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Chronologies 1 a) Chronology of Egypt (Following Jürgen von Beckerath: Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten, Mainz 1997) c. 6000 BCE Badari cultures (A + B) in Egypt Neolithic cultural groups; agriculture; ceramics; cemeteries with corpses on stools, and burial gifts. c. 4000 Naqada cultures (I–III) Continuation of burial cult; ceramics with images of animals; female idols, illustrations of ships; palace and ritual installations. c. 3150 0 Dynasty (some 150 years) Direct transition from the Naqada culture to the first pan-Egyptian rulers. 3032–2707 Ancient era: First and Se…

1. Mummification is far from being an exclusive phenomenon of ancient Egypt. But it is the mummies of → Egypt, along with gods with animal heads, pyramids, and the Sphinx, that have perhaps the greatest power of attraction on Europe. The word ‘mummy’ derives immediately from the Italian mummia (‘mummy’), but it is originally ancient Persian, and denotes the bitumen or earth-pitch used for the preservation of a dead → body. This kind of mummification was an attempt to use the natural desiccation process to prevent the natural corruption of the corpse. 2. The special climate and geograph…

1. The (male!) sphinx, in Egypt, consists of a recumbent lion with the head of a Pharaoh (androsphinx). The lion has been the royal beast since time immemorial, so that, in the sphinx, the brute strength of the mighty predator is linked with the wisdom of the human governor, as a phenomenal image of royalty, and beyond this, as a divine → composite being. In the sphinxes watching at the entrances of temples or necropolises, the power of the Pharaoh is mightily displayed as guardian and defender …

Concept of ‘Soul’ 1. The designation psyché (Gk., ‘breath’ ‘life breath’; cf. Lat. anima) is first found in the opening lines of the Iliad. According to Homer (eighth century BCE), the psyche appears only after a person's death: thus, psyché denotes the soul of someone who has died, not that of a living being. The life processes of the body are managed by the thymós (in Lat., animus), the principle of the vitality of the body and at the same time of its consciousness. In antiquity, the psyché is personified as a winged female being; in Apuleius's Metamorphoses (c. 170 CE), she is the beloved of Amor…

Egypt in Western Memory 1. Egypt has been present in Europe's cultural memory from the beginning. European identity rests on the two broad religious and cultural bases of Greece and Israel (→ Palestine/Israel). Each culture, in confrontation with Egypt, developed contrasting images of its own that came to be of key meaning and importance, for both the Hellenistic and the Israelite self-concepts, respectively. The contradictory reception of Egypt has gained entry into European awareness of history, a…