Metropolitan Museum

47377 Words190 Pages
T he Art of Ancient E GY P T A R E S O U R C E F O R E D U C AT O R S The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s teacher training programs and accompanying materials are made possible through a generous grant from Mr. and Mrs. Frederick P. Rose\. Welcome he Metropolitan Museum takes delight in providing educational programs for the general public and especially for teachers and their students. We are pleased to offer this comprehensive resource, which contains texts, posters, slides, and other materials about outstanding works of Egyptian art from the Museum’s collection. T The texts draw upon the truly impressive depth of knowledge of the curators in our Department of Egyptian Art, especially…show more content…
3300–3100 B.C.) ARCHAIC PERIOD (ca. 3100–2650 B.C.) Dynasty 1 Dynasty 2 10 From early agricultural communities to urban settlements. Distinct differences between Upper (southern) and Lower (northern) Egypt, with the latter, in the earliest phases, showing affinities with North African cultures on the one side and western Asiatic on the other. Lower Egypt increasingly infiltrated by Upper Egyptian culture, probably through trade that also included goods from Canaan. Rich cultural influences also from western Asia. Political unity achieved gradually by the spread of a uniform material culture and a series of conflicts rather than by one single conquest. Beginning of hieroglyphic writing. Some names of kings (Dynasty 0) are known. At the beginning of Dynasty 1, Egypt unified under the rule of one pharaoh (mythical name: Menes; historical figures: Narmer and Aha). Capital at Memphis; mud-brick burial monuments of kings at Abydos; large tombs of officials at Saqqara. Great amounts of imported goods from Canaan and trade with Nubian so-called A-group culture, but also military raids into Nubia.…show more content…
Because of its ability to move between the tomb and the world of the living, the ba was often depicted as a bird, but with a human head. Scarab To protect it from harm, and to aid in the daily transferal of new life to the ba, the mummy was surrounded by magic spells, amulets such as scarabs, and representations of protective deities (slides 13, 17, 25, 28, 32, 38, and poster). To help the ba in its hazardous journey through the night to rebirth at dawn, rituals and magic spells were inscribed on the walls of the burial chamber, sarcophagus, and coffins. Beginning in the New Kingdom such texts were also placed on papyrus scrolls buried with the deceased, known as the B ook of the Dead. Although the Egyptians viewed the afterlife as a daily cycle of rebirth, that new, ideal existence was available only to those who had lived properly before death. On its first nightly encounter with Osiris the ba had to undergo a judgment, in which its heart (the seat of thought and emotion) was balanced on a scale against a feather, the symbol of Maat (things as they ought to be). If the two did not balance, the ba was denied the chance to enter the cycle of daily rebirth;

More about Metropolitan Museum

Open Document