Democratizing the Afterlife? Aspects of the Osirian Afterlife during the Transition from the Late Old Kingdom to the Middle Kingdom

2017 ◽  
pp. 166-270
Author(s):  
Mark Smith
Keyword(s):  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom

Mathematical Texts (I): The Mathematical Training of Scribes

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Imhausen
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Mathematics ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Mathematical Procedure ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mathematical Problems ◽  
Mathematical Texts

This chapter discusses mathematical texts that originated from the Middle Kingdom. While this may well be caused by the vagaries of preservation, it might be that it reflects the actual situation, that is, that mathematical texts of the kind that we have from the Middle Kingdom did not exist in earlier periods. With the reestablishment of central power by the king in the Middle Kingdom also came about a complete new organization of the administrative apparatus that was designed to be much less independent than it had been at the end of the Old Kingdom. And this may well have entailed the organization of teaching mathematics to the future scribes in a centrally organized style, with prescribed problems and their solutions. The chapter considers extant hieratic mathematical texts, mathematical procedure texts, and types of mathematical problems.

Precious-Metal Polychromy in Egypt in the time of Tutankhamun

2001 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Schorsch
Keyword(s):  
Precious Metal ◽  
Precious Metals ◽  
Visual Design ◽  
Symbolic Meaning ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Monetary Value ◽  
Eighteenth Dynasty

Gold and silver appear in Egypt at least as early as the Predynastic Period, and remained thereafter in use for the manufacture of ritual and funerary objects and personal possessions. On occasion, the ancient metalworker or his patron would choose to combine them in the manufacture of an objet de vertu: a jewel, a vessel, a royal coffin. The earliest uses of gold and silver, and electrum—a naturally occuring alloy of the two—together can be described as random, as the juxtapositions appear to have no meaning in terms of relative monetary value or visual design, and to have no colouristic or symbolic associations. During the Old Kingdom there appear the first objects that use precious metals systematically for their contrasting colours, a practice that becomes more widespread in the Middle Kingdom. The greatest sophistication in the use of precious metals can be documented during the second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, particularly in the time of Tutankhamun, when gold—including alloys that are reddish or have been intentionally coloured red—silver and electrum, were used together also to exploit their inherent colours and to evoke symbolic meaning.

Two Protodynastic Objects in Brussels and the Origin of the Bilobate Cult-Sign of Neith

1996 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stan Hendrickx
Keyword(s):  
Original Form ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Click Beetles ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Click Beetle

New publication and discussion of two fragmentary stone objects of Protodynastic date in the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels, together with a further fragment from one of them, found a few years ago in the excavations of the DAIK at Umm el-Qa'ab. The carved decoration of both includes representations of the click beetle (Agrypnus notodonta Latr.), sacred to Neith. From their iconography, it is suggested that the bilobate cult-sign of Neith originally consisted of the image of two click beetles, flanking two crossed arrows attached to a pole. Three different symbols of Neith can be distinguished during the Protodynastic Period: the bilobate object, two crossed arrows, and two bows tied together. The original meaning of the bilobate object seems to have been forgotten before the end of the Old Kingdom, and during the Middle Kingdom it lost its original form and was henceforward depicted as an oval. The significance given to it at that time remains open to discussion, but its traditional identification as a shield is most probably the result of the far more recent assimilation of Neith to the Greek goddess Athena.

Ist ḥśjw-mw „Wasserzauber“ ein ‚Älteres Kompositum‘? Untersuchungen zu einem terminus technicus der ägyptischen lingua magica

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 77-129
Author(s):  
Roman Gundacker
Keyword(s):  
Roman Period ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Morphological Pattern ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Country Life ◽  
Formed Part

“Is ḥśjw-mw ‘water conjuration’ an ‘Älteres Kompositum’? Investigations into a terminus technicus of the Egyptian lingua magica” - Starting in the Old Kingdom, depictions of the work and dangers of herdsmen, who ford cattle and ward off crocodiles with magical gestures, formed part of the motif repertoire of country life and agriculture in many commoners’ tombs. The textual counterparts of such scenes are mentioned in seven literary, magical and religious texts from the Middle Kingdom to the Graeco-Roman Period. Regardless of the unity of meaning and context, the terminus technicus denoting those conjurations directed against crocodiles is written in three essentially different ways as ḥśjw-mw (Tale of a Herdsman, Hymn to Amun in Papyrus Leiden I 350, Cairo Love Songs, a magical papyrus in Budapest, Florentine Mythological Handbook), ḥśjw-m-mw (CT 836) and śḥśjw-m-mw (Magical Papyrus Harris). When compared to graphic peculiarities of ‘Ältere Komposita’, ḥśjw-m-mw (CT 836) and śḥśjw-m-mw (Magical Papyrus Harris) can be identified as phonetic writings, and the attestation in the Tale of a Herdsman, which exhibits the peculiar insertion of a “boat” (Gardiner P.1), as an unetymological writing. Consequently, all seven tokens can be assigned to a single morphological pattern, ḥśjw-mw ‘water conjuration’, which, tentatively, can be revocalised *ḥĭśjắw-măw.

Carved Hybrid Script

2020 ◽  
pp. 565-577
Author(s):  
Mohamed Sherif Ali
Keyword(s):  
New Kingdom ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Old Kingdom ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

The hybrid script is a specific peculiarity of quarry inscriptions and graffiti. Many texts of this category have either a mixture of hieroglyphic and hieratic signs or the shapes of the signs themselves appear to be a sort of “middle form” between the both scripts. This feature, to which the name “hybrid script” was given, occurred since the Old Kingdom, but it became more frequently used in the Middle Kingdom, specifically during the Twelfth Dynasty. In the Middle Kingdom, such inscriptions make up a high percentage of the total number of texts at many sites. This percentage, however, is considerably lower in the New Kingdom. The relationship of the hybrid script to cursive hieroglyphs is significant and could be explained through analyzing the different ways of writings from the Old Kingdom to the New Kingdom.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document