Lost Cities: Egypt – Cities of the Dead lecture 3

- The Nile influenced where people could live due to the land being fertile and having
a food source
- The Nile flooded annually and that left the land fertile
- Hapi; the god of the Nile, male and female parts, he embodies the fertility that the
Nile brings
- Egypt has very specific environmental conditions – this is excellent for preservation
- Chronology is complicated in Egyptology (Old Kingdom & New Kingdom)
- Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt; unified c. 3000 BC into one kingdom, capital at
Memphis, next 3000 years ruled by Dynasties
- Narmer Palette (Hierakonpolis c. 3000 BC, siltstone palette, c. 64cm high)
- Registers (bands) – carrier of ideology
o Double sided
o Narmer’s name
o Horus & captive
o Papyrus
o Sandal-bearer
o Narmer smites captive
o Defeated foes
o Narmer & court inspect the dead
o Serpopards
o Bull smashes city walls

Egyptian beliefs about death/afterlife

 Osiris – god of the dead and the afterlife
 Eternal life could be ensured by a range of methods, including
o Preservation of the body via mummification
o Provision of adequate funerary equipment
o Correct performance of funerary rituals and cult, e.g. Chapters of Coming
Forth by Day (= ‘Book of the Dead’), spells
 Humans were composed of:
o Physical body
o Name
o Shadow
o Ka, the life-fore of an individual
o Ba, the non-physical attributes that make each individual unique (personality)
o Akh, combination of ka and ba, and the form in which individual lived in
afterlife

Case studies
 Saqqara (Old Kingdom)
 Giza (Old Kingdom)
 Valley of the Kings (New Kingdom)

Saqqara
- The necropolis of Memphis, the capital
- Location of the first pyramid, c.2650 BC
- Imhotep the architect
- He later became a god
- Stepped pyramid of pharaoh Djoser
o Constructed in several phases
 Mastaba (M1, M2, M3)
 4 step pyramid (P1)
 6 step pyramid (P2)
o 60 metres high
o 121 x 109 m area
- Djoser’s funerary enclosure
o Temples
o Courts
o Underground galleries for food and other goods
o Enclosure walls
o Rituals such as processions and mummification carried out in enclosure
- Funerary complex at Giza
o Three main pyramids:
 Khufu (Cheops)
 Khafre
 Menkaure
 Tombs of queens and others
 Temples
 Pyramid town to southeast (Heit el-Ghurab)
- Who built the pyramids?
o What type of a hold did pharaohs have over their subjects to instil this need
in them to want their leader to go to the afterlife and to have these
pyramids?
- Boat pits & boats
o 43m long wooden boat – used in actual funerary voyage or symbolic?
- The Sphinx at Giza
o Lion/human carved out of limestone bedrock
o Function unclear
o Possible guardian of the pyramids?
- Valley of the Kings
o New Kingdom capital at Thebes
o Necropolis (‘city of the dead’ on west bank)
o Two valleys, West (WV) and East (KV)
o 60+ tombs (no more pyramids)
o Tomb of Tutukhamun = KV62 (c.1336 – 1327 BC; 18th Dyn.)
 Excavated by Howard Carter
 The tomb: 4 rooms, underground, only burial chamber has wall
paintings
 The mummy was inside a series of gilded wooden shrines and coffins