Chapter 2 Sec.1.2

Egyptian kingdoms  Lower Egypt: Northern  Upper Egypt: Southern  Menes: king united all Egypt  Dynasty: family of rulers  Pharaoh: great house; had absolute power

Old Kingdom  2680 B.C. to 2180 B.C.  Great Sphinx  Had upper and lower class

Middle Kingdom  Nobles and priests weakened power of pharaoh  Hyksos: foreigners from Asia  They destroyed cities and temples, murdered Egyptians, and made women and children slaves  Some historians disagree, little evidence

New Kingdom  Drove Hyksos out  Pharaohs created strong army  Made an empire (Few rule over many)

Pharaohs  Hatshepsut: 1 st female ruler (husband died)  Thutmose III  Amenhotep IV: changed religion form polytheism to monotheism; after Amenhotep priests began to regain control  Ramses II: last pharaoh with power

Ramses

 Ramses II ascended the throne at age 20 and ruled Egypt for 67 years. He is popularly called "Ramses the Great," a title justified by the many achievements of his long reign. His body was found in 1881 at Deir el-Bahari, part of a hidden cache of royal mummies. It is on display today in the Mummy Room at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Mummification  Soon after a person died, their body was rushed to the embalmer to prevent early decay. A typical mummification took 70 days in which craftsmen raced to finish the tomb.  The first step in Egyptian mummification was the removal of all internal organs which are prone to rapid decay. The brain was removed by breaking the bone at the end of the nose with a chisel and inserting a special hook up the nostrils and into the skull. The hook was swished around, breaking down the brain. The now-liquified brain was poured out of the skull through the nose by tipping the head to its side.  Embalmers also removed the stomach, liver, lungs and intestines through a small incision on the left side of the abdomen. The heart was left in place because it was thought to be the centre of the body. The organs which were removed from the abdomen and place them in the tomb during the burial ritual. It was believed the person would need these organs to live in the afterlife. Because the function of the brain was not known at the time, it was discarded. The body was then washed with palm wine. Because of its high alcohol content, it would kill much of the bacteria that had already begun to reproduce.  Next, all moisture would be removed from the body by inserting linen-wrapped pouches of natron (a type of salt found on the banks of Lake Wadi Natrun) into the abdominal cavity through the incision. The rest of the body was then covered with natron and left in the heat. The result was a dried-out, but recognizable body. The abdominal incision was then covered with a metal plate bearing the Eye of Horus (wedjat) which symbolically healed it. natron  Finally, the body was wrapped in large amounts of linen, some of which contained spells to help the deceased in their passage to the afterlife. After several stages of wrapping, the body would also be coated in warm resin, before wrapping was continued. The coatings of resin would ensure that the linen wrappings stayed in place. The resins likely included frankincense and myrrh.

Hatshepsut

King Tut  On Wednesday, January 5, 2005, researchers removed King Tutankhamen's mummy from its tomb for a CT scan to create a digital 3-D model of his remains.  Experts believe that the Egyptian pharaoh reigned over the empire for 11 years, and then died when he was about 17.  The cause of his death has always been somewhat suspicious. The way in which his body was mummified was one clue, experts say, that this wasn't a typical royal burial. X-rays taken in 1969 showing bone fragments lodged in the king's skull support one theory -- that Tut was murdered.  Top left is his funeral mask

King Tut Cont.  The golden coffin of king Tut made of pure solid gold about 110 Kg of gold decorated with precious and semi precious stones 