The Awesomeness Of The Egyptian Empire
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The document provides information about several aspects of the powerful Egyptian Empire, including: - The Old Kingdom established Egypt as an impressive force from 2575-2134 BCE, evidenced by massive pyramid constructions like those built for Pharaoh Khufu. - Pharaohs were considered living gods and absolute rulers. After death, they were mummified and entombed in elaborate tombs to ensure their rule continued eternally. - The New Kingdom era from 1550-1070 BCE overlaps with the proposed timeframe of the Biblical Exodus. Monuments constructed during this period, such as those built by Pharaoh Ramses II, may be related to key Exodus figures and events.
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The Awesomeness Of The Egyptian Empire
- 1. THE AWESOMENESS OF THE EGYPTIAN EMPIRE
- 2. Upper and Lower Egypt refer to the direction in which the Nile flows, from south to north
- 3. The Old Kingdom: Egypt Becomes an Incredibly Impressive Force 2575-2134 BCE (And, no, the Israelites did not build the pyramids. At least not the famous ones.)
- 4. TIME LAUGHS AT ALL THINGS; BUT THE PYRAMIDS LAUGH AT TIME – OLD ARAB PROVERB
- 5. BASIC PYRAMID PLAN: KHUFU’S PYRAMID
- 6. THE FAMOUS GIZEH PYRAMIDS WITH THE SPHINX
- 7. PHARAOH AS SUN GOD
- 8. Brick Making in Ancient Egypt From the tomb of Rekhmire, vizier to Thutmose III, 15 th century BCE, New Kingdom
- 10. Perhaps we can now better understand B’nei Yisrael’s remark in Shmot 14:11: וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל - מֹשֶׁה , הֲמִבְּלִי אֵין - קְבָרִים בְּמִצְרַיִם לְקַחְתָּנוּ לָמוּת בַּמִּדְבָּר : מַה זֹּאת עָשִׂיתָ לָּנוּ לְהוֹצִיאָנוּ מִמִּצְרָיִם “ And they [B’nei Yisrael] said to Moshe: Was it for lack of graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us, taking us out of Egypt?”
- 12. WHAT ELSE CAN WE LEARN ABOUT THE PHARAOH?
- 13. SO WHAT DID MUMMIES DO ALL DAY? Aside from look charming, that is
- 14. Mastaba of Ti, an official from the Old Kingdom (Fifth Dynasty)
- 15. The New Kingdom 1550-1070 BCE Era of the Exodus
- 16. Painted Chest from the Tomb of Tutankhamen
- 17. Speaking of Tut . . .
- 24. RAMSES II BEGAN MANY NEW BUILDING PROJECTS 45 foot colossal statue of Ramses II with his daughter Bent’anta
- 25. Abu Simbel: Ramses II’s Temple
- 26. Abu Simbel, Approached by Boat
- 27. Interior of Abu Simbel
Editor's Notes
- Let’s start by saying that the pharaohs of Exodus, and the time of the Israelite presence in and exit from Egypt, cannot be identified with any degree of certainty. However, the Exodus story in the Torah is very aware of typical Egyptian practices, beliefs and general lifestyle, and the Torah seeks to refute belief in Egyptian paganism and Pharaonic hegemony and to establish God as the one, awesome ruler. The Torah does this more for the sake of the Israelite people – who no doubt feared the might of a great superpower – than for the Egyptians (who typically reworked any military defeat into a success and portrayed it on a stele for the masses to admire). Not knowing the exact time and date of the Exodus pharaoh or story is not as problematic as one may think when discussing the art, history and beliefs of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were a conservative lot, and aside from the Amarna period – a twenty-year period during the New Kingdom – Egyptian paganism and art remained pretty conventional throughout the empire’s 3000-year existence. This conventionality is in stark contrast to, let’s say, the Greeks, who saw rapid changes and developments in their art from the geometric to the Hellenistic periods, 850 BCE to 31 BCE, respectively. Though we’ve established that there is no real way of knowing which Pharaoh the Israelites were enslaved by and then defeated, it is interesting to note that the twenty-year period that marked the only time the Egyptians veered from paganism and an established artistic canon was during the reign of Akhenaton, a monotheistic ruler who worshiped the sun disk and erased all signs of paganism from his cultic center, now called Tell el-Amarna. After Akhenaton reigned, the famous Tutankhamen ruled and then Ramses II – whose name we know from the Torah, from the eponymous city. Though there were thirty Ramses, after Ramses II ruled, Egypt went into a steady decline. For the last millennium BCE, it lost the power it once held in the ancient Near East, its wealth drained away, and foreign powers took over until Alexander the Great finally conquered it fully. Some thinkers suggest then that Ramses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus story. Egypt in its heydey was a force to be reckoned with, and the goal of this presentation is to appreciate the ancient empire’s might and power and what it would have meant for someone to come along and tell the Israelites that they were going to be freed from the seemingly unbreakable hold Egypt had over them. Their probable answer: “I don’t think so.” In other words, the Israelites would have needed some pretty convincing signs that whoever was going to rescue them was going to be able to succeed, because -- hey, have you seen ancient Egypt? It’s pretty daunting. Let’s take a look . . . .