1. Pyramidworld Memorials for Contemplation Stages for Dramatic Action

3. Great Culture 2900-2100 BC What (a) themes or ideas and (b) visual aids brought unity to ancient Egypt and sustained that unity over 3000 years?

4. Ideas Stable Cosmos Divine Kingship: Pharaoh as a Personification of the Gods Linear, Continuous, “Triumphal” History (“Official History”) –Folk History (“kitchen table” history) –Critical History (academic history) Eternal Optimism

5. Visual Aids & Practices “Reed Shrine” Pyramid form Codified figures and gestures (e.g., Narmer Tablet) Falcon/Hawk (Horus, the Sun God) King lists Pilgrimage (e.g., to Abydos, Luxor)

6. VISUAL AIDS 1. The Iconography of Divine Kingship

7. Narmer Palette (3100 BC)

9. Gods: Nut (Sky) and Geb (Earth)

11. 2. Materializing a Stable Cosmos: The Pyramids

12. Mastaba

13. Saqqara: Step Pyramid (Djoser and Imhotep, 2700 BC)

14. Meidum (Sneferu, 2613-2590 BC)

15. Dashur (Sneferu)

16. Dashur: Red Pyramid (Sneferu)

17. Giza (Khufu, Kafre, Menkaure, after 2570 BC)

18. New Kingdom Materiality (after 1550 BC) Valley of The Kings tombs

19. 3. Writing Linear, Continuous, Triumphal, “Official” History: The King Lists of Abydos

20. Temple of Seti I (New Kingdom, 1290-1280 BC)

22. Cartouche (Hieroglyphic Element) “Omit periods of political instability or disputed succession” (Fagan)

25. Monumentality in Other Forms: Abu Simbel (Ramses II,1279-1213 BC)

27. Set and Horus adoring Ramses

28. Egyptian Transformations and Effects? Greek/Hellenistic: “strange synthesis”, hybridity (gods/kings have Egyptian bodies and Greco-Roman heads) Christian: “Distant High God”-- pessimism, withdrawal (monasticism), Delta to Desert; “crude language of symbols” Islamic: Increasing certainty of belief in that one, distant, high god. The Pagan (and Neo-Pagan) Today: “Fills void between daily hopes and fears and that distant high god.”

29. Pyramids: A Celestial Connection?