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HISTORIA AEGYPTIA

A History of Ancient Egypt and Related Cultures

 

Robert D. Morritt

 

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          The Author explores for the reader a history of Ancient Egypt and presents it in a concise form It is basically  a general overview of the ,with  more detailed information  when considered necessary.  The book concentrates on the life (and their search for the after-life) of Ancient Pharaohs, their society and contemporary trade with other cultures such as Crete and the similarity of their buildings).  The book explores the ‘Dark Period’ of Egyptian history also of individuals such as Menes, also a forgotten Capitol of Pharaonic Egypt

 

          The book ventures into the area of early cylinder seals, tomb inscriptions, of Harkhuf and the tombs of Thebes, early diplomatic archives (El Marna) and archaeological excavations at Susa by Marcel-Auguste Dieukafoy, and early explorers.

 

          A side trip to Syria of the 18th to the 14th Century BCE is included and an account of Syria under Chaldean influence. The Eleusinian Mysteries afford us   a rare opportunity to view contemporary  people as depicted in the Fayum Mummy Portraits.

 

          Also featured is the voyage of Hatshopsouitou, an inscription in Praise of C. Cornelius Prefect of Egypt, Coptos and the Tomb of Antinous in Rome together with  a philosophical Dialogue between an Egyptian and his Soul and an  Egyptian Book of Magic of the First Century A.D. also Egyptian superstitious  belief in lucky and unlucky days

This book is a good companion for one traveling to the area or for those who enjoy a little more information on this era.

 

          It is a far cry to hark back to 11,000 years before Christ, yet borings in the valley of the Nile, have unveiled  the light pottery from the earliest civilizations.  Nature takes countless thousands of years to form and build up her limestone hills, but buried deep within alluvial deposits were excavated stone age edged tools and weapons of fashioned from rudely chipped stone.

 

          The first monarch to reign over all Egypt was Menes, (Menes (Arabic: مينا; Greek:  Μήνης; Egyptian: Meni)   the founder of Memphis. Egypt is the gateway to Africa.  Bunsen fixes the epoch of Menes at B.C. 3643, by Lepsius at B.C. 3892, and by Poole at B.C. 2717.before the reign of Menes Egypt was divided into independent kingdoms.

 

          Egypt, has always been a country of mysteries, the mighty Nile, and its inundations, its trackless desert; tombs and temples; obelisks and pyramids, its  gods: Ra, Osiris, Isis, Apis, Horus, Hathor. The ancient Egyptians were highly cultivated. The age of the Pyramid-builders was a brilliant one. They were constructed during the age of the kings and used a vast amount of human labor The reign of Khufu or Cheops is marked by the building of the great pyramid. The pyramids were the tombs of kings, built in the necropolis of Memphis, ten miles above modern Cairo.

 

          Egyptologists have noted that the whole life of the Egyptians was spent in the contemplation of death; The ancient Egyptians firmly believed that as long as the body remained intact so was their immortality. From this viewpoint arose the art of embalming of the great, stone structures erected to secure the inviolability of the entombed monarch.