Video Transcript: Lesson 5

Unit 03 01 Ancient Egypt

Hello, Welcome today to this next session the fifth session of the Christian Christian leaders Institute World History course 101. We're trying to cover the the sort of the beginnings of civilization until the year 1500 ad, which is a huge profit material and a huge amount of time. And we're trying to be at least somewhat global, in our perspective, so much material to cover. And unfortunately, we can only just hit the surface of what's there. But perhaps this will stimulate you to dig deeper into the different cultures and civilizations you find particularly interesting. My name is Rich hamstra. It's my privilege to be the instructor for this class. So this is Session Five, part one. And today it's about ancient Egypt. Here's a reading assignments and taking this course for credit. It's an article by Joshua J. Mark, Ancient Egypt, you'll see the link there. You may also enjoy watching the YouTube video on the recommended viewing. Again, let's be clear reading assignments you are responsible for on the quizzes. Recommended viewing is just for your added enjoyment. That's a relatively lengthy video, but very, very interesting. So far, this class we've looked at different areas where civilizations first came. We've been in Mesopotamia looked at Sumur and Babylon and Assyria. Then we went to India, and China, the Indus Valley in India and the yellow Valley in China. Today, we're moving back to the to the west. But we're still in the eastern hemisphere. We're looking at North Africa, the nation, the ancient people of Egypt, early Egypt began with people who came from the Sahara Desert primarily, or at least that's the reigning theory. About 10,000 years ago, the British actually took the Rosetta Stone from the French, and put it in the British Museum. It's been there since 1802. When I visited there, I had opportunity, not only to see the Rosetta Stone, but also to put my hand on it, although I don't know that I really was supposed to do that. I couldn't resist to touch such an amazing artifact, as such an important piece of history. So there's upper and lower kingdoms, and they were both equally powerful. And they ward with each other and they traded with each other. And finally, around the year 3150 BC, along came a king called Manny's, and he united them. He's actually from Lower Egypt, and he takes over Upper Egypt. But he unites them. And that's called the Early Dynastic time. It's not yet the new the Old Kingdom. But it's before the Old Kingdom. And it lasted until 2613. So that's another 500 years there. It many's and those who followed in his dynasty, put his capital at Memphis, again, this is just to get oriented, this map to the land of Egypt. Here, the pyramid is near the town of Memphis. So you can see that Manny's and the Early Dynastic Period have their capital near the Delta region, in Lower Egypt is also where the pyramids and the six are built. One thing to note about the Old Kingdom in particular is this is a period of time when the vast majority and certainly the monumental pyramids are built as well as the safe at Jesus, Jesus not far from Memphis, they're near the delta. And they were built early on in the during the period of the Old Kingdom. The Old Kingdom seceded. The first Early Dynastic Period, so the pyramids have been around for a long time. If you just sort of say 2500 BC, more or less somewhere in there. They were ancient. By the time Moses got there, they were 1000 years old already. And they are built primarily as to give the Kings a tool. They were monumental tools to the power of the kings. later in Egyptian history,

we during the period of Ramses the third, so that's a way in the New Kingdom and 1000 or more years and into the future of the building of the pyramids, the early the monumental construction, that was done by the pharaohs, we all sort of have it in our heads that they use all slave labor to drag those heavy rocks, and to put them together in the light. But we learned later on in Egyptian history, that it's actually they're paid construction workers. And one of the reasons we know that is because during the time of Ramses the third, Ramses wasn't paying them on time. And so they went on strike, it's one of the earliest strikes of the workers that we have on record. The Egyptians are well known for their incredible monumental building. They do all this without Of course, modern, modern techniques, and they're about back their mathematics. Their construction is still astounding. The pyramids, the sinks belong to the Old Kingdom period. The triangle on the map shows about where the pyramids are there in the lower region, just south of the Delta area. There's our strings, no one knows exactly what the Sphinx is supposed to represent. If that's a pharaoh, that's a god. We don't know. No one exactly knows what it's used for what purposes for its nose was, as I recall, the legend is that his nose was shot off. During one of the many wars that was fought in the 18th century. I think it was Napoleon's troops that shot his nose off. Falling out over old kingdom, there comes a time called the Middle Kingdom. And there is chaos in between, of course, but around the year 2040 BC, the first Kingdom ends, and there's a division again between lower and upper and they fight each other than under Qing men to Hotep. The second prior to him, there is unification that happens. And once more there is a united Egypt, Lower and Upper Egypt, they move the capital away from the delta. This, this group of the Middle Kingdom is actually from the upper we Kingdom of Egypt, and they move the capital to the city of feeds. This middle kingdom period is what many referred to as classical Egypt, is characterized by time of tremendous cultural flourishing, particularly in the arts. It may be this is not a course in biblical narrative or biblical theology. So we're not going to spend much time and I assure you these debates, these dates are debated by many. But it may well be that the biblical figure that we know as Joseph, who is sold into slavery into Egypt, you'll remember the story. And then later when there's a famine in the land, he ends up his whole family comes and the Israelites come and live in Egypt in the land of Goshen, which no one is quite sure where that is. But the Biblical person of Joseph probably fits this middle kingdom time, somewhere between the year 19 117 100 BC. But again, I'll caution you, that's highly debated. Again, just to get it oriented, there's lower Egypt here. And the capital had been in Memphis, and there's Upper Egypt here. And now we'll see. You go back and you recognize the big band and then I'll river that's an important landmark to recall. So now you see, here's the Big Bend. And here's the for most of what we think of as ancient Egypt thieves is the capital of the empire. As I mentioned, it's a time of great artistic flourishing. Here is some art that comes from the Middle Kingdom. On this side, you see, god Horus. Above him is the sun. This may be a priestess, or it may be queen. She is or maybe ISIS, one of the goddesses. Hard to tell, but they're obviously having some interaction. This is another picture again of Horus is very important God in the Egyptian pantheon, forgot the sun above them horses connected with a hawk. You see him here, and here's someone who's offering worship and you get an idea down here you see some grain vessel containing probably why or or Here's an altar, the altar upon which the offerings are arguing, worshipping the God.

This artifact also comes from the Middle Kingdom time. But it's, it's not fancy by any means. And it reflects probably more normal people's or regular people who lived in Egypt, how they express their religion. This would be where they would place their offerings. This is an altar, small household offering, you see a figure here with its hands, lifting up an offering. And you'll notice a bowl on top in nearly all the Mesopotamian cultures are all the Mediterranean cultures, including Greece, and they go around to the Hittite culture and you go to the American culture and you go to the Egyptian culture, the burl, or the calf, is a very important sacred, total, sacred animal. When the Israelites make a golden calf when they come out of Egypt, and name that as the God who brought them out of Egypt, they It is similar to identifying with this kind of religious figure, worshiped not so much by the royalty and the official religion of Egypt, the very common among the normal folks who inhabited the land. So the Middle Kingdom is a time of great flourishing. But it comes to an end when there is an invasion of Egypt by a group called the Hyksos. the Hyksos, coming to Egypt, around 1782, and are there for about 300 years, and are really the rulers of Egypt during that time. So sometime around the year, we'll just say around the year 1800 BC, here comes this group of people, and they are mysterious. We don't know exactly where they're from. Are they invaders? Are they refugees? Many people think they come from Syria. But there are all kinds of theories of where the Hyksos actually come from. We do know and we talked about in a previous session, that at the end of the Bronze Age, there was this vast migration and movements of people all around the Mediterranean area. And the Hyksos are really part of this, an early part of this diocese gained control of the Delta area, very fertile, very rich, very agriculturally important area. And they set up the city of Avarice as their capital. So now you have the Hyksos, who are in the lower area who are putting pressure on thieves. And then from the south from the main continent of Africa, there's another kingdom. Firstly, we just got to have time to get to the Nubian kingdom, rooted in three days, Sudan and Ethiopia. And they are putting great pressure on the southern borders of Egypt. Those two combined and overcome seeds, and that's the end of the Middle Kingdom. The Hyksos were in the Egyptians as they tell their own history. They thought of the Hyksos as invaders as lesser people as barbarians, as the Greeks might say, but as a matter of fact, they also brought with them some important technological advances, they brought the horse to Egypt. Just imagine they built the pyramids without the horse. This is 1000 years later, almost. They brought the wheelchair yet as a primary military weapon. They brought an improved bow that could pierce through leather armor, they brought the notion of crop rotation, so that the people who farmed along the Nile could now much more effective and efficient use of their land. And they brought a very highly improved bronze process. So these were very tech the Hyksos. While the sort of upper class Egyptians of thieves thought of the Hyksos is lesser culturally, in many ways, they were great graded. As I mentioned, this is a time of great migration throughout the Mediterranean region. And there is some suspicion on the part of some that Joseph and the Israelites and many others who came from Syria, from what we call the Middle East, into Egypt, that the Biblical person of Joseph is part of that migration story.

Around the year 1570, a king arises almost the first who is it? The VM as a matter of fact, he's just a kind of a soldier in the, in the Egyptian army, but he rises to great heights, he rises to the rank of King. He regains control, and once more unites Upper and Lower Egypt. And this is called the New Kingdom period. So the New Kingdom lasts from about 1500 70 to 1069 BC, about 500 years. It's really only during the New Kingdom period of time that the king gains the title of Pharaoh, that name that we know well. And this king, I was the first as well as the kings who followed were very ambitious, and they're building projects. Now they were building the Sphinx, or the pyramids anymore. And they weren't building up much by Giza, or by Memphis, but they move down toward these. And the Valley of the Kings at Luxor becomes their primary place. Again, it's mostly tombs, but also greeneries and storage areas, treasures, temples, the Valley of the Kings, is just a minute on a monumental scale, tremendous building, project. It's also a time of intense and extensive international expansion. The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom, or the pharaohs that we think about as having conflict with the other great empires of the world, the Hittite Empire, which we touched on a little bit last time, as well as the Neo Babylonians and others. They, the Egyptians at this time expanded, their influence is not always controlled, but influence trade and militarily, over vast areas, they were in control, for instance, of everything that we today would call the Middle East. under Pharaoh top most of the first late in the 1500s, before Christ reached its greatest extent. Also, at this time, it's important to note that one of the few queens to ever rule Egypt came to power, her son dies, and she takes over control, she becomes the region and the Queen has stepped up. Happy ship suit, is her name. And she in fact ruled 20 years there. This is a picture of the Valley of the Kings, let me just go back a little bit. The Pharaoh who came after this queen was very resentful of her and had all of her figures destroyed and her name chiseled out. We were very fortunate to have a few stories left about her otherwise, they tried to eradicate her from history. This is a just an image of the Valley of the Kings, as a little bit has been excavated, fled, you can imagine this whole valley, all the rocks around are turned into monumental buildings. And it's doing this new kingdom period that Moses probably should be placed. Moses date and again, please understand biblical scholars and historians will debate dates forever. But general consensus is that it's sometime around the year 1530 years before Christ that puts him during that time with that most the first with the Exodus then coming around 1450 BC, which is after the the rule of queens that I just mentioned. And during the time of Pharaoh, topmost, the third about 100 years after the Exodus, there comes a tremendously significant not only for the story of Egypt, really, in the story of the world, they Pharaoh arises Akhand notton and is clean never TT 1300 53 BC 213 36 A very, very brief rule. But most notable, because acha notton established monotheism

as the official and only legal religion in Egypt, this was unheard of in the ancient world, for monotheism to arise. The God is the God awful and often is the only one to be worshipped. Act not and had all the other temples closed all the others T 's priest put down, and he built his own new temple and our motto, where I started was to be worshipped there. And this is tremendously important for a number of reasons. Number one, just on the stage of human history that monotheism would enter in this great empire in Egypt is quite remarkable. But also because it really demonstrates the power struggle that went on in so many cultures, between the religious authorities and the political rulers, or the military rulers. We see that in virtually every culture that there is an inherent conflict between these two parties. And they vie for power. If you read the Old Testament, in those eyes, you will see so often the priests and the kings and the prophets are at each other's throats opposing each other and what they understand God is calling them to do or who is on God's side. That political power struggle is present in virtually every culture, and is understood to have instituted monotheism both as a way to lessen the power of the priest, but also theologically he was personally exclusively devoted to atom as God and as I mentioned, he moved the capital from thieves to Armada. This is a image of a coffin. Again, he was pretty well eradicated from history. We really didn't know much about him the Egyptians afterwards after the experiment with monotheism tried to get rid of him. And so they, they buried his images they he faced them chiseled his name out of the hieroglyphics. This statue of him survived and here is his Queen Nefertiti who was also a mildly lovely Egyptian their son, and their air is tucked. Harlan King, as we know him, famously here, because his grave was uncovered in 1922. His grave was uncovered and had not been raided and never been found by others. And so we had a pristine look at ancient Egypt. But he was scored polytheism. He put the chief god or the Egyptians back as the main god of the country, but also encouraged the worship of hundreds of other Egyptian gods. Here is the covering of his sarcophagus. This is King, part of the New Kingdom. Later, another new kingdom, a very important new kingdom, Pharaoh is Ramsay's a second. He was in power from 1279 to 1213 BC, and Ramses is known primarily as a warrior. He is in constant battle, and in conflict with the powers that lie to the east and to the north. The Hittite Empire, particularly Anatole, which is modern day Turkey, we I'm just reminding you, we talked about it last time the importance of the Treaty of Kaddish. It is the first treaty, of which we have record between two international powers in which they pledged to each other peace. The specific word that is used very, in Hebrews to make a covenant or cut a covenant is used as well here are its cognates. And significantly, the Treaty of Kaddish relies on the power of the various gods in order to enforce it. It isn't like if you break this treaty, I'm going to invade you with my army. If you break this treaty, that all the gods of the Hittites and all the gods of the Egyptians will bring their retribution on you. This is part of a curse and blessing formula that we find in so many of these ancient treaties in the ancient Ancient Near East. Here's a little bit from the Treaty of Kaddish that the blessings and curses

after the Treaty is laid out who's responsible for what all the stipulations as for these words, which are on this tablet of silver in the land of Haiti, and is the Hittites and the land of Egypt? As for him who shall not keep them 1000 gods of the land of Haiti together with 1000 God's in the lands of Egypt shall destroy his house, his land, and his servants. But as for him, who shall keep these words which are on this tablet of silver, whether they are Haiti or whether they are Egyptians, and they are not neglectful of them 1000 gods of the land of Haiti together with 1000, gods of the land of Egypt shall cause that he will be well, so cause that he live together with his house and his land, and his servants. So as we come, and we look at the Old Testament, in particular, we see that there are different covenants there, there's, God makes covenant with Noah, God makes covenant with Abraham, God makes covenant with His people. And we see the 10 commandments. For instance, we see that this covenant formula, whether it's said Who, what the relationship is between the parties, remember how the 10 commandment starts, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, that sets the context of the relationship. And then the stipulations usually have no other gods before Me, you shall not worship any other gods, you shall not bow down to them, You shall not take the name of the Lord's God in vain you shall keep the Sabbath day and then how to treat your neighbor, the second table of the law, as a part of that, if you keep this commandment, then it will go well with you. But if you break this commandment, think of what it says about honoring your father and your mother, Honor your father and your mother that you may go well with you, or take the Lord's name in vain. Those who take the Lord's name in vain, shall not be held guiltless. This is all language that is very similar and familiar to the language we find in the peace treaties. The international peace treaties, that helps us understand that when the Old Testament is written, it very much uses the notion of treaty, particularly peace treaty, as a fundamental way to talk about it. We talked about it as covenant. But we could just as well understand that as peace treaty, you want to learn more about that I highly recommend Meredith Klein, a scholar of great note, he has done incredible work. It's been updated since Professor Klein did his original research, but he was the one who really noticed this and really pointed this out. But even today, in an international way, the Treaty of Paris is very important. It is copy of it is in the United Nations. It is the first peace treaty that we have. This is a statue, I believe in the loop of Ramsay's the second, the one who cut that treaty with the ancient Hittites, there is in all of his alabaster glory. Around the year 1200 76, however, another major invasion comes to Egypt. These are the people called the Sea people. And here's your reading assignment. It's an article again by Joshua mark, called the Sea people. And you'll see the link there. This is part of the story of the late bronze age upheavals that we talked about. The whole swirling of people, moving people, migration of people, collapsing of some civilizations, and coming above the sea, people are part of that. And everyone wishes that we had more specific information on who they were, what they came from, what they were like what cultures they represented. But, alas, we know so little about them. Many suspect that they're refugees from the early Greek cultures, particularly Mycenaean. Although that's only a possibility. There are some who think of them as mercenaries from the ancient Greek city states, because there was all this fighting and they they hired all these soldiers, and they trained all these soldiers, and they equipped all these soldiers, and suddenly, there's peace. What do you do with all these military people who have nothing to do? Well, they become wandering mercenaries. Some people think that they come more from the Danube region and from the Baltics from Central

Europeans. And there are still others who think that they're refugees from falling Freud. The theories about who the sea people are as many as perhaps a few people. They should understand when we talk about the seat people we're not actually talking about a unified culture, or civilization or city state that they represent. They seem to be just a distance connected and yet could get organized into fighting groups. migrations of people, they did have a navy force, or at least had access to sea power. Most of their fighting however occurs on land not on sea there see people because they come from the sea. We do have both in hieroglyphics, as well as in written accounts is this is where they travel with their families and with their wagons and with their baggage. These are like homeless, migrants looking for a place to land. And they're fighting for a homeland. They're refugees as a fundamental way of thinking about them. They ally with a number of people, one of their major allies are the folks who lived in today we call it Libya, in North Africa, and the North Africans, of course, were rivals of the Egyptians. And they allied with the sea people. They may also have allied with the Phoenicians, I'll say a little bit more about that later. They were technically advanced and use iron weapons. Now this is tremendously important because the change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age is a technological revolution. Bronze, while superior to stone, of course, if you know anything about bronze, you know that it easily bends easily chips, easily breaks, as opposed to iron. And when Iron Age came that tools and for farming and weapons, and for building, take a quantum leap forward, whoever controls iron is really master of their area. Check this out in the Scripture, the Philippians as a group of people who lived in what today we call the Gaza Strip. The Philistines had a monopoly on the use of iron. And part of what King David is about, is trying to get access to that iron. Take a look at that. The see people were as well, experts in the use of that. I'm not sure that there may be some relationship to the Phoenicians and we don't have time to talk much about the Phoenicians, but they're really very significant players in the Mediterranean era, at about the same period of time around 1200. But even before that, they have major cities that we may have heard of Tyre, Sidon diblock. The city of big loss is known for its production of paper, or parchment what they would write on and so are the name bible actually comes from the city of DuBois. It is located in what today is the modern countries of Lebanon and Syria. The route is related very closely to Tyre. The Phoenicians are the merchants of the Mediterranean, they master cargo hauling over the waters of the Mediterranean in ways that no other power did. Even the Greeks who are great at that were second class or third class compared to the Phoenicians early on 2000, maybe 2500 BC already. The Phoenicians are sailing and and trading goods throughout the Mediterranean region. They make it all the way to Spain and establish significant colonies in Spain. Southern Spain had the best deposits of tin, and copper. And so it was tremendously important in the production of bronze and as well as all sorts of other things. And so the Phoenicians established a major trade route all the way from, let's say, modern day, Lebanon, all the way around North Africa. They found in the city many cities including the city of Carthage, remember that name pretty soon when we get to talking about Troy will know, talking about Troy a little bit but talking about Rome. Carthage is a primary enemy. That's where Hannibal with those elephants comes from.

The Bible we know we hear about the Phoenicians a little bit we don't quite understand that they are masters of the sea. That Hiram is a king. When King Solomon builds his temple builds the temple in Jerusalem he gets goods from Hiram of foods finition later on King Ahab Mary's Jezebel. She's probably the most famous Phoenicians that we know of And she is devoted to the god bail. Now bail really is just the Hebrew word for Master. And we don't understand a whole lot about the specific god. The probably a storm god. It's a little bit unclear. But just about during the time of Ahab and Jezebel, what's really notable, the northern kingdom was often occur, accused of idolatry. But what's really notable is that during the time of Ahab and Jezebel, the worship of Vale becomes the official religion of the northern kingdom of Israel. One of the things we do owe to the Phoenicians is the alphabet. The Phoenicians were the ones who really took the sort of the symbols that were around at the time was only represented the consonants of any language. And they combined those consonants with vowels and thereby forming a complete letter by letter language. Instead of syllable by syllable like to to form us. Now you get letter by letter, and it is the Greeks who pick up this Phoenician way of making an alphabet letter by letter and pass it on to Western civilization. A friend of mine who is from Malta, will tell you that they still speak Phoenician in Malta, Malta was one of furnishes early trading posts. I'm going to get yours a reading assignment on the mare Nesta steely. And you'll see the link there. The burn after steely records a victory of a certain Pharaoh during the New Kingdom, or next to his victory over the sea, people who had invaded Egypt, and the Libyans. And as he talks about, he talks about mostly in terms that he is giving victory, he is given victory by various Gyptian gods who have victory over the invaders, gods, this is around the year 1200 BC. That is the common way in the ancient world, of talking about your own success. It's not really your own is that your god or gods had victory over their gods, every military contests, political contests and a lot of economic contests. The conflicts between the various city states and empires were understood theologically, they are understood as conflicts between their gods, so whose god was stronger, whose god was more powerful, and think, again, of the language often that's used in the Old Testament about God who is the great warrior, the one who is a great refuge and strength, the one who wins your back victories for you. And just the whole notion of power that comes out in the Old Testament is very much a reflection of the culture of their time. The this feeling is historically, very significant for a number of reasons, tells us the victory of the sea people, but also makes the first historical reference outside the Bible to a group of people named Israel. It locates Israel near living as some of the Palestinian towns. So we would say in the land of Canaan, this is a image of a copy of the Sealy of Marin pact. And it is considered very important sometimes it is, in fact called the steely of Israel. Well, as with all kingdoms, it rises and falls. And after the New Kingdom, comes to a conclusion around the year 1000 BC, there is some short term return to the United Kingdom. But in the seventh century BC, the Assyrians, we talked about last time, dominate Egypt, they take control, and he just really falls into chaos

and breaks into smaller units. It's never a unified empire, or country again. And up until the 20th century. It is the land of Egypt was subjected to just one series of invasion and occupation by foreign forces from the Assyrians and later the Persians or the Greeks under Alexander, the Romans under the Caesars, later, the Arab and Muslim control over Egypt and even later, the English and French and again the English so that it will war to what we see as that Egypt is strongly under the control of the English empire. Today's independence of Egypt is a testament to their ability to rebound after so many years of being under other people's control. The last section I want to deal with today is a little bit on Ancient Egyptian religion. You'll see an article by Mark Milmore on Egyptian gods and goddesses and you'll see the link there. So the gods and goddesses of Egypt relate primarily to the various stages we started today talking about how the Nile River floods and recedes. And the Gods and Goddesses are related to the stages of the Nile giving life in the heart of the desert. It's called the blood of Egypt. It's called the Life Giver of Egypt. The Nile is the key to Egypt. Some often point out that life was good particularly for the pharaohs. And so a continuation of that life into the next life was seen as a very desirable and sell the religion develops and becomes very important to provision the Emperor's Well, their treasure their slaves, who are sacrificed or left to serve them buried alive, that was achieved duty primarily of the priests and others. The Egyptians had numerous gods and goddesses. And particularly in later period of time, the Egyptian gods and goddesses become tremendously influential over Greek and then later Roman culture. So, while the Greeks and Romans overcame the Egyptians militarily, in significant ways the Egyptians overcame the Greeks and the Romans, religiously and culturally. A prime aspect of Egyptian religion is that the rulers and their families, the kings and pharaohs, were considered to be directly descended from the gods or goddesses. They were called the sons of God, the daughters of gods and therefore, their rule was by divine right, whatever they spoke, they spoke on behalf of the gods says what are the Egyptians goddesses? This is half hour, She's the goddess of fertility of love. hearth and home we might say, of seduction. She, her totem animal is a cat, and in the temples of Haftar throughout Egypt, if, if you had cat allergies, you would never want to go there because they were filled with cats and cats. And this is the owl one of the port the god horse, what totals. This brings us to the end. Today, the end of session five, where we've considered Egypt. Thank you very much for being with us today. Do the readings. Check out the videos if you're able and hope that you have a blessed day. Thank you