Civilisation
During the first two dynasties
(Archaic Period)
Burial Customs
During the first
two dynasties burial customs developed considerably. The tombs are now
elaborate structures, both above and below ground, for members of the royal
family and for high officials. Great “mastabas” or superstructures of crude
brick were erected above the various chambers. The burial chamber as a rule,
stood in the centre with a number of magazines or galleries all round it.
Sometimes others above in the brick mastaba formed a second storey. The bodies
were buried, more or less contracted, in wooden coffins for the rich, or
receptacles of clay, pottery, basketwork, or animal skin for the poor.
The numerous
objects belonging to this period include:
amulets of hard
stones; bracelets of flint, slate, ivory, bone, horn and shell; cylinder-seals
of carnelian, chacedony and wood plated with gold; beads of different forms and
materials; pottery jars containing cheese, fat, wine and beer; stone vessels beautifully
made; slate palettes; copper saws, adzes and chisels; games of marble, ivory
and bones; sickles and knives of flint etc.,
These objects show
great progress in art and industry and display a wonderful mastery over
difficult materials and great evolution in customs and mode of living.
Writing
The earliest
inscriptions found in Ancient Egypt are some names in hieroglyphs written in
black pigment on pottery vases of the late Predynastic Period and of the First
Dynasty. By the First Dynasty, names and short texts are found on ivory and
wooden tablets, on stone cylinders used as seals, and on vases. This infers
that they knew writing in the Predynastic Period and that it greatly developed
in the Archaic Period, reaching its full evolution in the succeeding period.
Even since the
First Dynasty the Egyptians used two scripts:
one decorative, the signs being little figures
carefully drawn, known as “hieroglyphic”; the other cursive, known as
“hieratic” and mostly used
for writing on papyrus. The hieratic signs are merely abridged hieroglyphs.
From about the
Twenty-fourth Dynasty and especially during the Ptolemaic Period, a third
script, the “demotic” was used. This was a further simplification of the
hieratic and served to transcribe the popular tongue.
Further
Information:
When the Egyptians
became Christians, they abandoned the three ancient scripts and adopted the
much easier Greek alphabet, with the addition of seven signs kept to represent
sounds unknown in Greek. Coptic language, which is the Egyptian one at its
latest stage borrowed some Greek words and ceased in its turn to be used as the
common tongue and made way for Arabic. From the sixteenth century onwards, it
has been used only in the liturgy of the Coptic Church.
In the beginning
of the nineteenth century, Champollion succeeded in deciphering the Ancient
Egyptian language by studying a single text found written in hieroglyphs,
demotic and Greek on the “Rosetta Stone”. It had been observed that the names
of the kings and queens were written in “cartouches”.
Champollion
undertook a methodical study of these cartouches containing the names which
could be known by comparison with the Greek text, and, as early as 1822, fixed
an alphabet about 15 characters. Carrying on his studies, he was able , in
1824, to translate a few phrases, and before he died (in 1832) he had succeeded
in preparing a grammer and dictionary of the Egyptian language.
Government
There is evidence
that a high official acted as prime minister (t’t), another as minister of
public works (ad mr) and another called “bearer of the seal of the king” (Xtm
bit). Although the names of the other officials of this period have not yet
been found, yet from the existence of the officials mentioned above, one may
infer that government was already well developed.
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