Tag: egypt

Denis Dailleux

Photography by Denis Dailleux

Born in Angers, France in 1958, Denis Dailleux is a portraiture photographer who has been documenting life in Egypt for the past thirty years. His works, done in classical black and white as well as in subtle colors, equally capture Egypt’s famous residents and the anonymous subjects in the slums of Cairo with the same passion and the same distinctive sensitivity.

Dailleux has published a series of photographic books, all of which  portray the settings and people of Egypt, the city of Cairo, and his impressions of the 2011 January Revolution in Egypt. After the publishing of his 2008 “Fils de Roi: Portraits of Egypt”, Dailleux took an exploratory trip to Sub-Saharan Africa in search of new sources of inspiration. This expedition led to a portrait series on the village residents in the country of Ghana.

Denis Dailleux has been awarded several international prizes, including the 1997 Monographies Award, the 2000 World Press Photo Award in the portraits category, the 2000 City of Vevey Hasselblad Award in Switzerland, and the 2001 Fuji Film Award given at Biarritz’s Festival Terre d’Images. Dailleux’s series “Egypt, Mother and Son”, portraits of Egyptian bodybuilders with their mothers, won second prize at the 2014 World Press Photo Awards in the staged portraits category. 

A member of Agence VU, Denis Dailleux currently lives in Cairo, Egypt, where he works as a portrait photographer. His website is located at: https://www.denisdailleux.com/index.php?/

The images above contain photographs from several of Dailleux’s series: “Ghana” and “Egypt“; “Egypt, Mother and Son”,  and “Les Conducteurs de Tuk-Tuk du Cairo”.

Egyptian Arched Harp

Egyptian Arched Harp (Shoulder Harp), circa 1390-1295 BCE, Wood, Diagonal Length 82 cm, Soundbox Length 36 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, spanning the period from 1550 to 1292 BCE,  is classified as the first dynasty of the New Kingdom, which was the era when ancient Egypt reached the peak of its power. This dynasty included the reigns of pharaohs such as Tutankhamun who ruled Egypt at a young age; Hatshepsut, the longest reigning woman pharaoh of an indigenous dynasty; and Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh, who ruled with  his principle wife Nefertiti. Unique among the Egyptian dynasties, the Eighteenth Dynasty had two women who ruled as sole pharaoh: Hatshepsut, who ruled from 1470 to 1458 BCE, and Neferneferuaten, usually identified as Nefertiti, whose short reign extended from 1334 to 1332 BCE.

Arched harps were already in use during the Old Kingdom and remained the foremost string instruments until the end of the Middle Kingdom. From the New Kingdom onward, Egyptian arched harps co-existed with a great variety of harps in different shapes and sizes. During the later part of the New Kingdom, musicians experimented with new forms which could accommodate more  strings, eventually progressing from the arched bow harp with four or five strings to the classic full-sized arched harp with a leather soundboard and twenty-two strings. 

The smaller, more portable ancient Egyptian bowed shoulder harp became briefly more popular from about the reign of Tuthmosis III, who ruled from 1479 to 1425 BCE. The arched shoulder harp with the curved neck, preserved in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, is dated from 1390 to 1295 BCE. This harp has twelve strings and an open, slightly waisted sound box, whose opening was once covered with skin. Rope tuning rings under each string gave a buzzing sound to the soft-sounding tone produced. Topping the arched frame of the harp is a carved head of a Nubian captive who appears to be bound by the strings of the harp. 

This type of portable, boat-shaped arched harp was a favorite during the New Kingdom and is shown in the hands of processional female musicians performing alone or in ensembles with singers, wind instruments, rattles, and sistrums, small rattling percussion instruments made of brass or bronze. Prior to the Middle Kingdom, depictions of harpists feature men as the chief musicians. Harps and other instruments were used for praise singing and entertainment at festivals, temple rituals, court functions, funerals, and military events. Today, arched harps derived from these ancient Egyptian forms are still used in parts of Africa and Asia

The Karnak Temple

 

Photographer Unknown, (Inside the Karnak Temple in Luxor)

Consisting of more than one hundred hectares, Karnak is an ancient temple precinct in Egypt located on the east bank of the Nile River in modern-day Luxor, formerly Thebes. The largest sector is the central portion which is dedicated to Amun-Ra, considered to be the supreme creator, the god of fertility and life.

In the southern central sector is a precinct dedicated to the goddess Mut, wife of Amun-Ra, the primal mother goddess who is associated with the waters from which everything is born. She was a patron deity of Thebes along with her husband Amun-Ra and their son Khonsu, god of the moon.

North of the central area is a precinct dedicated to Montu, the falcon headed god of war and embodiment of the conquering vitality of the Pharaoh. A very ancient god, Montu was a manifestation of the scorching destructive effect of Ra, the sun, which caused him first to be considered a warrior and eventually revered as a war-god.

To the east of the central sector, there is an area, destroyed intentionally, that was dedicated to Aten, the solar disc. The deity Aten was the focus of the monotheistic religion established by Amenhotep IV to worship Aten as the creator, the giver of life, and the nurturing spirit of the world. Horemheb, the last Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, reestablished the priesthood of Amun and destroyed the temple area of Atan, the solar disc. A prolific builder, Horemheb constructed the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Pylons of the great Hypostyle Hall in the precinct of Amon-Ra at the Temple of Karnak.

The last major building program at Karnak was under the reign of Nectanebo I, a king of the Thirtieth and last Dynasty of Egypt. He built a large enclosure wall around the site along with another temple. He also started, but did not complete, a new pylon at the western entrance of Karnak. The rulers of foreign descent who took control of Egypt continued work at Karnak, creating a series of burial catacombs dedicated to Osiris, god of the underworld. When Rome seized control of Egypt, work at Karnak ceased, ending a span of two thousand years of construction.

Thutmose III

Statue of Thutmose III (Birthname: Menkheperre), Karnak Cachette, Luxor Museum, Egypt

This statue of Thutmose III, carved from greywacke, a dark coarse-grained sandstone, was found in the Karnak cachette in 1904. His reign was from 1479 to 1425 BC in which he extended the reach of the Egyptian empire during his foreign military campaigns.

Reblogged with many thanks to http://bandit1a.tumblr.com

Source: grandegyptianmuseum

Ibis Coffin

Ibis Coffin, 305-33 BCE, Wood, Silver, Gold Leaf, Gesso, Rock Crystal, Animal Remains, Linen, Pigment, 19 x 8 x 22 Inches, Brooklyn Museum, New York

This Ptolemaic Period ibis coffin was probably from the Tuna el-Gebel area of Egypt.  The coffin is in the from of a standing figure of an ibis serving as container for mummified ibis; the wooden body of the coffin is entirely surface gilded. There is a resin covering the gilt in places which may be the remains of a varnish. The figure has a onventionalized tail indicated by black paint over the gilt and the top of its body is cut for a cover which runs entire length of body.

The figure’s head and feet is cast in silver; the eyes are of crystal outlined in gold. The head has an incised necklace at base of neck. The figure is mounted on an oblong wooden base, apparently original, of rough work. The mummified ibis lies within the figure’s body, in an intact condition.

Animal mummies were routinely placed in some type of container once the animal had been wrapped in linen. The more ordinary containers were specially designed or reused pottery jars. Such objects have been found by the tens of thousands in so-called animal cemeteries at a number of sites in Egypt.

At times elaborate coffins were crafted to hold the animal mummies. Just as human coffins were anthropoid, so animal coffins took the form of the animal contained. The ibis mummy held by this coffin was placed within through the detachable lid on the back. The gilding of the body and the exquisite detailing of the head, legs, and feet make this example one of the finest of its kind.

The Duck Vase

Vase in the Shape of a Duck, 300-200 BC, Faience with Polychrome Glaze,    8.5 x 18 x 7.9 Centimeters, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Egyptian faience is a composite material composed of ground quartz and natron (sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate). Most faience is glazed in a vivid blue or green color; the polychrome faience seen here is much more complicated to produce.

The duck was mold-made together with the remains of its ring handle on the bird’s left side. The surface of the body displays a raised dot pattern, while the end of the wings have a feather pattern. The form may have been inspired by the red-figure duck vases of Etruria and south Italy. The duck is depicted with such detailed naturalism that the underside even has delicately modeled webbed feet.

Calendar: June 28

 

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of June

Iced Coffee

On June 28, 1911 the Nakhla meteorite falls to earth and lands in Egypt.

The Nakhla meteorite is a prototypical example of the Nakhlite type meteorite of the SNC Group of Mars meteorites. These meteorites are considered to have been ejected by the impact of another large body colliding with the Martian surface. They orbited through the solar system before penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere. This Nakhla meteorite landed in the Abu Hommos district near the village of El Nakha El Bahariya, Egypt.

Many people witnessed the descent, approaching from the north-west, with an inclination of about 30 degrees. It was trailed by a column of white smoke. Several explosions were heard before it fell to earth into an area of about three miles in diameter. About forty fragments were discovered, some buried in the ground up to a meter deep. The original weight of the meteorite was estimated at twenty-two pounds (ten kilograms); fragments weighed from 20 grams to eighteen hundred grams.

The Nakhla meteorite is especially significant because it is the first Martian meteorite to show signs of aqueous processes on Mars. The rock contains carbonates and hydrous minerals, formed by chemical reactions in water. In addition, the rock was exposed to water after it formed, which caused secondary accumulations of minerals. The carbonates contain more 13C than rocks formed on Earth, indicating Martian origin.

London’s natural History Museum, which holds several intact fragments of the meteorite, allowed NASA researchers to break one open in 2006, providing fresh samples, relatively free from Earth-sourced contamination. These NASA scientists found an abundance of complex carbonaceous material occupying branching structural pores and channels in the rock, resembling the effects of bacteria observed in rocks on Earth.

Side Note: One fragment of the meteorite was said to have landed on a dog, as observed by a farmer named Mohammed Ali Effendi Hakim in the village of Denshal. It supposedly vaporized the animal instantly. Since no remains of the dog were recovered and there were no other eyewitness to the dog’s demise, this story remains apocryphal. However, the story of the Nakhla dog has become something of a legend among astronomers.

Tutankhamun’s Burial Dagger

Tutankhamun’s Burial Dagger, Blade Composit of Nickel and Cobalt, Egyptian 18th Dynasty

A team of researchers have confirmed that the iron in one of the daggers found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as a number of other precious artifacts from Ancient Egypt, have celestial origins as they were made from meteorites. The research was undertaken by an international team of scientists from the Polytechnics of Milan and Turin, the University of Pisa, the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the CNR, the University Fayoum, and the XGlab company. Archeologists had suspected for many decades that the iron used during the reign of the New Kingdom Dynasties and earlier, could come from meteorites.

The composition of iron used in Tutankhamun’s dagger, is nickel and cobalt, which is commonly found in meteorites. In addition, the study of the iron beads from Gerzeh, which are c. 5,000 years old, confirmed that in the times of the eighteenth dynasty, ancient Egyptians were advanced in working iron and that the iron used to create them comes from meteorite.  Previously, it had been believed that the Egyptian Iron Age started after 600 BC.

Pectoral Ornamental Necklace

Pectoral Ornamental Necklace, Egypt, 18th Dynasty

This pectoral necklace clasped with three scarab beetles was discovered in the intact KV62 tomb of Tutankhamun who ruled during the 18th dynasty of Egypt’s New Kingdom. This jewellry depicts Scrab Beetles or Kehpri, pushing the sun. The pectoral is today part of the collection of the Cairo Museum. This photo was taken at the King Tut exhibition at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington State, USA.

Calendar: January 14

Year: Day to Day Men: January 14

Shades of Black and Green

The fourteenth of January in 83 BC marks the birth date of Marcus Antonius who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the autocratic Roman Empire. 

Born in Rome, Marcus Antonius was the son of Marcus Antonius Creticus and Julia, the daughter of Consul Lucius Julius Caesar and the third-cousin of Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of the Empire until his assassination in 44 BC. Antonius was a relative and supporter of Julius Caesar and served as a general during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War of the late Roman Republic. He was appointed administrator to Italy while Caesar eliminated his political opponents in Spain, North Africa and Greece. 

There is little reliable information on his younger years. It is known, however, that he was an associate of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a populist Roman politician and street agitator during the First Triumvirate. By the age of twenty, Antonius had accumulated enormous debt and fled to Greece to escape his creditors; during his stay in Greece, he studied philosophy and rhetoric at Athens. Antonius began his military career in 57 BC by joining the military staff of the Proconsul of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, as commander of the calvary. He achieved his first military honors after securing important victories at Alexandrium and Machaerus, both in Jordan.

Antonius’s association with Publius Clodius Pulcher enabled him to achieve prominence in his career. Clodius secured Antonius a position on Caesar’s military staff in 54 BC. Demonstrating military leadership under Caesar, Antonius and Caesar developed a friendship that would last until Caesar’s assassination. It was Antonius who persuaded Proconsul Aulus Gabinius to restore the Ptolemaic pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes to the throne of Egypt after Ptolemy’s defeat in a rebellion. With Ptolemy restored as Rome’s client king, Rome exercised considerable power over the kingdom’s affairs. It was during this campaign that Antonius met Ptolemy’s then fourteen year-old daughter Cleopatra.

After a year of military service in Gaul, Caesar sent Antonius to Rome to formally begin his political career as a quaester, or public official, in 52 BC. After a year in office, Antonius was promoted by Caesar to the rank of Legate and was given command of two legions, about seventy-five hundred soldiers. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, Antonius joined with General Marcus Aemilius  Lepidus and Galus Octavius, Caesar’s great-nephew, to form the three-man dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. This group defeated Caesar’s killers in 42 BC and divided the Republic’s government between themselves. Antonius was assigned Rome’s eastern provinces which included the kingdom of Egypt, ruled then by Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator.

As the members of the Triumvirate sought individual power, relations became strained. Octavius and Antonius averted war in 40 BC when Antonius married Octavia, Octavius’s sister. However despite this marriage, relations were further strained as Antonius continued his love affair with Cleopatra. In 36 BC, Lepidus was expelled from the Triumvirate and a split developed between Antonius and Octavius. This hostility erupted into civil war in 31 BC as the Roman Senate under Octavius declared war on Egypt and proclaimed Antonius a traitor. Later that year, Octavius’s forces defeated Antonius at the Battle of Actium. Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius fled to Egypt where, after losing the Battle at Alexandria in 30 BC, these two historic figures committed suicide. 

Roman statesman and orator Cicero Minor, a leading figure of the Roman Republic, announced Antonius’s death to the Senate. Antonius’s honors were revoked and his statues removed; however he was not subject to a complete condemnation of memory, damnatio memoriae. A decree was made that no member of the Antonii family would ever bear the name of Marcus again. Married four times, Marcus Antonius had many descendants and was ancestor to several famous Roman statesmen. Through his lover, Cleopatra VII, he had two sons and a daughter Cleopatra Selene II through whom Antonius was ancestor to the royal family of Mauretania, another Roman client kingdom. 

Notes:Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and its last active ruler. She was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. The Ptolemaic pharaohs, crowned by the Egyptian high priest of Ptah at Memphis, resided in the multicultural and largely Greek city of Alexandria founded by Alexander the Great. Previous Ptolemaic pharaohs spoke only Greek and ruled as Hellenistic monarchs. Cleopatra could speak multiple languages by adulthood and was the first Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra VII did not commit suicide by a bite from an asp but rather through poison. 

Temple of Hathor

Painted Ceiling of the Temple of Hathor, Egyot

Seen here is the incredibly well-preserved, painted ceiling at Egypt’s Temple of Hathor. It is the main temple at the Dendera Temple Complex which was built around 2250 BC and is regarded as one of the best-preserved temple complexes in Egypt. Dendera covers an area of about 40,000 square meters and is one of the most tourist-accessible ancient Egyptian places of worship.

The ceiling of the main hall has retained much of its stunning original colour despite being painted thousands of years ago. According to Tour Egypt, the ceiling is “decorated as a complex and carefully aligned symbolic chart of the heavens, including signs of the zodiac (introduced by the Romans) and images of the sky goddess Nut who swallowed the sun disc each evening in order to give birth to it once again at dawn.”

Albert Einstein: “Science is Their Own Special Sport”

Artist Unknown, (Entry to the Temple)

“In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were someone to drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside..”

― Albert Einstein

 

Youssef Nabil

Photography by Youssef Nabil

Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nabil started his photography career in 1992, shortly before meeting the American photographer David LaChapelle in Cairo, with whom he worked in New York in 1993. In 1997, Nabil worked in Paris with the Peruvian fashion photographer Mario Testino till late 1998. In 1999, Youssef Nabil had his first solo exhibition in Cairo. Through the years he remained a close friend with the Egyptian-Armenian studio portrait photographer Van Leo (Leon Boyadjian, 1921–2001), who encouraged Nabil to leave to the West. In 2003, Youssef Nabil was awarded the Seydou Keita Prize in the Biennial of African Photography in Bamako.

In 2001, while visiting Cairo, British artist Tracey Emin discovered Nabil’s work and later nominated him as a future top artist in Harper’s article Tomorrow People. Nabil left Egypt in 2003 for an artist residency at La Cité internationale des Arts in Paris. In 2006, he moved to live and work in New York City.

Many have been subject to Nabil’s lens and distinctive technique of hand-colouring gelatin silver prints, including artists Tracey Emin, Gilbert and George, Nan Goldin, Marina Abramović, Louise Bourgeois, and Shirin Neshat; singers Alicia Keys, Sting, and Natacha Atlas; actors Omar Sharif, Faten Hamama, Rossy de Palma, Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert, and Catherine Deneuve.

Hieroglyphic Writing

Hieroglyphic Writing at the Temple Complex in Luxor, Egypt

Luxor Temple is a large Ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile River in the city today known as Luxor (ancient Thebes) and was founded in 1400 BCE. Known in the Egyptian language as ipet resyt, or “the southern sanctuary”. In Luxor there are six great temples, the four on the left bank are known to travellers and readers of travels as Goornah, Deir-el-Bahri, the Ramesseum, and Medinet Habu; and the two temples on the right bank are known as the Karnak and Luxor.

Horus and Set

GlaringDragon, “Horus and Set”, DeviantArt

The most important part of the Chester Beatty Papyrus I is the mythological story of “The Contendings of Horus and Seth” which deals with the battles between Horus and Set to see who will be the successor to the throne of Osiris. Horus and Seth have various competitions to see who will be king. Horus beats Seth each time.

The specific time of the Contendings is a period during which the fighting has temporarily stopped; Seth and Horus have brought their case before the Ennead. There both Set and Horus plead their cases and the deities of the Ennead state their opinions. The combat starts up again between Horus and Seth and finally, the situation is resolved when Horus is determined to be rightful king of Egypt.

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Tomb Painting of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum

Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum were ancient Egyptian royal servants. They shared the title of Overseer of the Manicurists in the Palace of King Niuserre during the Fifth Dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs, c. 2400 BCE, and are listed as “royal confidants” in their joint tomb.

The tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum was discovered by Egyptologist Ahmed Moussa in the necropolis at Saqqara, Egypt in 1964, during the excavation of the causeway for the pyramid of King Unas. It is the only tomb in the necropolis where men are displayed embracing and holding hands. In addition, the men’s chosen names (both theophorics to the creator-god Khnum) form a linguistic reference to their closeness:

Niankhkhnum means “joined to life” and Khnumhotep means “joined to the blessed state of the dead’”, and together the names can be translated as “joined in life and joined in death”

In a banquet scene, Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep are entertained by dancers, clappers, musicians and singers; in another, they oversee their funeral preparations. In the most striking portrayal, the two embrace, noses touching, in the most intimate pose allowed by canonical Egyptian art, surrounded by what would appear to be their heirs.

Critics argue that both men appear with their respective wives and children, suggesting the men were brothers, rather than lovers.