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Ancient Roman culture and Greek influence
Ancient Roman culture and Greek influence
Greek and Roman Culture: Differences and Similarities
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The Ptolemaic Period lasted from 332 B.C.E. to 30 B.C.E., and it was a time when Egypt was ruled by Greco-Romans. Because Egypt was ruled by Greco-Romans, Egyptian art and culture adopted from and was influenced by Greek and Roman culture and artistic styles. Greek influence is a very important part of understanding Egyptian history. Because of this influence, we were able to decipher The Rosetta Stone and learn to understand ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone is a decree written in three different translations, hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs were for use of priests, Demotic was script used for daily purposes by natives, and Greek was the language of the administration. The exact same decree was written in these three languages, and because we were able to …show more content…
understand the Greek language we were able to decipher and learn to read hieroglyphics.
Without this Greek influence, we would likely not be able to understand much of Egyptian culture from hieroglyphs today. Greek and Roman influence was clearly prominent enough to be one of the three main languages used in this culture, and their prominence even showed in Egyptian artwork. In Roman art, tombs of family members were decorated with portraits to honor and remember their dead. Egyptians did not do this for their dead until the first century. Instead, they relied on inscriptions for the identification of the deceased with the names and titles they had held in life. However, once Egyptians adopted these funerary methods, they remained popular for two-hundred years. Egyptian mummy portraits became a part of the mummification process for the dead. Bodies would first have all organs but the heart removed, then be left in salt for roughly over a month. After forty days, the body would be treated with plant resins and perfumed oils. Once this is done, thick layers of resin would be used as an adhesive and be
poured over the mummy to help linen strips stick to the body. Many layers of linen strips would be wrapped around the body placed on a wooden board. Once the mummy was completely wrapped the face would be covered by a mummy portrait, an image of the deceased, and the body would be completely covered in a cloth shroud. Egyptian mummy portraits showed what a deceased individual looked like. They were painted on a wooden board at a roughly life-like scale. It is possible to date some mummies on the basis of hairstyle, jewelry and clothes worn in the portrait, and to identify members of a family by their physical similarities. The accuracy of these portraits has often been in question. Techniques employed by doctors to plan delicate facial surgery have been used to compare the actual appearances of several mummies with their portraits. This proved that the portrait did indeed show the person as they appeared during life. However, there was some element of artistic license: For example, the mummy of Artimedorus appeared to be much more heavily built than he seemed in his portrait. People portrayed in mummy portraits seemed to appear with very Roman facial features.
Interestingly, X-rays reveal that the mummy case of Paankhenamun does in fact contain a mummy inside dating back to the years of c. 945 – 715 B.C. The practice of mummification was the Egyptian people’s way of preserving the spirits of the Gods/Goddesses and royalty. The idea was that when these beings came back to life, they would be preserved and well prepared for their next lives. By the time of the New Kingdom, the Egyptians already had developed techniques of mummification, which were done under a priest’s supervision (Stokstad 114), and since Paankhenamun was the priest of Amun, he was most likely was in charge of these procedures.
Ancient Egyptian culture was largely focused on the afterlife. One of their most important deities, Osiris, became the ruler of the Underworld through death. The pharaoh and elite class prepared for their impending deaths throughout their lives. Much of what survives from ancient Egypt today was found in tombs and temples of the dead. When one of the elite died, the process of laying him or her to rest was extensive. Harold Hays explains that “the ritualized process of embalming and mummification is usually stated as lasting seventy days” (Hays 5). "Funeral Procession, Tomb of Pairy" shows two of the processes that Hays details. The first depicted is the procession to the tomb. Pairy’s body would have already been through several processions, mummification, and embalming. This particular procession’s goal is to lead not just the body, but also the spirit into the afterlife. People of both high and low classes attended this procession, carrying with them the tomb goods (Hays 6-7). The second depicted
The Egyptians during this period took ample time and detail on the mummification process to ensure a successful transition from the netherworld to rebirth. The Coffin of Tentkhonsu, 1025-980 B.C., it’s a depiction of how the Egyptians valued and honored their elite members of society, as well as their gods. The Coffin of Tentkhonsu, itself dates back to the III intermediate period in Egyptian culture. The Egyptian believe was to join Osiris, whom was believed to have ascended to Netherworld and accomplished eternal life.
Arguably one of the most important discoveries made regarding the historical and cultural study of ancient Egypt is the translation of the writing form known as hieroglyphics. This language, lost for thousands of years, formed a tantalizing challenge to a young Jean François who committed his life to its translation. Scholars such as Sylvestre de Sacy had attempted to translate the Rosetta Stone before Champollion, but after painstaking and unfruitful work, they abandoned it (Giblin 32). Champollion’s breakthrough with hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone opened up new possibilities to study and understand ancient Egypt like never before, and modern Egyptology was born.
The history and tradition of Egypt is one of the most greatly studied and admired of all past world civilizations. The lure of the pyramids and the specter of the sphinx have led many archeologists to dedicate his/her life to unraveling the mysteries of ancient Egyptian culture. Arguably, the most captivating aspect of Egypt’s past is that of mummification. Why did the Egyptians mummify their dead? What beliefs did the Egyptians have regarding the after life? What portion of the Egyptian civilization was mummified? What was the Book of the Dead? This is a mere sampling of the questions that come to my mind when I think of ancient Egyptian culture. I hope to lay forth answers to these questions and many more in the following pages dedicated to the history and purpose behind Egyptian mummification.
It is clear that tombs and burial rituals were a key element in the Egyptian society and their way of life as it ties into almost all things they did on a daily basis. Whatever a person’s status was when they were alive followed them into the afterlife. Food and luxury goods were buried with a person so that they could have it in the afterlife. The tombs became a person’s new house after they died. Therefore, making it as nice as possible was really important. Art work and clay models were added to a person’s tomb as material goods needed for the afterlife. They were also seen as decorations that kept the tombs looking nice. Throughout the years, Egyptian artworks on the inner parts of the tombs and on the coffins show a development in the Egyptian customs. Each new development was created to better preserve the bodies and comfort of the dead.
A consistent feature of the statistics, not only in England and Wales but across Europe and America, is that far fewer women are convicted of crime than men – a fact which has changed little over the years. Female offenders also show a different pattern of offending being less involved in violent offences and proportionately more involved in theft. In general most now accept that girls and women do commit fewer offences than boys. GENDER AND PATTERNS OF CRIME Writing in 1977 Carol Smart stated: Our knowledge is still in its infancy. In comparison with the massive documentation on all aspects of male delinquency and criminality, the amount of work carried out on the area of women and crime is extremely limited.
Perhaps the most notorious of burial practices originating in Egypt is that of mummification. Why such an extraordinary attempt was made to preserve cadavers may seem
Ancient Egyptians were very religious people with various beliefs and gods. Ancient Egypt consisted of the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. Not only is Ancient Egypt known for their outstanding architecture in pyramids, but also, their astonishing understanding of the human body. Mummification began around c.3500 BCE and by the Old Kingdom it had become a standard practice. Everything Egyptians did, including mummification had to do with their religious beliefs. They followed rituals to please the gods and therefore received something in exchange. Moreover, they believed that mummifying a body was preparing a person for their afterlife. The process of mummification changed depending on the person’s socioeconomic status.
Upon completion of this procedure, the body will now be ready for burial. Egyptians used other methods of embalming. One method attributed to the lower class was to bury the body in the desert sand for a lengthy period of time. Then the sand was sunk. The result of this method dried the skin of the body into a leathery shell.
The most common ancient Egyptian burial practice is the mummification process as depicted in source B. Mummification is a ritual that embalmers performed when a pharaoh died. Source B is a photograph of the canoptic jars which are a main component of the mummification process. The first step in the mummification process is the removal and preservation of most of the internal organs, such as the lungs, the stomach, the liver and intestines. These organs are then separately embalmed and placed into canoptic jars as source B reveals. These jars were often decorated with one of the four animal-headed sons of the god Horus. Each head is believed to be the protector of each organ within the jar and is dedicated to a specific deity. The preservation of the organs is significant as they allowed the dead person to breathe and eat in the afterlife. The internal organs were then wrapped and put into either the body or put in boxes instead of sitting in jars. Canoptic jars were still placed in the tomb but they were solid or empty and provided a symbolic purpose. In Tutankhamun’s tomb the canoptic jars were discovered in a shrine that was found in the treasury room of the tomb. Source B is useful is when understanding the mummification process.
Several types of mummies exist and they all have a variety of attributes. Some other types of mummies are Egyptian, Ice, and African/Asian mummies. The first Egyptian mummies were spontaneous as Egypt’s climate was dry and Egyptians dug shallow graves. Once Egyptian’s realized bodies could be conserved they developed a more complex technique using anthropogenic mummification, or mummification caused by humans. Specifically, Wikipedia’s article on mummies describes the process Egyptians used. Bodies were disemboweled and washed out with a mix of spices and wine. Then organs were dried out and sealed in jars while the body was wrapped in linen. Finally, the body was treated in resin and placed into a coffin or sarcophagus also treated in resin. (“Mummy”) African and Asian mummies had the same characteristics and climate. In contrast, Siberian and Incan mummies are mummified in ice. Unlike Egyptian, African, and Asian mummies, ice mummies are not dried out. Their bodies retained their original structure. Egyptian anthropogenic mummies had better quality depending on their class and bodies were preserved for religious reasons, while ice mummies were normally sacrifices, and Asian and African ones were normally unintentional. In summary, all mummies were not created equally, and bodies were mummified for many diverse
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is one the oldest and most interesting forms of written language developed. There is evidence of its use from before 3200 BCE and Egyptian hieroglyphs remained in use for over 3,500 years. The Egyptian name for hieroglyphs translates to “language of the gods,” although the term hieroglyph actually came from Greek words meaning “sacred carving,” which the Greeks used to define the writing found on Egyptian monuments and temples (Ancient Egypt, Hieroglyphics, n.d.).
The literature of Ancient Egypt is the result of a four thousand year period. Hieroglyphic, demotic and hieratic are the three types of writing it was written in. The characters first consisted of pictures of objects, and ...
Thus, the art and architecture of Ancient Egypt stemmed directly from their religion. Egyptian theology, with its deified pharaohs and strange animal-headed gods, was complicated, but the most important belief was that survival after death depended upon the preservation of the body. This belief would influence the architectural design of the tomb, where the corpse was ultimately sealed (Silverman:142, 1997). Immortality was only for privileged royal and priestly beings (Stierlin:54, 1983).This implies that their tombs would be somewhat prestigious and not just and ordinary burial site. At the day of resurrection the Ka or soul would re-enter the dead body; this meant that it must be there, intact, ready for that moment. It followed logically, that 'once the corpse was embalmed or mummified, it must be preserved in an impregnable tomb.