Thebes In The First Millennium Bc

Thebes in the First Millennium BC is a collection of articles, based mostly, but not entirely, on the talks given at the conference of the same name organised by the team of the South Asasif Conservation Project, an Egyptian-American Mission working under the auspices of the Ministry of State for Antiquities, Egypt, in Luxor in 2012. The organisers of the conference and editors of the volume, Elena Pischikova, Julia Budka, and Kenneth Griffin, brought together a group of prominent scholars to share and discuss the results of their recent field research in the tombs and temples of the Twenty-fifth – Twenty-sixth Dynasties in Thebes, Abydos, and Saqqara. This volume assembles current studies on royal and elite monuments of the Libyan, Kushite, and Saite Periods, and places them in a wider context. This volume investigates such aspects of research as tomb and temple architecture, burial assemblages, religious texts, paleography, artistic styles, iconography, local workshops, and archaism, providing a new perspective to the current scholarship and future exploration of these topics. The volume is further enriched by the inclusion of chapters on the conservation and preservation of monuments representing the present-day approach to the development of archaeological sites.

Karol Mysliwiec surveys a turbulent time in Ancient Egyptian culture and history -- the eight hundred years between the eleventh century B.C.E. and the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.E., after which Egypt became part of the Hellenistic world. It was a time when Libyans, Kushites, Persians, and Greeks ascended to the throne more frequently than did indigenous kings. The history of this phase of pharaonic Egypt, marked by rapid changes in rule, has been relatively neglected until now. Egypt had become increasingly involved in the affairs of its Near Eastern neighbors (Assyria, Babylon, and Persia) and of the Mediterranean world. These many cultures greatly enriched and influenced pharaonic traditions. At the same time, Egyptian civilization extended far beyond the borders of Egypt itself. One of the most important cultural products of this period is the Old Testament, called here "an inestimable source of information on daily life in pharaonic Egypt". Mysliwiec perceives in recent archaeological discoveries clear evidence that the First Millennium B.C.E. was witness to more than a slow, progressive dying out of the pharaonic past; new and creative elements profoundly altered the culture of Ancient Egypt. Originally published in Polish, The Twilight of Ancient Egypt appeared in 1998 in a German edition. The Cornell edition has been updated by the author and also contains previously unpublished photographs of recently discovered treasures.

J. B. Bury's History of Ancient Greece has been one of the most influential authorities on the Ancient Greece for over one century. This book presents the complete political history of Ancient Greece from its earliest beginnings in 3rd millennium B.C. all the way until the death of Alexander the Great. Contents: Greece and the Aegean The Beginnings of Greece and the Heroic Age The Expansion of Greece Growth of Sparta - Fall of the Aristocracies The Union of Attica and the Foundation of the Athenian Democracy Growth of Athens in the Sixth Century The Advance of Persia to the Aegean The Perils of Greece - the Persian and Punic Invasions The Foundation of the Athenian Empire The Athenian Empire Under the Guidance of Pericles The Decline and Downfall of the Athenian Empire The Spartan Supremacy and the Persian War The Revival of Athens and Her Second League The Hegemony of Thebes The Syracusan Empire and the Struggle With Carthage The Rise of Macedonia The Conquest of Persia The Conquest of the Far East

In the fifth century BC Thebes, faced with the challenges presented by defeat and disgrace in the Persian Wars – it had sided with the invaders – succeeded not only in regaining its former prominence, but also in laying the groundwork for its hegemony of Greece in the early part of the fourth century. In Thebes in the Fifth Century, first published in 1982, Nancy Demand examines the political and military history of this renowned city, as well as a number of other aspects of Theban culture and society: its physical layout, religious cults, poetry and music, arts, crafts and philosophy. Other topics of special interest include a chapter on Pythagoreanism in Thebes, an appendix on the evidence for the participation of women in Pythagoreanism, and an investigation, extending throughout the book, of the role of women in Theban society.

The third volume of reports on the excavations of noblemen’s tombs from the Kushite Period This is the third and final volume in the Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis series dedicated to the ongoing work of the Egyptian–American South Asasif Conservation Project, under the auspices of the Ministry of Antiquities and directed by Elena Pischikova. The project was founded in 2006 to restore and reconstruct the early Kushite tombs of Karabasken (TT 391) and Karakhamun (TT 223) and the Saite tomb of Irtieru (TT 390). Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis: Art and Archaeology 2015–2018 focuses on the conservation work in the tomb of Karakhamun and new discoveries in the tomb of Karabasken, which include the burial chamber of Karabasken, its monumental granite sarcophagus found in situ, and the Twenty-sixth Dynasty chapel and burial compartment of Padibastet built in the pillared hall of the tomb of Karabasken. Discussion of finds includes canopic jars, stelae, pottery, and animal bones among many others. Ongoing art historical research is reflected in the chapters on the artistry of the decoration of the tomb of Karakhamun and its uniquely preserved twenty-one-square grid. This volume also introduces new research on the name and titles of Irtieru. Contributors: Abdelrazk Mohamed Ali, Ramadan Ahmed Ali, Mariam Ayad, Louise Bertini, John Billman, Marion Brew, Julia Budka, Katherine Blakeney, Dieter Eigner, Hayley Goddard , Erhart Graefe, Kenneth Griffin, Salima Ikram, Fathy Yaseem Abd el Karim, Ezz El Din Kamal El Noby, Elena Pischikova, Manon Shutz

The cultures of Nubia built the earliest cities, states, and empires of inner Africa, but they remain relatively poorly known outside their modern descendants and the community of archaeologists, historians, and art historians researching them. The earliest archaeological work in Nubia was motivated by the region's role as neighbor, trade partner, and enemy of ancient Egypt. Increasingly, however, ancient Nile-based Nubian cultures are recognized in their own right as the earliest complex societies in inner Africa. As agro-pastoral cultures, Nubian settlement, economy, political organization, and religious ideologies were often organized differently from those of the urban, bureaucratic, and predominantly agricultural states of Egypt and the ancient Near East. Nubian societies are thus of great interest in comparative study, and are also recognized for their broader impact on the histories of the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Nubia brings together chapters by an international group of scholars on a wide variety of topics that relate to the history and archaeology of the region. After important introductory chapters on the history of research in Nubia and on its climate and physical environment, the largest part of the volume focuses on the sequence of cultures that lead almost to the present day. Several cross-cutting themes are woven through these chapters, including essays on desert cultures and on Nubians in Egypt. Eleven final chapters synthesize subjects across all historical phases, including gender and the body, economy and trade, landscape archaeology, iron working, and stone quarrying.

The unique relationship between word and image in ancient Egypt is a defining feature of that ancient culture's records. All hieroglyphic texts are composed of images, and large-scale figural imagery in temples and tombs is often accompanied by texts. Epigraphy and palaeography are two distinct, but closely related, ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook stresses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. It offers readers three key things: a diachronic perspective, covering all ancient Egyptian scripts from prehistoric Egypt through the Coptic era (fourth millennium BCE-first half of first millennium CE), a look at recording techniques that considers the past, present, and future, and a focus on the experiences of colleagues. The diachronic perspective illustrates the range of techniques used to record different phases of writing in different media. The consideration of past, present, and future techniques allows readers to understand and assess why epigraphy and palaeography is or was done in a particular manner by linking the aims of a particular effort with the technique chosen to reach those aims. The choice of techniques is a matter of goals and the records' work circumstances, an inevitable consequence of epigraphy being a double projection: geometrical, transcribing in two dimensions an object that exists physically in three; and mental, an interpretation, with an inevitable selection among the object's defining characteristics. The experiences of colleagues provide a range of perspectives and opinions about issues such as techniques of recording, challenges faced in the field, and ways of reading and interpreting text and image. These accounts are interesting and instructive stories of innovation in the face of scientific conundrum.

Numerous research projects have studied the Nubian cultures of Sudan and Egypt over the last thirty years, leading to significant new insights. The contributions to this handbook illuminate our current understanding of the cultural history of this fascinating region, including its interconnections to the natural world.