The ancient Egyptians are well known for their phenomenal architecture, artwork, and large pantheon of exotic gods. Belief in the afterlife and all aspects of its manifestation made the Egyptians famous throughout the world. When viewing many works of art of those years, you can see that all people and gods are depicted in profile (on the side). The drawings do not apply perspective, there is no "depth" of the image. Why this style was used, read in this review.
They knew how to paint realistic pictures in Egypt. The most famous example of ancient painting is the Fayum portraits of the 1st-3rd centuries AD. Many historians and art historians break their spears over the artificial primitivism of Egyptian painting. And they have interesting explanations.
1. At that time, the “three-dimensionality” of the image had not yet been invented
All drawings of Ancient Egypt are made "flat", but with small details. Perhaps most artists were simply not capable of creating complex compositions with people in realistic poses. Therefore, they adopted standard canons: the heads and legs of all people and gods are depicted in profile. Shoulders, on the contrary, are turned straight. The hands of those seated always rest on their knees.
2. Intentional simplification as a social aspect
The Egyptians invented a great way to get rid of the third dimension and used it to represent the social role of the people depicted. As they imagined in those years, a pharaoh, a god and a common man could not be depicted side by side in the picture, because this exalted the latter. Therefore, all the figures were made in different sizes: the pharaohs were the largest, the dignitaries were smaller, the workers and slaves were the smallest. But then, realistically drawing two people of different status side by side, one of them would look like a child. It is better to depict people schematically.
3. Religious version
According to another version, the Egyptians deliberately made drawings of people two-dimensional, "flat". This is especially noticeable in the paintings where animals are present. Their ancient masters colorfully wrote out, giving realistic and elegant poses.
The ancient Egyptians, with their worship of the afterlife, believed that the human soul could travel. And since the drawings were mainly made in tombs and tombs, they could “revive” the three-dimensional pictorial image of a deceased person. To avoid this, the figures of people were drawn flat and in profile. So the human face is more expressive and easier to portray similar.
Based on the book by Vojtech Zamarovsky "Their Majesties Pyramids". Religion of ancient Egypt. The custom of sacrificing the king. The first strike in world history. Revolutions (Great Troubles) of Egypt. Stages of the death of the Egyptian civilization. Ancient Egyptian inscriptions.
20 thousand years ago, huge glaciers began to melt, and they melted for 10 thousand years, and it became noticeably warmer on Earth. Life has become easier for all tribes and peoples. Mankind began to straighten its shoulders, freed from the cruel ice hoop. And the milder and warmer the climate became, the more people on Earth became. The climate became especially warm and kind 7 thousand years ago, and so many people appeared on Earth that they became crowded and began to interfere with each other.
At that time there was a place on Earth where people lived best. The world's largest desert creates a unique dry climate here. The Sun generously supplies this place with energy and generously endows it with water and fertile silt, the longest river in the world. That is why for many millennia the Nile Valley has the highest population density on Earth.
And in those ancient times, this valley was the only road of life that connected the green Central Africa and the warm inland sea with the paradise shores. That is why the first social organism in history appeared here - the Egyptian State.
The uniqueness of this place and the unique combination of the forces of Nature determined the unique originality of the idea, which connected many different tribes and peoples into a single giant people - the Egyptian religion. There was no such religion anywhere else. that is why we still cannot understand a lot of the Egyptians.
In this place on Earth, nature was very kind to people, and people responded to her with enthusiastic love and fanatical deification. Not only the Sun, but also bulls, crocodiles, cats and even beetles were gods among the Egyptians. They made gods and their kings. True, this did not happen as quickly as the kings wanted. First there was democracy. The leader of a tribe or the head of a small kingdom, after two decades of his reign, was obliged to report on his work to the people, and if the people did not like this work, then the king, according to tradition, was carefully sacrificed to the gods. And then this tradition turned into a formal beautiful ritual, because the Pharaoh of Egypt was himself a god, i.e. always did everything right and was always right. Pharaohs were desecrated only after their death - and this also became a tradition among the Egyptians. That is why modern archaeologists got to study only one accidentally surviving tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
In this place on Earth, nature was very kind to the corpses of people. Many times the Egyptians found the well-preserved bodies of their distant ancestors in the dry sand dunes of the desert. So the Egyptians began to believe that a different, better, beautiful world awaits a person after death, in which it will be possible to work little, have a lot of good rest, and be eternal. Only in order for a person to live in such an intangible essence, one important thing had to be done - to preserve his material essence - the body. That is why most of the work and care of the Egyptians was devoted to the preparations for death.
In this most heavenly place on Earth, the pharaohs lived best. They lived long and sweetly, and no one before or after them lived like that. For example, the world record for being in power was set by the Egyptian pharaoh Pepi II. He ruled Egypt from the age of six and lived to be a hundred years old. But the pharaohs wanted more, they wanted to live like this forever. That is why the main economic law of the development of Egyptian society was the satisfaction of the main desire of the pharaohs - the preservation of their bodies after death.
Knowing this, Egyptologists determine the economic parameters of Egypt in a given period of its history by the amount of labor that went into decorating the Pharaoh's tomb. And it is beyond the human imagination.
According to the calculations of scientists, if the Hiroshima atomic bomb had been dropped directly on the pyramid of Cheops, then the tomb would still have remained intact.
The contribution of the Egyptians to human civilization is great. With the emergence of Egypt, there was an unprecedented flowering of science and arts. Writing was invented.
The history of Egypt is mysterious and tragic. Egypt had the Old, Middle, New and Late Kingdoms. each existed for several hundred years, and each time there were 100-200 years of Great Troubles between them: "Truly, the country turned over, like on a potter's wheel ... Truly, the rich complain. And the poor rejoice. In every city it is heard:" Drive the powerful out of your midst "You truly do not recognize a son from a noble family. The child of the wife of a noble husband is not in a better position than the son of a former slave. Truly high-born ladies now kneel like servants and crush grain with a mill stone. Those who used to dress in thin canvas, today for every trifle they receive beatings... Now you will not find a maid, but high-born mistresses offer themselves as slaves... Truly, judicial acts have been thrown out, secret archives have been opened... Truly, service chambers have been opened and lists have been stolen; therefore, slaves can now become Truly, the dignitaries have been killed and their lists have been destroyed. Truly, the books of laws have been thrown away, and people are trampling them on the outskirts of the city, and the rebellious poor are tearing them apart in the streets like rags... Truly, the poor have risen... Look, events have taken place, such as before, in ancient times it did not happen: the ruler was overthrown by ordinary people! Look who was buried like a ruler, thrown out of a coffin! Look what was hidden in the pyramid, now lies under the open sky... The chambers of the king were destroyed overnight" (from an ancient Egyptian inscription).
But every time Egypt returned to its basic economic law. and again the pharaohs reigned, and stagnation reigned in science and the arts, frozen forms were repeated for thousands of years. Only one thing changed - the way the Pharaoh's body was hidden.
The Great Pyramids were built in the Old Kingdom. But they were robbed. In the Middle Kingdom, small false pyramids and giant branched Labyrinths were built. But they were also robbed.
In the Late Kingdom there was a mysterious Valley of the Kings, where well-hidden Labyrinths were cut down in the rocks by suicide bombers, but this valley was also plundered, only Tutankhamun survived.
By the way, the first strike in history was also in Egypt in the 29th year of the reign of Ramses III: “The artisans who worked in the Theban necropolis, having agreed, quit work, overcame five stone fences that separated them from the masters, settled down in front of the temple, in which the frightened officials took refuge and demanded justice from the king: "... We have not eaten for eighteen days... We were brought here by hunger and thirst. We have no clothes, no fish, no vegetables... Truly, an evil deed is going on in these holy places!" (Ancient Egyptian inscription).
Terrible end of Egypt...
At first, foreigners began to conquer the country for a short time; Nubian king Piankhi, Assyrians, Persian king Cambyses, in 343 BC Egypt was finally conquered by the Persians. After that, Egypt was no longer ruled by the Egyptians.
In 322 BC it was conquered from the Persians by Alexander the Great. In 30 BC. after the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a Roman province and no longer existed as a state.
In 293 AD After the administrative reform of the Roman emperor Diocletian, Egypt was divided into 6 provinces. The very word "Egypt" disappeared from the maps.
In 383 Theodosius I banned the cult of the ancient gods. The Egyptian religion became illegal.
394 AD the last hieroglyphic inscription is dated. The writing of the Egyptians disappeared as a means of information.
In 642 Egypt was conquered by the Arabs. The non-Christian part of the Egyptians, the pagan Egyptians mixed with the Arabs.
After the conquest of Egypt by the Turks in 1517, the living language of the Egyptian Christians (Copts) disappeared altogether.
So the people of Egypt disappeared from the face of our planet. Arabs live in Egypt now.
To the afterlife
Egypt is the Greek name for the country Kem, which means "mystery, riddle". Indeed, everything connected with this ancient country is shrouded in mystery. Modern Egyptology has existed for almost two hundred years, and it would seem that it has made no small progress, but most Egyptologists will agree with the statement of the English scientist Ernest Budge that Ancient Egypt revealed to researchers only a small fraction of its secrets.
We offer readers two articles on the mystery of ancient Egyptian embalming and its mystical aspect.
It is difficult for a modern person, brought up in the bosom of new religions, to understand what the religion of the ancient Egyptians was. Many Egyptologists of the last century considered the word "religion" too high to define faith in a huge intricate pantheon of opposing gods, spirits, totems.
The mythology of the ancient Egyptians is contradictory, in which the most primitive magical shamanism was closely and inextricably intertwined with the official cult. To understand how and on what basis this strange and mysterious system of beliefs was formed, one should turn to the climate and geographical location of Egypt itself.
The Nile Valley is a piece of paradise
The territory of the ancient Egyptian kingdom was a narrow river valley surrounded by waterless deserts. This geographically isolated Egypt from other civilizations and encouraged the development of its own culture, which was almost unaffected by rare contacts with the outside world.
For the same reasons, enemy invasions were extremely rare throughout the millennium-long history of Ancient Egypt. This is clearly evidenced by the very weak development of the military culture of the Egyptians. While the populations of the Early Bronze Age civilizations in the Middle and Near East erected cyclopean fortifications to protect their settlements from invaders, Egypt actually did not know fortification.
It is difficult to call fortresses those primitive fortifications that the pharaohs erected on the border with Nubia. These were rather frontier garrisons, called upon to guard the river trade on the Nile. The Egyptians did not create effective military weapons either.
The military successes of the pharaohs mentioned in the Egyptian sources are partly legendary, because the clashes happened with the enemy, weakened by internal unrest and fragmentation. In the case of wars with a strong, cohesive enemy, which happened infrequently in Egyptian history, the Egyptians always suffered defeat. We can safely say that in history there was no less militant and less passionate people than the ancient Egyptians.
The Nile Valley was a piece of paradise. Its inhabitants were actually unaware of the terrible life of the desert. Day after day, the sun steadily crossed the cloudless sky, in order to repeat its path the next day. The annual floods of the Nile, silt deposits, combined with heat and sunlight, created rich, fertile soil here.
Many experts, not without reason, believe that during the period of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians had no idea about history. This is due to the invariance of the daily solar rhythm, the regularity of the Nile floods, and the absence of serious seasonal fluctuations in climate. History implies change, and the life of the ancient Egyptians was orderly, unchanging, and even monotonous. The duty of the pharaoh, as a god or messenger of the gods, was to maintain this order forever.
Ancient Egyptian Goddess Maat
In the Egyptian pantheon there is the goddess Maat, depicted as a small figure of a kneeling woman with a feather on her head. According to the British researcher Nancy Jenkins, Maat was not just a deity, but a kind of state symbol, meaning the immutability of the essence of things. A symbol of the universal order, ahistorical, having neither past nor future. The immutability of the world is the ideal of the ancient Egyptian!
And yet this ideal remained only an ideal. Changes were powerfully invading the life of the Egyptian, and the most irresistible among them was inexorable death. Concerned above all with the preservation of the order that was broken by death, the Egyptian sought to somehow include it in the eternal and unchanging order of the universe. This goal is at the heart of the ancient Egyptian religion.
Many believe that the ancient Egyptians were terribly afraid of death. This is not entirely true. Death, as a tragedy of an individual, was of little concern to them. They were preoccupied with the problem of the eternal continuation of life, the continuity of the entire order of the visible world - the sun, stars, recessions and floods of the Nile, the change of seasons, etc.
The institution of royal power was closely connected with the preservation of the world order. To this day, disputes rage among Egyptologists: was the pharaoh considered a living god or only an intermediary between gods and people? Or maybe the pharaoh was deified after death? But all this is not very important. Whoever the pharaoh was considered to be, he was responsible for "maat", for order and stability in the state. The concepts of "maat" and "royal power" were inseparable.
The crisis of this connection came with the death of the pharaoh. Despite its inevitability, the death of the pharaoh has always been seen as a threat to the entire order of the universe, comparable to a natural disaster.
The entire population of the state was subjected to severe psychological stress. Everyone mourned the king, and there was no hypocrisy in this: grief and fear were genuine, regardless of whether the deceased pharaoh was kind or cruel, just or unjust.
According to the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians, the body, even the dead, was the receptacle of the immortal spirit of the deceased, which had two hypostases.
Spirit "Ba" in Egyptian mythology
The spirit "Ba", depicted as a small bird with a bearded human head, was perceived as the actual soul. After leaving the body after death, the soul bird could fly between the body in the tomb and the outside world, as well as rush to the world of the stars. The Egyptians of the Old Kingdom often perceived the stars as myriads of "Ba" birds with lanterns in their paws.
Spirit "Ka" in Egyptian mythology
The second hypostasis - "Ka" - is more complex. "Ka" was a living, undying spirit that arises at the moment of a person's birth, a kind of fertile force that could be transmitted from one creature to another, from God to a mortal (Pharaoh), from Pharaoh to his subjects, from father to son. The latter is especially important. The son of the pharaoh, inheriting his father, inherited his "Ka", that is, the divine kingship.
It was believed that in the period between the death of a person and his burial, the "Ka" of the deceased was in a state of sleep. Therefore, the ancient Egyptians had more than enough reason to worry, because after the death of the pharaoh, his "Ka", the force that maintained order and stability in the world ("maat"), temporarily seemed to disappear from the universe. But after the completion of the funeral ceremonies, "Ka" returned to the body of the deceased.
Without a body, it could not accept sacrifices, did not hear prayers, did not see the rituals intended for the deceased. That is why the ancient Egyptians tried in every way to preserve the body of the deceased. Without him, "Ka" lost its shelter. This is precisely the religious meaning of the rite of mummification.
Of course, the posthumous fate of the "Ka" of the peasant could not be the cause of tragic consequences for the world, like the "Ka" of the pharaoh, but its "disorder" was fraught with trouble, at least for his children and loved ones. Therefore, complex funeral rites, including embalming the body of the deceased, were performed on virtually all dead Egyptians, regardless of their social status.
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-2.jpg" alt="> Why is Egypt called that? Culture of Ancient Egypt Religion"> Почему Египет так называют? Культура Древнего Египта Религия Искусство Боги Мифы Пирамиды Карта древнего Египта Письменность Иероглифы!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-3.jpg" alt=">So - ancient Egypt. But the surprising thing is that neither ancient , nor modern"> Итак - древний Египет. Но удивительным является то, что ни древние, ни современные жители Египта не называли и не называют так свою родину. В древнем Египте жители именовали свою страну «Черной» , а себя - «людьми Черной (земли)» , по цвету плодородной почвы низменной долины Нила. Еще в глубокой древности соприкасавшиеся с египтянами народы Аравийского полуострова, Передней Азии и Двуречья дали Египту свое название: Миср - «Населенное место, город» , так как их, видимо, поразила населенность Египта и большое количество городов, расположенных близко друг от друга. Современные египтяне свою страну тоже называют: Миср. Почему же мы, как и многие другие европейские народы, употребляем слово «Египет» ? Это название пошло от древних греков. Оно происходит от названия древнеегипетского города Мемфиса - Хикупта. В начале 1 тысячелетия до нашей эры, когда древние греки стали проникать в Египет, первым из самых больших городов, который им встретился, был Мемфис на рубеже Дельты и долины Нила. Его название (вернее - одно из названий, так как «Мемфис» тоже египетское слово) «Хикупта» или «Айгюптос» греки взяли за обозначение всей страны. Так что наше слово «Египет» тоже очень древнее, но оно пришло из древнегреческого.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-4.jpg" alt="> The civilization of Ancient Egypt has"> Цивилизация Древнего Египта насчитывает более 3000 лет. В конце IV тысячелетия до н. э. в Юго-Восточной Африке, в низовьях реки Нил, сформировалось раннерабовладельческое государство Египет, которое стало одним с самых великих центров мировой культуры. Почти 2000 -летнюю историю Древнего Египта принято делить на три периода: первый - Древний (2800 - 2250 лет до н. э.), второй - Среднее Царство (2050 - 1700 лет до н. э.), третий - Новое Царство (1580 - 1070 лет до н. э.). » . Название «Египет» происходит от древнегреческого наименования «Айгуптос» . В свою очередь это слово, скорее всего, восходит к одному из имен значительнейшего из древнеегипетских городов - Мемфиса.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-5.jpg" alt="> Approximately 3000 BC"> Примерно с 3000 г. до н. э. официальная религия Египта признавала фараона сыном солнечного бога Ра и таким образом самим богом. В египетском пантеоне существовало множество других богов и богинь, под властью которых находилось все: от явлений природы, подобно воздуху (бог Шу), до явлений культуры, подобных письменности (богиня Саф). Многие боги были представлены в виде животных или полулюдей- полуживотных. Хорошо организованная и могущественная Бог-творец Птах (согласно жреческая каста создавала семейные мемфисской теологии) был, группы различных божеств, многие например, объединен в из которых, вероятно, были богиней войны Сехмет, а бог- первоначально местными богами. целитель Имхотеп вошел в триаду отец-мать-сын.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-6.jpg" alt=">In the 8th millennium BC in northeastern Africa , in the lower reaches of the river"> В VIII тысячелетии до н. э. в северо- восточной Африке, в нижнем течении реки Нил, возникли первые египетские города: Мемфис, Иераконполь и др. Прошло несколько десятков веков, и к III тысячелетию до н. э. , в результате объединения царств Верхнего и Нижнего Египта, сложилось одно из древнейших государств на Земле, породившее замечательную и великую культуру Древнего Востока, В искусстве существует прямая традиция, передаваемая от мастера к ученику, от ученика к ценителю или копиисту, связывающая загадочные ранние формы художественного творчества с культурой нашего времени. “Она соединяет нынешнее искусство – любое современное здание, любой плакат – с искусством, возникшим пять тысячелетий назад в долине Нила”. Школу египтян прошли греческие мастера, а все мы – выученики греков. Поэтому искусство Древнего Египта для нас чрезвычайно важно.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-7.jpg" alt=">God Atum is considered the founder of all living and divine things in the Egyptian religion. According to legend he"> Родоначальником всего живого и божественного в египетской религии считается бог Атум. Согласно легенде он появился из хаоса. Затем он создал первую божественную пару бога Шу и богиню Тефнут. Шу - бог, олицетворяющий пространство между небом и землей, разделяющий небо и землю. Тефнут - женское дополнение Шу. Эта пара родила бога Геба и богиню Нут. Геб - это бог Земли, или по сути сама Земля. Нут - богиня Неба, или также само Небо. По представлению древних египтян вверху находится Нут, внизу Геб, а между ними Шу и Тефнут. От Геба и Нут произошли две пары - Осирис. и Исида, Сетх и Нефтида. Осирис и его жена Исида являются самыми важными фигурами египетского пантеона (все многообразие богов и божеств кой - либо религии). Осирис являлся богом растительности. По легенде он родился первым из пяти божеств, за ним родились Хор Старший, Сетх, Исида и Нефтида.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-8.jpg" alt="> God Ra held an important place in the Egyptian pantheon. He was the god of the sun ,"> Важное место в египетском пантеоне занимал бог Ра. Он являлся богом солнца, богом света. анх - это крест, у которого вместо верхней палочки находиться круг. В средневековой алхимии анх являлся символом бессмертия. Идеалом высшей мудрости и правды, олицетворением лучших сторон человеческой природы, воплощением ума у египтян являлся бог Тот. Бог Пта Был один из главных богов- это солнце и луна одновременно. Он считался покровителем ремесел. Иногда он считался верховным богом, творцом всех богов и мира Бог Амон считался всесущим божеством воздуха и ветра, которое наполняет весь видимый мир, дает жизнь всему живущему!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-9.jpg" alt=">The mythology of ancient Egypt is considered one of the most developed and rich, known for the whole story"> Мифология древнего Египта считается одной из самых развитых и богатых, известных за всю историю существования древних цивилизаций. Начало формирования её относят к 6 -4 тысячелетию до нашей эры. С тех пор, за долго до существования классового общества она претерпела существенные изменения. Поклонение божествам прошло свой путь эволюции от скромного культа местного божка до помпезного почитания их во всём Египте. Это имело отношение к возвеличиванию той или иной династии, которая в свою очередь покланялась некоему мифологическому персонажу. Ярким примером этого может служить распространение культа богини города Саис Нейт в 7 -6 веках до нашей эры одновременно с воцарением 26 Саисской династии. На заре формирования египетской мифологии местное божество было у каждой области. Местные боги имели различное воплощение- это могло быть животное, птица, дерево, камень или даже природное явление.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-10.jpg" alt=">Pyramids and the Sphinx, which is also part of the burial complex of the pyramid Khafre, belong"> Пирамиды и Сфинкс, который впрочем также входит в состав погребального комплекса пирамиды Хефрена, принадлежат к наиболее характерным монументальным памятникам древнего Египта. Пирамиды были классическим типом царской усыпальницы в эпоху Древнего царства, а в менее монументальном виде, сохраняя свою внешнюю форму, возводились также для фараонов Среднего царства. Древнейшим видом гробниц царей Египта, возникшим до пирамид, были мастабы. Слово “мастаба” относится уже к арабскому времени и связано с тем, что форма этих трапециевидных в разрезе гробниц напоминала арабам большие скамьи, называвшиеся “мастаба”. Общего названия пирамид в нынешнем значении этого слова у египтян не было.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-11.jpg" alt=">1 2 "> 1 2
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-12.jpg" alt="> The Egyptians were skilled draftsmen. Extraordinarily"> Египтяне были искусными рисовальщиками. Необычайно точно они рисовали предметы и животных. Можно думать, что первоначально жители долины Нила записывали свои мысли, изображая на рисунке предметы, о которых шла речь. Но к периоду Раннего царства сложилась египетская система письма. Она на первый взгляд очень трудна. Сотни различных знаков от изображений человека и животных до предметов домашней утвари! Кажется, нет возможности разобраться в этом скоплении знаков. Но почти двухты-сячелетние искания привели к тому, что тайны египетского письма раскрыты.!}
Src="https://present5.com/presentation/3/156578323_437890981.pdf-img/156578323_437890981.pdf-13.jpg" alt=">In the 8th century BC, another type of Egyptian writing appeared - demotic,"> В VIII веке до нашей эры, появился еще один вид египетского письма - демотика, развившийся из иератики. Система этого письма та же: те же звуковые знаки, определители.!}
Egyptians or Arabs? Let's start with the most dramatic turn in the history of the country. The period of the Arab conquest divided the fate of the Egyptian people into two supposedly dissimilar parts.
It can be considered a mistake that the acquaintance of the Egyptians with the Arabs occurred during the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century. The cultural influence of Egypt on the culture of Arabia is beyond doubt. In turn, from a very early time, the appearance in the Egyptian language of words borrowed from the inhabitants of the eastern deserts. The main route that linked Egypt with Arabia went through the Wadi al-Hammamat river, which began near Thebes and went to the Red Sea at al-Quseira. The Egyptians established contacts with the Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula in pre-dynastic times, when they purchased copper and turquoise from them. The pharaohs of the first dynasty already exploited the mines in Sinai themselves, subjugated the Bedouins living there, or simply negotiated with them.
The Arabian Peninsula was surrounded by steppes and deserts, turning it into a natural fortress, inaccessible to conquerors. No wonder the Arabs call it the Arabian Island. Limited living resources forced the population to migrate to neighboring countries. About once a millennium, the migration of Bedouin tribes took on a mass character. Settlers were sent either east to Mesopotamia, or to the regions of Syria and the Sinai Peninsula, beyond which lay the richest valley of the Nile.
In 24 BC, on the orders of the Roman emperor Augustus, the prefect of Egypt, Elius Gallus, equipped a military expedition to conquer Arabia. It included 10 thousand soldiers of Egypt, both the Egyptians themselves and the Romans and Greeks living in the country. The expedition also included allies: 10 thousand Nabataeans and 500 Jews. This was the first and last attempt by a European state to seize Inner Arabia. The exhausting campaign did not bring any results, and after a few months ended with a return to Egypt.
In 269-270, the victorious troops of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, captured Egypt. According to historians, in order to win the sympathy of the Egyptians, Queen Zenobia spread rumors about her Egyptian origin. In any case, all historians agree that she was fluent in the Egyptian language.
Did Egyptians or Arabs live in the same territory?
Another short episode from history relations between Arabs and Egyptians: Already after the troops of Emperor Aurelian managed to defeat the Palmyrenes, anti-Roman uprisings took place almost simultaneously in Palmyra and Alexandria. This speaks of the common interests of the Egyptians and Arabs in the struggle against foreign invaders.
It was not uncommon for Arabs to live among Egyptians and vice versa. Arab historians report that the Egyptian Bakum, even before the advent of Islam, restored the Kaaba temple in Mecca, destroyed by a strong mudflow, and Jabr bin Abdallah al Qibty (i.e. Coptic), one of the closest associates of the Prophet Muhammad, was an Egyptian. The relationship between the Arabs and the Egyptians was influenced by the Prophet Muhammad himself. According to legend, he wished well to the Copts when his wife Maria gave birth to a son, who was named Ibrahim.
The leader of the Arab army, Amr ibn al-As, who conquered Egypt, was previously a merchant and repeatedly came to this country with his goods. He said: The population of Egypt is the noblest of all non-Arabs, the most generous and closest to kinship with the Arabs.
From all this it follows that the entry into Egypt under the banner of Islam of the Arab army in 640 was not an invasion of a hostile people. Since ancient times, the Arabs knew the Egyptians, and the Egyptians the Arabs. There were armed clashes between them, and long periods of peaceful trade, cultural and religious ties.
The conquest itself was peaceful. The head of the Coptic Church, which was subjected to severe persecution by the Byzantines, called on all Egyptians not to resist the new conquerors, whose number did not exceed 12 thousand (in a few decades there were already more than 80 thousand Arab soldiers in Egypt). Each governor appointed by the caliph to Egypt brought with him an army of several thousand people. Many warriors married Coptic women and remained forever in the Nile Valley. The Arabs were especially willing to settle in Upper Egypt, where they were attracted by the hot, dry climate and, of course, the fertility of the land.
Egyptization of the Arabs and Arabization of the Egyptians.
Having conquered Egypt, the Arabs did not settle in pre-existing cities. Life in them was unusual for them. They pitched their military camp al-Fustat, near the fortress of Babylon. Gradually the camp turned into a capital. The camp remained the capital until 969. After the Fatimids they founded Cairo.
The first step in the Egyptianization of the Arabs and the Arabization of the Egyptians is the annual spring dispatch of Arab military detachments to various parts of the country to herd horses. A certain detachment was sent to a certain area, and this led to the establishment of strong ties with the local population. Warriors took root in these areas and gradually mixed with the local population. An interesting fact: an Arab sometimes married an Egyptian, but the opposite did not happen.
The mixing of Arabs and Coptic Egyptians was also facilitated by the fact that Egyptians were in most government positions (except for the highest, occupied by Arabs). The Arab tribes, having settled in Egypt, switched to a settled way of life, and adopted their life experience, customs and habits from the indigenous people.
A few centuries later, most Egyptians converted to Islam, forgot their ancient language, and adopted Arabic. At present, in the Coptic language (already incomprehensible to the Copts for a long time), only a part of the services in the church are performed, but Arabic prevails here too. Copts, who make up a population of several million, are not a national minority in the country, which is sometimes said about them. Ethnically, they belong to the Egyptian people, differing from the rest of the Egyptians only in religion.
