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Sennacherib › Who Was
Definition and Origins
Sennacherib (reigned 705-681 BCE) was the second king of the Sargonid Dynasty of Assyria (founded by his father Sargon II ). He is one of the most famous Assyrian kings owing to the part he plays in narratives in the biblical Old Testament (II Kings, II Chronicles, and Isaiah) and, since the 19th century CE, from the poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib” by the English poet Lord Byron. He is also known as the second Assyrian king to have sacked Babylon ’s temples and been assassinated for his affront to the gods (the first king being Tukulti-Ninurta I in c. 1225 BCE). Sennacherib abandoned his father's new city of Dur-Sharrukin and moved the capital to Nineveh, which he handsomely restored. The famous Hanging Gardens, which traditionally have been attributed to Babylon, are now thought by some scholars to have actually been Sennacherib's creation at Nineveh. His reign was marked largely by his campaigns against Babylon and the revolts against Assyrian rule led by a tribal chief named Merodach-Baladan. After sacking Babylon, he was assassinated by his sons.
EARLY REIGN & FIRST SACK OF BABYLON
During the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BCE), Sennacherib had effectively maintained the administration of the empire while his father was away on military campaigns. According to inscriptions and letters from the time, Sargon II trusted his son to handle the daily affairs of state but did not seem to think highly of him as a man or future king. The historian Susan Wise Bauer writes, “Sargon had, apparently, not been reticent in spreading his opinion of his son abroad. When Sennacherib came to the throne, the provinces – convinced that the crown prince was boneless and inadequate – celebrated their coming freedom from Assyrian rule” (382). Sennacherib seems to have regarded his father with similar disdain; there is no mention of Sargon II in any of Sennacherib's inscriptions and no record of any monuments or temples linking Sennacherib's reign and accomplishments with his father's. Sargon II's new capital city of Dur-Sharrukin, which Sennacherib had been forced to oversee the construction of for ten years, was abandoned shortly after Sargon II's death and the capital moved to Nineveh.
SENNACHERIB HAD SPENT MORE TIME DEALING WITH BABYLON AND THE ELAMITES AND EXPENDED MORE MEN AND RESOURCES ON SUBDUING THAT CITY THAN ANY OTHER, SO HE ORDERED BABYLON TO BE RAZED TO THE GROUND.
Since Sennacherib had been forced to play the role of government official under his father, it is understandable that the people, at his ascension to the throne, might have considered him weak; unlike other Assyrian kings of the past, he had never accompanied his father on campaign and so had never proved himself in battle. One of these campaigns, among the last Sargon II ever led, was against a tribal chief named Merodach-Baladan who had taken the crown of Babylon and control of the southern region of Mesopotamia. Sargon II had defeated Merodach-Baladan's allies, the Elamites, and driven the chief from Babylon, afterwards taking the crown for himself. He made the mistake, however, of sparing Merodach-Baladan's life, allowing him to remain in his hometown of Bit-Yakin by the Persian Gulf, and this decision would cause Sennacherib some of the most serious problems of his reign. Shortly after Sennacherib came to the throne, Merodach-Baladan returned to Babylon at the head of an army comprised of his tribesmen and Elamite warriors, assassinated the sitting ruler of the city, and again took the throne.
Sennacherib had not done anything to endear himself to the Babylonians. Sargon II had won Babylon in battle and been recognized as the legitimate king. It would have been expected that, after his coronation, Sennacherib would travel to Babylon to “take the hand of Marduk ” and legitimize his own rule over the city and the southern reaches. “Taking the hand of Marduk” meant to ceremoniously acknowledge Marduk as the god of Babylon and show one's respect for the city by holding the hand of the statue of the god during the ritual that legitimized one's rule. Sennacherib dispensed with that custom and proclaimed himself king of Babylon without bothering to even visit the city, thus insulting Babylon and its chief god.
Neo-Assyrian Empire
The Babylonians, therefore, welcomed the arrival of Merodach-Baladan and felt they had nothing to fear from the new Assyrian king. Sennacherib seemed to confirm their confidence in 703 BCE by sending an army, led by his commander-in-chief instead of himself, to drive the invaders out of Babylon and restore Assyrian rule; this army was swiftly defeated by the combined forces of the Elamites, Chaldeans, and Aramaeans. Babylon then arranged its troops, just in case the Assyrians decided to try again, and settled back down to its own business and proceeded to ignore the Assyrian king. According to Bauer,
That was the last straw. Sennacherib himself came sweeping down like the wrath of Assur and broke through the allied front line, barely pausing. Merodach-Baladan ran from the battlefield and crept into the marshes of the Sealand, which he knew well, to hide himself; Sennacherib marched the rest of the way to Babylon, which prudently opened its gates as soon as it saw the Assyrian king on the horizon. Sennacherib came through the open gate, but chose to send Babylon a message: he ransacked the city, took almost a quarter of a million captives, and destroyed the fields and groves of anyone who had joined the alliance against him (384).
The people of Babylon quickly realized that the poor opinion they had held of Sennacherib was misguided. In this early campaign the new king showed himself an adept tactician, able military leader, and ruthless enemy.
FURTHER REBELLIONS & CAMPAIGNS
Merodach-Baladan had fled to Elam but did not remain idle there. He encouraged others to revolt against Assyrian rule.Among these was King Hezekiah of Judah who was told that, if he stood against Assyria, aid would come from Egypt. Shortly after Sennacherib took Babylon, the cities of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean Sea revolted at the same time as the Philistine cities of Ekron and Lachish in Canaan. In 701 BCE Sennacherib marched his armies into the region to put down the revolts. The Assyrian-appointed king of Ekron, meanwhile, had been taken to Jerusalem in chains and handed over to Hezekiah who imprisoned him. Sennacherib was busy with the siege of the city of Lachish, and so he sent his envoys to Jerusalem to demand the release of the imprisoned king and the city's surrender. Bauer notes that “they were not just any envoys but Sennacherib's own general, chief officer, and field commander; and they arrived at the head of a large army” (385).While these officers dealt with the Jerusalem problem, Sennacherib concentrated on reducing Lachish by siege. The historian Simon Anglim describes the Assyrian assault:
At Lachish, the city was first surrounded to prevent escape. Next, archers were brought forward; under the cover of giant shields, they cleared the battlements. The king then used the tried-and-tested Assyrian method of building an earthen ramp close to the enemy wall, covering it with flat stone and wheeling forward a machine that combined a siege-tower with a battering ram. The Assyrians then staged a two-pronged assault. The tower was wheeled up the ramp and the ram was brought to bear against the mid-section of the enemy wall. Archers in the tower cleared the battlements while bowmen on the ground pushed up close to the wall to cover an infantry assault with scaling ladders. The fighting appears to have been intense, and the assault probably took several days, yet eventually the Assyrians entered the city (190).
The Taylor Prism of King Sennacherib, Nineveh
Lachish was taken and the population slaughtered. Those who were spared were deported to regions in Assyria. While the siege was underway, the envoys outside the gates of Jerusalem were in negotiations with Hezekiah's representatives.Referring to Egypt as “a splintered reed” which could be of no help to the city, the Assyrian general addressed Hezekiah's men loudly in Hebrew, rather than Aramaic, so that the people lining the city's walls could understand him. When Hezekiah's representatives asked him to speak in Aramaic so that the people would not panic, the general refused, saying, “The message is for them too. Like you, they will have to eat their own dung and drink their own urine” (Bauer, 386). Hezekiah released the King of Ekron and sent eleven tons of silver and a ton of gold to Sennacherib at Lachish. The Assyrian army withdrew from Jerusalem to fight the Egyptians at Eltekeh. They defeated the Egyptian forces and then marched back to the region of the Levant and put down the rebellions at Ekron, Tyre, and Sidon.
THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM
With order now restored and rebellious populations decimated and deported, Sennacherib turned his attention again to Jerusalem. Although Hezekiah had paid him a handsome tribute, Sennacherib was not one to forgive and forget. He marched on the city and, according to his inscriptions, took it by siege:
As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to his strong cities, walled forts, and countless small villages, and conquered them by means of well-stamped earth-ramps and battering-rams brought near the walls with an attack by foot soldiers, using mines, breeches as well as trenches. I drove out 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered them slaves. Himself I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. I surrounded him with earthwork in order to molest those who were his city's gate. Thus I reduced his country, but I still increased the tribute and the presents to me as overlord which I imposed upon him beyond the former tribute, to be delivered annually. Hezekiah himself, did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, antimony, large cuts of red stone, couches inlaid with ivory, nimedu-chairs inlaid with ivory, elephant-hides, ebony-wood, boxwood and all kinds of valuable treasures, his own daughters and concubines.
According to the biblical record of the event, however, the siege was lifted through divine intervention. The Book of II Kings 18-19, the Book of II Chronicles 32, and the Book of Isaiah 37 all claim that Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem, but the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah he had nothing to fear because God would defend the city.
Therefore this is what the Lord says concerning the king of Assyria:“He will not enter this city
or shoot an arrow here.
He will not come before it with shield
or build a siege ramp against it.
By the way that he came he will return;
he will not enter this city,
declares the Lord.
I will defend this city and save it,
for my sake and for the sake of David my servant.”That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there (II Kings 19: 31-36).
It is this event which inspired Lord Byron's 1815 CE poem, “The Destruction of Sennacherib”, which made the king's name a household word because schoolchildren would be required to memorize and recite it regularly. By dint of repetition, even those not acquainted with the story in II Kings came to understand that the Assyrian king was defeated by the god of the Hebrews.Long before Byron wrote his poem, however, Assyrian chroniclers would reference Sennacherib's failure to take Jerusalem.While the Bible does record the 46 cities of Judah which fell to the Assyrians (as recorded by Sennacherib), it maintains that Jerusalem was not one of them. Further, although Sennacherib's palace at Nineveh was decorated with reliefs depicting his campaigns and victories including many detailing the siege of Lachish, Jerusalem never appears among them.
Assyrian Soldiers
Scholars have cited Herodotus ' account of the Assyrian's misfortune in battle against Egypt at the city of Pelusium in regards to their siege of Jerusalem. Herodotus writes that the Egyptian leader Sethos prayed to his god for help in defeating the massive Assyrian force, and the god sent into the Assyrian camp “a swarm of field mice [who] gnawed through their quivers and their bows, and the handles of their shields as well, so that the next day, weaponless, all they could do was flee, and their losses were heavy” (II.141). It is thought that both stories refer to a plague which struck the Assyrian camp and devastated the army on two separate occasions. Whatever happened outside of Jerusalem, whether God's intervention, a plague, or God's intervention in the form of the plague, the city remained intact and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh.
BUILDING PROJECTS & THE INVASION OF ELAM
Back in Nineveh, Sennacherib devoted himself to further building projects. He had already commissioned the renovation of the city early on and now took on a personal role in overseeing the construction of parks, gardens, and orchards. He was especially fond of flowers and plants and imported specimens from throughout the empire for his public gardens. He paid particular attention to his palace which he called “the Palace without Rival”, the same phrase his father had used to describe the palace at Dur-Sharrukin. The historian Christopher Scarre writes:
Sennacherib's palace had all the usual accoutrements of a major Assyrian residence: colossal guardian figures and impressively carved stone reliefs (over 2,000 sculptured slabs in 71 rooms). Its gardens, too, were exceptional. Recent research by British Assyriologist Stephanie Dalley has suggested that these were the famous Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Later writers placed the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, but extensive research has failed to find any trace of them. Sennacherib's proud account of the palace gardens he created at Nineveh fits that of the Hanging Gardens in several significant details (231).
While he was busying himself with renovation and construction projects in Nineveh, however, trouble was erupting in the south. After he had taken Babylon, Sennacherib placed a trusted official named Bel-ibni on the throne to rule for him. Bel-ibni had been raised alongside Sennacherib in the Assyrian court and was thought to be trustworthy. It turned out that, however loyal Bel-ibni may have been, he was an incompetent ruler who allowed the southern regions to do whatever they pleased.Merodach-Baladan had returned from hiding and was instigating unrest throughout the region. Sennacherib marched south again to put down the revolts. He sent Bel-ibni back to Nineveh and appointed his own son and chosen heir, Ashur -nadin-shumi, to rule Babylon.
He then went in pursuit of Merodach-Baladan, equipping a vast army to find and kill the rebel leader but, when they finally located him, he had died of natural causes. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh but was soon called to campaign again. The Elamites had kidnapped Ashur-nadin-shumi and claimed Babylon as their own. Sennacherib defeated the Babylonians, re-took the city, and executed the rebels, but there was no word on the fate of his son and no ransom note had been delivered. This action “produced a full-blown war between Assyria, Babylon, and Elam. Fighting went on for four years” (Bauer, 388).Sennacherib mounted an enormous expedition to invade Elam that included Phoenician ships and the whole might of the Assyrian army. The Elamite king gathered his forces and marched to meet the Assyrians by the banks of the Tigris River.Sennacherib's inscriptions describe the opening battle:
With the dust of their feet covering the wide heavens like a mighty storm, they drew up in battle array before me on the bank of the Tigris. They blocked my passage and offered battle. I put on my coat of mail. My helmet, emblem of victory, I placed upon my head. My great battle chariot which brings low the foe, I hurriedly mounted in the anger of my heart. The mighty bow which Assur had given me I seized in my hands; the javelin, piercing to the life, I grasped. I stopped their advance, succeeding in surrounding them. I decimated the enemy host with arrow and spear. All of their bodies I bored through. I cut their throats like lambs, cut off their precious lives as one cuts string. Like the many waters of a storm I made the contents of their gullets and entrails run down upon the wide earth. My prancing steeds, harnessed for my riding, plunged into the steams of their blood as into a river. The wheels of my war chariot, which brings low the wicked and the evil, were bespattered with filth and blood. With the bodies of their warriors I filled the plain, like grass. Their testicles I cut off and tore their privates like the seeds of cucumbers in June. Then they fled from me. They held back their urine but let their dung go into their chariots. 150,000 of their warriors I cut down with the sword.
While the battle was successful, the war was lost and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh. No inscriptions record the fate of his son, but he is thought to have been executed c. 694 BCE. Babylon and the southern regions remained under Elamite control.Sennacherib went back to his building projects and seemed to have decided to leave Babylon alone.
Stele of King Sennacherib
SACK OF BABYLON & DEATH OF SENNACHERIB
When the Elamite king died the following year, Sennacherib mobilized his forces and suddenly struck at Babylon. The city fell and he sent the pretender to the throne back to Nineveh in chains. He had spent more time during his reign dealing with Babylon and the Elamites, and expended more men and resources on subduing the city, than on any other campaign, and so he ordered the city to be razed to the ground. His inscriptions describe the destruction:
I destroyed, I devastated, I burned with fire. The wall and outer-wall, temples and gods, temple -towers of brick and earth, as many as there were, I razed and dumped them into the Arahtu canal. Through the midst of the city I dug canals, I flooded its site with water…That in days to come, the site of that city, and its temples and gods, might not be remembered, I completely blotted it out with floods of water and made it like a meadow. I removed the dust of Babylon for presents to be sent to the most distant peoples.
Babylon was destroyed and the statue of their god, Marduk, was carried back to Nineveh. Sennacherib no longer had to worry about who was ruling in Babylon or what trouble they were causing; the city no longer existed. Sennacherib may have thought that now Babylon would cause him no further problems, but in this he was mistaken. As in the reign of Tukulti- Ninurta I, the people were outraged at Sennacherib's destruction of the great city and, further, by his sacrilege in plundering the temples and taking the statue of Marduk as a prize. Bauer writes, “Turning Babylon into a lake – covering the civilized land with water, returning the city of Marduk to the primordial chaos – was an insult to the god. Sennacherib compounded this by ordering the statue of Marduk hauled back to Assyria” (389). The Assyrians and Babylonians revered many of the same gods – even though they often had different names – and this insult to Marduk, the god who had brought order out of chaos, was intolerable.
The Book of II Kings 19:37 states, “One day, while [Sennacherib] was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king.” Assyrian inscriptions also maintain that he was killed by his sons but differ on whether he was stabbed or crushed to death. The historian Stephen Bertman writes, “Sennacherib was stabbed to death by an assassin (possibly one of his sons) or, according to another account, was crushed to death by the monumental weight of a winged bull that he just happened to be standing beneath” (102). Whichever way he died, it is thought that he was killed because of his treatment of Babylon.
It is known that Tukulti-Ninurta I's assassination, also by his sons, was a direct result of his sack of Babylon, so there is the possibility that later scribes conflated the motive behind Sennacherib's assassination with that of Tukulti-Ninurta I, but it is just as possible that the destruction of Babylon led to Sennacherib's death as surely as it had for Tukulti-Ninurta I. After the kidnapping of Ashur-nadin-shumi, Sennacherib had needed to choose another heir and, in 683 BCE, chose his youngest son, Esarhaddon (who was not the son of his queen but of a concubine named Zakutu ). The older brothers certainly could have been motivated to kill their father for this snub in order to take the throne for themselves but would have needed a legitimate reason for doing so; the destruction of Babylon would have provided them with justification. After Sennacherib's assassination, Esarhaddon took the throne and defeated his brother's factions in a six-week civil war. He then had his brother's families and associates executed. Once his rule was secure he issued new decrees and proclamations; among the first of these was that Babylon should be restored.
Ancient Egyptian Culture › Antique Origins
Definition and Origins
Ancient Egyptian culture flourished between c. 5500 BCE with the rise of technology (as evidenced in the glass-work of faience ) and 30 BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt. It is famous today for the great monuments which celebrated the triumphs of the rulers and honored the gods of the land. The culture is often misunderstood as having been obsessed with death but, had this been so, it is unlikely it would have made the significant impression it did on other ancient cultures such as Greece and Rome. The Egyptian culture was, in fact, life affirming, as the scholar Salima Ikram writes:
Judging by the numbers of tombs and mummies that the ancient Egyptians left behind, one can be forgiven for thinking that they were obsessed by death. However, this is not so. The Egyptians were obsessed by life and its continuation rather than by a morbid fascination with death. The tombs, mortuary temples and mummies that they produced were a celebration of life and a means of continuing it for eternity…For the Egyptians, as for other cultures, death was part of the journey of life, with death marking a transition or transformation after which life continued in another form, the spiritual rather than the corporeal. (ix).
This passion for life imbued in the ancient Egyptians a great love for their land as it was thought that there could be no better place on earth in which to enjoy existence. While the lower classes in Egypt, as elsewhere, subsisted on much less than the more affluent, they still seem to have appreciated life in the same way as the wealthier citizens. This is exemplified in the concept of gratitude and the ritual known as The Five Gifts of Hathor in which the poor labourers were encouraged to regard the fingers of their left hand (the hand they reached with daily to harvest field crops) and to consider the five things they were most grateful for in their lives. Ingratitude was considered a `gateway sin' as it led to all other types of negative thinking and resultant behaviour. Once one felt ungrateful, it was observed, one then was apt to indulge oneself further in bad behaviour.The Cult of Hathor was very popular in Egypt, among all classes, and epitomizes the prime importance of gratitude in Egyptian culture.
RELIGION IN ANCIENT EGYPT
Religion was an integral part of the daily life of every Egyptian. As with the people of Mesopotamia, the Egyptians considered themselves co-labourers with the gods but with an important distinction: whereas the Mesopotamian peoples believed they needed to work with their gods to prevent the recurrence of the original state of chaos, the Egyptians understood their gods to have already completed that purpose and a human's duty was to celebrate that fact and give thanks for it. So-called ` Egyptian mythology ' was, in ancient times, as valid a belief structure as any accepted religion in the modern day.
Egyptian religion taught the people that, in the beginning, there was nothing but chaotic swirling waters out of which rose a small hill known as the Ben-Ben. Atop this hill stood the great god Atum who spoke creation into being by drawing on the power of Heka, the god of magic. Heka was thought to pre-date creation and was the energy which allowed the gods to perform their duties. Magic informed the entire civilization and Heka was the source of this creative, sustaining, eternal power.
In another version of the myth, Atum creates the world by first fashioning Ptah, the creator god who then does the actual work.Another variant on this story is that Ptah first appeared and created Atum. Another, more elaborate, version of the creation story has Atum mating with his shadow to create Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture) who then go on to give birth to the world and the other gods.
From this original act of creative energy came all of the known world and the universe. It was understood that human beings were an important aspect of the creation of the gods and that each human soul was as eternal as that of the deities they revered. Death was not an end to life but a re-joining of the individual soul with the eternal realm from which it had come.
The Egyptian concept of the soul regarded it as being comprised of nine parts: the Khat was the physical body; the Ka one's double-form; the Ba a human-headed bird aspect which could speed between earth and the heavens; Shuyet was the shadow self; Akh the immortal, transformed self, Sahu and Sechem aspects of the Akh ; Ab was the heart, the source of good and evil;Ren was one's secret name.
An individual's name was considered of such importance that an Egyptian's true name was kept secret throughout life and one was known by a nickname. Knowledge of a person's true name gave one magical powers over that individual and this is among the reasons why the rulers of Egypt took another name upon ascending the throne; it was not only to link oneself symbolically to another successful pharaoh but also a form of protection to ensure one's safety and help guarantee a trouble-free journey to eternity when one's life on earth was completed. According to the historian Margaret Bunson:
Eternity was an endless period of existence that was not to be feared by any Egyptian. The term `Going to One's Ka' (astral being) was used in each age to express dying. The hieroglyph for a corpse was translated as `participating in eternal life'. The tomb was the `Mansion of Eternity' and the dead was an Akh, a transformed spirit. (86).
The famous Egyptian mummy (whose name comes from the Persian and Arabic words for `wax' and `bitumen', muum and mumia ) was created to preserve the individual's physical body ( Khat ) without which the soul could not achieve immortality.As the Khat and the Ka were created at the same time, the Ka would be unable to journey to The Field of Reeds if it lacked the physical component on earth. The gods who had fashioned the soul and created the world consistently watched over the people of Egypt and heard and responded to, their petitions. A famous example of this is when Ramesses II was surrounded by his enemies at the Battle of Kadesh (1274 BCE) and, calling upon the god Amun for aid, found the strength to fight his way through to safety. There are many far less dramatic examples, however, recorded on temple walls, stele, and on papyrus fragments.
CULTURAL ADVANCES & DAILY LIFE
Papyrus (from which comes the English word `paper') was only one of the technological advances of the ancient Egyptian culture. The Egyptians were also responsible for developing the ramp and lever and geometry for purposes of construction, advances in mathematics and astronomy (also used in construction as exemplified in the positions and locations of the pyramids and certain temples, such as Abu Simbel ), improvements in irrigation and agriculture (perhaps learned from the Mesopotamians), ship building and aerodynamics (possibly introduced by the Phoenicians ) the wheel (brought to Egypt by the Hyksos ) and medicine.
The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus (c. 1800 BCE) is an early treatise on women's health issues and contraception and the Edwin Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE) is the oldest work on surgical techniques. Dentistry was widely practised and the Egyptians are credited with inventing toothpaste, toothbrushes, the toothpick, and even breath mints. They created the sport of bowling and improved upon the brewing of beer as first practised in Mesopotamia. The Egyptians did not, however, invent beer. This popular fiction of Egyptians as the first brewers stems from the fact that Egyptian beer more closely resembled modern-day beer than that of the Mesopotamians.
Glass working, metallurgy in both bronze and gold, and furniture were other advancements of Egyptian culture and their art and architecture are famous world-wide for precision and beauty. Personal hygiene and appearance was valued highly and the Egyptians bathed regularly, scented themselves with perfume and incense, and created cosmetics used by both men and women. The practice of shaving was invented by the Egyptians as was the wig and the hairbrush.
By 1600 BCE the water clock was in use in Egypt, as was the calendar. Some have even suggested that they understood the principle of electricity as evidenced in the famous Dendera Light engraving on the wall of the Hathor Temple at Dendera. The images on the wall have been interpreted by some to represent a light bulb and figures attaching said bulb to an energy source. This interpretation, however, has been largely discredited by the academic community.
Ancient Egyptian Music and Dancing
In daily life, the Egyptians seem little different from other ancient cultures. Like the people of Mesopotamia, India, China, and Greece, they lived, mostly, in modest homes, raised families, and enjoyed their leisure time. A significant difference between Egyptian culture and that of other lands, however, was that the Egyptians believed the land was intimately tied to their personal salvation and they had a deep fear of dying beyond the borders of Egypt. Those who served their country in the army, or those who travelled for their living, made provision for their bodies to be returned to Egypt should they be killed. It was thought that the fertile, dark earth of the Nile River Delta was the only area sanctified by the gods for the re-birth of the soul in the afterlife and to be buried anywhere else was to be condemned to non-existence.
Because of this devotion to the homeland, Egyptians were not great world-travellers and there is no `Egyptian Herodotus ' to leave behind impressions of the ancient world beyond Egyptian borders. Even in negotiations and treaties with other countries, Egyptian preference for remaining in Egypt was dominant. The historian Nardo writes,
Though Amenophis III had joyfully added two Mitanni princesses to his harem, he refused to send an Egyptian princess to the sovereign of Mitanni, because, `from time immemorial a royal daughter from Egypt has been given to no one.' This is not only an expression of the feeling of superiority of the Egyptians over the foreigners but at the same time and indication of the solicitude accorded female relatives, who could not be inconvenienced by living among `barbarians'. (31)
Further, within the confines of the country people did not travel far from their places of birth and most, except for times of war, famine or other upheaval, lived their lives and died in the same locale. As it was believed that one's afterlife would be a continuation of one's present (only better in that there was no sickness, disappointment or, of course, death), the place in which one spent one's life would constitute one's eternal landscape. The yard and tree and stream one saw every day outside one's window would be replicated in the afterlife exactly. This being so, Egyptians were encouraged to rejoice in and deeply appreciate their immediate surroundings and to live gratefully within their means. The concept of ma'at (harmony and balance) governed Egyptian culture and, whether of upper or lower class, Egyptians endeavoured to live in peace with their surroundings and with each other.
CLASS DISTINCTIONS IN EGYPTIAN CULTURE
Among the lower classes, homes were built of mud bricks baked in the sun. The more affluent a citizen, the thicker the home;wealthier people had homes constructed of a double layer, or more, of brick while poorer people's houses were only one brick wide. Wood was scarce and was only used for doorways and window sills (again, in wealthier homes) and the roof was considered another room in the house where gatherings were routinely held as the interior of the homes were often dimly lighted.
Clothing was simple linen, un-dyed, with the men wearing a knee-length skirt (or loincloth) and the women in light, ankle-length dresses or robes which concealed or exposed their breasts depending on the fashion at a particular time. It would seem that a woman's level of undress, however, was indicative of her social status throughout much of Egyptian history. Dancing girls, female musicians, and servants and slaves are routinely shown as naked or nearly naked while a lady of the house is fully clothed, even during those times when exposed breasts were a fashion statement.
Even so, women were free to dress as they pleased and there was never a prohibition, at any time in Egyptian history, on female fashion. A woman's exposed breasts were considered a natural, normal, fashion choice and was in no way deemed immodest or provocative. It was understood that the goddess Isis had given equal rights to both men and women and, therefore, men had no right to dictate how a woman, even one's own wife, should attire herself. Children wore little or no clothing until puberty.
Isis Nursing Horus
Marriages were not arranged among the lower classes and there seems to have been no formal marriage ceremony. A man would carry gifts to the house of his intended bride and, if the gifts were accepted, she would take up residence with him. The average age of a bride was 13 and that of a groom 18-21. A contract would be drawn up portioning a man's assets to his wife and children and this allotment could not be rescinded except on grounds of adultery (defined as sex with a married woman, not a married man). Egyptian women could own land, homes, run businesses, and preside over temples and could even be pharaohs (as in the example of Queen Hatshepsut, 1479-1458 BCE) or, earlier, Queen Sobeknofru, c. 1767-1759 BCE).
The historian Thompson writes, "Egypt treated its women better than any of the other major civilizations of the ancient world. The Egyptians believed that joy and happiness were legitimate goals of life and regarded home and family as the major source of delight.” Because of this belief, women enjoyed a higher prestige in Egypt than in any other culture of the ancient world.
While the man was considered the head of the house, the woman was head of the home. She raised the children of both sexes until, at the age or four or five, boys were taken under the care and tutelage of their fathers to learn their profession (or attend school if the father's profession was that of a scribe, priest, or doctor). Girls remained under the care of their mothers, learning how to run a household, until they were married. Women could also be scribes, priests, or doctors but this was unusual because education was expensive and tradition held that the son should follow the father's profession, not the daughter. Marriage was the common state of Egyptians after puberty and a single man or woman was considered abnormal.
The higher classes, or nobility, lived in more ornate homes with greater material wealth but seem to have followed the same precepts as those lower on the social hierarchy. All Egyptians enjoyed playing games, such as the game of Senet (a board game popular since the Pre-Dynastic Period, c. 5500-3150 BCE) but only those of means could afford a quality playing board.This did not seem to stop poorer people from playing the game, however; they merely played with a less ornate set.
Watching wrestling matches and races and engaging in other sporting events, such as hunting, archery, and sailing, were popular among the nobility and upper class but, again, were enjoyed by all Egyptians in as much as they could be afforded (save for large animal hunting which was the sole provenance of the ruler and those he designated). Feasting at banquets was a leisure activity only of the upper class although the lower classes were able to enjoy themselves in a similar (though less lavish) way at the many religious festivals held throughout the year.
SPORTS & LEISURE
Swimming and rowing were extremely popular among all classes. The Roman writer Seneca observed common Egyptians at sport the Nile River and described the scene:
The people embark on small boats, two to a boat, and one rows while the other bails out water. Then they are violently tossed about in the raging rapids. At length, they reach the narrowest channels…and, swept along by the whole force of the river, they control the rushing boat by hand and plunge head downward to the great terror of the onlookers. You would believe sorrowfully that by now they were drowned and overwhelmed by such a mass of water when, far from the place where they fell, they shoot out as from a catapult, still sailing, and the subsiding wave does not submerge them, but carries them on to smooth waters. (Nardo, 18)
Swimming was an important part of Egyptian culture and children were taught to swim when very young. Water sports played a significant role in Egyptian entertainment as the Nile River was such a major aspect of their daily lives. The sport of water-jousting, in which two small boats, each with one or two rowers and one jouster, fought each other, seems to have been very popular. The rower (or rowers) in the boat sought to strategically maneuver while the fighter tried to knock his opponent out of the craft. They also enjoyed games having nothing to do with the river, however, which were similar to modern-day games of catch and handball.
Egyptian Hunting in the Marshes
Gardens and simple home adornments were highly prized by the Egyptians. A home garden was important for sustenance but also provided pleasure in tending to one's own crop. The labourers in the fields never worked their own crop and so their individual garden was a place of pride in producing something of their own, grown from their own soil. This soil, again, would be their eternal home after they left their bodies and so was greatly valued. A tomb inscription from 1400 BCE reads, “May I walk every day on the banks of the water, may my soul rest on the branches of the trees which I planted, may I refresh myself under the shadow of my sycamore” in referencing the eternal aspect of the daily surroundings of every Egyptian. After death, one would still enjoy one's own particular sycamore tree, one's own daily walk by the water, in an eternal land of peace granted to those of Egypt by the gods they gratefully revered.
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