Information on the history of the Sphinx

It is guarding the three pyramids It is a monster made of rock and the head of human body Assadullah We believe that there is an ambiguous one could not interpret a look at the far reaches of the Sahara And the kind of glory Ibg high and 18 meters And 57 meters tall 5000-year-old Why brown sphinx?? There are some inscriptions by the ancient kings of Mlcan Says that the sphinx is a form of the sun god The purpose of this statue to remove all kinds of evil Transferred from the cemetery of the pyramids The meaning of the word sphinx Balfronih (Mr.)

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Re-discovery of the Sphinx of the Western world at the passage of Napoleon in Egypt in 1798, and there are too many statues of the Sphinx on the world, mostly in Egypt and the Giza And some of them as the son of the Egyptian goddess of the sun (Ra) and is thus a force and wisdom and was a symbol of the strong presence of Egypt for centuries ago, but that there is another type of the Egyptian Sphinx and the form of a scapegoat and was continued for another god (Amon) He (Onubis) guard in charge of the cemetery and embalming

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Sculpture of the Sphinx Bazlte rock hard and you may also have set a smaller head of the body because the body was buried under the sand preferred to maintain a coherent structure from the elements in contrast to the desert to bury the head and revealed a number of times over the centuries, the sand removed from the body of the Sphinx fully in 1905 to reveal the beauty of this statue

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Foot length of 15 m and height up to the full 45 m, 10 m high head and offer 4 p.m., and because the composition of the statue of the blessed are several layers have been eroded from other areas and kept the other form and has lost much of the fine details of the original form

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The most common theory that the King Khafre (2558-2532 BCE) of the strain is the fourth property is the construction of the Sphinx, Khafre, the son of Cheops (the pyramid is the largest) and there is a straight path between the Sphinx and the pyramid East (the tomb of Khafra)

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Exist between the feet of the Sphinx gate now called the gate of dreams and carving out the story, tells the story of the eighth generation, the Royal Ttmosis two tenths VI - (c.1400-1390 BCE) Thutmosis IV Nam at the top of the Sphinx, who was lying with earth until his neck. Ttmosis dream that sphinx speech and his promise to become a king but in return to free them from the desert sands and to remove the soil by

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Did not know which it really happened in that period, but it seems that Ttmosis removed sand from the Sphinx then, and believed that the dream was a story fabricated for political purposes, the type of propaganda to prove its credibility and legitimacy of the King For as the ancient Egyptians believed that the gods are decided supported by the pharaoh and the next, and perhaps in this case, the Sphinx itself ..

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Plate made of granite over the gate tells the story of the dream addition to the registration of the first year under the rule of Ttmosis and to the gate of dreams, there is a kind of altar, where the pagan rituals in the era of Ramses II

The Eternal Egypt Website

The centerpiece of Eternal Egypt is a trilingual website which offers the most robust repository of information and media about Egyptian cultural history available on the web today. High-resolution two- and three-dimensional artifact scans, 360º panoramas of locations, annotated multimedia animations, virtually-reconstructed environments, and real-time photos from webcams are woven into a multi-epoch journey through the museum that is Egypt itself.

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The website began as a concept, "Egypt Everywhere," which strove to highlight the major themes that run through the course of Egyptian history. Spanning periods, peoples, and cultures the website was envisioned to appeal to the sensibilities and interests of a global audience. To reflect this concept in the development of a look-and-feel for the site, and consequently all other aspects of the project, IBM conducted a global "call for entries" amongst the e-business Innovation Centers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, D.C., Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, and Vancouver. The most visually appealing aspects of these designs were taken as inputs for a truly globally-inspired look-and-feel for the entire Eternal Egypt project.

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Ease of use and diversity of options for interacting with the wealth of content characterize the advanced functionality available on the Eternal Egypt website. Organized primarily in "articles", small segments that cohere thematically and can be grouped into stories or tours, the content for the site is accessed in a variety of ways. Visitors can take a birds-eye view of the site by exploring content by type - artifacts, characters, and places - or by the multimedia which represents it. Visitors can think more geographically and explore the collections by the sites and museums which contain them. Or, information can be explored even more visually by moving around an interactive, zoomable map of Egypt. Visitors more interested in exploring chronological relationships between the elements of Egyptian culture can use an interactive timeline. For a truly impressive experience, the Connections function can be used to visualize the implicit and explicit relationships between the artifacts, places, and people. Connections allows the serendipity of thematic connections in Egyptian culture to be your guide through Eternal Egypt.

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A dynamic media viewer enables easy interaction with the thousands of images and multimedia on the website. The viewer adapts to the media under consideration, allowing zooming for high-resolution two-dimensional images and greater manipulation of panoramic movies and virtual environments. The viewer itself is scalable so that monitors of varying sizes and resolutions can experience the most rich visual presentation of content. IBM Text-to-Speech technology enables spoken narration of the content throughout the website and nicely complements the viewer. As visitors explore a three-dimensional reconstruction of the lighthouse at Alexandria, for example, they can also be listening to the story of how this lighthouse came to be, in English, French, or Arabic.

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Personalization features of the website include My Collection, a persistent "notebook" which allows the visitors to assemble their favorite elements from the site. These elements can be saved for later retrieval on the Digital Guide, allowing a truly multi-modal experience of the same content. For example, visitors can assemble their favorite objects in advance of a trip to Egypt for easy retrieval as a cell-phone based tour upon arrival. My Visit charts a visitor's progress through the website, allowing easy backtracking to precisely the elements that were viewed before. A guided tour of site functions, an interactive page-specific glossary, extensive help section, and a low-bandwidth version for different access speeds rounds out the site functionality that makes Eternal Egypt so special.

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The Eternal Egypt site is served to its World Wide Web audience from a "farm" of IBM xSeries servers located at the MCIT Hosting site in Smart Village, Cairo, Egypt. This infrastructure runs on a Linux platform and has been designed to provide a secure, scaleable, and flexible environment, which makes it possible for the Eternal Egypt website to support millions of "hits" each day.

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Places of Worship

Most of the known Pharaonic temples such as the Temples of Karnak, Luxor, and Ramesses the Second belonged to the era of the New Kingdom. Many of Egypt's temples became complex systems of buildings, added to by generations of pharaohs. The architecture of the temple was characterized by spaciousness and the contrast between light and darkness. It was built so that the temple floor rose toward the holiest place of the temple. This design symbolically represented the ancient Egyptian religious concept of creation where in the midst of the primordial waters, the god created a hill upon which he settled.

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Egyptian temples were often located at a point of religious interest, and usually oriented in the direction of another significant religious point, such as the believed site of a god's birthplace or grave. However, in a practical sense, the building was often located near a population center, heavily traveled routes, or necessary resources. For example, the Osirion in the temple of Seti the First at Abydos apparently needed a pool of water around the subterranean "grave" of Osiris and so it was located near a natural spring.

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Most of the temples established during the Greco-Roman era such as the Temple of Horus at Edfu and the Temple of Dendera were in the areas of Upper Egypt and Nubia. In general, all these temples have the same features as the Egyptian temple, a style that continued throughout the Roman era. The Sobek temple, discovered in 1912 at Faiyum, is a marvelous example of a Roman temple. When the Christians were suffering from Roman persecution, they would take refuge in the desert, dwelling in the ancient Pharaonic temples. They left many writings on temple walls next to the ancient writings. The Karnak and Edfu temples still show remnants of Christian worship.

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During the Christian period, the church became the official place of worship. Coptic churches in Egypt were built in the Basilic style, such as the Basilica at Dendera, the Virgin Mary Church, the Hanging Church, and Mar Girgis Church. Marble, mosaic, ebony, and wood were used in marvelous architectural elements, such as altars, lamps, and candelabrums containing inscriptions and crosses. Many of these churches are built where it is believed that the baby Jesus and his family made stops in their journey through Egypt.

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The rise of monasticism in Egypt produced a unique Christian architecture in the monasteries. These were built in places far from urban communities to provide the inhabitants with serenity and calmness. A number of monasteries have been discovered in the Natron Valley, Esna, and Nekada. Many Coptic Christian popes were selected from the Monastery of Saint Macarius in Wadi Al-Natron. Saint Antony's Monastery is billed as the world's oldest monastery and other ancient monasteries include the White Monastery and the Red Monastery.

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Because Islam spread through a vast territory quickly, the use of local building material and ideas by local craftsman and architects created distinguished regional variants. Despite their differences, most mosques follow the basic architectural design of the prophet Mohammad's mosque. This architectural design is mainly concerned with the functional elements for worship and contains many elements such as the mihrab, or prayer niche, and the wooden gates. Such elements were decorated with plant and geometric embellishments. Artists excelled in engraving those pieces and adorning them with ivory and metal inlay.

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In formal mosques, a demarcated space allows room for congregational prayer and is almost always partially roofed and partly open to the sky. The covered prayer hall, or sanctuary (haram), usually varies relative to the size of the open courtyard (sahn). The towering minaret, the most visible part of a mosque, was not in the original design. The expansion of Islam into urban areas created the need for an elevated place so that the voice of the muezzin calling worshipers to prayer can be heard at a maximum distance.

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The first mosque to be established in Egypt was Amr Ibn al-As Mosque, known as the "Old Mosque," established in AD 641. A number of other large mosques then followed, including the Ibn Tulun, Al-Hakim, and Al-Aqmar Mosques. The Al-Azhar Mosque is considered the first Fatimid monument in Egypt. After the Fatimid era, the hanging mosque style appeared. It sits atop five archways and has a double flight of stairs leading to the main door. Despite the weakened Egyptian state during the Ottoman era, many artistic mosques were built, such as the Solayman Pasha, Senan Pasha, and Queen Safeyah Mosques.

Block Statue of Bak-en-Khonsu

This block statue bears the name of Bak-en-Khonsu. He is crouched on a thin round cushion. His arms are crossed on his knees and he holds in his right hand a well-detailed plant.

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He wears a headdress that reaches his shoulders leaving ears and neck uncovered. He has a small beard and wears a tight belt.On the right shoulder, two cartouches of King Osorkon the Second of the Twenty-Second Dynasty, are engraved.

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A scene at the front shows Bak-en-Khonsu, designated as "Justified Dead," offering the sign of Maat, or justice, to Amun and Osiris. A long dedicatory hieroglyphic text is on the other sides of the statue.

Dimensions: Height 52 cm

Topics: Myths

Early Egyptians lacked scientific knowledge to explain events such as why the Nile flooded annually, how the sun rose and set each day, and how the world was created. They used stories about gods and goddesses, called myths, to explain these natural events and to reflect their society's ideals. Religious significance separates myth from folk tales or legends as myths are considered both sacred and true.One ancient Egyptian creation myth originating from Heliopolis relates the story of the Ennead, or group of nine gods. It tells of a time when nothing existed. The primordial waters of chaos receded and left in their wake a mound of fertile black soil on which the god Atum was seated. From himself, he created the deities Shu and Tefnut. Shu and Tefnut gave birth to Geb and Nut who gave birth to Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys.

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Another creation myth originated in Hermopolis, where Thoth was worshiped as the patron god. In this tradition there are eight gods, called the Ogdoad, who are made up of four male and female couples: Nun and Nunet, Amun and Amunet, Heh and Hehet, Kek and Keket. The males had the heads of frogs and the females had serpent's heads. The Hermopolis creation myth has several variations. The Cosmic Egg from which the god of creation was born was laid by a celestial goose or in some versions, the ibis, the bird associated with the god Thoth. Or a lotus flower rose from the waters and opened to reveal a child-god.

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Most ancient Egyptians would not live past the mid-twenties, so they sought comfort in the idea of life continuing after death. Their observations of nature supported this belief; the sun died in the west and was reborn in the east each day and grain that appeared dead sprouted into a new plant once it was put in the ground. The myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris strengthened the Egyptians belief that they would live again.

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After the creation of the world, Osiris took the throne and married his sister, Isis. He is said to have introduced agriculture, built the first temples, and set fair laws for his people. Osiris was killed by his evil brother Seth, who tore the body to pieces and scattered them. Isis was able to gather all the pieces of the body except one, which had been eaten by a fish. She bandaged them together, creating the first mummy, and used her magic to restore Osiris to life. Osiris then traveled to the underworld to be king and judge of the dead. Before Osiris was killed, Isis became pregnant with Horus, who would grow up to defeat Seth and avenge his father's death.

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When the Greeks and then the Romans conquered Egypt, they found many similarities among the gods of Egypt and the Greco-Roman gods. Their gods and goddesses were guided by human emotions and stories about them were used to entertain, teach morals, and explain the unknown. Ptolemy the First introduced a god named Serapis who was intended to be a supreme deity shared by the Greek and Egyptian people in Egypt. Serapis, whose name is a combination of Osiris and the Apis Bull, was the god of fertility, healing, supreme leadership, and the afterlife.

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By the Islamic period, Egyptian mythological influences were still present in religious thinking. The Muslims were concerned with a life after death in heaven as well. Although not specifically mentioned in the Qur'an, some religious scholars made references to the scales in the afterlife in which the books containing the deceased's deeds are weighed, similar to the weighing of the heart against the feather of Ma'at, or what is true and right.

Pharaoh: Lord of the Two Lands

The most powerful person in ancient Egypt was the pharaoh. The pharaoh was the political and religious leader of the Egyptian people, holding the titles: 'Lord of the Two Lands' and 'High Priest of Every Temple'.
As 'Lord of the Two Lands' the pharaoh was the ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. He owned all of the land, made laws, collected taxes, and defended Egypt against foreigners.
As 'High Priest of Every Temple', the pharaoh represented the gods on Earth. He performed rituals and built temples to honour the gods.
Many pharaohs went to war when their land was threatened or when they wanted to control foreign lands. If the pharaoh won the battle, the conquered people had to recognise the Egyptian pharaoh as their ruler and offer him the finest and most valuable goods from their land.

Stamp information on this site Enter now

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/pharaoh/home.html

Pharaoh Akhenaten

1369-1332 BC: Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten

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The Pharaoh Akhenaten was known as the Heretic King. He was the tenth King of the 18th Dynasty. Egyptologists are still tying to figure out what actually happened during his lifetime as much of the truth was buried, for all time, after he died.
Akhenaten lived at the peak of Egypt's imperial glory. Egypt had never been richer, more powerful, or more secure. Up and down the Nile, workers built hundreds of temples to pay homage to the Gods. They believed that if the Gods were pleased, Egypt would prosper. And so it did.
Akhenaten and his family lived in the great religious center of Thebes, city of the God Amun. There were thousands of priests who served the Gods. Religion was the 'business' of the time, many earning their living connected to the worship of the gods.
All indications are that as a child Akhenaten was a family outcast. Scientists are studying the fact that Akhenaten suffered from a disease called Marfan Syndrome, a genetic defect that damages the body's connective tissue. Symptoms include, short torso, long head, neck, arms, hand and feet, pronounced collarbones, pot belly, heavy thighs, and poor muscle tone. Those who inherit it are often unusually tall and are likely to have weakened aortas that can rupture. They can die at an early age. If Akhnaton had the disease each of his daughters had a 50-50 change of inheriting it. That is why his daughters are shown with similar symptoms.

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