Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt

Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt PDF Author: Ellen Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009083848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
This Element is about the creation and curation of social memory in pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt. Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Ottoman sources attest to the horror that characterized catastrophic famines. Occurring infrequently and rarely reaching the canonical seven-years' length, famines appeared and disappeared like nightmares. Communities that remain aware of potentially recurring tragedies are often advantaged in their efforts to avert or ameliorate worst-case scenarios. For this and other reasons, pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egyptians preserved intergenerational memories of hunger and suffering. This Element begins with a consideration of the trajectories typical of severe Nilotic famines and the concept of social memory. It then argues that personal reflection and literature, prophecy, and an annual festival of remembrance functioned-at different times, and with varying degrees of success-to convince the well-fed that famines had the power to unseat established order and to render a comfortably familiar world unrecognizable.

Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt

Famine and Feast in Ancient Egypt PDF Author: Ellen Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009083848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 95

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Element is about the creation and curation of social memory in pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egypt. Ancient, Classical, Medieval, and Ottoman sources attest to the horror that characterized catastrophic famines. Occurring infrequently and rarely reaching the canonical seven-years' length, famines appeared and disappeared like nightmares. Communities that remain aware of potentially recurring tragedies are often advantaged in their efforts to avert or ameliorate worst-case scenarios. For this and other reasons, pharaonic and Greco-Roman Egyptians preserved intergenerational memories of hunger and suffering. This Element begins with a consideration of the trajectories typical of severe Nilotic famines and the concept of social memory. It then argues that personal reflection and literature, prophecy, and an annual festival of remembrance functioned-at different times, and with varying degrees of success-to convince the well-fed that famines had the power to unseat established order and to render a comfortably familiar world unrecognizable.

Empires of Food

Empires of Food PDF Author: Andrew Rimas
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439110131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
We are what we eat: this aphorism contains a profound truth about civilization, one that has played out on the world historical stage over many millennia of human endeavor. Using the colorful diaries of a sixteenth-century merchant as a narrative guide, Empires of Food vividly chronicles the fate of people and societies for the past twelve thousand years through the foods they grew, hunted, traded, and ate—and gives us fascinating, and devastating, insights into what to expect in years to come. In energetic prose, agricultural expert Evan D. G. Fraser and journalist Andrew Rimas tell gripping stories that capture the flavor of places as disparate as ancient Mesopotamia and imperial Britain, taking us from the first city in the once-thriving Fertile Crescent to today’s overworked breadbaskets and rice bowls in the United States and China, showing just what food has meant to humanity. Cities, culture, art, government, and religion are founded on the creation and exchange of food surpluses, complex societies built by shipping corn and wheat and rice up rivers and into the stewpots of history’s generations. But eventually, inevitably, the crops fail, the fields erode, or the temperature drops, and the center of power shifts. Cultures descend into dark ages of poverty, famine, and war. It happened at the end of the Roman Empire, when slave plantations overworked Europe’s and Egypt’s soil and drained its vigor. It happened to the Mayans, who abandoned their great cities during centuries of drought. It happened in the fourteenth century, when medieval societies crashed in famine and plague, and again in the nineteenth century, when catastrophic colonial schemes plunged half the world into a poverty from which it has never recovered. And today, even though we live in an age of astounding agricultural productivity and genetically modified crops, our food supplies are once again in peril. Empires of Food brilliantly recounts the history of cyclic consumption, but it is also the story of the future; of, for example, how a shrimp boat hauling up an empty net in the Mekong Delta could spark a riot in the Caribbean. It tells what happens when a culture or nation runs out of food—and shows us the face of the world turned hungry. The authors argue that neither local food movements nor free market economists will stave off the next crash, and they propose their own solutions. A fascinating, fresh history told through the prism of the dining table, Empires of Food offers a grand scope and a provocative analysis of the world today, indispensable in this time of global warming and food crises.

Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs

Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs PDF Author: Uroš Matić
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108888585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Ethnic Identities in the Land of the Pharaohs deals with ancient Egyptian concept of collective identity, various groups which inhabited the Egyptian Nile Valley and different approaches to ethnic identity in the last two hundred years of Egyptology. The aim is to present the dynamic processes of ethnogenesis of the inhabitants of the land of the pharaohs, and to place various approaches to ethnic identity in their broader scholarly and historical context. The dominant approach to ethnic identity in ancient Egypt is still based on culture historical method. This and other theoretically better framed approaches (e.g. instrumentalist approach, habitus, postcolonial approach, ethnogenesis, intersectionality) are discussed using numerous case studies from the 3rd millennium to the 1st century BC. Finally, this Element deals with recent impact of third science revolution on archaeological research on ethnic identity in ancient Egypt.

Coffin Commerce

Coffin Commerce PDF Author: Kathlyn M. Cooney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108910831
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
This discussion will be centered on one ubiquitous and rather simple Egyptian object type – the wooden container for the human corpse. We will focus on the entire 'lifespan' of the coffin – how they were created, who bought them, how they were used in funerary rituals, where they were placed in a given tomb, and how they might have been used again for another dead person. Using evidence from Deir el Medina, we will move through time from the initial agreement between the craftsman and the seller, to the construction of the object by a carpenter, to the plastering and painting of the coffin by a draftsman, to the sale of the object, to its ritual use in funerary activities, to its deposit in a burial chamber, and, briefly, to its possible reuse.

Migration and Mobility in the Ancient Near East and Egypt - the Crossroads IV

Migration and Mobility in the Ancient Near East and Egypt - the Crossroads IV PDF Author: Ludovica Bertolini
Publisher: Lockwood Press
ISBN: 1957454113
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 435

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Book Description
Movement and mobility represent intertwined concepts that have persisted throughout human history. The act of moving from one place to another is, however, intricately tied to the challenges that hinder it. These obstacles can either be natural in origin or the product of human design aimed at constraining the movement of individuals or groups. Furthermore, movement and mobility can also manifest themselves within society, encompassing the fluid shifts of people within the social hierarchy and the transitions between various social groups. The transfer of words, technologies, and religious ideologies often accompanies these human movements. The region of ancient Western Asia and northeast Africa serves as a rich repository of evidence for these forms of movement and mobility, extensively documented through written sources and material culture. The essays collected in this volume variously examine the political dimensions of movement and mobility; how ideas, concepts, and languages move across boundaries; and the material evidence for cultural interactions.

The Architecture of Imperialism

The Architecture of Imperialism PDF Author: Ellen Morris
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047406133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 912

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Book Description
This volume traces the evolution of New Kingdom foreign policy in Syria-Palestine, Nubia, and Libya through an analysis of the distribution of Egyptian military bases over time and across borders. Archaeological and textual evidence pertaining to fortress-towns, forts, border checkpoints, and military headquarters is analyzed in order to illuminate the ever-shifting strategies employed by the Egyptian government to rule its subject territories. Exhaustive in its scope and illustrated throughout with numerous maps and architectural plans, this book should interest Egyptologists, Near Eastern archaeologists and historians, as well as anthropologists engaged in the comparative study of early empires and military tactics.

Ancient Egyptian Imperialism

Ancient Egyptian Imperialism PDF Author: Ellen Morris
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405136774
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Offers a broad and unique look at Ancient Egypt during its long age of imperialism Written for enthusiasts and scholars of pharaonic Egypt, as well as for those interested in comparative imperialism, this book provides a look at some of the most intriguing evidence for grand strategy, low-level insurgencies, back-room deals, and complex colonial dynamics that exists for the Bronze Age world. It explores the actions of a variety of Egypt’s imperial governments from the dawn of the state until 1069 BCE as they endeavored to control fiercely independent mountain dwellers in Lebanon, urban populations in Canaan and Nubia, highly mobile Nilotic pastoralists, and predatory desert raiders. The book is especially valuable as it foregrounds the reactions of local populations and their active roles in shaping the trajectory of empire. With its emphasis on the experimental nature of imperialism and its attention to cross-cultural comparison and social history, this book offers a fresh perspective on a fascinating subject. Organized around central imperial themes—which are explored in depth at particular places and times in Egypt’s history—Ancient Egyptian Imperialism covers: Trade Before Empire—Empire Before the State (c. 3500-2686); Settler Colonialism (c. 2400-2160); Military Occupation (c. 2055-1775); Creolization, Collaboration, Colonization (c. 1775-1295); Motivation, Intimidation, Enticement (c. 1550-1295); Organization and Infrastructure (c. 1458-1295); Outwitting the State (c. 1362-1332); Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Northern Empire (c. 1295-1136); and Conversions and Contractions in Egypt’s Southern Empire (c. 1550-1069). Offers a wider focus of Egypt’s experimentation with empire than is covered by general Egyptologists Draws analogies to tactics employed by imperial governments and by dominated peoples in a variety of historically documented empires, both old world and new Answers questions such as “how often and to what degree did imperial blueprints undergo revisions?” Ancient Egyptian Imperialism is an excellent text for students and scholars of history, comparative history, and ancient history, as well for those interested in political science, anthropology, and the Biblical World.

The Archaeology of Early Egypt

The Archaeology of Early Egypt PDF Author: D. Wengrow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521835860
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
A 2006 interpretation of the emergence of farming economies and the dynastic state in Egypt c. 10,000-2,650 BC.

Seeing Perfection

Seeing Perfection PDF Author: Rune Nyord
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108896715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
This Element offers a new approach to ancient Egyptian images informed by interdisciplinary work in archaeology, anthropology, and art history. Sidestepping traditional perspectives on Egyptian art, the Element focuses squarely on the ontological status of the image in ancient thought and experience. To accomplish this, section 2 takes up a number of central Egyptian terms for images, showing that a close examination of their etymology and usage can help resolve long-standing question on Egyptian imaging practices. Section 3 discusses ancient Egyptian experiences of materials and manufacturing processes, while section 4 categorizes and discusses the different purposes and functions for which images were created. The Element as a whole thus offers a concise introduction to ancient Egyptian imaging practices for an interdisciplinary readership, while at the same introducing new ways of thinking about familiar material for the Egyptological reader.

The Pharaoh's Daughter

The Pharaoh's Daughter PDF Author: Mesu Andrews
Publisher: WaterBrook
ISBN: 1601425996
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
The first book in the Treasures of the Nile series Anippe has grown up in the shadows of Egypt’s good god Pharaoh, aware that Anubis, god of the afterlife, may take her--or her siblings--at any moment. She watched him snatch her mother and infant brother during childbirth, a moment which awakens in her a terrible dread of ever bearing a child. When she learns that she is to be become the bride of Sebak, a kind but quick-tempered Captain of Pharaoh Tut’s army, Anippe launches a series of deceptions with the help of the Hebrew midwives—women ordered by Tut to drown the sons of their own people in the Nile—in order to provide Sebak the heir he deserves and yet protect herself from the underworld gods. When she finds a baby floating in a basket on the great river, Anippe believes Egypt’s gods have answered her pleas, entrenching her more deeply in deception and placing her and her son Mehy, whom handmaiden Miriam calls Moses, in mortal danger. As bloodshed and savage politics shift the balance of power in Egypt, the gods reveal their fickle natures and Anippe wonders if her son, a boy of Hebrew blood, could one day become king. Or does the god of her Hebrew servants, the one they call El Shaddai, have a different plan for them all?