What Survives from the Ancient Egyptian World
NOWHERE on earth are there more plentifully preserved monuments and relics of an
ancient Egyptian civilization.
They have sustained the ravages of time, vandalism, invasions,
conquests and grave-robbers. The tombs and temples were built on such a
grand scale, the murals and statues executed with such artistic skill,
and craftsmanship had reached such a degree of perfection, that they
will ever lure man to a realisation of his heritage. ‘Egypt contains
more wonders than any other land in the world, and is pre-eminent above
all the countries in the world for works that one can hardly
describe,’ wrote Herodotus.
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| Ancient Egypt |
Though much of Egypt’s portable treasure today adorns the museums of the world, the
Egyptian Museum in
Cairo naturally boasts the most valuable and comprehensive collection. Founded by the
French Egyptologist Mariette in 1882,
its contents are arranged in chronological order (though the heavier
stone statues, stele and sarcophagi are on the ground floor). They
range from neolithic artifacts and pottery to statues and portraits of
the Greco-Roman period; five thousand years of Egypt’s ancient history.
There are statues, stele, murals, sarcophagi, texts, jewellery, etc,
of all periods, including the Hetep-Heres collection of royal furniture
of the Old Kingdom, the famous Tutankhamon Collection, a Collection of
the Tanite Kings (21st/22nd dynasty) which represents the largest
collection of gold and silver work in the museum, the Ikhnaton
Collection including statues of the pharaoh himself, exquisite paintings
from his
Sun Temple at Tel el Amarna, and a superb bust
(unpainted) of his wife Neferteti. There is also a Mummy Room
containing forty mummies of some of Egypt’s most important pharaohs
(including Amenhotep I, Thutmose II and III, Seti I, and Ramses II and
III) which were recovered from a shaft at Der el Bahri (Luxor Egypt),
where they had been hidden by the priests of the 21st dynasty for
safety against grave robbers.
Most of the works described in this study may be found in the
Egyptian Museum,
including the famous diorite statue of Khafre pharaoh, statues of
Menkaure king between Hathor and local deities, the ‘Sheikh el Balad’,
Ra-Hotep and Nofret, the copper
Pepi I's statue and his son, the
statue of Ti, the nobleman whose tomb we have described in detail, and
the granite sarcophagus of Menerre (procured by Uni who excavated five
canals at the First Cataract to transport the barges to Memphis) to
mention but a few. These, of course, are apart from objects of a
non-funerary nature: combs, mirrors, furniture, weapons, tools, etc.
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| Ancient Egypt |
The contents of the
Museum,
however, represent but a small part of Egypt’s treasures, for indeed
the whole of the Nile Valley is an outdoor museum. Following the
ancient highway, the river Nile, we will briefly view some of the
surviving monuments that lie between Giza, opposite Cairo, where the
Great Pyramids of Khufu Pharaoh straddle the desert plateau, and Abu
Simbel, over 600 miles further south, where the gigantic statues of
Ramses II king sit in massive dignity at the entrance of his famous
temple above the waters of Lake Nasser.
Related Web Search :
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