be ascribed to Dt and nHH are perhaps most clearly apparent in texts and imagery from the reign of Tutankhamun – a time of some political upheaval during which it was more than usually important to express traditional mores with some clarity so as to demonstrate a return to the well-established ideology underpinning pharaonic culture prior to the Amarna interlude. Testing those indications against the wider range of extant literary material confirms that Dt and nHH were neither synonyms, nor were they entirely temporal in nature, but rather referenced a duality of ontological conditions which together were fundamental to the fabric of pharaonic ideology. The reappraisal of this duality of conditions allows the many texts and iconographic depictions surviving from dynastic Egypt to be considered from a new perspective – one providing deeper insight into the character of pharaonic culture. Moreover, it becomes apparent that the influences of an ideology which evolved during times pre-dating the pyramid builders permeated the philosophical and theological treaties of the scholars of ancient Greece and Rome, and thence into more recent times. At least two great gods may live on.

Certain social groups played an important role in ancient Egypt in despite of their scarce visibility in official sources and prestigious monuments. However, they were part of the ruling elite (in a broader sense), and their activities, decisions and power were crucial for the stability and operating of the kingdom. Traders, wealthy peasants, local potentates or village chiefs appear thus as informal but nevertheless indispensable agents and mediators for the king and his officials. In other cases, informal practices like patronage, influence and networks of contacts enabled authority to circulate and penetrate into diverse social milieus and spheres of activity and cemented social cohesion. Finally, mobile populations carried out specialized activities as traders, herders and gatherers and were essential in the exploitation of resources in certain zones.

Violence and Gender in Ancient Egypt comprehensively explores the complex intersections of violence and gender in ancient Egypt. This book builds on current discussions in philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, and draws from analysis of relevant historic texts, iconography, and archaeological remains by looking at possible gender patterns behind evidence of trauma. It also bridges the gap between modern understandings of gendered violence and its functioning in ancient Egypt. Areas explored include: the differences in gendered aggression and violent acts between people and deities; sexual violence; taking of women as spoils of war; gendered dimensions of “bound prisoner” and “smiting of the enemy” motifs; the absence of violence against foreign women and children in texts and iconography; and the effeminization of enemy men in war as presented in text and iconography. It is argued that gendered violence was part of everyday lives of ancient Egyptians but that it was rarely depicted. When gendered violence was represented, this was done according to strict social rules which served to construct normative masculinity.

Third millennium Ḥwt jḥ(w)t is a locality that stands apart from other Lower Egyptian sites. Its unique archaeological and epigraphic record provides an invaluable view of the role played by a Delta centre within the administrative and productive organisation of the kingdom in the third millennium BC. It thus appears that Ḥwt jḥ(w)t was a kind of checkpoint regulating access to grazing land and plant resources in the underpopulated Western Delta. Furthermore, this was a region where Libyan populations historically settled and exploited its pasture land. Finally, traces of exchange networks in the hands of both mobile desert populations (Libyans in the oases and the north, Nubians in the south) and autonomous Egyptians, apparently operating outside any institutional framework, are becoming increasingly evident across Egypt. The resulting picture is that of a complex interaction of partly complementary, partly competing interests involving nomad pastoral populations, Egyptian settlers, and the Pharaonic state. Occasional conflicts should therefore be interpreted in the light of such interests, as the consequence of competing strategies seeking to control local resources, exchange networks and flows of wealth. Thus, concepts such as 'Libyan invasions', stereotyped views of Libyans as poor wandering nomads, or the alleged contrast between sedentary Egyptians and nomad Libyans as distinct, opposed ethnic and productive entities should also be revised.

Contrary to traditional interpretations about the end of the Old Kingdom, recent archaeological research shows no trace of climatic or subsistence crisis. Instead, Egypt appears more and more involved in international exchange circuits where mobile populations and autonomous traders played a considerable role. Technical innovations in weaponry, textile production and pottery reveal intense contacts with Nubia and the Levant and, in fact, Nubians and especially Asiatics became a far from negligible part of Egyptian society. It appears then that the end of the monarchy had finally more to do with internal struggles between competing sectors of the ruling elite and with control of wealth flows than with environmental causes. In fact, some regions and social sectors flourished and their later integration within the reunified Middle Kingdom monarchy remained somewhat incomplete as they managed to keep a certain autonomy.

The ancestor cult was a common feature of pharaonic society, aiming to provide social cohesion to extended families as well as close intermediaries with the netherworld. As active members of their respective households, ancestors were objects of veneration and care but were also subject to social obligations toward their kin. However, the continuity of such cults was not exempt from threats, from gradual oblivion to destruction of tombs. Furthermore, tensions between individual strategies and customary duties toward one's kin were another source of instability, especially when officials sought to create their own funerary services and to transfer them to their direct descendants. Such tensions are particularly visible in social sectors close to the king. The assertion of royal authority depended on the elimination of potential sources of political counterweight, and also on the weakening of kin solidarity among members of the elite. As such, the promotion of the cult of royal ancestors, granting individual rewards to selected members of the court and developing personal contact with gods, was part of this strategy. In other cases, " cultural ancestors " provided prestigious links with golden ages of the past, for instance when authorship of sapiential texts was attributed to famous officials of the past or when scribes wrote graffiti in their tombs. Finally, ancestors and ancestral memories were also invented and manipulated for ideological purposes, such as providing legitimacy in periods of political division or prestigious links with the royal palace and the values it promoted. Ancestor worship thus appears as an active, multifaceted social activity, operating at different levels (individual, domestic/family, community, palace), whose distinctive idiosyncrasies depended on the context in which it operated. Tensions but also mutual influences permeated all these spheres, thus making ancestor cults a dynamic manifestation of social values, political practices, and religious beliefs in pharaonic Egypt.

Since its discovery by Battiscombe Gunn, it is believed that Saqqara's Ostrakon is able to improve our understanding of how Egyptians designed curved elements, but the geometric significance of the hieratic values is still uncertain. Indeed, in order to obtain an indisputable result, the distance between the vertical ordinates is required, and this distance is not explicitly indicated on the limestone artefact.
But since there were no algebraic formulas at the time of the Pharaohs, a simple grid-based procedure was developed such as those used by the Egyptians to reproduce the scale drawings, to try to decipher the geometric meaning of the curve drawn on the find.
To conclude, this simple process permits to understand that the five hieratic values of the Saqqara Ostrakon describe a segmental arch whose span and rise correspond to the architectural proportions of several Egyptian tombs and arches, and that the numerical sequence of the artefact could be considered the most "ancient" mathematical formula of the circle.

Abstract. Leathercraft in pharaonic Egypt and, more particularly, the supply and tanning of hides, opens new perspectives about “invisible” trade and the use of vegetable oils in “industrial” processes. On the one hand, Nubia played an important role as provider of hides and skins and, in some periods, Nubian influence is evident in Egyptian leather processing as well as in Egyptian fashion. On the other hand, castor oil is frequently mentioned in pharaonic sources and, in some periods and places (as in Achaemenid Kharga), it was a key crop, exported to the Nile Valley and essential in lighting (oil lamps), medicine and in the production of cosmetics. However, ethnographic research reveals an additional but neglected role of castor oil, as an essential ingredient in tanning. This article explores the possibility that Nubian trade, castor oil and the production of sandals in selected trade crossroads (such as Thinis and Elephantine) give some clues about “invisible” trade as well as about crafts and technical processes hardly evoked at all in official sources.

Egypt’s New Kingdom emerged from a period of regionalisation, when local communities had developed according to different trajectories that gave rise to diverse socio-cultural transformations. Dynamic and multifaceted, these processes involved a range of internal and external forces, some of which were influenced by cultural encounters. Indeed, those with the ‘rulers of foreign lands’, the Hyksos, have been commonly associated with the introduction of a host of ideas and entities into Egypt. However, the validity and extent of the impact of the Hyksos on the New Kingdom remain insufficiently addressed.
The book explores these points of enquiry, but also expands its analysis in line with current theoretical understandings on the complexity of cultural encounters. It ascertains whether and how consistent Egyptian-Near Eastern encounters in the Middle Bronze Age influenced New Kingdom society, and culture. By assessing a range of archaeological, artistic, and textual material, it clarifies contexts of encounters as well as interrelated agents and mechanisms, questioning the fate of those ruled by the Hyksos. It elucidates the tangible and intangible effects of contact on historical, socio-political, religious, and technological developments, revealing how, amid the many processes of negotiation and change, elements from the Near East seeped into the dynamic and complex socio-cultural framework of Egypt, as it irreversibly transformed into the New Kingdom.

Available for free download: https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/The_Enigma_of_the_Hyksos_Volume_II/title_6793.ahtml

نشأت المملكة الحديثة في مصر من فترة تقسيم إقليمي، عندما تطورت المجتمعات وفقًا لمسارات مختلفة أدت إلى تحولات اجتماعية وثقافية متنوعة. وتشمل هذه التحولات الديناميكية والمتعددة مجموعة من العوامل الداخلية والخارجية، بعضها تأثر باللقاءات الثقافية. ومن بين هؤلاء، تم ربط الهكسوس، أو "حكام الأراضي الأجنبية"، بشكل شائع بإدخال مجموعة من الأفكار والأشياء والتقنيات إلى مصر. ومع ذلك، فإن مدى تأثير الهكسوس على المملكة الحديثة ما زال يحتاج إلى المزيد من التحقيق.

يستكشف الكتاب هذه النقاط التحقيقية، ولكنه يوسع أيضًا تحليله وفقًا للفهم النظري الحالي لتعقيد اللقاءات الثقافية. وهو يتأكد مما إذا كانت وكيف أثرت اللقاءات المصرية-الشرق أدنى المتسقة في العصر البرونزي الأوسط على مجتمع وثقافة المملكة الحديثة. ومن خلال تقييم مجموعة من البيانات الأثرية والفنية والنصية، فإنه يوضح سياق اللقاءات بالإضافة إلى الأشخاص والآلية المترابطة، ويتساءل عن مصير أولئك الذين حكمهم الهكسوس. ويوضح آثار التفاعلات الثقافية على التطورات التاريخية والاجتماعية والسياسية والدينية والتكنولوجية، ويكشف كيف، وسط عمليات التفاوض والتغيير العديدة، تسربت عناصر من الشرق الأدنى إلى الإطار الاجتماعي والثقافي الديناميكي والمعقد لمصر، كما وتحولت مصر إلى المملكة الحديثة.

Since its discovery by Battiscombe Gunn, it is believed that Saqqara's Ostrakon is able to improve our understanding of how Egyptians designed curved elements, but the geometric significance of the hieratic values is still uncertain. Indeed, in order to obtain an indisputable result, the distance between the vertical ordinates is required, and this distance is not explicitly indicated on the limestone artefact.
But since there were no algebraic formulas at the time of the Pharaohs, a simple grid-based procedure was developed such as those used by the Egyptians to reproduce the scale drawings, to try to decipher the geometric meaning of the curve drawn on the find.
To conclude, this simple process permits to understand that the five hieratic values of the Saqqara Ostrakon describe a segmental arch whose span and rise correspond to the architectural proportions of several Egyptian tombs and arches, and that the numerical sequence of the artefact could be considered the most "ancient" mathematical formula of the circle.

This publication explores the animal husbandry practices and their relevance in the daily life of the Egyptians of the Old and Middle Kingdoms and their modern day parallels, of which there are many. Such a study is paramount in understanding how the ancient Egyptians ministered to their herds and developed their unique understanding of farmed animal behaviour. By an examination of scenes of daily life taken from chapel and tomb wall art as they relate to animal husbandry practices from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, Dr Jones compares and contrasts these illustrated practices with “modern” day examples, where applicable. In many cases, his research has indicated that nothing has changed over the period of 5,000 years in many parts of the world, thus emphasising that the ancient Egyptians were highly advanced and skilled in their understanding of those animals that were the focus of their husbandry practices. These practices are the basis of many activities that are still in vogue in parts of the developed and undeveloped worlds.

"The main point is that when one takes into account what we know about ancient Egyptian mathematics (based primarily on the Rhind Papyrus) and what we know about the system of measuring lengths in terms of "cubits," "palms," and "fingers" , everything involves  the number 7 and its multiple.