00 years ago.

Role in the founding of Egyptian civilization

The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it provided a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Silt deposits from the Nile made the surrounding land fertile because the river overowed its banks annually. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, ax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. The Ishango bone is probably an early tally stick. It has been suggested that this shows prime numbers and multiplication, but this is disputed. In the book How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years, Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that "no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10."[26] It was discovered along the headwaters of the Nile (near Lake Edward, in northeastern Congo) and was carbon-dated to 20,000 BC. Water buffalo were introduced from Asia, and Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BC. These animals were killed for meat, and were domesticated and used for ploughingor in the camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efcient means of transportation for people and goods. The Nile was an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapy was the god of the annual oods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the ooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death. As the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life, the ancient calendar was even based on the 3 cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile ooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth.[27] Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains.[27] 00 years ago.

Code of Hammurabi
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Code of Hammurabi
Side view of the stele "ngertip".

Created Author(s) Purpose

~ 1750 BC Hammurabi Legal code

Code on clay tablet Code on diorite stele The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating back to about 1772 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of signicant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted

the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (lex talionis)[1] as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man.[2] Nearly one-half of the Code deals with matters of contract, establishing, for example, the wages to be paid to an ox driver or a surgeon. Other provisions set the terms of a transaction, establishing the liability of a builder for a house that collapses, for example, or property that is damaged while left in the care of another. A third of the code addresses issues concerning household and family relationships such as inheritance, divorce, paternity and sexual behavior. Only one provision appears to impose obligations on an ofcial; this provision establishes that a judge who reaches an incorrect decision is to be ned and removed from the bench permanently.[3] A handful of provisions address issues related to military service. One nearly complete example of the Code survives today, on a diorite stele in the shape of a huge index nger,[4] 2.25-metre (7.4ft) tall (see images at right). The Code is inscribed in the Akkadian language, using cuneiform script carved into the stele. It is currently on display in The Louvre, with exact replicas in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, the library of the Theological University of the Reformed Churches (Dutch: Theologische Universiteit Kampen voor de Gereformeerde Kerken) in The Netherlands, the Pergamon Museum of Berlin and the National Museum of Iran in Tehran.

Content s History
Hammurabi ruled for nearly 43 years, ca. 1792 to 1750 BC according to the Middle chronology. In the preface to the law code, he states, "Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared Marduk, the chief god of Babylon (The Human Record, Andrea & Overeld 2005), to bring about the rule in the land."[5] On the stone slab there are 44 columns and 28 paragraphs that contained over 282 laws.[6] In 1901, Egyptologist Gustave Jquier, a member of an expedition headed by Jacques de Morgan, found the stele containing the Code of Hammurabi in what is now Khzestn, Iran (ancient Susa, Elam), where it had been taken as plunder by the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte in the 12th century BC.

Law
Main article: Babylonian law The Code of Hammurabi was one of several sets of laws in the ancient Near East.[7] The code of laws was arranged in orderly groups, so that everyone who read the laws would know what was required of them.[8] Earlier collections of laws include the Code of Ur-Nammu, king of Ur (ca. 2050 BC), the Laws of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BC) and the codex of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin (ca. 1870 BC), while later ones include the Hittite laws, the Assyrian laws, and Mosaic Law.[9] These codes come from similar cultures in a relatively small geographical area, and they have passages which resemble each other.[10] Figures at top of stele "ngernail" above Hammurabi's code of laws. The Code of Hammurabi is the longest surviving text from the Old Babylonian period.[11] The code has been seen as an early example of a fundamental law regulating a government i.e., a primitive constitution.[12][13] The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that both the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence.[14] The occasional nature of many provisions suggests that the Code may be better understood as a codication of Hammurabi's supplementary judicial decisions, and that, by memorializing his wisdom and justice, its purpose may have been the self-glorication of Hammurabi rather than a modern legal code or constitution. However, its copying in subsequent generations

indicates that it was used as a model of legal and judicial reasoning.[15]

Other copies
Hammurabi stele at American Museum of Natural History, New York, 2012 Various copies of portions of the Code of Hammurabi have been found on baked clay tablets, some possibly older than the celebrated diorite stele now in the Louvre. The Prologue of the Code of Hammurabi (the rst 305 inscribed squares on the stele) is on such a tablet, also at the Louvre (Inv #AO 10237). Some gaps in the list of benets bestowed on cities recently annexed by Hammurabi may imply that it is older than the famous stele (it is currently dated to the early 18th century BC).[16] Likewise, the Museum of the Ancient Orient, part of the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, also has a "Code of Hammurabi" clay tablet, dated to 1750 BC, in (Room 5, Inv # Ni 2358).[17][18] In July, 2010, archaeologists reported that a fragmentary Akkadian cuneiform tablet was discovered at Tel Hazor, Israel, containing a ca. 1700 BC text that was said to be partly parallel to portions of the Hammurabi code. The Hazor law code fragments are currently being prepared for publication by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[19]

Laws covered
This section requires expansion. (January 2012) The laws covered the subjects of: Religion Military service Trade Slavery The duties of workers Code of conduct Laws One of the most well known of Hammurabi's laws is: 196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.[20] Hammurabi had many other punishments as well. If a boy struck his father they would cut off the boy's hand or ngers (translations vary).[20][21]

Ziggurats were built by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Elamites, Akkadians, and Assyrians for local religions. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex which included other buildings. The precursors of the ziggurat were raised platforms that date from the Ubaid period[1] during the fourth millennium BC. The earliest ziggurats began near the end of the Early Dynastic Period.[2] The latest Mesopotamian ziggurats date from the 6th century BC. Built in receding tiers upon a rectangular, oval, or square platform, the ziggurat was a pyramidal structure with a at top. Sun-baked bricks made up the core of the ziggurat with facings of red bricks on the outside. The facings were often glazed in different colors and may have had astrological signicance. Kings sometimes had their names engraved on these glazed bricks. The number of tiers ranged from two to seven. It is assumed that they had shrines at the top, but there is no archaeological evidence for this and the only textual evidence is from Herodotus. [3] Access to the shrine would have been by a series of ramps on one side of the ziggurat or by a spiral ramp from base to summit. The Mesopotamian ziggurats were not places for public worship or ceremonies. They were

believed to be dwelling places for the gods and each city had its own patron god. Only priests were permitted on the ziggurat or in the rooms at its base, and it was their responsibility to care for the gods and attend to their needs. The priests were very powerful members of Sumerian society. CAD rendering of Sialk's largest ziggurat based on archeological evidence. One of the best-preserved ziggurats is Chogha Zanbil in western Iran. The Sialk ziggurat, in Kashan, Iran, is the oldest known ziggurat, dating to the early 3rd millennium BC. Ziggurat designs ranged from simple bases upon which a temple sat, to marvels of mathematics and construction which spanned several terraced stories and were topped with a temple. An example of a simple ziggurat is the White Temple of Uruk, in ancient Sumer. The ziggurat itself is the base on which the White Temple is set. Its purpose is to get the temple closer to the heavens, citation needed and provide access from the ground to it via steps. The Mesopotamians believed that these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenankia or "House of the Platform between Heaven and Earth". An example of an extensive and massive ziggurat is the Marduk ziggurat, or Etemenanki, of ancient Babylon. Unfortunately, not much of even the base is left of this massive structure, yet archeological ndings and historical accounts put this tower at seven multicolored tiers, topped with a temple of exquisite proportions. The temple is thought to have been painted and maintained an indigo color, matching the tops of the tiers. It is known that there were three staircases leading to the temple, two of which (side anked) were thought to have only ascended half the ziggurat's height. Etemenanki, the name for the structure, is Sumerian and means "The Foundation of Heaven and Earth". The date of its original construction is unknown, with suggested dates ranging from the fourteenth to the ninth century BC, with textual evidence suggesting it existed in the second millennium.[4]
[ ]

Interpretation and signicance

According to Herodotus, at the top of each ziggurat was a shrine, although none of these shrines has survived.[1] One practical function of the ziggurats was a high place on which the priests could escape rising water that annually inundated lowlands and occasionally ooded for hundreds of miles, as for example the 1967 ood.[5] Another practical function of the ziggurat was for security. Since the shrine was accessible only by way of three stairways,[6] a small number of guards could prevent non-priests from spying on the rituals at the shrine on top of the ziggurat, such as cooking of sacricial food and burning of carcasses of sacricial animals. Each ziggurat was part of a temple complex that included a courtyard, storage rooms, bathrooms, and living quarters, around which a city was built.[7]

See also Ka (vital spark)

k! (D28) in hieroglyphs

The Ka (k!) was the Egyptian concept of vital essence, that which distinguishes the difference between a living and a dead person, with death occurring when the ka left the body. The Egyptians believed that Khnum created the bodies of children on a potter's wheel and inserted them into their mothers' bodies. Depending on the region, Egyptians believed that Heket or Meskhenet was the creator of each person's Ka, breathing it into them at the instant of their birth as the part of their soul that made them be alive. This resembles the concept of spirit in other

religions. The Egyptians also believed that the ka was sustained through food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented to the dead, although it was the kau (k!w) within the offerings that was consumed, not the physical aspect. The ka was often represented in Egyptian iconography as a second image of the king, leading earlier works to attempt to translate ka as double.

Akh

Ancient Egyptians believed that death occurs when a person's ka leaves the body. Ceremonies conducted by priests after death, including the "opening of the mouth (wp r)", aimed not only to restore a person's physical abilities in death, but also to release a Ba's attachment to the body. This allowed the Ba to be united with the Ka in the afterlife, creating an entity known as an "Akh" (!, meaning "effective one"). Egyptians conceived of an afterlife as quite similar to normal physical existence but with a difference. The model for this new existence was the journey of the Sun. At night the Sun descended into the Duat (the underworld). Eventually the Sun meets the body of the mummied Osiris. Osiris and the Sun, re-energized by each other, rise to new life for another day. For the deceased, their body and their tomb were their personal Osiris and a personal Duat. For this reason they are often addressed as "Osiris". For this process to work, some sort of bodily preservation was required, to allow the Ba to return during the night, and to rise to new life in the morning. However, the complete Akhu were also thought to appear as stars.[7] Until the Late Period, non-royal Egyptians did not expect to unite with the Sun deity, it being reserved for the royals.[8] The Book of the Dead, the collection of spells which aided a person in the afterlife, had the Egyptian name of the Book of going forth by day. They helped people avoid the perils of the afterlife and also aided their existence, containing spells to assure "not dying a second time in the underworld", and to "grant memory always" to a person. In the Egyptian religion it was possible to die in the afterlife and this death was permanent. The tomb of Paheri, an Eighteenth dynasty nomarch of Nekhen, has an eloquent description of this existence, and is translated by James P. Allen as: Your life happening again, without your ba being kept away from your divine corpse, with your ba being together with the akh ... You shall emerge each day and return each evening. A lamp will be lit for you in the night until the sunlight shines forth on your breast. You shall be told: "Welcome, welcome, into this your house of the living!"

Cuneiform
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article is about the writing system. For other uses, see Cuneiform (disambiguation).

Cuneiform """""
Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. 26th century BC Type Languages Time period Parent Logographic and syllabic Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, Urartian, Old Persian c. 34th century BC to 1st century AD (Proto-writing)

Cuneiform """""
Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, c. 26th century BC Type Languages Time period Parent systems Child systems Logographic and syllabic Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hattic, Hittite, Hurrian, Luwian, Sumerian, Urartian, Old Persian c. 34th century BC to 1st century AD (Proto-writing) Cuneiform """"" none; apparently inspired Old Persian, inuenced shape of Ugaritic Left-to-right Cuneiform U+12000 to U+123FF (Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform) U+12400 to U+1247F (Numbers)

ISO 15924 Xsux, 020 Direction Unicode alias Unicode range

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

Cuneiform script[1] is one of the earliest known systems of writing.[2] Emerging in Sumer in the late 4th millennium BC (the Uruk IV period), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplied and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, from about 1,000 in the Early Bronze Age to about 400 in Late Bronze Age (Hittite cuneiform). The original Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Eblaite, Elamite, Hittite, Luwian, Hattic, Hurrian, and Urartian languages, and it inspired the Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and by the 2nd century AD, the script had become extinct, all knowledge of how to read it forgotten until it began to be deciphered in the 19th century. Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform "wedge shaped", from the Latin cuneus "wedge".

Content s History
The cuneiform writing system was in use for more than 22 centuries, through several stages of development, from the 34th century BC down to the 2nd century AD.[3] It was completely replaced by alphabetic writing (in the general sense) in the course of the Roman era and there are no Cuneiform systems in current use. For this reason, it had to be deciphered from scratch in 19th century Assyriology. Successful completion of decipherment is dated to 1857. The system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs.[4]

The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 "). Stages: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3 represents the late 3rd millennium represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite is the simplied sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.

Proto-literate period
The cuneiform script proper developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries. The rst documents unequivocally written in the Sumerian language date to ca. the 31st century, found at Jemdet Nasr. Some ten or so millennia ago the Sumerians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing the tokens in large, hollow, clay containers (bulla) which were sealed; the quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on the container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object (for example: 100 pictures of a hat to represent 100 hats), they 'counted' the objects by using various small marks. In this way the Sumerians added "a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols". Thus writing began, during the Uruk period c. 3300 BC.[4] Originally, pictograms were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinants, and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. The earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish. Surviving records only very gradually become less fragmentary and more complete for the following reigns, but by the end of the pre-Sargonic period, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names commemorating the exploits of its lugal (king). From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. This process is chronologically parallel to, and possibly not independent of,[citation needed] the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography.

Archaic cuneiform
Further information: Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Girsu). In the mid-3rd millennium BC, writing direction was changed to left to right in horizontal rows (rotating all of the pictograms 90 counter-clockwise in the process), and a new wedge-tipped stylus was used which was pushed

into the clay, producing wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") signs; these two developments made writing quicker and easier. By adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. Cuneiform tablets could be red in kilns to provide a permanent record, or they could be recycled if permanence was not needed. Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were red when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept. The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honour the monument had been erected. The spoken language consisted of many similar sounds and in the beginning the words "Life" [ti] and "Arrow" [til] were described in writing by the same symbol. After the Semites conquered Southern Mesopotamia, some signs gradually changed from being pictograms to syllabograms, most likely to make things clearer in writing. In that way the sign for the word "Arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". If a sound would represent many different words the words would all have different signs, for instance the syllable "gu" had fourteen different symbols. When the words had similar meaning but very different sounds they were written with the same symbol. For instance "tooth" [zu], "mouth" [ka] and "voice" [gu] were all written with the symbol for "voice". To be more accurate they started adding to signs or combine two signs to dene the meaning. They used either geometrical patterns or another cuneiform sign.[4] As time went by the cuneiform got very complex and the distinction between a pictogram and syllabogram became vague. Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of compound. The word "Raven" [UGA] had the same logogram as the words "soap" [NAGA] "name of a city" [ERESH] and "the patron goddess of Eresh" [NISABA]. Two phonetic complements were used to dene the word [u] in front of the symbol and [gu] behind. Finally the symbol for "bird" [MUSHEN] was added to ensure proper interpretation. The written part of the Sumerian language was used as a learned written language until the 1st century AD. The spoken language died out around the 18th century BC.[4]

Akkadian cuneiform
A list of Sumerian deities, ca. 2400 BC The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadians from ca. 2500 BC, and by 2000 BC had evolved into Old Assyrian cuneiform, with many modications to Sumerian orthography. The Semitic equivalents for many signs became distorted or abbreviated to form new "phonetic" values, because the syllabic nature of the script as rened by the Sumerians was unintuitive to Semitic speakers. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only ve basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are A (B001, U+12038) ": horizontal; DI (B748, U+12079) ": vertical; GE23, DI ten (B575, U+12039) ": downward diagonal; GE22 (B647, U+1203A) ": upward diagonal;

U (B661, U+1230B) ": the Winkelhaken. Except for the Winkelhaken which is tail-less, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by (ca.) 45 degrees are called ten in Akkadian, thus DI is a vertical wedge and DI ten a diagonal one. Signs modied with additional wedges are called gun, and signs crosshatched with additional Winkelhaken are called eig. Cuneiform tablet from the Kirkor Minassian collection in the US Library of Congress, ca. 24th century BC.

One of the Amarna letters, 14th century BC. Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR7 ("); the KA sign (") was a Sumerian compound marker, and appears frequently in ligatures enclosing other signs. GUR7 is itself a ligature of SG.A.ME.U, meaning "to pile up; grain-heap" (Akkadian kamru; kar). "Typical" signs have usually in the range of about ve to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated but still distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR7 consists of 31 strokes. Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to old Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms, and others as phonetic characters.

Assyrian cuneiform
This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of ca. 1800 BC to the Hittite language. When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. In the Iron Age (ca. 10th to 6th c. BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplied. From the 6th century, the Assyrian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaean alphabet, but Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times ( 250 BC-226 AD ). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD.[5]

Derived scripts
The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplied versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplied cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king". The Ugaritic language was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method.

Decipherment
For centuries, travellers to Persepolis, in modern-day Iran, had noticed carved cuneiform inscriptions and were intrigued.[6] Attempts at deciphering these Old Persian writings date back to Arabic/Persian historians of the medieval Islamic world, though these early attempts at decipherment were largely unsuccessful.[7] In the 15th century the Venetian Barbero explored the ancient ruins of Middle East and came back with news of a very odd writing he had found carved on the stones in the temples of Shiraz and on many clay tablets. In 1625 the Roman traveler Pietro Della Valle, coming back from Mesopotamia and Persia, brought back a tablet written with cuneiform glyphs he had found in Ur, and also the copy of ve characters he had seen in Persepolis. Della Valle understood that the writing had to be read from left to right, following the direction of wedges. However he didn't attempt to decipher the scripts.

Englishman Sir Thomas Herbert, in the 1634 edition of his travel book A relation of some yeares travaile, reported seeing at Persepolis carved on the wall a dozen lines of strange charactersconsisting of gures, obelisk, triangular, and pyramidal and thought they resembled Greek. In the 1664 edition he reproduced some and thought they were legible and intelligible and therefore decipherable. He also guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and were to be read from left to right.[6] Herbert is rarely mentioned in standard histories of the decipherment of cuneiform. Carsten Niebuhr brought the rst reasonably complete and accurate copies of the inscriptions at Persepolis to Europe.[6] Bishop Frederic Munter of Copenhagen discovered that the words in the Persian inscriptions were divided from one another by an oblique wedge and that the monuments must belong to the age of Cyrus and his successors. One word, which occurs without any variation towards the beginning of each inscription, he correctly inferred to signify "king".[6] By 1802 Georg Friedrich Grotefend had determined that two king's names mentioned were Darius and Xerxes, and had been able to assign alphabetic values to the cuneiform characters which composed the two names.[8][nb 1][6] In 1836, the eminent French scholar, Eugne Burnouf discovered that the rst of the inscriptions published by Niebuhr contained a list of the satrapies of Darius. With this clue in his hand, he identied and published an alphabet of thirty letters, most of which he had correctly deciphered.[6][9][10] A month earlier, Burnouf's friend and pupil, Professor Christian Lassen of Bonn, had also published a work on "The Old Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions of Persepolis".[10][11] He and Burnouf had been in frequent correspondence, and his claim to have independently detected the names of the satrapies, and thereby to have xed the values of the Persian characters, was in consequence ercely attacked. According to Sayce, whatever his obligations to Burnouf may have been, Lassen's "contributions to the decipherment of the inscriptions were numerous and important. He succeeded in xing the true values of nearly all the letters in the Persian alphabet, in translating the texts, and in proving that the language of them was not Zend, but stood to both Zend and Sanskrit in the relation of a sister".[6] Meanwhile, in 1835 Henry Rawlinson, a British East India Company army ofcer, visited the Behistun Inscriptions in Persia. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in the three ofcial languages of the empire: Old Persian, Mesopotamian Aramaic, and Elamite. The Behistun inscription was to the decipherment of cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone was to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.[12] Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. In 1837 he nished his copy of the Behistun inscription, and sent a translation of its opening paragraphs to the Royal Asiatic Society. Before his article could be published, however, the works of Lassen and Burnouf reached him, necessitating a revision of his article and the postponement of its publication. Then came other causes of delay. In 1847 the rst part of the Rawlinson's Memoir was published; the second part did not appear till 1849.[13][nb 2] The task of deciphering the Persian cuneiform texts was virtually accomplished.[6] After translating the Persian, Rawlinson and, working independently of him, the Irish Assyriologist Edward Hincks, began to decipher the others. (The actual techniques used to decipher the Akkadian language have never been fully published; Hincks described how he sought the proper names already legible in the deciphered Persian while Rawlinson never said anything at all, leading some to speculate that he was secretly copying Hincks.[14]) They were greatly helped by Paul mile Botta's discovery of the city of Nineveh in 1842. Among the treasures uncovered by Botta were the remains of the great library of Assurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets covered with cuneiform inscriptions. By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Babylonian signs. They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. In 1857 the four men met in London and took part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. A jury of experts was empanelled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points the translations produced by

the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were of course some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages which the jury politely ascribed to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions corresponded remarkably closely in many respects. The jury declared itself satised, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli. In the early days of cuneiform decipherment, the reading of proper names presented the greatest difculties. However, there is now a better understanding of the principles behind the formation and the pronunciation of the thousands of names found in historical records, business documents, votive inscriptions,literary productions and legal documents. The primary challenge was posed by the characteristic use of old Sumerian non-phonetic logograms in other languages that had different pronunciations for the same symbols. Until the exact phonetic reading of many names was determined through parallel passages or explanatory lists, scholars remained in doubt, or had recourse to conjectural or provisional readings. Fortunately, in many cases, there are variant readings, the same name being written phonetically (in whole or in part) in one instance, and logographically in another.

Transliteration
Extract from the Cyrus Cylinder (lines 1521), giving the genealogy of Cyrus the Great and an account of his capture of Babylon in 539 BC. Cuneiform has a specic format for transliteration. Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration requires certain choices of the transliterating scholar, who must decide in the case of each signal which of its several poseable meanings is intended in the original thing. For example, the sign DINGIR in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'god' or the determinative for a deity. In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context. Therefore, a text containing DINGIR and MU in succession could be construed to represent the words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative ending), god + water, or a divine name "A" or Water. Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as "ana", "ila", "Ila" ("god"+accusative case), etc. A transliteration of these signs, however, would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a" or "Da". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them. A transliterated document thus presents both the reading preferred by the transliterating scholar as well as the opportunity to reconstruct the original text. There are differing conventions for transliterating Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian) and Hittite (and Luwian) cuneiform texts. One convention that sees wide use across the different elds is the use of acute and grave accents as an abbreviation for homophone disambiguation. Thus, u is equivalent to u1, the rst glyph expressing phonetic u. An acute accent, , is equivalent to the second, u2, and a grave accent to the third, u3 glyph in the series (while the sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and subject to the history of decipherment). In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign 'x' is used to indicate ligatures. As shown above, signs as such are represented in capital letters, while the specic reading selected in the transliteration is represented in small letters. Thus, capital letters can be used to indicate a so-called Diri compound a sign sequence that has, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example, the compound IGI.A "water" + "eye" has the reading imhur, meaning "foam"). In a Diri compound, the individual signs are separated with dots in transliteration. Capital letters may also be used to indicate a Sumerogram (for example, K.BABBAR Sumerian for "silver" being used with the intended Akkadian reading kaspum, "silver"), an Akkadogram, or simply a sign sequence of whose reading the editor is uncertain. Naturally, the "real" reading, if it is clear, will be presented in small letters in the transliteration: IGI.A will be rendered as imhur4. Since the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time. Thus the name of a king of Ur, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for

Lugal-zaggisi, a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read (??? missing word here???); and so forth. Also, with some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents, though occasionally Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names. There was also doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or a logographic compound. Thus, e.g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were rst deciphered, that name was rst taken to be logographic because uru mu-ush could be read as "he founded a city" in Sumerian, and scholars accordingly retranslated it back to the original Semitic as Alu-usharshid. It was later recognized that the URU sign can also be read as r and that the name is that of the Akkadian king Rimush.

Epic of Gilgamesh
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Part of a series on

Mesopotamian mythology

Mesopotamian religion Primordial beings[show] Seven gods who decree[show] The great gods[show] Demigods & heroes[hide] Adapa Enkidu Enmerkar Geshtinanna Gilgamesh Lugalbanda Shamhat Siduri Tammuz Atra-Hasis Spirits & monsters[show] Tales from Babylon[show] Other traditions Arabian Levantine Near Eastern religions

v t e

Tales from Babylon[show] Other traditions Arabian Levantine Near Eastern religions

v t e

Royal Epics of Uruk

a series in Sumerian Literature

Enmerkar of Uruk[hide] Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana Lugalbanda of Uruk[hide] Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird Dumuzid and Gilgamesh of Uruk[hide] Dumuzid of Uruk tablets Epic of Gilgamesh tablets

v t e The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Mesopotamia, is amongst the earliest surviving works of literature. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with ve independent Sumerian poems about 'Bilgamesh' (Sumerian for Gilgamesh), king of Uruk. Four of these were used as source material for a combined epic in Akkadian. This rst combined epic, known as the "Old Babylonian" version, dates to the 18th century BC and is titled after its incipit, Shtur eli sharr ("Surpassing All Other Kings"). Only a few fragments of it have survived. The later "Standard Babylonian" version dates from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC and bears the incipit Sha naqba muru ("He who Saw the Deep"). Fragments of approximately two thirds of this longer, twelve-tablet version have been recovered. Some of the best copies were discovered in the library ruins of the 7th-century BC Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. The story centers on a friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Enkidu is a wild man created by the gods as Gilgamesh's equal to distract him from oppressing the people of Uruk. Together, they journey to the Cedar Mountain to defeat Humbaba, its monstrous guardian. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sends to punish Gilgamesh for spurning her advances. As a punishment for these actions, the gods sentence Enkidu to death. The second half of the epic focuses on Gilgamesh's distress at Enkidu's death, and his quest for immortality. In order to learn the secret of eternal life, Gilgamesh undertakes a long and perilous journey. He learns that "The life that you are seeking you will never nd. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping." This quote was originally attributed to Siduri in the Old Babylonian version of the epic,[1] and then attributed to the immortal ood hero Utnapishtim in the Akkadian version of the epic. Nevertheless, Gilgamesh's fame lived on after his death, because of his great building projects, and his account of what Utnapishtim told him happened during the ood. The story has been translated into many different languages, and Gilgamesh has since become adapted in works of popular ction.

Content s

History
The Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian Many distinct sources exist from over a 2,000-year timeframe. The old Sumerian poems, followed by a later Akkadian version, are important sources for modern translations, with the Sumerian version mainly used to ll in lacunae in the Akkadian version. Although several revised versions based on new discoveries have been published, the epic remains incomplete.[2] The earliest Sumerian poems are now generally considered to be distinct stories, rather than parts of a single epic.
:45 [3] They date from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur (2150-2000 BC).[3]:41-42 The earliest Akkadian versions are dated to the early second millennium,[3]:45 most probably in the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC, when one or more authors drew upon existing literary material to create a single epic.[4] The "standard" Akkadian

version, consisting of twelve tablets, was edited by Sin-liqe-unninni sometime between 1300 and 1000 BC, and was found in the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. The Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853 and is now widely known. The central character of Gilgamesh was initially reintroduced to the world as "Izdubir", before the cuneiform logographs in his name could be pronounced accurately. The rst modern translation was published in the early 1870s by George Smith.[5] Recent translations into English include one undertaken with the assistance of the American novelist John Gardner, and John Maier, published in 1984. In 2001, Benjamin Foster produced a translation in the Norton Critical Edition Series that uses new material to ll in many of the blanks in previous editions. The most denitive translation is a two-volume critical work by Andrew George.[6] George discusses the state of the surviving material, and provides a tablet-by-tablet exegesis, with a dual language side-by-side translation. This translation was published by Penguin Classics in 2000. Stephen Mitchell in 2004 supplied a controversial translation that takes many liberties with the text and includes modernized allusions and commentary relating to the Iraq war of 2003.[7][8] The rst direct Arabic translation from the original tablets was made in the 1960s by the Iraqi archeologist Taha Baqir. The discovery of artifacts (ca. 2600 BC) associated with Enmebaragesi of Kish, mentioned in the legends as the father of one of Gilgamesh's adversaries, has lent credibility to the historical existence of Gilgamesh.[3]:40-41

Versions of the epic

From the diverse sources found two main versions of the epic have been partially reconstructed: the Standard Akkadian version, or He who saw the deep, and the Old Babylonian version, or Surpassing all other kings. Five earlier Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh have been partially recovered, some with primitive versions of specic episodes in the Akkadian version, others with unrelated stories.

Standard Akkadian version

Book of the Dead

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Book of the Dead (disambiguation).

Book of Coming Forth by Day in hieroglyphs

This detail scene, from the Papyrus of Hunefer (ca. 1275 B.C.), shows the scribe Hunefer's heart being weighed on the scale of Maat against the feather of truth, by the jackal-headed Anubis. The Ibis-headed Thoth, scribe of the gods, records the result. If his heart equals exactly the weight of the feather, Hunefer is allowed to pass into the afterlife. If not, he is eaten by the waiting chimeric devouring creature Ammit composed of the deadly crocodile, lion, and hippopotamus. Vignettes such as these were a common illustration in Egyptian books of the dead. The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE) to around 50 BCE.[1] The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw[2] is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day".[3] Another translation would be "Book of emerging forth into the Light". The text consists of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Cofn Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus. Some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE. Other spells were composed later in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period (11th to 7th centuries BCE). A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated. The Book of the Dead was placed in the cofn or burial chamber of the deceased. There was no single or canonical Book of the Dead. The surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary considerably in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead, perhaps choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife. The Book of the Dead was most commonly written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, and often illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife.

Content s Development
Part of the Pyramid Texts, a precursor of the Book of the Dead, inscribed on the tomb of Teti The Book of the Dead developed from a tradition of funerary manuscripts dating back to the Egyptian Old Kingdom. The rst funerary texts were the Pyramid Texts, rst used in the Pyramid of King Unas of the 5th dynasty, around 2400 BCE.[4] These texts were written on the walls of the burial chambers within pyramids, and were exclusively for the use of the Pharaoh (and, from the 6th dynasty, the Queen). The Pyramid Texts were written in an unusual hieroglyphic style; many of the hieroglyphs representing humans or animals were left incomplete or drawn mutilated, most likely to prevent them causing any harm to the dead pharaoh.[5] The purpose of the Pyramid Texts was to help the dead King take his place amongst the gods, in particular to reunite him with his divine father Ra; at this period the afterlife was seen as being in the sky, rather than the underworld described in the Book of the Dead.[5] Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts ceased to be an exclusively royal privilege, and were adopted by regional governors and other high-ranking ofcials. In the Middle Kingdom, a new funerary text emerged, the Cofn Texts. The Cofn Texts used a newer version of the language, new spells, and included illustrations for the rst time. The Cofn Texts were most commonly written on the inner surfaces of cofns, though they are occasionally found on tomb walls or on papyri.[5] The Cofn Texts were available to wealthy private individuals, vastly increasing the number of people who could expect to participate in the afterlife; a process which has been described as the "democratization of the afterlife".[6] The Book of the Dead rst developed in Thebes towards the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, around

1700 BCE. The earliest known occurrence of the spells included in the Book of the Dead is from the cofn of Queen Mentuhotep, of the 13th dynasty, where the new spells were included amongst older texts known from the Pyramid Texts and Cofn Texts. Some of the spells introduced at this time claim an older provenance; for instance the rubric to spell 30B states that it was discovered by the Prince Hordjedef in the reign of King Menkaure, many hundreds of years before it is attested in the archaeological record.[7] By the 19th dynasty, the Book of the Dead had become widespread not only for members of the royal family, but courtiers and other ofcials as well. At this stage, the spells were typically inscribed on linen shrouds wrapped around the dead, though occasionally they are found written on cofns or on papyrus.[8] The New Kingdom saw the Book of the Dead develop and spread further. The famous Spell 125, the 'Weighing of the Heart', is rst known from the reign of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III, c.1475 BCE. From this period onward the Book of the Dead was typically written on a papyrus scroll, and the text illustrated with vignettes. During the 19th dynasty in particular, the vignettes tended to be lavish, sometimes at the expense of the surrounding text.[9] In the Third Intermediate Period, the Book of the Dead started to appear in hieratic script, as well as in the traditional hieroglyphics. The hieratic scrolls were a cheaper version, lacking illustration apart from a single vignette at the beginning, and were produced on smaller papyri. At the same time, many burials used additional funerary texts, for instance the Amduat.[10] During the 25th and 26th dynasties, the Book of the Dead was updated, revised and standardised. Spells were consistently ordered and numbered for the rst time. This standardised version is known today as the 'Saite recension', after the Saite (26th) dynasty. In the Late period and Ptolemaic period, the Book of the Dead remained based on the Saite recension, though increasingly abbreviated towards the end of the Ptolemaic period. New funerary texts appeared, including the Book of Breathing and Book of Traversing Eternity. The last use of the Book of the Dead was in the 1st century BCE, though some artistic motifs drawn from it were still in use in Roman times.[11]

Spells
See also: List of Book of the Dead spells The mystical Spell 17, from the Papyrus of Ani. The vignette at the top illustrates, from left to right, the god Heh as a representation of the Sea; a gateway to the realm of Osiris; the Eye of Horus; the celestial cow Mehet-Weret; and a human head rising from a cofn, guarded by the four Sons of Horus.[12] The Book of the Dead is made up of a number of individual texts and their accompanying illustrations. Most subtexts begin with the word ro, which can mean mouth, speech, a chapter of a book, spell, utterance, or incantation. This ambiguity reects the similarity in Egyptian thought between ritual speech and magical power.[13] In the context of the Book of the Dead, it is typically translated as either "chapter" or "spell". In this article, the word "spell" is used. At present, some 192 spells are known,[14] though no single manuscript contains them all. They served a range of purposes. Some are intended to give the deceased mystical knowledge in the afterlife, or perhaps to identify them with the gods: for instance, Spell 17, an obscure and lengthy description of the god Atum.[15] Others are incantations to ensure the different elements of the dead person's being were preserved and reunited, and to give the deceased control over the world around him. Still others protect the deceased from various hostile forces, or guide him through the underworld past various obstacles. Famously, two spells also deal with the judgement of the deceased in the Weighing of the Heart ritual. Such spells as 26-30, and sometimes spells 6 and 126 relate to the heart, and were inscribed on scarabs.[16] The texts and images of the Book of the Dead were magical as well as religious. Magic was as legitimate an activity as praying to the gods, even when the magic was aimed at controlling the gods themselves.[17] Indeed, there was little distinction for the Ancient Egyptians between magical and religious practice.[18] The concept of magic (heka) was also intimately linked with the spoken and written word. The act of speaking a ritual formula

was an act of creation;[19] there is a sense in which action and speech were one and the same thing.[18] The magical power of words extended to the written word. Hieroglyphic script was held to have been invented by the god Thoth, and the hieroglyphs themselves were powerful. Written words conveyed the full force of a spell.[19] This was even true when the text was abbreviated or omitted, as often occurred in later Book of the Dead scrolls, particularly if the accompanying images were present.[20] The Egyptians also believed that knowing the name of something gave power over it; thus, the Book of the Dead equips its owner with the mystical names of many of the entities he would encounter in the afterlife, giving him power of them.[21] The spells of the Book of the Dead made use of several magical techniques which can also be seen in other areas of Egyptian life. A number of spells are for magical amulets, which would protect the deceased from harm. In addition to being represented on a Book of the Dead papyrus, these spells appeared on amulets wound into the wrappings of a mummy.[17] Everyday magic made use of amulets in huge numbers. Other items in direct contact with the body in the tomb, such as headrests, were also considered to have amuletic value.[22] A number of spells also refer to Egyptian beliefs about the magical healing power of saliva.[17]

Organization
Almost every Book of the Dead was unique, containing a different mixture of spells drawn from the corpus of texts available. For most of the history of the Book of the Dead there was no dened order or structure.[23] In fact, until Paul Barguet's 1967 "pioneering study" of common themes between texts,[24] Egyptologists concluded there was no internal structure at all.[25] It is only from the Saite period (26th dynasty) onwards that there is a dened order.[26] The Books of the Dead from the Saite period tend to organize the Chapters into four sections: Chapters 116 The deceased enters the tomb, descends to the underworld, and the body regains its powers of movement and speech. Chapters 1763 Explanation of the mythic origin of the gods and places, the deceased are made to live again so that they may arise, reborn, with the morning sun. Chapters 64129 The deceased travels across the sky in the sun ark as one of the blessed dead. In the evening, the deceased travels to the underworld to appear before Osiris. Chapters 130189 Having been vindicated, the deceased assumes power in the universe as one of the gods. This section also includes assorted chapters on protective amulets, provision of food, and important places.[25]

Egyptian concepts of death and afterlife

A depiction of the ba, an element of the soul The spells in the Book of the Dead depict Egyptian beliefs about the nature of death and the afterlife. The Book of the Dead is a vital source of information about Egyptian beliefs in this area.

Preservation
One aspect of death was the disintegration of the various kheperu, or modes of existence.[27] Funerary rituals served to re-integrate these different aspects of being. Mummication served to preserve and transform the physical body into a sah, an idealised form with divine aspects;[28] the Book of the Dead contained spells aimed at preserving the body of the deceased, which may have been recited during the process of mummication.[29] The heart, which was regarded as the aspect of being which included intelligence and memory, was also protected with spells, and in case anything happened to the physical heart, it was common to bury jewelled heart scarabs with a body to provide a replacement. The ka, or life-force, remained in the tomb with the dead body, and required sustenance from offerings of food, water and incense. In case priests or relatives failed to provide these offerings, Spell 105 ensured the ka was satised.[30] The name of the dead person, which constituted their individuality and was required for their continued existence, was written in many places throughout the Book, and spell 25 ensured the deceased would remember their own name.[31] The ba was a free-ranging spirit aspect of the deceased. It was

the ba, depicted as a human-headed bird, which could "go forth by day" from the tomb into the world; spells 61 and 89 acted to preserve it.[32] Finally, the shut, or shadow of the deceased, was preserved by spells 91, 92 and 188.[33] If all these aspects of the person could be variously preserved, remembered, and satiated, then the dead person would live on in the form of an akh. An akh was a blessed spirit with magical powers who would dwell among the gods..[34]

Afterlife
The nature of the afterlife which the dead person enjoyed is difcult to dene, because of the differing traditions within Ancient Egyptian religion. In the Book of the Dead, the dead were taken into the presence of the god Osiris, who was conned to the subterranean Duat. There are also spells to enable the ba or akh of the dead to join Ra as he travelled the sky in his sun-barque, and help him ght off Apep.[35] As well as joining the Gods, the Book of the Dead also depicts the dead living on in the 'Field of Reeds', a paradisaical likeness of the real world.[36] The Field of Reeds is depicted as a lush, plentiful version of the Egypt of the living. There are elds, crops, oxen, people and waterways. The deceased person is shown encountering the Great Ennead, a group of gods, as well as his or her own parents. While the depiction of the Field of Reeds is pleasant and plentiful, it is also clear that manual labour is required. For this reason burials included a number of statuettes named shabti, or later ushebti. These statuettes were inscribed with a spell, also included in the Book of the Dead, requiring them to undertake any manual labour that might be the owner's duty in the afterlife.[37] It is also clear that the dead not only went to a place where the gods lived, but that they acquired divine characteristics themselves. In many occasions, the deceased is mentioned as "The Osiris - [Name]" in the Book of the Dead. Two 'gate spells'. On the top register, Ani and his wife face the 'seven gates of the House of Osiris'. Below, they encounter ten of the 21 'mysterious portals of the House of Osiris in the Field of Reeds'. All are guarded by unpleasant protectors.[38] The path to the afterlife as laid out in the Book of the Dead was a difcult one. The deceased was required to pass a series of gates, caverns and mounds guarded by supernatural creatures.[39] These terrifying entities were armed with enormous knives and are illustrated in grotesque forms, typically as human gures with the heads of animals or combinations of different ferocious beasts. Their namesfor instance, "He who lives on snakes" or "He who dances in blood"are equally grotesque. These creatures had to be pacied by reciting the appropriate spells included in the Book of the Dead; once pacied they posed no further threat, and could even extend their protection to the dead person.[40] Another breed of supernatural creatures was 'slaughterers' who killed the unrighteous on behalf of Osiris; the Book of the Dead equipped its owner to escape their attentions.[41] As well as these supernatural entities, there were also threats from natural or supernatural animals, including crocodiles, snakes, and beetles.[42]

Judgement
The Weighing of the Heart ritual, shown in the Book of the Dead of Sesostris If all the obstacles of the Duat could be negotiated, the deceased would be judged in the "Weighing of the Heart" ritual, depicted in Spell 125. The deceased was led by the god Anubis into the presence of Osiris. There, the dead person swore that he had not committed any sin from a list of 42 sins,[43] reciting a text known as the "Negative Confession". Then the dead person's heart was weighed on a pair of scales, against the goddess Maat, who embodied truth and justice. Maat was often represented by an ostrich feather, the hieroglyphic sign for her name. [44] At this point, there was a risk that the deceased's heart would bear witness, owning up to sins committed in life; Spell 30B guarded against this eventuality. If the scales balanced, this meant the deceased had led a good life. Anubis would take them to Osiris and they would nd their place in the afterlife, becoming maa-kheru, meaning "vindicated" or "true of voice".[45] If the heart was out of balance with Maat, then another fearsome beast called Ammit, the Devourer, stood ready to eat it and put the dead person's afterlife to an early and unpleasant end.[46] This scene is remarkable not only for its vividness but as one of the only parts of the Book of the Dead with any explicit moral content. The judgement of the dead and the Negative Confession were a representation of the conventional moral code which governed Egyptian society. For every "I have not..." in the Negative Confession, it is possible to read an unexpressed "Thou shalt not".[47] While the Ten Commandments of Judaeo-Christian ethics

are rules of conduct laid down by a perceived divine revelation, the Negative Confession is more a divine enforcement of everyday morality.[48] Views differ among Egyptologists about how far the Negative Confession represents a moral absolute, with ethical purity being necessary for progress to the Afterlife. John Taylor points out the wording of Spells 30B and 125 suggests a pragmatic approach to morality; by preventing the heart from contradicting him with any inconvenient truths, it seems that the deceased could enter the afterlife even if their life had not been entirely pure.[46] Ogden Goelet says "without an exemplary and moral existence, there was no hope for a successful afterlife",[47] while Geraldine Pinch suggests that the Negative Confession is essentially similar to the spells protecting from demons, and that the success of the Weighing of the Heart depended on the mystical knowledge of the true names of the judges rather than on the deceased's moral behaviour.[49]

Producing a Book of the Dead

Part of the Book of the Dead of Pinedjem II. The text is hieratic, except for hieroglyphics in the vignette. The use of red pigment, and the joins between papyrus sheets, are also visible A close-up of the Papyrus of Ani, showing the cursive hieroglyphs of the text A Book of the Dead papyrus was produced to order by scribes. They were commissioned by people in preparation for their own funeral, or by the relatives of someone recently deceased. They were expensive items; one source gives the price of a Book of the Dead scroll as one deben of silver,[50] perhaps half the annual pay of a labourer. [51] Papyrus itself was evidently costly, as there are many instances of its re-use in everyday documents, creating palimpsests. In one case, a Book of the Dead was written on second-hand papyrus.[52] Most owners of the Book of the Dead were evidently part of the social elite; they were initially reserved for the royal family, but later papyri are found in the tombs of scribes, priests and ofcials. Most owners were men, and generally the vignettes included the owner's wife as well. Towards the beginning of the history of the Book of the Dead, there are roughly 10 copies belonging to men for every one for a woman. However, during the Third Intermediate Period, 2/3 were for women; and women owned roughly a third of the hieratic paypri from the Late and Ptolemaic Periods.[53] The dimensions of a Book of the Dead could vary widely; the longest is 40m long while some are as short as 1m. They are composed of sheets of papyrus joined together, the individual papyri varying in width from 15cm to 45cm. The scribes working on Book of the Dead papyri took more care over their work than those working on more mundane texts; care was taken to frame the text within margins, and to avoid writing on the joints between sheets. The words peret em heru, or 'coming forth by day' sometimes appear on the reverse of the outer margin, perhaps acting as a label.[52] Books were often prefabricated in funerary workshops, with spaces being left for the name of the deceased to be written in later.[54] For instance, in the Papyrus of Ani, the name "Ani" appears at the top or bottom of a column, or immediately following a rubric introducing him as the speaker of a block of text; the name appears in a different handwriting to the rest of the manuscript, and in some places is mis-spelt or omitted entirely.[51] The text of a New Kingdom Book of the Dead was typically written in cursive hieroglyphs, most often from left to right, but also sometimes from right to left. The hieroglyphs were in columns, which were separated by black lines - a similar arrangement to that used when hieroglyphs were carved on tomb walls or monuments. Illustrations were put in frames above, below, or between the columns of text. The largest illustrations took up a full page of papyrus.[55] From the 21st Dynasty onward, more copies of the Book of the Dead are found in hieratic script. The calligraphy is similar to that of other hieratic manuscripts of the New Kingdom; the text is written in horizontal lines across wide columns (often the column size corresponds to the size of the papyrus sheets of which a scroll is made up). Occasionally a hieratic Book of the Dead contains captions in hieroglyphic. The text of a Book of the Dead was written in both black and red ink, regardless of whether it was in hieroglyphic or hieratic script. Most of the text was in black, with red used for the titles of spells, opening and closing sections of spells, the instructions to perform spells correctly in rituals, and also for the names of dangerous creatures such

as the demon Apep.[56] The black ink used was based on carbon, and the red ink on ochre, in both cases mixed with water.[57] The style and nature of the vignettes used to illustrate a Book of the Dead varies widely. Some contain lavish colour illustrations, even making use of gold leaf. Others contain only line drawings, or one simple illustration at the opening.[58] Book of the Dead papyri were often the work of several different scribes and artists whose work was literally pasted together.[52] It is usually possible to identify the style of more than one scribe used on a given manuscript, even when the manuscript is a shorter one.[59] The text and illustrations were produced by different scribes; there are a number of Books where the text was completed but the illustrations were left empty.[60]

Discovery, translation, interpretation and preservation

Karl Richard Lepsius, rst translator of a complete Book of the Dead manuscript The existence of the Book of the Dead was known as early as the Middle Ages, well before its contents could be understood. Since it was found in tombs, it was evidently a document of a religious nature, and this led to the widespread misapprehension that the Book of the Dead was the equivalent of a Bible or Qu'ran.[61] The rst modern facsimile of a Book of the Dead was produced in 1805 and included in the Description de l'gypte produced by the staff of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. In 1822, Jean Francois Champollion began to translate hieroglyphic text; he examined some of the Book of the Dead papyri and identied them as a funerary ritual.[62] In 1842 Karl Richard Lepsius published a translation of a manuscript dated to the Ptolemaic era and coined the name "Book of The Dead". He also introduced the spell numbering system which is still in use, identifying 165 different spells.[14] Lepsius promoted the idea of a comparative edition of the Book of the Dead, drawing on all relevant manuscripts. This project was undertaken by Edouard Naville, starting in 1875 and completed in 1886, producing a three-volume work including a selection of vignettes for every one of the 186 spells he worked with, the variations of the text for every spell, and commentary. In 1876, Samuel Birch of the British Museum published a photographic copy of the papyrus of Nebseny.[63] The work of E. A. Wallis Budge, Birch's successor at the British Museum, is still in wide circulation including both his hieroglyphic editions and his English translations, though the latter are now considered inaccurate and out-of-date.[64] More recent translations in English have been published by T. G. Allen (1974) and Raymond O. Faulkner (1972).[65] As more work has been done on the Book of the Dead, more spells have been identied, and the total now stands at 192.[14] Research work on the Book of the Dead has always posed technical difculties thanks to the need to copy very long hieroglyphic texts. Initially, these were copied out by hand, with the assistance either of tracing paper or a camera lucida. In the mid-19th century, hieroglyphic fonts became available and made lithographic reproduction of manuscripts more feasible. In the present day, hieroglyphics can be rendered in desktop publishing software and this, combined with digital print technology, means that the costs of publishing a Book of the Dead may be considerably reduced. However, a very large amount of the source material in museums around the world remains unpublished.[66]

Isis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search This article discusses the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis. For other uses, see Isis (disambiguation).

Isis
The goddess Isis portrayed as a woman, wearing a headdress shaped like a throne and with an Ankh in her hand Goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility Major cult Philae, Abydos center Symbol Parents Siblings Consort the throne, the sun disk with cow's horns, the sycamore tree Geb and Nut Osiris, Set, and Nephthys Osiris

Temple of Isis in Philae, Egypt Isis (Ancient Greek: , original Egyptian pronunciation more likely Aset) is a goddess in Ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. She was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife as well as the patroness of nature and magic. She was the friend of slaves, sinners, artisans, and the downtrodden, and she listened to the prayers of the wealthy, maidens, aristocrats, and rulers.[1] Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the hawk-headed god of war and protection (although in some traditions Horus's mother was Hathor). Isis is also known as protector of the dead and goddess of children. The name Isis means "Throne".[2] Her headdress is a throne. As the personication of the throne, she was an important representation of the pharaoh's power. The pharaoh was depicted as her child, who sat on the throne she provided. Her cult was popular throughout Egypt, but her most important temples were at Behbeit El-Hagar in the Nile delta, and, beginning in the reign with Nectanebo I (380362 BCE), on the island of Philae in Upper Egypt. In the typical form of her myth, Isis was the rst daughter of Geb, god of the Earth, and Nut, goddess of the Sky, and she was born on the fourth intercalary day. She married her brother, Osiris, and she conceived Horus with him. Isis was instrumental in the resurrection of Osiris when he was murdered by Set. Using her magical skills, she restored his body to life after having gathered the body parts that had been strewn about the earth by Set.[3] This myth became very important during the Greco-Roman period. For example it was believed that the Nile River ooded every year because of the tears of sorrow which Isis wept for Osiris. Osiris's death and rebirth was relived each year through rituals. The worship of Isis eventually spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of paganism in the Christian era.[4] The popular motif of Isis suckling her son Horus, however, lived on in a Christianized context as the popular image of Mary suckling the infant son Jesus from the fth century onward.[5][6]

Content s Etymology
,
OR

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Isis in hieroglyphs

,
OR

,
Isis in hieroglyphs

The name Isis is the Greek version of her name, with a nal -s added to the original Egyptian form because of the grammatical requirements of the Greek language (-s often being a marker of the nominative case in ancient Greek). The Egyptian name was recorded as s.t or s.t and meant "(She of the Throne"). The true Egyptian pronunciation remains uncertain, however, because hieroglyphs do not indicate vowels. Based on recent studies which present us with approximations based on contemporary languages (specically, Greek) and Coptic evidence, the reconstructed pronunciation of her name is *Usat [*ys]. Osiris's name, *Usir also starts with the throne glyph s.[7] For convenience, Egyptologists arbitrarily choose to pronounce her name as "ee-set". Sometimes they may also say "ee-sa" because the nal "t" in her name was a feminine sufx, which is known to have been dropped in speech during the last stages of the Egyptian and Greek languages.

Principal features of the cult

Origins
Isis depicted with outstretched wings (wall painting, c. 1360 BCE) Most Egyptian deities were rst worshipped by very local cults, and they retained those local centres of worship even as their popularity spread, so that most major cities and towns in Egypt were known as the home of a particular deity. The origins of the cult of Isis are uncertain, but it is believed that she was originally an independent and popular deity in predynastic times, prior to 3100 BCE, at Sebennytos in the Nile delta.[3] The rst written references to Isis date back to the Fifth dynasty of Egypt. Based on the association of her name with the throne, some early Egyptologists believed that Isis's original function was that of throne-mother. citation
] needed However, more recent scholarship suggests that aspects of that role came later by association. In many [

African tribes, the throne is known as the mother of the king, and that concept ts well with either theory, possibly giving insight into the thinking of ancient Egyptians.

Classical Egyptian period

During the Old Kingdom period, Isis was represented as the wife or assistant to the deceased pharaoh. Thus she had a funerary association, her name appearing over eighty times in the pharaoh's funeral texts (the Pyramid Texts). This association with the pharaoh's wife is consistent with the role of Isis as the spouse of Horus, the god associated with the pharaoh as his protector, and then later as the deication of the pharaoh himself. But in addition, Isis was also represented as the mother of the "four suns of Horus", the four deities who protected the canopic jars containing the pharaoh's internal organs. More specically, Isis was viewed as the protector of the liver-jar-deity, Imsety.[8] By the Middle Kingdom period, as the funeral texts began to be used by members of Egyptian society other than the royal family, the role of Isis as protector also grew, to include the protection of nobles and even commoners. citation needed
[ ]

Isis nursing Horus (Louvre) By the New Kingdom period, the role of Isis as a mother deity had displaced that of the spouse. She was seen as the mother of the pharaoh, and was often depicted breastfeeding the pharaoh. It is theorized that this displacement happened through the merging of cults from the various cult centers as Egyptian religion became more standardized.[citation needed] When the cult of Ra rose to prominence, with its cult center at Heliopolis, Ra was identied with the similar deity, Horus. But Hathor had been paired with Ra in some regions, as the mother of the god. Since Isis was paired with Horus, and Horus was identied with Ra, Isis began to be merged with Hathor as

Isis-Hathor. By merging with Hathor, Isis became the mother of Horus, as well as his wife. Eventually the mother role displaced the role of spouse. Thus, the role of spouse to Isis was open and in the Heliopolis pantheon, Isis became the wife of Osiris and the mother of Horus/Ra. This reconciliation of themes led to the evolution of the myth of Isis and Osiris.[8]

Temples and priesthood

Little information on Egyptian rituals for Isis survives; however, it is clear there were both priests and priestesses ofciating at her cult throughout its history. By the Greco-Roman era, many of them were considered healers, and were said to have other special powers, including dream interpretation and the ability to control the weather, which they did by braiding or not combing their hair.[citation needed] The latter was believed because the Egyptians considered knots to have magical powers. The cult of Isis and Osiris continued up until the 6th century CE on the island of Philae in Upper Nile. The Theodosian decree (in about 380 CE) to destroy all pagan temples was not enforced there until the time of Justinian. This toleration was due to an old treaty made between the Blemyes-Nobadae and the emperor Diocletian. Every year they visited Elephantine and at certain intervals took the image of Isis up river to the land of the Blemyes for oracular purposes before returning it. Justinian sent Narses to destroy the sanctuaries, with the priests being arrested and the divine images taken to Constantinople.[9] Philae was the last of the ancient Egyptian temples to be closed.

Iconography
Associations

"tyet" Knot of Isis in hieroglyphs

Due to the association between knots and magical power, a symbol of Isis was the tiet or tyet (meaning welfare/ life), also called the Knot of Isis, Buckle of Isis, or the Blood of Isis, which is shown to the right. In many respects the tyet resembles an ankh, except that its arms point downward, and when used as such, seems to represent the idea of eternal life or resurrection. The meaning of Blood of Isis is more obscure, but the tyet often was used as a funerary amulet made of red wood, stone, or glass, so this may simply have been a description of the appearance of the materials used. The star Sopdet (Sirius) is associated with Isis. The appearance of the star signied the advent of a new year and Isis was likewise considered the goddess of rebirth and reincarnation, and as a protector of the dead. The Book of the Dead outlines a particular ritual that would protect the dead, enabling travel anywhere in the underworld, and most of the titles Isis holds signify her as the goddess of protection of the dead. Probably due to assimilation with the goddess Aphrodite (Venus), during the Roman period, the rose was used in her worship. The demand for roses throughout the empire turned rose production into an important industry.

Depictions
Isis nursing Horus, wearing the headdress of Hathor. In art, originally Isis was pictured as a woman wearing a long sheath dress and crowned with the hieroglyphic sign for a throne. Sometimes she is depicted as holding a lotus, or, as a sycamore tree. One pharaoh, Thutmose III, is depicted in his tomb as nursing from a sycamore tree that had a breast.

After she assimilated many of the roles of Hathor, Isis's headdress is replaced with that of Hathor: the horns of a cow on her head, with the solar disk between them. Sometimes she also is represented as a cow, or a cow's head. Usually, however, she is depicted with her young child, Horus (the pharaoh), with a crown, and a vulture. Occasionally she is represented as a kite ying above the body of Osiris or with the dead Osiris across her lap as she worked her magic to bring him back to life. Most often Isis is seen holding only the generic ankh sign and a simple staff, but in late images she is seen sometimes with items usually associated only with Hathor, the sacred sistrum rattle and the fertility-bearing menat necklace. In The Book of Coming Forth By Day Isis is depicted standing on the prow of the Solar Barque with her arms outstretched.[1]

Mythology
Sister-wife to Osiris
Isis Nursing Horus.[10] The Walters Art Museum. During the Old Kingdom period, the pantheons of individual Egyptian cities varied by region. During the 5th dynasty, Isis entered the pantheon of the city of Heliopolis. She was represented as a daughter of Nut and Geb, and sister to Osiris, Nephthys, and Set. The two sisters, Isis and Nephthys, often were depicted on cofns, with wings outstretched, as protectors against evil. As a funerary deity, she was associated with Osiris, lord of the underworld, and was considered his wife. Rare terracotta image of Isis lamenting the loss of Osiris (eighteenth dynasty) Muse du Louvre, Paris. A later myth, when the cult of Osiris gained more authority, tells the story of Anubis, the god of the underworld. The tale describes how Nephthys was denied a child by Set and disguised herself as the much more attractive Isis to seduce him. The plot failed, but Osiris now found Nephthys very attractive, as he thought she was Isis. They had sex, resulting in the birth of Anubis. Alternatively, Nephthys intentionally assumed the form of Isis in order to trick Osiris into fathering her son. In fear of Set's retribution, Nephthys persuaded Isis to adopt Anubis, so that Set would not nd out and kill the child. The tale describes both why Anubis is seen as an underworld deity (he becomes a son of Osiris), and why he could not inherit Osiris's position (he was not a legitimate heir in this new birth scenario), neatly preserving Osiris's position as lord of the underworld. It should be remembered, however, that this new myth was only a later creation of the Osirian cult who wanted to depict Set in an evil position, as the enemy of Osiris. The most extensive account of the Isis-Osiris story known today is Plutarch's Greek description written in the 1st century CE, usually known under its Latin title De Iside et Osiride.[11] In that version, Set held a banquet for Osiris in which he brought in a beautiful box and said that whoever could t in the box perfectly would get to keep it. Set had measured Osiris in his sleep and made sure that he was the only one who could t the box. Several tried to see whether they t. Once it was Osiris's turn to see if he could t in the box, Set closed the lid on him so that the box was now a cofn for Osiris. Set ung the box in the Nile so that it would drift far away. Isis went looking for the box so that Osiris could have a proper burial. She found the box in a tree in Byblos, a city along the Phoenician coast, and brought it back to Egypt, hiding it in a swamp. But Set went hunting that night and found the box. Enraged, Set chopped Osiris's body into fourteen pieces and scattered them all over Egypt to ensure that Isis could never nd Osiris again for a proper burial.[12][13] Isis and her sister Nephthys went looking for these pieces, but could only nd thirteen of the fourteen. Fish had swallowed the last piece, his phallus, so Isis made him a new one with magic, putting his body back together after which they conceived Horus. The number of pieces is described on temple walls variously as fourteen and sixteen, and occasionally forty-two, one for each nome or district.[13]

Mother of Horus

Yet another set of late myths detail the adventures of Isis after the birth of Osiris's posthumous son, Horus. Isis was said to have given birth to Horus at Khemmis, thought to be located on the Nile Delta.[14] Many dangers faced Horus after birth, and Isis ed with the newborn to escape the wrath of Set, the murderer of her husband. In one instance, Isis heals Horus from a lethal scorpion sting; she also performs other miracles in relation to the cippi, or the plaques of Horus. Isis protected and raised Horus until he was old enough to face Set, and subsequently, became the pharaoh of Egypt.

Magic
It was said that Isis tricked Ra (i.e. Amun-Ra/Atum-Ra) into telling her his "secret name," by causing a snake to bite him, for which only Isis had the cure. Knowing the secret name of a deity enabled one to have power of the deity. The use of secret names became central in late Egyptian magic spells, and Isis often is implored to "use the true name of Ra" in the performance of rituals. By the late Egyptian historical period, after the occupations by the Greeks and the Romans, Isis became the most important and most powerful deity of the Egyptian pantheon because of her magical skills. Magic is central to the entire mythology of Isis, arguably more so than any other Egyptian deity. Isis had a central role in Egyptian magic spells and ritual, especially those of protection and healing. In many spells, she also is completely merged even with Horus, where invocations of Isis are supposed to involve Horus's powers automatically as well. In Egyptian history the image of a wounded Horus became a standard feature of Isis's healing spells, which typically invoked the curative powers of the milk of Isis.[15]