Lo3 land of the Pharaohs: Egypt

• The Narmer palette: this palette was used for grinding makeup for divine images in an upper Egyptian temple about 1300 B.C. The intertwined necks of two tethered beasts around the grinding area are believed to symbolize the union of the two lands.
• Ancient Egypt: Egyptian civilization grew up in a thin strip of fertile land where the Nile crosses the North African desert, and in the broader region of the rivers delta.
• The Nile and the "Two Lands"
• The Nile played a role in Egypt similar to that of the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia.
• Pharaohs: The rulers of ancient Egypt
• Government by a God-King
• "Hail to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth and comes to keep Egypt alive! Hidden in his darkness by day , to whom minstrels have sung. He that waters the meadows which Re created, in order to keep every kid alive. He makes to drink the desert and the place distant from water: that is his dew coming down (from) heaven."
• Tending the "cattle of God"
• Men and Women under the Pharaohs
• Daughters could not usually inherit government and temple positions, but priests made sure their wives were prestigiously employed in their temples as "Great ones of Musical Troupes," directing the worship of Gods with music and song.
• Gods, Humans, and Everlasting Life
• The Soul Declares its Innocence
• By about 2000 B.C., The judgment of the soul after death and eternal life for those who judged righteous became widely accepted beliefs. The newly dead were thought to travel by night through tests and ordeals in the underworld before rising the next morning with the sun-god Re.
• The Declaration of innocence
• To be said on reaching the hall of the two truths so as to purge[name] of any sins committed and to see the face of every god.
• The writing of the Words of God
• Hieroglyphs: The earliest Egyptian writing, in which pictures stood for whole words or separate sounds of words.
• Calendars and sailboats
• Pyramid: A massive structure with sloping sides that met at an apex, used as a royal tomb in ancient Egypt.
• Pyramids and Temples
• King Menkaure (mycerinus) and his queen, 2500 B.C.: The queen has her arm protected around her husband, a typical pose in Egyptian statues of married couples that testifies to the status and power of upper class women. the kings pose, with his arms at his sides, fists clenched, and left foot forward, remained typical of Egyptian male statues for thousands of years and influenced early Greek sculpture.
• Isis, guide of souls: In his tomb painting, Isis leads Nefertari, principal wife of the New Kingdom pharaoh Ramses II (about 1250 B.C.), into the land of the dead.
• The rhythm of Egypt's history
• After several hundred of years of early state building, the power of the pharaohs first reached its height in the period known to modern scholars as the Old Kingdom, beginning about 2700 B.C.
• "I crushed a million countries by myself, on `Victory-in-Thebes,` `Mut-is-pleased,` My horses": A scene from the Battle of Qadesh in Syria (1274 B.C.), as described by the New kingdom pharaoh Ramses II. The Egyptians have fled before a Hittite army-- except for the pharaoh, who prays to Amon-Re for help, lashes hid horse` reins around his waist, drives against the foe, and scatters them.
• Native Egyptians pharaohs continued to rule Upper Egypt from Thebes, and in 1600 B.C. they were able to defeat the Hyksos rulers and bring the nation into its imperial era, the New kingdom.