to have adapted Egyptian forms. Apparently the Egyptians also learned from the Hyksos invaders, adapting their arts of war, and eventually drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. *
A new succession of kings emerged, originally based in the Upper Egypt city of Thebes, and began using the title “pharaoh.” These kings developed a permanent standing army that used horse-drawn chariots and other advanced military techniques introduced during the Hyksos period, ushering in the five-hundred-year period of the New Kingdom . Beginning in 1550 BCE with Ahmose, the Eigthteenth Dynasty pharaoh credited with expelling the Hyksos from Egypt, this era saw ancient Egypt become the world’s greatest power, and it includes some of the most familiar names in Egyptian history—Thutmose III, Queen Hatshepsut, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, and a series of pharaohs named Ramses, of biblical fame.
During this era, Egypt also began an aggressive military expansion, and Thutmose I took armies as far as the Euphrates River. His daughter, Queen Hatshepsut, became one of the first known ruling queens in world history, but presented herself publicly and was depicted in art as a bearded man. Egypt reached the height of its power during the 1400s BCE under Thutmose III. Dubbed the “Napoleon of Ancient Egypt,” Thutmose III aggressively set out to expand Egypt’s boundaries, led military expeditions into Asia, and reestablished Egyptian control over neighboring African kingdoms, making Egypt the strongest and wealthiest nation in the Middle East.
What do we know about Egyptian myth and how do we know it?
History is sometimes mystery. We often “don’t know much about” the truth of events taking place in our own lifetimes. So how can we possibly understand or know about a place that existed in a time before books, newspapers, and photographs? In the case of Egypt, fortunately, we have a society that spent a great deal of energy on the idea of posterity. The Egyptians were proud of what they had achieved, and some kings in particular spared little expense in making sure the world knew about what they had done. And much of it was, as the expression goes, “set in stone.”
Remarkably well-preserved scrolls, thousands of years old, show Egypt as a highly literate society. We have Egyptian accounts of people doing their taxes, manuals of polite conduct that are 4,500 years old, and letters in which fathers admonish their sons to work hard at scribe school so they won’t have to make a living as carpenters, fishermen, or worse, laundry men—a job in which the occupational hazards included washing the garments of menstruating women while dodging Nile crocodiles. Achieving the status of a scribe was a high honor for an upwardly mobile young Egyptian commoner with social aspirations. Ancient Egypt, in other words, was a literate culture that prized learning.
Which makes it all the more surprising that there is no ancient Egyptian Bible, Koran, Odyssey , or Gilgamesh epic, in which poets would have organized and gathered an “authorized” version of Egyptian mythology. Much of what we know about Egypt’s myths, beliefs, and history has been carefully reconstructed from an elaborate array of funerary literature and art uncovered and translated during the past two hundred years. Few ancient civilizations documented their beliefs in as rich a detail and in so many locations as the Egyptians did. Obviously it helps that they had more than three thousand years to create that mother lode of art and architecture. Despite several centuries of grave robberies and plundering by invaders, the world has been left with a vast treasury that includes art, artifacts, and writings found in thousands of tombs, temples, and burial sites located throughout Egypt.
As anyone who has wandered through an old cemetery knows, you can learn a lot from burial plots. Sometimes a simple headstone can provide a world of information about whole families and what
A new succession of kings emerged, originally based in the Upper Egypt city of Thebes, and began using the title “pharaoh.” These kings developed a permanent standing army that used horse-drawn chariots and other advanced military techniques introduced during the Hyksos period, ushering in the five-hundred-year period of the New Kingdom . Beginning in 1550 BCE with Ahmose, the Eigthteenth Dynasty pharaoh credited with expelling the Hyksos from Egypt, this era saw ancient Egypt become the world’s greatest power, and it includes some of the most familiar names in Egyptian history—Thutmose III, Queen Hatshepsut, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, and a series of pharaohs named Ramses, of biblical fame.
During this era, Egypt also began an aggressive military expansion, and Thutmose I took armies as far as the Euphrates River. His daughter, Queen Hatshepsut, became one of the first known ruling queens in world history, but presented herself publicly and was depicted in art as a bearded man. Egypt reached the height of its power during the 1400s BCE under Thutmose III. Dubbed the “Napoleon of Ancient Egypt,” Thutmose III aggressively set out to expand Egypt’s boundaries, led military expeditions into Asia, and reestablished Egyptian control over neighboring African kingdoms, making Egypt the strongest and wealthiest nation in the Middle East.
What do we know about Egyptian myth and how do we know it?
History is sometimes mystery. We often “don’t know much about” the truth of events taking place in our own lifetimes. So how can we possibly understand or know about a place that existed in a time before books, newspapers, and photographs? In the case of Egypt, fortunately, we have a society that spent a great deal of energy on the idea of posterity. The Egyptians were proud of what they had achieved, and some kings in particular spared little expense in making sure the world knew about what they had done. And much of it was, as the expression goes, “set in stone.”
Remarkably well-preserved scrolls, thousands of years old, show Egypt as a highly literate society. We have Egyptian accounts of people doing their taxes, manuals of polite conduct that are 4,500 years old, and letters in which fathers admonish their sons to work hard at scribe school so they won’t have to make a living as carpenters, fishermen, or worse, laundry men—a job in which the occupational hazards included washing the garments of menstruating women while dodging Nile crocodiles. Achieving the status of a scribe was a high honor for an upwardly mobile young Egyptian commoner with social aspirations. Ancient Egypt, in other words, was a literate culture that prized learning.
Which makes it all the more surprising that there is no ancient Egyptian Bible, Koran, Odyssey , or Gilgamesh epic, in which poets would have organized and gathered an “authorized” version of Egyptian mythology. Much of what we know about Egypt’s myths, beliefs, and history has been carefully reconstructed from an elaborate array of funerary literature and art uncovered and translated during the past two hundred years. Few ancient civilizations documented their beliefs in as rich a detail and in so many locations as the Egyptians did. Obviously it helps that they had more than three thousand years to create that mother lode of art and architecture. Despite several centuries of grave robberies and plundering by invaders, the world has been left with a vast treasury that includes art, artifacts, and writings found in thousands of tombs, temples, and burial sites located throughout Egypt.
As anyone who has wandered through an old cemetery knows, you can learn a lot from burial plots. Sometimes a simple headstone can provide a world of information about whole families and what
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