Pyramids

Civilization of Mesopotamia

The most important feature of the ancient Egyptian civilization there was the construction of pyramids. In the III - II millennium BC. e. both pyramids and temples - buildings for the gods - were built of stone. These are masterpieces of ancient Egyptian building art. The efforts of the Egyptians were aimed at making life after death long, safe and happy: they took care of funeral utensils, sacrifices, and these concerns led to the fact that the life of an Egyptian consisted of preparations for death. They often paid less attention to their earthly dwellings than to their tombs.

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Ancient Egyptian civilization originated in the Nile Delta region. During the history of Ancient Egypt, 30 dynasties of rulers changed. 32 BC e. considered the boundary of the existence of ancient Egyptian civilization. The encirclement of Egypt by mountains predetermined the closed nature of the civilization that arose here, which was of an agricultural nature. Agricultural work, thanks to favorable climatic conditions, did not require much physical effort; the ancient Egyptians harvested crops twice a year. They processed clay, stone, wood and metals. Farming tools were made from baked clay. In addition, granite, alabaster, slate and bone were also used. Small vessels were sometimes carved from rock crystal. The perception and measurement of time in Ancient Egypt was determined by the rhythm of the Nile flood. Every New Year was regarded by the Egyptians as a repetition of the past and was determined not by the solar cycle, but by the time required to harvest the harvest. They depicted the word “year” (“renpet”) in the form of a young sprout with a bud. The annual cycle was divided into three seasons of 4 months each: the flood of the Nile (akhet - “flood, flood”), after which came the sowing season (peret - “emergence” of the earth from under the waters and the germination of seedlings), followed by the harvest season (shemu – “drought”, “dryness”), i.e. recession of the Nile. The months did not have names, but were numbered. Every fourth year was a leap year, every fifth day of the decade was a day off. The time was kept by the priests. The high standard of living and well-being of the ancient Egyptians is confirmed by the fact that they had two customs that were not typical for other ancient civilizations: leaving all old people and all newborn babies alive. The main clothing of the Egyptians was the loincloth. They wore sandals very rarely, and the main means of demonstrating their social status was the amount of jewelry (necklaces, bracelets). The ancient Egyptian state had the features of a centralized despotism. The pharaoh was the personification of the state: administrative, judicial and military powers were united in his hands. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Ra (the sun god in Egyptian mythology) took care of their well-being and sent his son, the pharaoh, to earth. Each pharaoh was regarded as the son of the god Ra. The pharaoh's tasks included performing sacred, cult rituals in temples in order for the country to be prosperous. Daily life The pharaoh's life was strictly regulated, since he was the high priest of all the gods. Speaking modern language, the pharaohs were professional statesmen who had necessary knowledge and experience. Their power was unlimited, but not limitless. And since power was inherited from the Egyptians through the maternal line, the eldest son of the pharaoh and his eldest daughter had to enter into an incestuous marriage. The ancient Egyptian state was divided into certain geographical units - nomes, which were ruled by nomarchs wholly subordinate to the pharaoh. A feature of the political system of Ancient Egypt was that, firstly, the central and local authorities were in the hands of the same social stratum - the nobility, and secondly, administrative functions, as a rule, were combined with priestly ones, that is, temple the farm also supported some government officials. In general, the management system of the ancient Egyptian state was characterized by the undifferentiation of economic and political functions, the undividedness of legislative and executive powers, military and civil, religious and secular, administrative and judicial. An effective system of internal and exchange trade existed in Ancient Egypt already from predynastic times. Internal trade became especially widespread in the 2000s.

FEATURES OF THE CIVILIZATION OF ANCIENT EGYPT

BC, when the word “merchant” first appears in the Egyptian lexicon. Silver bullion is gradually replacing grain as a measure of market value. In Ancient Egypt, not gold, but silver served as money, since gold was a symbol of divinity, providing the body of the pharaoh with an eternal afterlife. A systemic feature of the organization of ancient Egyptian society was the possession of a profession. The main positions - warrior, artisan, priest, official - were inherited, but it was also possible to “take office” or be “appointed to a position.” The social regulator here was the annual reviews of the working population, during which people received a kind of annual “outfit” to work in accordance with their profession. The bulk of able-bodied Egyptians were used in agriculture, the rest were employed in crafts or the service sector. The strongest young men were selected during examinations for the army. From among ordinary Egyptians serving their labor service, detachments were formed that worked on the construction of palaces and pyramids, temples and tombs. A large amount of unskilled labor was used in the construction of irrigation systems, in the rowing fleet, and in the transportation of heavy loads. The construction of colossal monuments such as the pyramids contributed to the formation of a new structure of human organization in which state-administered labor could be directed toward public works.

Culture of Ancient Egypt.

Eastern type of culture.

Subject. Culture of the Ancient East.

1. Eastern type of culture.
2. Culture of Ancient Egypt.

In the 4th millennium BC, the first states in human history appeared in the East between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and in the Nile River valley. The foundations of the Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations were laid. In the 3-2 millennia, the Indian civilization appeared in the Indus River valley, the Chinese civilization in the Honghe River valley, the civilization of the Hittites and Phoenicians in Asia Minor and Western Asia, and the Hebrew civilization in Palestine.

Specifics eastern type culture in relation to

A. primitive culture:

Separation of crafts from agriculture,

- social strata that differ in professional activities and financial status,

- presence of writing, statehood, civil society, urban life.

B. from other crops:

Despotic centralized power

Sacralization of power

State property

Strict hierarchy of society

Collectivism, community psychology

Patriarchal slavery, other forms of dependence

Ancestor cult, traditionalism, conservatism

Merging man and nature

Religious beliefs of an introverted nature (aspiration to inner world person), search highest truth through personal enlightenment

The idea of ​​tranquility and harmony as a leitmotif of Eastern culture

It is not necessary to believe in specific gods, since the World Law, Tao, Brahman, etc. can be higher than God.

Religion and philosophy are not separate

The idea of ​​cyclicality, repetition, isolation (for European culture - development, progress)

The eternal world of law realizes itself after death through the rebirth of the soul, the nature of which is determined by the way of life

The idea of ​​illusory visible world and the reality of the unknowable absolute

The mystical esoteric character of the mind: a person does not live in the world, but experiences (perceives with feelings) the world. The essence is not logic (European rationality), but feelings.

The basis of the culture was an archaic worldview: the denial of personality in the modern sense, the consequence of which was harshness and cruelty towards people, especially towards strangers; reference point to myth, ritual, subordination to the natural cycle.

Meaning.

3) Civilization of Ancient Egypt

Culture had a huge influence on ancient, European and world culture, made many discoveries that formed the basis scientific knowledge and technical progress.

Egypt is an ancient state that existed for about four thousand years with almost no changes. Its systematic study began in the 19th century. In 1822, the French scientist Francois Champillon managed to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. As a result, wall inscriptions and manuscripts (papyri) of various contents became available for study. Main features of ancient Egyptian civilization:

- early emergence of class relations and statehood;

Isolated geographical location countries that led to the absence of cultural borrowing;

Cult of the "Kingdom of the Dead"

- deification of the power of the ruler, which extended to his subjects even after the death of the pharaoh;

— eastern despotism, hierarchy of power;

- the connection between art and religious worship.

Ancient Egypt- the oldest civilization, one of the first centers of human culture, arose in North-East Africa, in the Nile River valley. The word "Egypt" (Greek Aigyuptos) means "Black Land", fertile (compare: black soil), in contrast to the desert - "Red Land". Herodotus called Egypt “The Gift of the Nile.” The Nile was the basis of the economy.

Traditional periodization:

Predynastic period 5-4 thousand BC

Early Kingdom 3000-2300 BC

First collapse of Egypt 2250-2050 BC.

Middle Kingdom 2050 – 2700 BC

Second collapse of Egypt 1700-1580 BC.

New Kingdom 1580-1070 BC

Late period 1070-332 BC

— Greco-Roman period 332 BC – 395 AD

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Civilization of Ancient Egypt

The formation of civilization on the banks of the Nile.

Egypt is a country with an ancient, amazing culture, full of secrets and mysteries, many of which have not yet been resolved. Its history goes back several thousand years. Historians claim that Egyptian civilization had neither “childhood” nor “youth”. One of the hypotheses about the origin of Egyptian civilization claims that some mysterious settlers stood at the origins of Egyptian civilization, another hypothesis says that the founders were descendants of the Atlanteans.

Two centuries ago, the world knew almost nothing about Ancient Egypt. The second life of its culture is the merit of scientists.

Circles formed for the first time Western Europe got the opportunity to become more or less widely acquainted with the culture of ancient Egypt thanks to the military expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt in 1798, which included various scientists, in particular archaeologists. After this expedition, a most valuable work was published, dedicated to the “Description of Egypt,” which consisted of 24 volumes of text and 24 volumes of tables reproducing drawings of the ruins of ancient Egyptian temples, copies of inscriptions and numerous antiquities.

Pyramids

Civilization of Mesopotamia

Natural features, their influence on the economy of the Egyptians.

Natural conditions became a significant factor in the development of ancient Egyptian civilization. In the Nile Valley, the Egyptians harvested two crops a year, and the harvest was very, abundant - up to 100 centners per hectare. However, this valley made up 3.5% of Egypt's territory, containing 99.5% of the population.

The culture developed in isolation; its characteristic feature was traditionalism. The origin of Egyptian civilization dates back to the 3rd millennium BC: it was then that Pharaoh Mina united disparate regions - nomes. The pharaoh's head is crowned with a double diadem - a symbol of the unity of the South of Egypt and the Delta region.

Features of the political system of Egypt. The deification of the pharaoh, the special role of the priesthood.

“The secret of power, the secret of people’s subordination to the bearers of power has still not been fully solved,” wrote N.A. Berdyaev. “Why is it that a huge number of people, on the side of which there is a predominance of physical force, agree to obey one person or a small group of people, if they - bearers of power? (“The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar.” In the book “The Fate of Russia.” - M., 1990, p. 267).

The head of the state was the pharaoh. He had absolute power in the country: all of Egypt with its colossal natural, land, material, and labor resources was considered the property of the pharaoh. It is no coincidence that the concept of “House of the Pharaoh” - (nom) coincided with the concept of the state.

Religion in ancient Egypt demanded unquestioning obedience to the pharaoh, otherwise a person would face terrible disasters during life and after death. It seemed to the Egyptians that only the gods could grant them such unlimited power as the pharaohs enjoyed. This is how the idea of ​​the divinity of the pharaoh was formed in Egypt - he was recognized as the son of god in the flesh. AND ordinary people, and noble nobles fell on their faces before the pharaoh and kissed the footprints of his feet. Pharaoh's permission to kiss his sandal was considered a great favor. The deification of the pharaohs occupied a central place in religious culture Egypt.

The Egyptians recognized the presence of the divine principle "in everything that is on land, in water and in the air." Some animals, plants, and objects were revered as embodiments of deity. The Egyptians worshiped cats, snakes, crocodiles, rams, dung beetles - scarabs and many other living creatures, considering them their gods.

Religious beliefs of the Egyptians. Myths about the creation of the universe. Sun worship. Formation of the Egyptian pantheon of deities personifying natural phenomena, abstract concepts and life. Anthropomorphic character of Egyptian gods. Cult of sacred animals.

Mortuary cult. Cult of the dead. Egyptian ideas about several hypostases of the human soul and the need to preserve the body as a container for the soul. Mummification. Formation of concepts about the afterlife and the posthumous judgment of Osiris. “Book of the Dead”, “Pyramid Texts”, “Sarcophagi Texts”. The influence of religion on the life of ancient Egyptian society.

The most important feature of the religion and culture of Ancient Egypt was a protest against death, which the Egyptians considered an “abnormality.” The Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul - this was the main doctrine of the Egyptian religion. The passionate desire for immortality determined the entire worldview of the Egyptians, the entire religious thought of Egyptian society. It is believed that in no other civilization has this protest against death found such a vivid, concrete and complete expression as in Egypt. The desire for immortality became the basis for the emergence of a funeral cult, which played an extremely large role in the history of Ancient Egypt - and not only religious and cultural, but also political, economic and military. It was on the basis of the Egyptians’ disagreement with the inevitability of death that the creed was born, according to which death does not mean the end, wonderful life can be extended forever, and the deceased can expect resurrection.

Egyptian mythology as the basis of Egyptian “art for eternity.” The determining influence of the funeral cult in artistic culture Egypt. Pyramids of the Old Kingdom, mortuary temples of the Middle and New Kingdoms.

The most important feature of ancient Egyptian civilization was the construction of the pyramids. In the III - II millennium BC. e. both pyramids and temples - buildings for the gods - were built of stone. These are masterpieces of ancient Egyptian building art.

Features of Ancient Egypt

The efforts of the Egyptians were aimed at making life after death long, safe and happy: they took care of funeral utensils, sacrifices, and these concerns led to the fact that the life of an Egyptian consisted of preparations for death. They often paid less attention to their earthly dwellings than to their tombs.

The pyramids were built for the pharaohs and for the nobility, although according to the beliefs of the Egyptian priests, every person, and not just a king or nobleman, had eternal life force. However, the bodies of the poor were not embalmed or placed in tombs, but were wrapped in mats and dumped in heaps on the outskirts of cemeteries.

Archaeologists have counted about a hundred pyramids, but not all of them have survived to this day. Some of the pyramids were destroyed already in ancient times. The earliest of the Egyptian pyramids is the pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser, erected about 5 thousand years ago. It is stepped and rises like a staircase to heaven. Its decoration uses the light-and-shadow contrast of the projections and niches. This pyramid was conceived and implemented by the chief royal architect named Imhotep. Subsequent generations of Egyptians revered him as a great architect, sage and magician. He was deified and libations were poured in his honor before other construction work began. Pyramids amaze people with their size and geometric precision.

The most famous and largest in size is the pyramid of Pharaoh Cheops in Giza. It is known that only the road to the future construction site took 10 years, and the pyramid itself took more than 20 years to build; These jobs employed a huge number of people—hundreds of thousands. The dimensions of the pyramid are such that any European cathedral could easily fit inside: its height was 146.6 m, and its area was about 55 thousand square meters. m. The Pyramid of Cheops is made of giant limestone stones, and the weight of each block is approximately 2 - 3 tons.

Sculpture and painting, their sacred role.

The artists of Ancient Egypt had a sense of the beauty of life and nature. Architects, sculptors, and painters were distinguished by a subtle sense of harmony and a holistic view of the world. This was expressed, in particular, in the inherent desire for synthesis in Egyptian culture - the creation of a single architectural ensemble in which all types of fine arts.

Sphinxes were placed in front of mortuary temples: a stone image of a creature with the head of a man and the body of a lion. The head of the sphinx represented the pharaoh, and the sphinx as a whole personified the wisdom, mystery and strength of the Egyptian ruler.

The largest of all ancient Egyptian sphinxes was made in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. — he still guards the Pyramid of Khafre (one of the 7 wonders of the world).

Other remarkable monuments of ancient Egyptian art that are now widely known throughout the world are the statue of Pharaoh Amenemhet III, the stele of the nobleman Hunen, and the head of Pharaoh Sensusert III. A masterpiece of ancient Egyptian fine art of the 2nd millennium BC. art historians consider the relief depicting Pharaoh Tutankhamun with his 29 young wives in the garden, made on the lid of the casket. Tutankhamun died young. His tomb was accidentally discovered in 1922, although cunningly disguised in the rock.

Confirmation of the high culture of Egypt in the 1st millennium BC. e. (XIV century BC) is a sculptural portrait of the wife of Amenhotep IV - Nefertiti (ancient Egyptian - “the beauty is coming”) - one of the most beautiful female images in the history of mankind.

The fine arts of Ancient Egypt were distinguished by bright and pure colors. Colored architectural structures, sphinxes, sculpture, figurines, reliefs. The paintings and reliefs that covered the walls of the tombs reproduced in detail detailed pictures of a prosperous life in the kingdom of the dead, and everyday earthly life.

It should be noted the influence of ancient Egyptian civilization on the Mediterranean countries. The civilization of Egypt has made a huge contribution to world culture.

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One of the world's oldest civilizations, the civilization of Egypt originated in Northeast Africa, in the valley of one of the longest rivers in the world - the Nile. It is generally accepted that the word "Egypt" comes from the ancient Greek "Aigyptos". It probably arose from Het-ka-Ptah, a city that the Greeks later called Memphis. The Egyptians themselves called their country Ta Keme - Black Land: after the color of the local soil. The history of Ancient Egypt is usually divided into the periods of the Ancient (end of the 4th - most of the 3rd millennium BC), Middle (until the 16th century BC), New (until the end of the 11th century BC) kingdoms, late (X-IV centuries) , as well as Persian (525-332 BC - under the rule of the Persians) and Hellenistic (IV-I centuries BC, as part of the Ptolemaic state). From 30 BC to 395 AD, Egypt was a province and granary of Rome, after the division of the Roman Empire until 639 it was a province of Byzantium. The Arab conquest of 639-642 led to a change in the ethnic composition of the population, language and religion in Egypt.

Ancient Egypt

According to Herodotus, Egypt is the gift of the Nile, for the Nile was and is a source of inexhaustible fertility, the basis economic activity population, since almost the entire territory of Egypt lies in the zone of tropical deserts. The relief of most of the country is a plateau with prevailing altitudes of up to 1000 meters within the Libyan, Arabian and Nubian deserts. Ancient Egypt and its neighboring regions had almost everything necessary for human existence and activity. The territory of Egypt in ancient times was a narrow ribbon of fertile soil stretching along the banks of the Nile. Every year during floods, the fields of Egypt were covered with water, which brought with it fertile silt that enriched the soil. On both sides the valley was bordered by mountain ranges rich in sandstone, limestone, granite, basalt, diorite and alabaster, which were excellent building materials. Rich gold deposits were discovered south of Egypt, in Nubia. There were no metals in Egypt itself, so they were mined in the adjacent areas: copper on the Sinai Peninsula, gold in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, lead on the Red Sea coast.

Signs of civilization of Ancient Egypt

Egypt occupied an advantageous geographical position: the Mediterranean Sea connected it with the Western Asian coast, Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece.

The Nile was the most important shipping route connecting Upper and Lower Egypt with Nubia (Ethiopia). In such favorable conditions, the construction of irrigation canals began in this territory already in the 5th-4th millennium BC. The need to maintain an extensive irrigation network led to the emergence of nomes - large territorial associations of early agricultural communities. The very word denoting the region - nom - was written in the ancient Egyptian language with a hieroglyph depicting the land divided by an irrigation network into areas of regular shape. The system of ancient Egyptian nomes, formed in the 4th millennium BC, remained the basis of the administrative division of Egypt until the very end of its existence.

The creation of a unified system of irrigation agriculture became a prerequisite for the emergence of a centralized state in Egypt. At the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, the process of uniting individual nomes began. The narrow river valley - from the first Nile rapids to the delta - and the region of the delta itself were developed differently. This is the difference throughout Egyptian history was preserved in the division of the country into Upper and Lower Egypt and was reflected even in the title of the pharaohs, who were called “kings of Upper and Lower Egypt.” The ancient Egyptian crown was also twofold: the pharaohs wore white Upper Egyptian and red Lower Egyptian crowns inserted into each other. Egyptian tradition attributes the merit of unifying the country to the first Pharaoh I Ming dynasty Herodotus says that he founded Memphis and was its first ruler.

From this time on, the era of the so-called Early Kingdom began in Egypt, which covers the period of the reign of the 1st and 2nd dynasties. Information about this era is very scarce. It is known that already at that time there was a large and carefully managed royal economy in Egypt, and agriculture and cattle breeding were developed. They grew barley, wheat, grapes, figs and dates, and raised large and small livestock. The inscriptions on the seals that have reached us indicate the existence of a developed system of government positions and titles.

History of ancient civilizations →

Egyptian State →

The concept of properties, the value nature of culture, the structure of culture

The work was added to the website samzan.ru: 2016-03-05

Examination questions for the test (exam) (correspondence)

1. Subject, goals, tasks of cultural studies.
2. Concept, properties, value nature of culture
3. Structure of culture.
4. Basic functions of culture.
5. Culturogenesis basic approaches and concepts.
6. Subjects and institutions of culture.
7. Typology of cultures.
8. Theoretical concepts of the emergence and development of culture.
9. Languages ​​of cultural form, classification.
10. The relationship between the concepts of culture and civilization.
11. Culture and religion.
12. The culture of primitive society.
13. Sociocultural characteristics of ancient Egyptian society.
14. Basic principles of culture ancient india. Hinduism.
15. Buddhism as a religious and philosophical worldview.
16. Taoism: theory and practice.
17. The role of Confucianism in Chinese culture.
18. Peculiarities of human worldview in the culture of Ancient Greece.
19. Specifics of sociocultural development Ancient Rome. Greece and Rome: general and special.
20. The world, man, society in the Muslim picture of the world. Islam.
21. Man in the culture of the European Middle Ages. Christianity as a cultural phenomenon.
22. Romanesque and Gothic in medieval Europe.
23. Revival: general characteristics. Principles of humanism and anthropocentrism: essence and significance for European culture.
24. Reformation in European culture.
25. The idea of ​​progress and its role in the European culture of the Enlightenment.
26. Classicism, baroque, sentimentalism, rococo: general characteristics of styles.
27. Basic ideas and trends in the development of European culture in the 19th century. (positivism, communism, irrationalism, Eurocentrism, scientism).
28. Romanticism in European culture.
29. Realism, naturalism, impressionism, modernism as sociocultural projects, their reflection in art.
30. Postmodernism in European culture of the 20th century.
31. Culture of Kievan Rus 9-13 centuries. (conditions for the formation of the Slavic ethnic group, the state, the Baptism of Rus' as a turning point in its history).
32. Culture of Moscow Rus' 14-17 centuries. (Orthodoxy in the history of Russian culture, the ideological significance of the concept of “Moscow is the third Rome”, the problem of Schism in the sociodynamics of Russian culture).
33. Historical and cultural meaning of Peter's reforms, features of the Russian Enlightenment.
34. Domestic thinkers of the 19th century. in search of the “Russian idea” (A. Herzen, P.

    Name the features of the civilization of Ancient Egypt.

    Chaadaev, N. Berdyaev, “Slavophiles” and “Westerners”).

35. "Silver Age" of Russian culture.
36. Features of socialist culture.
37. Problems of development of Russian culture in the post-Soviet period.
38. "East-West" problem of dialogue.

39. Globalization of cultural and historical processes in the 20th century.

Ancient Egyptian civilization arose in the Nile Delta region. Throughout the history of Ancient Egypt, thirty dynasties of rulers changed. Thirty-second year BC. e. considered the boundary of the existence of the civilization of Ancient Egypt.

The inhabitants of this advanced civilization of antiquity never celebrated their birthdays. What was the reason for this - to this day there is no one generally accepted answer...

Mountains surrounded Egypt; this predetermined the closed nature of the civilization that appeared here, which was of an agricultural nature. Agricultural labor, due to favorable climatic conditions, did not require much physical effort; the Egyptians harvested crops twice a year. engaged in the processing of clay, stone, wood and metal. Farming tools were made from baked clay. In addition, granite, alabaster, slate and bone were also used. Small vessels were sometimes carved from rock crystal.

The ancient Egyptians based their perception and measurement of time on the rhythm of the Nile flood. Each subsequent year was regarded by them as a repetition of the past and was determined not by the solar cycle, but by the time needed to harvest. The months did not have names, but were numbered. Every fourth year was a leap year, every fifth day of the decade was a day off. The priests kept track of time.

The Egyptians divided the day into 12 hours and 12 hours into night. Each hour had its own name. The first hour of the day was called “brilliant”, the sixth - “the hour of rising”, etc.

In addition, all days of the year were divided into three categories - happy, dangerous and unlucky - depending on the events that marked them at the time when the gods lived on earth. Thus, the ancient Egyptians behaved according to the days. On an unlucky day, they tried not to leave the house, especially at sunset and at night. On such a day it was impossible to swim, sail on boats, go on a journey, eat fish or anything that comes from water. Traditions played the main role in regulating behavior. There were calendars where happy and unlucky days were marked.

The Egyptian pyramids are today the last “active” wonder of the world. Other miracles disappeared into the mists of history without a trace. The Great Pyramid of Cheops was built about 3,000 years ago. Its construction took 2,300,000 huge stone blocks, the total mass of which is 7,000,000 tons.

The high standard of living and well-being in the Ancient Egyptian civilization is confirmed by the fact that they had two customs that were not typical for other civilizations of antiquity: leaving all old people and all newborn babies alive.

The main clothing of the Egyptians is the loincloth. They wore sandals quite rarely, and the main means of demonstrating their social status was the amount of jewelry (necklaces, bracelets).

The ancient Egyptians believed that everything in the world belongs to the gods, that the gods are the source of universal prosperity, that they know their thoughts and desires and can intervene in the affairs of people at any time. Meanwhile, the nature of the gods was consubstantial with the human: the gods were credited with human qualities, each had their own character, they had families.

An indisputable fact in our time is that antibiotics first began to be actively used only in the 20th century. But not everyone knows about the fact that thousands of years ago in Egypt, some of the infectious diseases were treated with moldy bread. It turns out that it was the ancient Egyptians who should be considered pioneers in the use of antibiotics for medicinal purposes.

The Egyptians believed that after death they would go to the court of the god Osiris (Usir - the king of the underworld), who would weigh their good and bad deeds on the scales. They sought to ensure that life in the afterlife was no different from life on earth. The bodies were embalmed. A wealthy person prepared an afterlife house for himself in advance, therefore every city of the living had a city of the dead - it was located in the desert next to the city.

The ancient Egyptian state had 4 centralized despotisms. The pharaoh was the personification of the state: he united administrative, judicial and military powers. The Egyptians believed that the god Ra (the sun god according to Egyptian mythology) was concerned about their well-being and sent his son, the pharaoh, to earth. Each pharaoh was regarded as the son of the god Ra. The duties of the pharaoh included performing sacred, cult rituals in temples in order for the country to be prosperous. The daily life of the pharaoh was strictly regulated, because he was the high priest of all the gods.

As you know, the French are the trendsetters in the wine business. But few people know that the first wine cellar was discovered in Egypt. In addition, the ancient Egyptians were the first to brew beer.

The civilization of Ancient Egypt already had an effective system of internal and exchange trade since predynastic times. Internal trade became especially widespread in the 2nd millennium BC. e., when the word “merchant” first appeared in the Egyptian lexicon. Silver bars gradually replaced grain as a measure of market values. In Ancient Egypt, not gold, but silver served as money, because gold was a symbol of divinity, providing the body of the pharaoh with an eternal afterlife. The main means of transport in Egypt are ships and boats, the main trade routes are rivers and canals. On land roads built along dams, pack animals, primarily donkeys, were used.

A systemic feature of the organization of ancient Egyptian society was the possession of a profession. The main position - warrior, artisan, priest, official - was inherited, but it was also possible to “take office” or be “appointed to a position.” The bulk of able-bodied Egyptians were used in agriculture, the rest were employed in crafts or the service sector.

The ancient Egyptians used pigeons to convey messages to each other.

The civilization of Ancient Egypt dates back about three thousand years. Scientists distinguish 5 periods of development of ancient Egyptian civilization: Early, Ancient, Middle, New and Late Kingdoms.

Early kingdom XXXI–XXIX centuries. BC e.

The times of struggle between Upper and Lower Egypt for hegemony. Upper Egypt was victorious, whose pharaohs founded the First Pan-Egyptian Dynasty. The ancestor of the 1st dynasty was Pharaoh Minu. Mina built the first Egyptian capital - Memphis, at the junction of the delta and valley. The patron of the Mina dynasty was the god Horus. During the reign of the Second Dynasty of the Early Kingdom, the hidden struggle between Lower and Upper Egypt continued. Pharaoh Josehemui achieved the final unification of Egypt into one strong centralized state. After him, the pharaohs of the Second Dynasty began to call themselves not only by the name of Horus (patron of Upper Egypt), but also by the name of Set (patron of Lower Egypt).

Ancient kingdom of the XXVIII–XXIII centuries. BC e.

During this period, the pharaohs achieved a great concentration of human and material resources. Agriculture and technology (copper metallurgy) reached their peak. The first civil and religious laws are created, the first canons of art are established. It was only during the Old Kingdom that the great Egyptian pyramids were built. This is evidence of the flourishing of civilization, since the construction of the pyramids required enormous resources and knowledge.

The founder of the III dynasty, Pharaoh Djoser, owned the first pyramid. It was during the era of the Old Kingdom that the concept of the deification of the pharaoh was recorded. The V Dynasty abandoned the construction of pyramids - economic decline began. Temples of the god Ra are actively being built, whose cult is becoming the main one in the state. During the VI Dynasty economic crisis reached its limit, the country broke up into independent nomes, and the first transition period began (XXIII–XXI centuries BC).

Middle Kingdom XXI–XVIII centuries. BC e.

By the end of the transition period, two unifying centers emerged: in the north - Heracleopolis, in the south - Thebes. Thebes wins the struggle and their ruler Mentuhotep founded the XI pan-Egyptian dynasty. A new flowering of ancient Egyptian society began. The Egyptians modernized and complicated the irrigation system, creating the first artificial seas. Now agriculture no longer depends on the Nile floods.

At this time, Egypt actively trades with surrounding countries. Trade caravans travel across the Isthmus of Suez to the Middle East and across the Red Sea to Africa. During the Middle Kingdom, the leading cult became the cult of the god Amun, centered in Thebes. The Middle Kingdom ended with the Hyksos invasion late XVIII V. BC e. Egypt again broke up into separate nomes. The Hyksos (XV–XVI dynasties) rule only in Southern Egypt. Their reign is called the II transition period.

New Kingdom of the 16th–12th centuries. BC e.

Thebes, even under the rule of the Hyksos, remained a strong independent center. The 17th dynasty ruled here, whose pharaohs led the fight to expel the Hyksos from Egypt. Pharaoh Ahmose completely defeated the Hyksos and laid the foundation for the 18th pan-Egyptian dynasty. The era of the New Kingdom is characterized by the emergence of the Egyptian Empire. A strong conquering army was created using mercenaries. The army captured Palestine and Syria in the north, and reached the third Nile cataract in the south.

During this period, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton) tries to break the priesthood by replacing the main god of the empire, Amun, with the god Aten. This attempt to create the first monotheistic religion was not completed, since Akhenaten ruled for only 15 years. After his death, everything returned to normal. Egypt reached its greatest power under Pharaoh Ramesses II the Great (XIX Dynasty). He reigned for 66 years; his era was the most stable and is marked by massive construction projects. With the death of Ramses II comes a slow decline and transition to the next era.

Late kingdom XI–IV centuries. BC e.

Egypt is under the rule of foreigners - the Libyan and Ethiopian dynasties, and then became a province of the Assyrian and Persian powers. In the 4th century. BC e. Egypt was conquered. This is where the history of Ancient Egyptian civilization ends and the Hellenistic era begins.

The ancient Egyptians attached great importance. They viewed death as a transition to another, better life. To preserve the three souls of a person - ka, ba and ah - it was considered necessary to preserve the bodies of the dead (in the pre-dynastic era, bodies were buried in shallow pits, which made it possible for them to be preserved in hot sand and thereby avoid decay; from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC . e., in the era of the New Kingdom, they developed the embalming technique).

It was believed that after death, the deceased, with the help of an old man-carrier, crossed the River of the Dead, passed through 12 gates, and crossed the Lake of Fire. Then 42 judges read a list of sins. In the Judgment Hall of Osiris, the heart of the deceased was weighed on scales; it should not outweigh the Feather - the symbol of the goddess of truth. Anyone who passed the test became a resident of the Other World, or the Kingdom of the West. Sinners were given over to be torn to pieces by the monster.

The first will was also written in Egypt. This was done by the son of the Egyptian pharaoh Khafre, who died around 2601 BC.

There were more than 2,000 gods and goddesses in Ancient Egypt, but the cult of most of them had local significance. Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (1364–1347, reigned 1351–1334 BC) attempted to introduce one of the first religious reforms in the world. The country abolished the veneration of all former gods and closed their temples. Monotheism, the worship of the sun god Aten, was introduced. They began to build new churches, and the foundation stone was laid new capital, and the pharaoh himself took the name Akhenaten, which meant “Pleasing to Aten.” This model of reforming society was subsequently reproduced many times, often with the same result, because after the death of Akhenaten, the reforms came to naught, and the influence of the former priesthood increased, the position of the high priest began to be inherited.

Along with other ancient civilizations, the ancient Egyptians were among the first people in the world to invent writing using paper and ink.

Ancient Egyptian mythology is an outstanding phenomenon of world culture. She reflects rich spiritual world Egyptian society, a complex system of philosophical, ethical and aesthetic views, ideas about the origin of the world and man. Mythological characters, rulers - favorites of the gods - became heroes of works of literature and fine art. The achievements of Ancient Egypt were so organically absorbed by other civilizations, and the civilization itself was so completely forgotten, that the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Francois Champollion in 1822 actually determined the “rebirth” of Ancient Egypt.

The production of glass and earthenware is also an Egyptian innovation dating back thousands of years. In addition, builders who erect beautiful architectural structures today do not always know that Egypt is also the birthplace of such a material as cement.

Metamorphoses similar to the fate of the Ancient Egyptian civilization also occurred with other ancient civilizations that “revealed” to humanity as a result of scientific research in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ancient Egyptian civilization is the ancestor of almost all modern household items and personal care products. It was here, thousands of years ago, that a lock and keys to it, a comb and scissors, makeup and deodorant, a wig and a toothbrush and toothpaste were first invented.

We have already written that many ancient written sources and artifacts preserved from the times of highly developed antediluvian civilizations completely refutes the myths of official history. One of these dogmatic myths, which is declared to be the “ultimate truth” and at the same time completely unproven, is the hypothesis that the great pyramids of Giza were built by the civilization of Ancient Egypt using manual labor many slaves and they are the “tombs” of the pharaohs..

However, this hypothesis, to put it mildly, does not at all stand up to the test of either archaeological or geological data, which was previously described in detail in the relevant articles, and also contradicts the mythology and written sources of the Egyptians themselves. But today I would like to acquaint you with the opinion on this matter of the Russian esotericist R. Dolya, who familiarized himself in detail with the results of A. Sklyarov’s expedition to the land of Egypt.

This is what he writes in his “Book of Ancient Prophecies” about the construction of the great pyramids: “Historians-Egyptologists reject any theories that mention the possibility of certain miracles regarding the pyramids and firmly tie all pyramids to the theory of tombs and religious cult. But the facts are not on their side at all, but on the side of the skeptic who doubted the widely publicized theory from school textbook. The seven pyramids of Egypt are so different from all the others that they allow us to speak of an ancient great civilization that built them, long before the appearance of the pharaohs.

According to Egyptian legend, thousands of years before the pharaohs, Egypt was ruled by gods, and the pharaohs were the direct descendants of these gods and heirs of their power...

Egyptology scholars claim that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids by cutting granite and basalt with their primitive stone or copper tools. It's the same as if you tried to cut a file with a knife. And official science wants to convince us that the ancient Egyptians could do this by processing granite and basalt blocks on an industrial scale.

Even now in the 21st century, there are only a few cranes in the world capable of lifting blocks weighing up to 200 tons. And the ancient Egyptians allegedly dragged these blocks by hand, and even installed them on top of each other.

But already the pharaohs of the fifth dynasty again, according to Egyptologists, built the same old type of pyramids from small rubble, held together with clay mortar. Regarding these pyramids, scattered in large numbers throughout Egypt, one can believe that they were really made by the pharaohs (or during the time of the pharaohs), since to build them it was only necessary to gather a lot of people who, using primitive technology, would have piled up a pile of stones.

And even a thousand years later, under the pharaohs of the twelfth dynasty, technology remained the same, primitive. You don’t even need to be an expert in the field of construction to understand that the pyramids built after the fourth dynasty (according to the interpretation of official science, of course) were built using the same technology and there was no progress in construction. A clear trend is noticeable: the later the layer of masonry, the more worse technology the masonry itself and the rougher material itself. Instead of progress in construction it's full degradation.

How to explain those seven giant pyramids, allegedly built during the fourth dynasty, the masonry of which was made of large blocks according to a single standard? It is clearly visible that the blocks are stacked so tightly that it is impossible to even insert a knife blade between them. But the most amazing thing is that the walls were leveled after construction, on site. It is simply impossible to manually, using primitive tools, perfectly smoothly polish stone blocks laid in walls the size of a basketball court; other technologies were clearly used here. And these technologies were clearly higher than even those available now, because it was necessary to level not a horizontal, but an inclined surface...

There is no need to trust “popular science” films about Egypt, which show how the Egyptians process large stone blocks and drag them. The deception lies a little deeper and the average viewer does not see it. The fact is that they show how blocks of soft limestone are processed, which can really be processed with primitive tools, but they do not say that those pyramids that are mainly interested in us are not built from this stone at all, but from the hardest basalt and granite blocks of such size and weight with machined surfaces of such a huge area that even modern technologies unable to repeat this work.

The pyramids on the Giza plateau were assembled to the extreme precision of modern 21st century technology tools, and it looks very likely that this was not the case for the complex's builders. heroic feat, but ordinary work. The oddities also lie in the fact that the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty, parallel to the great pyramids they allegedly built, built pyramids using old primitive technology, as well as a wall to protect against raids over 20 kilometers long using the same “clay-tile” system.

Only seven out of more than a hundred Egyptian pyramids do not fit into the general series and spoil the orderly picture of the “tombs” for historians. But the truth is that the pharaohs had nothing to do with the construction of the Great Pyramids."

Was it possible, having mastered high technologies, to continue to build other objects using the old primitive technology? Unlikely. Most likely, the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty did not build the Great Pyramids, but dug them out of the sand and carried out restoration work. This is where the hieroglyphs denoting their names appeared on these pyramids. The not entirely correct translation of these records allowed historians to attribute the construction of these pyramids to the pharaohs of the fourth dynasty. But historians, as always, did not pay attention to the absurdity of such a conclusion, which becomes clear when studying the technology of construction of other structures.

In addition to the pyramids, there are many other artifacts that testify to high technology in ancient times, long before the reign of the pharaohs. The pharaohs, who were looking for the “weapons of the gods,” managed to get to some of these artifacts, and now these objects are also mistakenly attributed to the reign of the pharaonic dynasties. On the lands of Egypt there are also numerous traces of the “war of the gods” mentioned in ancient Egyptian sources, as well as the remains of buildings made of massive stone blocks, which are very reminiscent of protective bunkers in case of nuclear war.

Also of interest is the granite temple located on the Giza plateau next to the Sphinx. It has a drain in its wall. However, for the modern dry climate of this area, such a building detail seems completely unnecessary and ridiculous from the point of view of additional costs. It’s a completely different matter if this temple, like the Sphinx itself, which has characteristic traces of water erosion, was built more than 8 thousand years ago, when the climate in the Sahara was completely different and heavy rainfall fell on the Giza plateau.

The attribution of all these artifacts to the civilization of Ancient Egypt, according to R. Dohl, did not occur as a result of an unfortunate mistake, but with the purpose of purposefully concealing the existence in ancient times of a highly developed “civilization of the gods”, as well as ancient artifacts preserved from it. So, he writes:

“The ancient Egyptian civilization, formed at the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, which we know from the works of historians of official science, was initiated and created specifically for only one purpose: to hide the heritage of an even more ancient civilization. It was a large-scale historical operation designed to millennia ahead...

At first glance, it becomes even strange that historians of official science, having studied Egypt for so many years, do not notice or pretend not to notice a huge number of facts that refute their theories and open the way to thinking about deeper, more ancient traces of civilization, which are officially are considered non-existent. But this is only at first glance.

When the number of facts found by archeology and not considered by it begins to exceed all permissible limits, the thought arises that such an installation is being made specifically and precisely to hide these very facts. The facts are that underground bunkers, temples and pyramids were not created by pharaohs at all, but by a very ancient and very highly developed civilization of gods long before the first pharaohs. ..

But even two thousand years ago, people knew that before them there existed another humanity, another civilization. Back in the 4th century AD, the famous Roman historian Marcellinus sent expeditions to Egypt in search of manuscripts preserved from antediluvian times. He assumed, based on the data that had reached him, that such manuscripts could be found in some kind of underground repositories, either under the pyramids or in temples. Almost two thousand years ago, people tried to find documents from the disappeared civilization of the gods; this fact is recorded in written sources.

And even the pharaohs themselves sought the knowledge of that powerful civilization of the gods, this is evidenced by the scroll of Pharaoh Cheops, from which you can find out that he was looking for some secret rooms of the pyramid in which the sacred formulas of the god Thoth were kept... In addition, an ancient text has been preserved in which is described as Pharaoh Ramses II, son of Seti I, single-handedly defeating thousands of enemies, with the help of weapons that he received either directly from the gods or from the priests. The description of this weapon and the nature of its action evokes associations with some powerful beam weapon such as a laser...

A scientist who supports the official scientific ideology is almost in the position of a savage in the face of facts that violate his usual, convenient theory among a library full of valuable, rare books. A book for him is a thing of known size and weight. No matter how much he thinks about what this strange thing could be used for, he will never understand from its appearance. The contents of the book will remain an incomprehensible noumenon for him, and, not understanding the essence of the subject, he can only deny its existence, which is what official science successfully does.”

However, there is a significant difference between the ignorance of the savage and the activities of modern science. The savage, due to his own thoughtlessness, is not able to comprehend the purpose of ancient artifacts, and official science deliberately hides and silences these artifacts in order to conceal knowledge about the existence of ancient highly developed civilizations.

What is the purpose of all these falsifications of history? Firstly, people should not know the truth about their origin, as well as the real reasons for the death of the ancient highly developed civilizations of the Earth. Secondly, not only the Egyptian pharaohs hunted for the “weapons of the gods.” The same is done by modern representatives of the world “elite”, who, secretly from the rest of humanity, have long been using the high technologies of antediluvian civilizations.

Therefore, the myth about the construction of the “Egyptian” pyramids is only one of a whole collection of similar myths, which is the official version of history, known to us from school textbooks. And how much you can trust this “official” story is now up to you to judge for yourself.

Ancient Egyptian civilization originated in the Nile Delta region. During the history of Ancient Egypt, 30 dynasties of rulers changed. 32 BC. e. is considered the boundary of the existence of ancient Egyptian civilization.

The encirclement of Egypt by mountains predetermined the closed nature of the civilization that arose here, which was of an agricultural nature. Agricultural work, thanks to favorable climatic conditions, did not require much physical effort; the ancient Egyptians harvested crops twice a year. They processed clay, stone, wood and metals. Farming tools were made from baked clay. In addition, granite, alabaster, slate and bone were also used. Small vessels were sometimes carved from rock crystal.

The perception and measurement of time in Ancient Egypt was determined by the rhythm of the Nile flood. Each new year was regarded by the Egyptians as a repetition of the past and was determined not by the solar cycle, but by the time needed to harvest. They depicted the word “year” in the form of a young sprout with a bud. The annual cycle was divided into three seasons of 4 months each: the Nile flood, after which came the sowing season, followed by the harvest season, i.e. recession of the Nile. The months did not have names, but were numbered. Every fourth year was a leap year, every fifth day of the decade was a day off. The time was kept by the priests.

The Egyptians divided the day into twelve hours and the night into twelve. Each hour had its own name. The first hour of the day was called “brilliant”, the sixth - “the hour of rising”, etc.

In addition, all days of the year were divided into three categories - happy, dangerous and unlucky - depending on the events that marked them at the time when the gods lived on earth. Thus, the Egyptians behaved according to the days. On unlucky days, they tried not to leave the house, especially at sunset and at night. To refresh your memory and give you some hints the right decision in doubtful cases, there were calendars with lucky and unlucky days marked.

The high standard of living and well-being of the ancient Egyptians is confirmed by the fact that they had two customs that were not typical for other ancient civilizations: leaving all old people and all newborn babies alive. The main clothing of the Egyptians was the loincloth. They wore sandals very rarely, and the main means of demonstrating social status was the amount of jewelry.

The Egyptians deified the Nile, as well as all nature. He was depicted as an obese man, fat, with folds on his stomach, wearing a belt, wearing sandals, which was considered a symbol of wealth. He was called the “father of the gods.” Many cities bore his name. When the flood was about to begin, sacrifices were made to the divine Nile in many temples.

The Egyptians believed that everything in the world belonged to the gods, that the gods were the source of universal prosperity, that they knew their thoughts and desires and could intervene in people’s affairs at any time. They also deified animals and birds, and especially revered the crocodile and ibis. Plants were treated with no less reverence. The Egyptians believed that after death they would fall to the court of the god Osiris, who would weigh their good and bad deeds on the scales. They sought to ensure that the afterlife was no different from earthly life. The bodies were embalmed. Wealthy people prepared an afterlife for themselves in advance, so every city of the living had a city of the dead.

The ancient Egyptian state had the features of a centralized despotism. The pharaoh was the head of state: administrative, judicial and military powers were united in his hands. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Ra (the sun god in Egyptian mythology) took care of their well-being and sent his son, the pharaoh, to earth. The pharaoh's tasks included performing sacred, cult rituals in temples in order for the country to be prosperous. In modern terms, the pharaohs were professional statesmen who had the necessary knowledge and experience. Their power was unlimited, but not limitless. And since power was inherited from the Egyptians through the maternal line, the eldest son of the pharaoh and his eldest daughter had to enter into an incestuous marriage.

The ancient Egyptian state was divided into geographical units - nomes, which were ruled by nomarchs wholly subordinate to the pharaoh. In ancient Egypt, since predynastic times, there was an effective system of internal and exchange trade. In Ancient Egypt, silver, not gold, served as money, since gold was a symbol of divinity, providing the body of the pharaoh with an eternal afterlife. The main means of transport in Egypt were ships and boats; the main trade routes were rivers and canals. On land roads that were laid along dams, they used pack animals, primarily donkeys. ancient egyptian vedic despotism

A systemic feature of the organization of ancient Egyptian society was the possession of a profession. The main positions - warrior, artisan, priest, official - were inherited, but it was also possible to “take office” or be “appointed to a position.” The social regulator here was the annual reviews of the working population, during which people received a kind of annual “outfit” to work in accordance with their profession. The bulk of able-bodied Egyptians were used in agriculture, the rest were employed in crafts or the service sector. The strongest young men were selected during examinations for the army.

Egypt was called "Gift of the Nile" in ancient times

Geographical location

Ancient Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, which originated in Northeast Africa, in the Nile Valley. It is generally accepted that the word "Egypt" comes from the ancient Greek "Aigyptos". It probably arose from Het-ka-Ptah, a city that the Greeks later called Memphis. The Egyptians themselves called their country “Ta Kemet” - Black Land - after the color of the local soil.

Egypt occupied an advantageous geographical position. The Mediterranean Sea connected it with the Western Asian coast, Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece. The Nile was the most important shipping artery connecting Upper and Lower Egypt and the entire country with Nubia, which ancient authors called Ethiopia.

Formation of a single state

We read in more detail about the first centuries of Ancient Egypt and the formation of the state in the article “Formation of the State. The Early Kingdom of Ancient Egypt".

In the era before the formation of the state, Egypt consisted of separate regions, as a result of their unification, two kingdoms arose - Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. After long war The Upper Egyptian kingdom won, and the two parts merged. The exact date of this event is unknown, but it can be assumed that around 3000 BC. e. a single state already existed in the Nile Valley.

The beginning of the chronicle Egyptian tradition is associated with the name of King Min (Greek Menes) - the founder of the 1st dynasty, probably identical with Horus Akha. According to the legend preserved by Herodotus, Ming founded the capital of the united kingdom at the junction of Upper and Lower Egypt, erecting a dam to protect the city from flooding. From here it was convenient to govern both the south and north of the country. The Greeks later named this city Memphis.

Previously kingdom

After the reign of his heir, Thutmose II, the throne was seized by Hatshepsut, who initially retained the child king, her stepson, Thutmose III, as the nominal ruler, but later openly declared herself a pharaoh. Having come to power, Thutmose III sought to eradicate any reminder of Hatshepsut, destroying her images and even her name. He made many campaigns in Syria and Palestine, and his empire began to extend from the fourth cataract of the Nile to the northern outskirts of Syria.

For the first half of the 14th century. BC e. marks the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton), whose name is associated with the most important religious reform. Under Amenhotep IV's two successors, a departure from his policies began. Semnekh-kere restored the cult of Amun; under the next pharaoh, Tutankhamun, the cult of Aten, approved by the reformer king, lost state support.

Under Ramesses I (XIX Dynasty), long wars began with the Hittites for dominance in Syria. During the reign of Ramesses II, the famous battle with the Hittites took place under the walls of the Syrian city of Kadesh, in which up to 20 thousand people took part on each side. In his description of this battle, Ramesses claims that it was he who won the victory. But it is known that the Egyptians were unable to take Kadesh and the Hittites, led by King Muwatallis, pursued them during their retreat. The long war ended in the 21st year of the reign of Ramesses II with a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattusilis III. The original treaty was written on silver tablets, but only copies in Egyptian and Hittite languages ​​survive. Despite the strength of Egyptian weapons, Ramses II failed to restore the borders of the pharaonic empire XVIII dynasty.

Under the heir of Ramesses II, his thirteenth son Merneptah, and under Ramesses III, the son of the founder of the 20th dynasty Setnakht, waves of conquerors - the “peoples of the sea” and Libyan tribes - fell on Egypt. Having with difficulty repelled the onslaught of the enemy, the country found itself on the verge of serious upheavals, which in internal political life manifested themselves in frequent changes of rulers, rebellions and conspiracies, in the strengthening of the positions of the new nobility (especially in Thebaid, in the south of Egypt), closely associated with priestly circles, and in in the sphere of foreign policy - in the gradual decline in Egypt's military prestige and in the loss of its foreign possessions.

The era of the New Kingdom was for Egypt a time not only of territorial expansion, but also of rapid economic development, stimulated by the influx into the country of a huge amount of raw materials, livestock, gold, all kinds of tribute and labor in the form of captives.

From the 18th dynasty, bronze tools began to be widely used. But due to the high cost of copper, stone tools are still used. A number of iron products have survived from this era. Iron was known in Egypt before. But even at the end of the 18th dynasty it continued to be considered almost a treasure. And only in the VII-VI centuries. BC tools in Egypt began to be widely made from iron, which was extremely important for economic progress.

During the era of the New Kingdom, improved plows, foot bellows in metallurgy, and a vertical loom began to be widely used. Horse breeding, previously unknown to the Egyptians, was developing to serve the Egyptian army with its war chariots. From the reign of Amenhotep IV, the first image of a water-lifting structure—shaduf—came down to us. His invention was of great importance for the development of horticulture and gardening in high fields. Attempts are being made to grow new varieties of trees exported from Asia (pomegranate, olive, peach, apple, almond, cherry, etc.) or from Punt (myrrh tree). Glass production is developing intensively. The art of mummification reaches unsurpassed perfection. All higher value receives internal trade. International trade, for the development of which there was no incentive in Egypt during the era of conquest, because it received everything it needed for itself in the form of booty and tribute, acquires a certain significance only in the second half of the New Kingdom.

During the New Kingdom, the widespread use of slave labor was noted, primarily in the royal and temple households (although slaves also served private estates). Thus, during his 30-year reign, Ramses III donated to the temples over 100 thousand captives from Syria, Palestine and more than 1 million sections (Greek “arur”; 1 aur - 0.28 hectares) of arable land. But the main producer of material goods was still the working population of Egypt, entangled in all kinds of duties.

By the beginning of the 11th century. BC Two kingdoms were formed in Egypt: Lower Egyptian with its center in Tanis, in the northeast of the Delta, and Upper Egyptian with its capital in Thebes. By this time, Syria, Phenicia and Palestine had already left Egyptian influence, and the northern half of Egypt was flooded with Libyan military settlers led by leaders allied with the local Egyptian authorities. One of the Libyan military leaders, Shoshenq I (950-920 BC), founded the XXII Dynasty. But his power, like that of his successors, was not strong, and under the Libyan pharaohs (IX-VIII centuries BC) Lower Egypt fell into a number of separate regions.

At the end of the 8th century. BC The Nubian king Piankhi captured a significant part of Upper Egypt, including Thebes. The local influential priesthood supported the conquerors, hoping with their help to regain their dominant position. But the ruler of Sais in Lower Egypt, Tefnakht, who relied on the Libyans, managed to lead the fight against the invasion. Memphis also opposed the Nubians.

However, in three battles they defeated Tefnakht’s army and, moving north, reached Memphis, taking the city by storm. Tefnakht was forced to surrender to the mercy of the victors. The next Nubian king to rule Egypt was Shabaka. According to the legend preserved by Manetho, he captured the Lower Egyptian pharaoh Bokhoris and burned him alive. In 671 BC. The Assyrian king Esarhaddon defeated the army of the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa and captured Memphis.

The liberation of Egypt and its unification was carried out by the founder of the XXVI (Sais) dynasty, Psammetichus I. The next pharaoh, Necho II, sought to establish his dominance in Syria. In 608 BC. The Jewish king Josiah blocked the road for the Egyptian army at Megiddo (a city in northern Palestine), but was mortally wounded. After this, Judea began to pay a large tribute in gold and silver to the Egyptian king. Egyptian rule over Syria and Palestine lasted three years, and in 605 BC. The Egyptian army was pushed back to its border by the Babylonians. Under Apria (589-570 BC), one of the successors of Psammetichus I, Egypt supported Judea in the fight against Babylonia. Apries defeated the fleet of Sidon, one of the largest Phoenician cities. In 586 BC. The Egyptian army appeared under the walls of Jerusalem, but was soon defeated by the Babylonians.

By that time, to the west of Egypt, on the Libyan shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Hellenes had created their own state - Cyrene. Apries decided to subjugate him and sent significant military forces against him, but they were defeated by the Greeks. A rebellion broke out in the Egyptian army against Aprus, and Amasis (570-526 BC) was elevated to the throne.

Persian rule

In 525 BC. In the battle of Pelusium, the Persian army led by King Cambyses defeated the Egyptians. Cambyses was then proclaimed king of Egypt (XXVII Dynasty). To give the seizure of Egypt a legal character, legends were created about the matrimonial ties of the Persian kings with the Egyptian princesses and about the birth of Cambyses from the marriage of his father Cyrus with Nitetis, the daughter of Pharaoh Apria.

Capture of Egypt by Alexander the Great

Egypt achieved independence from the Persian overlords several times (Dynasties XXVIII-XXX) until it was conquered in 332 BC. Alexander the Great, in whom the Egyptians initially saw a liberator from Persian oppression. The time of Pharaonic Egypt is up. The Hellenistic era began. http://civilka.ru/egypet/egipet.html