Egyptian architecture Houses, palaces, temples, tombs, and other buildings of ancient Egypt. Most Egyptian towns were situated on the floodplain of the Nile and have been lost, but religious structures built on higher ground have survived in many forms. Tomb architecture was often grandiose. The tomb was not simply a place to lay a corpse, but the home of the deceased, provided with goods to ensure continued existence after death. Wood and bricks made of mud were the standard domestic build¬ ing materials, but, from the Old Kingdom (c. 2575-c. 2130 bc) on, stone was used for tombs and temples. Egyptian masons used stone to repro¬ duce the forms of wood and brick buildings. Mastabas and step pyramids were used for tomb superstructures, but the most characteristic form of the Old Kingdom was the true pyramid. The finest example is the monu¬ mental Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza. Simple chapel rooms with stelae (see stele) for burying commoners were located some distance from the royal burial compounds. In the New Kingdom (1539-1075 bc), royal tombs were cut into the face of cliff's to discourage looting; elabo¬ rate complexes of tombs and mortuary temples were built in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes. Two principal types of temple can be distinguished: cult temples for worship of the gods and funerary, or mortuary, temples. Most notable were the great stone cult temples; imposing remains can be seen at Luxor, Karnak, Abydos, and Abu Simbel.
Egyptian art Ancient sculptures, paintings, and decorative crafts pro¬ duced in the dynastic periods of the 3rd-1st millennia bc in the Nile Val¬ ley of Egypt and Nubia. Egyptian art served those in power as a forceful propaganda instrument that perpetuated the existing framework of soci¬ ety. Much of what has survived is associated with ancient tombs. The course of art in Egypt paralleled the country’s political history and is divided into three periods: Old Kingdom (c. 2700-c. 2150 bc), Middle Kingdom (c. 2000-c. 1670 bc), and New Kingdom (c. 1550-c. 1070 bc). The Old Kingdom’s stone tombs and temples were decorated with vig¬ orous and brightly painted reliefs illustrating the daily life of the people. Rules for portraying the human figure were established, specifying pro¬ portions, postures, and placement of details, often linked to the subjects’
social standing. An artistic decline at the end of the Old Kingdom led to a revival in the more stable political climate of the Middle Kingdom, notable for its expressive portrait sculptures of kings and its excellent relief sculptures and painting. The New Kingdom brought a magnificent flowering of the arts; great granite statues and wall reliefs glorified rulers and gods, painting became an independent art, and the decorative crafts reached new peaks, the treasure of Tutankhamen’s tomb typifying the vari¬ ety of luxury items created. See also Egyptian architecture.
Egyptian language Extinct Afro-Asiatic language of the Nile River valley. Its very long history comprises five periods: Old Egyptian (c. 3000-c. 2200 bc), best exemplified by a corpus of religious inscriptions known as the Pyramid Texts and a group of autobiographical tomb inscrip¬ tions; Middle Egyptian (c. 2200-c. 1600 bc), the classical literary lan¬ guage; Late Egyptian (1300-700 bc), known mainly from manuscripts; Demotic (c. 700 bc-c. ad 400), used in the periods of Persian, Greek, and Roman dominance and differing from Late Egyptian chiefly in its graphic system; and Coptic (c. ad 300-at least the 17th century), the language of Christian Egypt, gradually supplanted as a vernacular by Arabic from the 9th century on but still preserved to some degree in the liturgy of the Cop¬ tic Orthodox Church. Egyptian was originally written in hieroglyphs, out of which evolved hieratic, a cursive rendering of hieroglyphs, and demotic, a kind of shorthand reduction of hieratic. Coptic was written in a modified form of the Greek alphabet, with seven signs added from the demotic script for sounds that did not occur in Greek.
Egyptian law Law that prevailed in Egypt from c. 3000 bc to c. 30 bc. No formal Egyptian code of law has been preserved, but legal docu¬ ments (e.g., deeds and contracts) have survived. The pharaoh was the ulti¬ mate authority in the settlement of disputes. The next most powerful individual was the vizier, who directed all administrative branches of the government, sat in judgment on court cases, and appointed magistrates. Parties to a dispute were not represented by legal advocates; they spoke for themselves, presented any documentary evidence, and sometimes called witnesses. Both men and women could own and bequeath prop¬ erty, file lawsuits, and bear witness. Punishment for criminal offenders could be severe, but in some periods basic human rights, even those of slaves, were acknowledged. Egyptian law strongly influenced both Greek and Roman law.
Egyptian religion Polytheistic belief system of ancient Egypt from the 4th millennium bc to the first centuries ad, including both folk tradi¬ tions and the court religion. Local deities that sprang up along the Nile Valley had both human and animal form and were synthesized into national deities and cults after political unification c. 2925 bc. The gods were not all-powerful or all-knowing, but were immeasurably greater than humans. Their characters were not neatly defined, and there was much overlap, especially among the leading deities. One important deity was Horus, the god-king who ruled the universe, who represented the earthly Egyptian king. Other major divinities included Re, the sun god; Ptah and Aton, creator gods; and Isis and Osiris. The concept of Ma’at (“order”) was fundamentaclass="underline" the king maintained Ma’at both on a societal and cos¬ mic level. Belief in and preoccupation with the afterlife permeated Egyp¬ tian religion, as the surviving tombs and pyramids attest. Burial near the king helped others gain passage to the netherworld, as did spells and passwords from the Book of the Dead.
Egyptology Study of pharaonic Egypt from the putative beginnings of Egyptian culture (c. 4500 bc) to the Arab conquest (ad 641). Egyptology began with discovery of the Rosetta Stone (1799) and the publication of Description de TEgypt (1809-28) by scholars accompanying Napoleon I. In the 19th century the Egyptian government opened Egypt to Europeans, many of whose collecting activities amounted to little more than plun¬ dering. In 1880 Funders Petrie brought controlled, scientifically recorded excavation to Egypt, revolutionizing archaeology and pushing theories on Egyptian origins back to 4500 bc. The discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922 heightened public awareness. In 1975 the First International Con¬ gress of Egyptology convened in Cairo. Many sites remain that have been only slightly explored.
Ehrenberg Ver-on-.berkV Christian Gottfried (b. April 19, 1795, Delitzsch, Saxony—d. June 27, 1876, Berlin, Ger.) German biologist, explorer, and founder of micropaleontology (the study of fossil microor¬ ganisms). He received his M.D. from the University of Berlin. He iden¬ tified and classified a number of land and marine plants, animals, and microorganisms. He proved that fungi come from spores and demon-
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602 i Ehrenburg ► eighteen schools
strated the sexual reproduction of molds and mushrooms. He was the first to study coral in detail, and he identified planktonic microorganisms as the cause of phosphorescence in the sea. He advanced the view (opposed by Feux Dujardin) that all animals, including the tiniest, possess complete organ systems. Arguing that a single “ideal type” may be applied to all animals, he worked toward a comprehensive system of classification.