Ancient Egypt The Old Kingdom and New Kingdom - Free Essay Example

From the moment of the Old Kingdom to the period of the New Kingdom, Ancient Egypt was a world dominated by forces. The history of Egypt is typically divided into four periods: pre-dynastic Egypt (6000- 3000 BCE), the Old Kingdom (2700-2130 BCE), the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640 BCE) and the New Kingdom (1550-1070 BCE). Im going to talk about the main three and thats the kingdoms. The pyramids were built during the Old Kingdom Period. The Egyptians had been preserving the remains of their dead long before the building of the great pyramids. They believed that a persons soul could live after the death of the body. Each Kingdom had some of the greatest tombs for their greatest kings. The Old Kingdom: 2575-2130 BCE The Old Kingdom, in ancient Egyptian history, is the period in the third millennium (c. 2575â€Å"2134 BC) also known as the Age of the Pyramids or Age of the Pyramid Builders as it includes the great 4th Dynasty when King Sneferu perfected the art of pyramid building and the pyramids of Giza were constructed under the kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilizationthe first of three so-called Kingdom periods (followed by the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom) which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley. In ancient Egypt one of the most renowned statues, is the Great Sphinx (Kleiner, 63) which wasnt no regular statue but instead it was a religious Guardian and most frequently described as the person with the Pharaoh headdress†as is the Great Sphinx†and figures of these animals were frequently included in tomb and temple complexes. For example, the so-called Sphinx street at Upper Egypt is the two-mile street that links the synagogues of Luxor and Karnak and is lined with statues. This Great statue, which is located at Giza, the third largest city in empire. The Great statue of Giza is the large 4,500-year-old stone statue situated near the Sphinx monument in Giza, Egypt. Measuring 240 feet in length and 66 feet tall, this great statue is one of the earths largest monuments. It is also one of the most identifiable relics of the ancient Egyptians, though the origins and history of this large system are even argued. This statue is one of the unique statues, with the body of the cat and the head of the king, made around 4500 years ago. This Great statue was buried for most of it world, until King Thutmose IV, while even the aristocrat, had started hunting and fell asleep at the shadow of the Sphinx head. Within the dream, the statue talked to Thutmose and told him to take away the soil because it was choking the statue. But no one knows what occurred to this front. Hieroglyphic texts indicate Khafres founder, ruler Khufu, made the Great Pyramid, the oldest and largest of these three pyramids at Giza. When he turned into ruler, Khafre built his personal monument next to his dads; though Khafres monument equals 10 feet less than this Great monument, it is surrounded by a more elaborate complex that includes the Great Sphinx and other statues. Additionally, Mariette found remnants of the Causeway (processional route) that link the Valley building to the mortuary building next to Khafres monument. In the early 1900s, French anthropologist Emile Baraize dug up another structure (the Sphinx Temple) immediately before the statue thats related in designing to this Valley Temple. Middle Kingdom: 2040-1640 BCE The Middle Kingdom of Egyptian empire lasted from 2055 to 1640 BC. During the period, the Osiris funerary religion grew to dominate Egyptian common belief. This point contains two stages: The 11th Dynasty, which reigned from Thebes and the 12th and thirteenth Dynasty centered on el-Lisht. The United country was previously believed to include the eleventh and twelfth Dynasty, but historians today at least partly consider the thirteenth Dynasty to belong to the Middle kingdom. Within this 2nd Intermediate Period, Ancient Egypt fell into confusion for the second Period, between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the New country. It is best known for this Hyksos, whose period represented the fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties. These Hyksos first appeared in empire during the eleventh Dynasty, started their ascent to force in the thirteenth Dynasty, and emerged from this Second Intermediate point in power of Avaris and the Delta. One of the most famous architecture in this era was the Tomb of Khnumhotep the 2nd. Beni Hasan, Egypt, 12th Dynasty, ca. 1900-1880 BCE (Kleiner, 68). It is a mudbrick pyramid and rock cut tomb, not only was it made in the Middle Kingdom but also made in the Old Kingdom and then replaced the mastaba as the normal Egyptian tomb style and it also has a unique story to it. Like the earliest account of a possible gay family in history is usually considered as Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, an old Egyptian male family, who lived in 2400 BCE. This two are depicted in the nose-kissing job, the most informal pose in Egyptian art, surrounded by what seem to be their heirs. These anthropologists Stephen Murray and Will Roscoe reported that females at Lesotho employed in socially approved long term, sexy relationships named motsoalle. This anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard also showed that male Azande warriors at that North Zaire habitually had on teenage male fans between those ages of twelve a nd twenty, who served with household tasks and participated in intercultural sex with their older husbands. Depiction of martial arts sporting at empire has started by the period of the fifth Dynasty mastaba tombs in Saqqara, circa 2400 BC. After the boat joust incident shown at the grave of Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep, who were manicurists to queen Nyuserre, six pairs of boys wrestle at the near grave of Akhethotep and Ptahhotep. Another first piece of information for wrestling in empire looks in eleventh and twelfth Dynasty Beni Hasan (2000 BC). where wrestling pictures at several tombs are elaborated to cover much of a wall. During the end of the New land (1550-1070 BC), more Egyptian art (much on friezes), portrayed Egyptian and Nubian wrestlers competing. Carroll notices striking similarities between these old portrayals and those of these contemporary Nuba wrestlers. On the 406 wrestling pairs discovered in the midst Kingdom tombs in Beni Hasan in the river Valley, almost all of the techniques seen in contemporary race wrestling would be seen. New Kingdom: 1550-1070 BCE During the New Kingdom, Egypt had reach unprecedented power and prosperity. Basically, it was the golden age of Egypt because the country was flourishing, its influence and richness consistently overcome the achievements of the previous epoch and after the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt would have never reach such a level of the development. The achievements of the New Kingdom may be particularly obvious in the territory expansion of Egypt. It should be said that the country has traditionally quite aggressive foreign policy and attempted to establish control over neighboring territories and countries. At the same time, it is only during the New Egypt the territory of Egypt had been extended to Nubia and Near East. One of the most famous architecture buildings in the New Kingdom was the Fa? §ade of the temple of Ramses the 2nd, Abu Simbel, Egypt, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1290-1224 BCE. (Kleiner,71) it is a vast temple that is rock-cut. Like in the book the author talks about In 1968, to save the Nubian monument from submersion in the Aswan High Dam reservoir, engineers cut the temple into sections and reassembled it nearly 700 feet away, resting against a new artificial mountain they had constructed- an amazing achievement in its own right (Kleiner,71)