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128-526: Napata / ˈ n æ p ə t ə / ( Old Egyptian Npt , Npy ; Meroitic Napa ; Ancient Greek : Νάπατα and Ναπάται) was a city of ancient Kush at the fourth cataract of the Nile founded by the Egyptian Amun cult for Egyptian pilgrims given by its, as suggested, Egyptian name. It is located approximately 1.5 kilometers from the east side of the river at the site of modern Karima, Sudan . Napata

256-710: A World Heritage Site . The site is open to the public as an open-air museum . According to legends related in the early third century BC by Manetho , a priest and historian who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom during the Hellenistic period of ancient Egypt , the city was founded by King Menes . It was the capital of ancient Egypt ( Kemet or Kumat ) during both the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom and remained an important city throughout ancient Egyptian history . It occupied

384-773: A literary language , and was also the language of the New Kingdom administration. Texts written wholly in Late Egyptian date to the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt and later. Late Egyptian is represented by a large body of religious and secular literature , comprising such examples as the Story of Wenamun , the love poems of the Chester–Beatty I papyrus, and the Instruction of Any . Instructions became

512-576: A synthetic language , Egyptian by the Late Egyptian phase had become an analytic language . The relationship between Middle Egyptian and Late Egyptian has been described as being similar to that between Latin and Italian. The Late Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 8th century BC, giving rise to Demotic. Demotic is a later development of the Egyptian language written in the Demotic script , following Late Egyptian and preceding Coptic ,

640-578: A decline during the Third Intermediate Period , which saw great changes in the geopolitics of the country. Instead it is likely that the kings worked to develop the Memphite cult in their new capital of Tanis , to the northeast. In light of some remains found at the site, it is known that a temple of Ptah was based there. Siamun is cited as having built a temple dedicated to Amun , the remains of which were found by Flinders Petrie in

768-558: A few have survived that were written in hieratic and (later) demotic. There was also a form of cursive hieroglyphs , used for religious documents on papyrus, such as the Book of the Dead of the Twentieth Dynasty ; it was simpler to write than the hieroglyphs in stone inscriptions, but it was not as cursive as hieratic and lacked the wide use of ligatures . Additionally, there was a variety of stone-cut hieratic, known as "lapidary hieratic". In

896-495: A few specialists in the language. For all other purposes, the Egyptological pronunciation is used, but it often bears little resemblance to what is known of how Egyptian was pronounced. The following consonants are reconstructed for Archaic (before 2600 BC) and Old Egyptian (2686–2181 BC), with IPA equivalents in square brackets if they differ from the usual transcription scheme: / l / has no independent representation in

1024-495: A focus of Egyptian cultic religion as the residence of their state god Amun of Karnak. In the shadow of Jebel Barkal, a religious centre called Karnak was erected and the settlement that followed in the area became known as Napata. In 1075 BC, the High Priest of Amun at Thebes , capital of Egypt, became powerful enough to limit the power of Pharaoh Smendes of the post-Ramesside Twenty-first Dynasty over Upper Egypt . This

1152-464: A mythical king, similar to Romulus of Rome. Some scholars suggest that Egypt most likely became unified through mutual need, developing cultural ties and trading partnerships, although it is undisputed that the first capital of united Egypt was the city of Memphis. Some Egyptologists had identified the legendary Menes with the historical Narmer , who is represented on the Palette of Narmer conquering

1280-490: A number of its brown quartzite blocks were found to have been reused by Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BC) for the construction of the small temple of Ptah. This leads some Egyptologists to suggest that the latter temple had been built over the site of the first. According to inscriptions found in Memphis, Akhenaten (r. 1353/51–1336/34 BC; formerly Amenhotep IV) founded a temple of Aten in the city. The burial chamber of one of

1408-469: A palace and developed the southeast wall of the temple of Ptah. For the early part of the 19th Dynasty , Memphis received the privileges of royal attention, and it is this dynasty that is most evident among the ruins of the city today. With the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasties , there is a continuation of the religious development initiated by Ramesses. Memphis does not seem to have suffered

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1536-559: A panel recording official acts of the royal court during this time. In the ruins of the Temple of Ptah, a block in the name of Senusret II bears an inscription indicating an architectural commission as a gift to the deities of Memphis. Moreover, many statues found at the site, later restored by the New Kingdom kings, are attributed to kings of the Twelfth Dynasty . Examples include the two stone giants that have been recovered amidst

1664-467: A particular type of skull-cap crown reminiscent of the shape of Jebel Barkal, which was intended to show how they derived their power from that “Pure Mountain”. The reunited Egyptian empire under the 25th dynasty was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom and ushered in a renaissance. Religion, arts, and architecture were restored to their Old, Middle, and New Kingdom forms. Pharaohs, such as Taharqa , built or restored temples and monuments throughout

1792-442: A popular literary genre of the New Kingdom, which took the form of advice on proper behavior. Late Egyptian was also the language of New Kingdom administration. Late Egyptian is not completely distinct from Middle Egyptian, as many "classicisms" appear in historical and literary documents of this phase. However, the difference between Middle and Late Egyptian is greater than the difference between Middle and Old Egyptian. Originally

1920-444: A scribe jokes that his colleague's writing is incoherent like "the speech of a Delta man with a man of Elephantine ." Recently, some evidence of internal dialects has been found in pairs of similar words in Egyptian that, based on similarities with later dialects of Coptic, may be derived from northern and southern dialects of Egyptian. Written Coptic has five major dialects, which differ mainly in graphic conventions, most notably

2048-469: A strategic position at the mouth of the Nile Delta , and was home to bustling activity. Its principal port, Peru-nefer (not to be confused with Peru-nefer at Avaris ), featured a high density of workshops, factories, and warehouses that distributed food and merchandise throughout the ancient kingdom. During its golden age, Memphis thrived as a regional centre for commerce, trade, and religion. Memphis

2176-503: A stressed vowel (⟨ bjn ⟩ = */ˈbaːjin/ 'bad') and as ⟨ jj ⟩ word-medially immediately before a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḫꜥjjk⟩ = */χaʕˈjak/ 'you will appear') and are unmarked word-finally (⟨ jt ⟩ = /ˈjaːtVj/ 'father'). In Middle Egyptian (2055–1650 BC), a number of consonantal shifts take place. By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom period, / z / and / s / had merged, and

2304-510: A stressed vowel in syllables that had been closed in earlier Egyptian (compare ⲛⲟⲩⲃ < */ˈnaːbaw/ 'gold' and ⲧⲁⲡ < * /dib/ 'horn'). The phonemes /d g z/ occur only in Greek loanwords, with rare exceptions triggered by a nearby /n/ : ⲁⲛⲍⲏⲃⲉ/ⲁⲛⲥⲏⲃⲉ < ꜥ.t n.t sbꜣ.w 'school'. Earlier *d ḏ g q are preserved as ejective t' c' k' k ' before vowels in Coptic. Although

2432-456: A total of ten complete (or nearly complete) statues in two caches. These statues depicted Taharqa and several of his successors, including Tanwetamani , Senkamanisken, Anlamani , and Aspelta . This discovery was partially accidental, as Reisner had only happened upon the first cache while searching for a prospective dump site. Weeks later, the second cache was found within the nearby Amun temple with several fragments matching the statues in

2560-644: A transliteration of the corresponding Demotic "alphabetical" sign(s) in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . More changes occur in the 1st millennium BC and the first centuries AD, leading to Coptic (1st or 3rd – c. 19th centuries AD). In Sahidic ẖ ḫ ḥ had merged into ϣ š (most often from ḫ ) and ϩ / h / (most often ẖ ḥ ). Bohairic and Akhmimic are more conservative and have a velar fricative / x / ( ϧ in Bohairic, ⳉ in Akhmimic). Pharyngeal *ꜥ had merged into glottal / ʔ / after it had affected

2688-465: A uniliteral hieroglyph. Egyptian scholar Gamal Mokhtar noted that the inventory of hieroglyphic symbols derived from "fauna and flora used in the signs [which] are essentially African", reflecting the local wildlife of North Africa, the Levant and southern Mediterranean. In "regards to writing, we have seen that a purely Nilotic, hence [North] African origin not only is not excluded, but probably reflects

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2816-433: A young prince in Memphis. During his exploration of the site, Karl Richard Lepsius identified a series of blocks and broken colonnades in the name of Thutmose IV to the east of the Temple of Ptah. They had to belong to a royal building, most likely a ceremonial palace. The founding of the temple of Astarte (Mespotamian or Assyrian goddess of fertility and war; Babylonian = Ishtar), which Herodotus syncretically understands

2944-658: Is adjacent to the Jebel Barkal cliff, which has resulted in several rock falls damaging the construction at various points in the third century BC and first century AD. The 18th Dynasty use for this structure is uncertain, though it is known to have functioned as a royal enthronement pavilion during the third century BC. Napata was mentioned in Giuseppe Verdi 's opera Aida (1871) in Act III, when Amonasro uses Aida to learn where Rhadames will lead his army. Napata

3072-445: Is called Moph . The Muslim tradition adopted the Coptic etymology which operates with an etymon Māfah , derived from Coptic : ⲙⲁⲁⲃ , lit.   'thirty'. It made the number significant in the following traditions relating to Memphis: it was thirty miles long, Manqāwus built it for his thirty daughters and Baysar lived here with his thirty children. The city of Memphis is 20 km (12 mi) south of Cairo , on

3200-520: Is called Meroitic down to the collapse of the kingdom. Napata was founded by Thutmose III in the 15th century BC after his conquest of Kush. Because Egyptians believed that the inundation of the Nile equated Creation, Napata's location as the southernmost point in the empire led it to become an important religious centre and settlement. In the Early 18th Dynasty, Jebel Barkal , a lone sandstone butte, became

3328-450: Is closely linked to that of the country itself. Its eventual downfall is believed to have been due to the loss of its economic significance in late antiquity, following the rise of coastal Alexandria . Its religious significance was diminished after the abandonment of the ancient religion following the Edict of Thessalonica (380 AD), which made Nicene Christianity the sole religion of

3456-474: Is dated from the oldest known complete sentence, including a finite verb , which has been found. Discovered in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen (dated c.  2690 BC ), the seal impression reads: Extensive texts appear from about 2600 BC. An early example is the Diary of Merer . The Pyramid Texts are the largest body of literature written in this phase of the language. One of its distinguishing characteristics

3584-650: Is dedicated to the Greek goddess Aphrodite , also may be dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty, specifically the reign of Amenhotep III (r. 1388/86–1351/1349 BC). The greatest work of this king in Memphis, however, was a temple called "Nebmaatra united with Ptah", which is cited by many sources from the period of his reign, including artefacts listing the works of Huy , the High Steward of Memphis. The location of this temple has not been precisely determined, but

3712-452: Is not a contrastive feature; all obstruents are voiceless and all sonorants are voiced. Stops may be either aspirated or tenuis (unaspirated), although there is evidence that aspirates merged with their tenuis counterparts in certain environments. The following table presents the consonants of Demotic Egyptian. The reconstructed value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, followed by

3840-399: Is sometimes reserved for the earliest use of hieroglyphs, from the late fourth through the early third millennia BC. At the earliest stage, around 3300 BC, hieroglyphs were not a fully developed writing system , being at a transitional stage of proto-writing ; over the time leading up to the 27th century BC, grammatical features such as nisba formation can be seen to occur. Old Egyptian

3968-424: Is the best-documented variety of the language, and has attracted the most attention by far from Egyptology . While most Middle Egyptian is seen written on monuments by hieroglyphs, it was also written using a cursive variant , and the related hieratic . Middle Egyptian first became available to modern scholarship with the decipherment of hieroglyphs in the early 19th century. The first grammar of Middle Egyptian

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4096-509: Is the setting for a large portion of the novel, The Last Camel Died At Noon by Egyptologist, Barbara Mertz under the nom de plume of Elizabeth Peters. Old Egyptian The Egyptian language , or Ancient Egyptian ( r n kmt ; "speech of Egypt") is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt . It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to

4224-406: Is the tripling of ideograms , phonograms, and determinatives to indicate the plural. Overall, it does not differ significantly from Middle Egyptian, the classical stage of the language, though it is based on a different dialect. In the period of the 3rd dynasty ( c.  2650  – c.  2575 BC ), many of the principles of hieroglyphic writing were regularized. From that time on, until

4352-591: The Babylonians , reconstructed and even fortified structures in the city, as is attested by the palace built by Apries at Kom Tuman. Egypt and Memphis were taken for Persia by king Cambyses in 525 BC after the Battle of Pelusium . Under the Persians , structures in the city were preserved and strengthened, and Memphis was made the administrative headquarters of the newly conquered satrapy . A Persian garrison

4480-565: The Coptic Catholic Church . Most hieroglyphic Egyptian texts are written in a literary prestige register rather than the vernacular speech variety of their author. As a result, dialectical differences are not apparent in written Egyptian until the adoption of the Coptic alphabet . Nevertheless, it is clear that these differences existed before the Coptic period. In one Late Egyptian letter (dated c.  1200 BC ),

4608-543: The Palermo Stone , and beginning from the reign of Menkaura , we know the names of the high priests of Memphis who seem to have worked in pairs, at least until the reign of Teti . The architecture of this period was similar to that seen at Giza royal necropolis of the Fourth Dynasty, where recent excavations have revealed that the essential focus of the kingdom at that time centred on the construction of

4736-455: The Sed festival were celebrated in the temple of Ptah. The earliest signs of such ceremonies were found in the chambers of Djoser . During this period, the clergy of the temple of Ptah came into being. The importance of the temple is attested with payments of food and other goods necessary for the funerary rites of royal and noble dignitaries. This temple also is cited in the annals preserved on

4864-519: The Temple of Mut were the most important ones at Napata, located at the foot of Jebel Barkal . After the Achaemenid conquest of Egypt, Napata lost its economic influence. The Napatan region itself was desiccating, leading to less cattle and agriculture. An Achaemenid raid had seriously affected Napata in 591 BC. Finally, Napata was losing its role of economic capital to Meroë. The island of Meroë ,

4992-492: The Twenty-ninth Dynasty . The execution was recorded in an Aramaic papyrus document (Papyrus Brooklyn 13). Nepherites moved the capital to Mendes , in the eastern delta, and Memphis lost its status in the political sphere. It retained, however, its religious, commercial, and strategic importance, and was instrumental in resisting Persian attempts to reconquer Egypt. Under Nectanebo I , a major rebuilding program

5120-588: The hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts. Demotic is the name of the script derived from the hieratic beginning in the 7th century BC. The Coptic alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet , with adaptations for Egyptian phonology. It was first developed in the Ptolemaic period , and gradually replaced the Demotic script in about the 4th to 5th centuries of the Christian era. The term "Archaic Egyptian"

5248-587: The liturgical language of the Coptic Church . The Egyptian language branch belongs to the Afroasiatic language family . Among the typological features of Egyptian that are typically Afroasiatic are its fusional morphology, nonconcatenative morphology , a series of emphatic consonants , a three-vowel system /a i u/ , a nominal feminine suffix * -at , a nominal prefix m- , an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes. Of

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5376-568: The vernacular of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and remained the literary language of Egypt until the Roman period . By the time of classical antiquity , the spoken language had evolved into Demotic , and by the Roman era , diversified into various Coptic dialects . These were eventually supplanted by Arabic after the Muslim conquest of Egypt , although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as

5504-525: The Achaemenid monarchy. The stelae dedicated to Apis in the Serapeum at Saqqara, commissioned by the reigning monarch, represent a key element in understanding the events of this period. As in the Late Period, the catacombs in which the remains of the sacred bulls were buried gradually grew in size, and later took on a monumental appearance that confirms the growth of the cult's hypostases throughout

5632-585: The Divine Augustus"), Augustus claims that "a penetration was made as far as the town of Napata, which is next to Meroe. After the Roman attack, Napata was restored by King Natakamani , who renovated the temple of Amun and constructed a palace. Later, the site was abandoned, its buildings plundered and destroyed. There is circumstantial evidence that this may have been the result of religious changes. The American archaeologist George A. Reisner discovered

5760-734: The Kushite king Taharqa convinced some rulers of Lower Egypt to break with Assyrians. However, Assurbanipal overpowered the coalition. He appointed Necho I , ruler of Memphis and Saïs . Necho was the first king of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty (664–525 BC) of Egypt, which is also known as the "Saïte Dynasty". In 664 BC, the Assyrians struck the final blow, sacking Thebes and Memphis. The same year, Taharqa died. The new Kushite king, Tantamani (664–653 BC), killed Necho I that same year when he tried to invade Lower Egypt. However, Tantamani

5888-400: The Kushite king was driven back into Nubia . The Assyrian king Esarhaddon , supported by some of the native Egyptian princes, captured Memphis in 671 BC. His forces sacked and raided the city, slaughtered villagers, and erected piles of their heads. Esarhaddon returned to his capital Nineveh with rich booty, and erected a victory stele showing the son of Taharqa in chains. Almost as soon as

6016-403: The New Kingdom, was still functioning several generations after its establishment at the temple, leading some scholars to suggest that it may have contained the royal burial chamber of the king. Sheshonk also ordered the building of a new shrine for the god Apis , especially devoted to funeral ceremonies in which the bull was led to his death before being ritually mummified . A necropolis for

6144-646: The Nile, including at Memphis , Karnak , Kawa , Jebel Barkal, and elsewhere. Pharaoh Taharqa's reign and that of his eventual successor, his cousin Tantamani , were filled with constant conflict with the Neo-Assyrian Empire . Around 670 BC, emperor Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) conquered Lower Egypt, but allowed local kingdoms there to exist in order to enlist them as his allies against the Kushite rulers of Upper Egypt , who had been accepted with reluctance. When King Ashurbanipal succeeded Esarhaddon ,

6272-529: The Ptolemaic rulers. These decrees were engraved on stelae in three scripts to be read and understood by all: Demotic , hieroglyphic , and Greek . The most famous of these stelae is the Rosetta Stone , which allowed the deciphering of ancient Egyptian script in the nineteenth century. There were other stelae, funerary this time, discovered on the site that have forwarded knowledge of the genealogy of

6400-502: The Roman empire. By the Middle Ages , nearby Cairo had emerged as a major political and economic center. Today, the ruins of the former capital offer fragmented evidence of its past. Many of its remains have become significant tourist destinations. Memphis has had several names during its history of almost four millennia. Its Ancient Egyptian name was Inebu-hedj (𓊅𓌉, translated as "the white walls" ). Because of its size,

6528-597: The Semitic preference for triradical roots. Egyptian is probably more conservative, and Semitic likely underwent later regularizations converting roots into the triradical pattern. Although Egyptian is the oldest Afroasiatic language documented in written form, its morphological repertoire is very different from that of the rest of the Afroasiatic languages in general, and Semitic languages in particular. There are multiple possibilities: perhaps Egyptian had already undergone radical changes from Proto-Afroasiatic before it

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6656-535: The Temple of Amun in Gebel Barkal . Following the capture of Memphis, he restored the temples and cults neglected during the reign of the Libyans . His successors are known for building chapels in the southwest corner of the temple of Ptah. Memphis was at the heart of the turmoil produced by the great Assyrian threat. Under Taharqa , the city formed the frontier base of the resistance, which soon crumbled as

6784-487: The Temple of Ptah serves as a memorial of the city's former power and prestige. The Memphis triad , consisting of the creator god Ptah, his consort Sekhmet , and their son Nefertem , formed the main focus of worship in the city. Memphis declined after the Eighteenth Dynasty with the rise of Thebes and the New Kingdom, but was revived under the Persians , before falling firmly into second place following

6912-855: The Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period , Memphis is often the scene of liberation struggles of the local dynasties against an occupying force, such as the Kushites , Assyrians, and Persians. The triumphant campaign of Piankhi , ruler of the Kushites, saw the establishment of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty , whose seat of power was in Napata . Piankhi's conquest of Egypt was recorded on the Victory Stele at

7040-485: The Two Lands"), stressing the strategic position of the city between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt . This name appears to date from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1640 BCE), and is frequently found in ancient Egyptian texts. Some scholars maintain that this name was that of an area that contained a sacred tree, the western district of the city that lay between the great Temple of Ptah and the necropolis at Saqqara . At

7168-501: The ancient Egyptian later name for Memphis mjt-rhnt meaning "Road of the Ram-Headed Sphinxes" being a reference to the ancient causeway connecting Memphis and Saqqara, on which the procession of the dead bull travelled for burial in the Serapeum of Saqqara , but its been rejected by numerous Egyptologists on the basis of the town's earlier name Minyat Rahina ( Arabic : منية رهينة ), which could possibly be derived from

7296-541: The beginning of the New Kingdom (c. 1550 BC), the city became known as mn-nfr (anglicized as Men-nefer , meaning "enduring and beautiful"), which became " Memfi " ( ⲙⲉⲙϥⲓ ) in Bohairic Coptic . The name " Memphis " ( Μέμφις ) is the Greek adaptation of the name that they had given to the pyramid of Pepi I , located west of the city. Some claim that modern town Mit Rahina received its name from

7424-482: The city also came to be known by various other names that were the names of neighbourhoods or districts that enjoyed considerable prominence at one time or another. For example, according to a text of the First Intermediate Period , it was known as Djed-Sut ("everlasting places"), which is the name of the pyramid of Teti . At one point the city was referred to as Ankh-Tawy (meaning "Life of

7552-634: The city of Memphis came under siege. Following its capture, many monuments and statues of the ancient capital were dismantled, looted, or damaged by the Hyksos kings, who later carried them off to adorn their new capital at Avaris . Evidence of royal propaganda has been uncovered and attributed to the Theban kings of the Seventeenth Dynasty , who initiated the reconquest of the kingdom half a century later. The Eighteenth Dynasty thus opened with

7680-638: The city's gradual decline. It was Ptolemy I who first introduced the cult of Serapis in Egypt, establishing his cult in Saqqara. From this period date many developments of the Saqqara Serapeum, including the building of the Chamber of Poets, as well as the dromos adorning the temple, and many elements of Greek-inspired architecture. The cult's reputation extended beyond the borders of the country, but

7808-528: The city's population to have numbered approximately 6,000 inhabitants during the Old Kingdom. During the Early Dynastic Period and Old Kingdom, Memphis became the capital of Ancient Egypt for more than six consecutive dynasties . The city reached a peak of prestige under the Sixth Dynasty as a centre for the worship of Ptah , the god of creation and artworks. The alabaster sphinx that guards

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7936-461: The city. Memphis under the Late Period saw recurring invasions followed by successive liberations. Several times besieged, it was the scene of several of the bloodiest battles in the history of the country. Despite the support of their Greek allies in undermining the hegemony of the Achaemenids, the country nevertheless fell into the hands of the conquerors, and Memphis was never again to become

8064-406: The cognate sets between Egyptian and Afroasiatic, the traditional theory and the neuere Komparatistik , founded by Semiticist Otto Rössler. According to the neuere Komparatistik , in Egyptian, the Proto-Afroasiatic voiced consonants */d z ð/ developed into pharyngeal ⟨ꜥ⟩ /ʕ/ : Egyptian ꜥr.t 'portal', Semitic dalt 'door'. The traditional theory instead disputes

8192-421: The construction of royal tombs. Spread over several kilometres stretching in all directions, Memphis formed a true megalopolis , with temples connected by sacred temenos , and ports connected by roadways and canals. The perimeter of the city thus gradually extended into a vast urban sprawl . Its centre remained around the temple complex of Ptah. At the beginning of the Middle Kingdom , the capital and court of

8320-460: The country, and particularly in Memphis and its necropolis. Thus, a monument dedicated by Cambyses II seems to refute the testimony of Herodotus, who lends the conquerors a criminal attitude of disrespect against the sacred traditions. The nationalist awakening came with the rise to power, however briefly, of Amyrtaeus in 404 BC, who ended the Persian occupation. He was defeated and executed at Memphis in October 399 BC by Nepherites I , founder of

8448-767: The definite article ⲡ is unaspirated when the next word begins with a glottal stop: Bohairic ⲡ + ⲱⲡ > ⲡⲱⲡ 'the account'. The consonant system of Coptic is as follows: Here is the vowel system reconstructed for earlier Egyptian: Vowels are always short in unstressed syllables ( ⟨tpj⟩ = */taˈpij/ 'first') and long in open stressed syllables ( ⟨rmṯ⟩ = */ˈraːmac/ 'man'), but they can be either short or long in closed stressed syllables ( ⟨jnn⟩ = */jaˈnan/ 'we', ⟨mn⟩ = */maːn/ 'to stay'). Memphis, Egypt Memphis ( Arabic : مَنْف , romanized :  Manf , pronounced [mænf] ; Bohairic Coptic : ⲙⲉⲙϥⲓ ; Greek : Μέμφις ), or Men-nefer ,

8576-409: The early twentieth century, in the south of the temple of Ptah complex. According to inscriptions describing his architectural work, Sheshonk I (r. 943–922 BC), founder of the Twenty-second Dynasty, constructed a forecourt and pylon of the temple of Ptah, a monument that he named the "Castle of Millions of Years of Sheshonk, Beloved of Amun". The funerary cult surrounding this monument, well known in

8704-637: The emphatic consonants were realised is unknown. Early research had assumed that the opposition in stops was one of voicing, but it is now thought to be either one of tenuis and emphatic consonants , as in many Semitic languages, or one of aspirated and ejective consonants , as in many Cushitic languages . Since vowels were not written until Coptic, reconstructions of the Egyptian vowel system are much more uncertain and rely mainly on evidence from Coptic and records of Egyptian words, especially proper nouns, in other languages/writing systems. The actual pronunciations reconstructed by such means are used only by

8832-439: The end of a stressed syllable and eventually null word-finally: ⟨pḏ.t⟩ */ˈpiːɟat/ > Akkadian transcription -pi-ta 'bow'. The most important source of information about Demotic phonology is Coptic. The consonant inventory of Demotic can be reconstructed on the basis of evidence from the Coptic dialects. Demotic orthography is relatively opaque . The Demotic "alphabetical" signs are mostly inherited from

8960-403: The erection by the king of a shrine to the god Ptah, master of Truth. Other blocks registered in the name of Amenemhat II were found to be used as foundations for large monoliths preceding the pylons of Ramses II. These kings were also known to have ordered mining expeditions, raids, or military campaigns beyond the borders, erecting monuments or statues to the consecration of deities, evinced by

9088-432: The first cache. Along with the statue fragments, ash was found in the second cache which suggested to Reisner that the sculptures had been purposefully destroyed. Due to the close proximity, the statues from the caches are thought to have once been displayed in the Amun temple. The earliest known standing structure at Jebel Barkal is the Enthronement Pavilion, which has been dated to the reign of Thutmose IV . This structure

9216-547: The first known Coptic text, still pagan ( Old Coptic ), from the 1st century AD. Coptic survived into the medieval period, but by the 16th century was dwindling rapidly due to the persecution of Coptic Christians under the Mamluks . It probably survived in the Egyptian countryside as a spoken language for several centuries after that. Coptic survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church and

9344-421: The footprint of the ancient city is uninhabited. The closest modern settlement is the town of Mit Rahina. Estimates of historical population size differ widely among sources. According to Tertius Chandler , Memphis had some 30,000 inhabitants and was by far the largest settlement worldwide from the time of its foundation until approximately 2250 BC and from 1557 to 1400 BC. K. A. Bard is more cautious and estimates

9472-528: The founder of the city. Alternatively, Epaphus (king of Egypt, whose wife was Memphis ) is regarded in the Greek myths as the founder of Memphis, Egypt. Little is known about the city of the Old Kingdom and before. It was the state capital of the powerful kings, who reigned from Memphis from the date of the First Dynasty . According to Manetho, during the earliest years of the reign of Menes,

9600-541: The founding of Alexandria . Under the Roman Empire , Alexandria remained the most important Egyptian city. Memphis remained the second city of Egypt until the establishment of Fustat (or Fostat) in 641 AD. Afterward it was largely abandoned and became a source of stone for the surrounding settlements. It was still an imposing set of ruins in the twelfth century, but soon became little more than an expanse of low ruins and scattered stone. The legend recorded by Manetho

9728-438: The god Amun, appointing the kinglets and Libyan chiefs who shared Egypt at that time and derived their legitimacy from the generals' discretion. In 750 BC, Napata was a developed city, while Egypt was still suffering political instability. Kashta , whose name is Egyptian for "the Kushite", profited from it, and attacked Upper Egypt. His policy was pursued by his successors Piye , and Shabaka (721–707 BC), who eventually brought

9856-655: The graphemes ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ are used interchangeably. In addition, / j / had become / ʔ / word-initially in an unstressed syllable (⟨ jwn ⟩ /jaˈwin/ > */ʔaˈwin/ "colour") and after a stressed vowel ( ⟨ḥjpw⟩ */ˈħujpVw/ > /ˈħeʔp(Vw)/ '[the god] Apis'). In Late Egyptian (1069–700 BC), the phonemes d ḏ g gradually merge with their counterparts t ṯ k ( ⟨dbn⟩ */ˈdiːban/ > Akkadian transcription ti-ba-an 'dbn-weight'). Also, ṯ ḏ often become /t d/ , but they are retained in many lexemes ; ꜣ becomes / ʔ / ; and /t r j w/ become / ʔ / at

9984-435: The hieroglyphic orthography, and it is frequently written as if it were / n / or / r / . That is probably because the standard for written Egyptian is based on a dialect in which / l / had merged with other sonorants. Also, the rare cases of / ʔ / occurring are not represented. The phoneme / j / is written as ⟨ j ⟩ in the initial position (⟨ jt ⟩ = */ˈjaːtVj/ 'father') and immediately after

10112-519: The hieroglyphic script, and due to historical sound changes they do not always map neatly onto Demotic phonemes . However, the Demotic script does feature certain orthographic innovations, such as the use of the sign h̭ for / ç /, which allow it to represent sounds that were not present in earlier forms of Egyptian. The Demotic consonants can be divided into two primary classes: obstruents ( stops , affricates and fricatives ) and sonorants ( approximants , nasals , and semivowels ). Voice

10240-619: The high priests of Memphis dating precisely from the Twenty-second Dynasty has been found west of the forum. It included a chapel dedicated to Ptah by a prince Shoshenq , son of Osorkon II (r. 872–837 BC), whose tomb was found in Saqqara in 1939 by Pierre Montet . The chapel is currently visible in the gardens of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, behind a trio of colossi of Ramesses II, which are also from Memphis. During

10368-458: The high priests of Ptah were constructed near the royal pyramids at Saqqara, showing that the royalty and the clergy of Memphis at that time were closely linked. The Thirteenth Dynasty continued this trend, and some kings of this line were buried at Saqqara, attesting that Memphis retained its place at the heart of the monarchy. With the invasion of the Hyksos and their rise to power ca. 1650 BC,

10496-454: The king had moved to Thebes in the south, leaving Memphis for a time. Although the seat of political power had shifted, Memphis did remain perhaps the most important commercial and artistic centre, as evidenced by the discovery of handicrafts districts and cemeteries, located west of the temple of Ptah. Also found were vestiges attesting to the architectural focus of this time. A large granite offering table on behalf of Amenemhat I mentioned

10624-471: The king left, Egypt rebelled against Assyrian rule. In Assyria, Ashurbanipal succeeded his father and resumed the offensive against Egypt. In a massive invasion in 664 BC, the city of Memphis was again sacked and looted, and the king Tantamani was pursued into Nubia and defeated, putting a definitive end to the Kushite reign over Egypt. Power then returned to the Saite kings , who, fearful of an invasion from

10752-528: The kingdom's primary religious centre. The city was sacked a second time by the Romans in 23 BC but was rebuilt and continued as an important centre of the Amun cult. The terms "Napata" or "Napatan period" can also refer to the Kushite polity from its rise around 750 BC until 270 BC, when Napata finally lost its symbolic significance as the location of royal burials to Meroë. The subsequent period of Kushite history

10880-464: The language's final stage of development, the Coptic alphabet replaced the older writing system. Hieroglyphs are employed in two ways in Egyptian texts: as ideograms to represent the idea depicted by the pictures and, more commonly, as phonograms to represent their phonetic value. As the phonetic realization of Egyptian cannot be known with certainty, Egyptologists use a system of transliteration to denote each sound that could be represented by

11008-406: The latter of which it shares much with. In the earlier stages of Demotic, such as those texts written in the early Demotic script, it probably represented the spoken idiom of the time. However, as its use became increasingly confined to literary and religious purposes, the written language diverged more and more from the spoken form, leading to significant diglossia between the late Demotic texts and

11136-403: The modern world following the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century. Egyptian is one of the earliest known written languages , first recorded in the hieroglyphic script in the late 4th millennium BC . It is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years. Its classical form, known as " Middle Egyptian ," served as

11264-467: The name of a Bedouin tribe. While attempting to draw ancient Egyptian history and religious elements into that of their own traditions, the Greek poet Hesiod in his Theogony explained the name of the city by saying that Memphis was a daughter of the Greek river god Nilus and the wife of Epaphus (the son of Zeus and Io ), who founded the city and named it after his wife. In the Bible, Memphis

11392-641: The nation's capital. In 332 BC came the Greeks, who took control of the country from the Persians, and Egypt would never see a new native ruler ascend the throne until the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 . In 332 BC, Alexander the Great was crowned king in the Temple of Ptah, ushering in the Hellenistic period . The city retained a significant status, especially religious, throughout the period following

11520-538: The nearby port of Peru-nefer (literally, "Good Travels" or " Bon Voyage ") the gateway to the kingdom for neighbouring regions, including Byblos and the Levant . In the New Kingdom, Memphis became a centre for the education of royal princes and the sons of the nobility. Amenhotep II, born and raised in Memphis, was made the setem —the high priest over Lower Egypt—during the reign of his father. His son, Thutmose IV received his famed and recorded dream whilst residing as

11648-417: The other Afroasiatic branches, linguists have variously suggested that the Egyptian language shares its greatest affinities with Berber and Semitic languages, particularly Arabic (which is spoken in Egypt today) and Hebrew . However, other scholars have argued that the Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions. There are two theories that seek to establish

11776-678: The peninsula formed by the Nile and the Atbarah River , was an area rich in iron, which was becoming an essential source of wealth. Meroe eventually became the capital of the Kingdom of Kush, leading to the abandonment of Napata. In 23 BC, the Governor of Roman Egypt Gaius Petronius invaded Kush with 10,000 men after an initial attack by the queen of Meroë, reaching Napata. In the Res Gestae Divi Augusti ("Deeds of

11904-608: The priests of this cult has been uncovered at Saqqara. His successor Tutankhamun (r. 1332–1323 BC; formerly Tutankhaten) relocated the royal court from Akhenaten's capital Akhetaten ("Horizon of the Aten") to Memphis before the end of the second year of his reign. Whilst in Memphis, Tutankhamun initiated a period of restoration of the temples and traditions following the era of Atenism , which became regarded as heresy . The tombs of important officials from his reign, such as Horemheb and Maya , are situated in Saqqara, although Horemheb

12032-512: The quality of the surrounding vowels. / ʔ / is not indicated orthographically unless it follows a stressed vowel; then, it is marked by doubling the vowel letter (except in Bohairic): Akhmimic ⳉⲟⲟⲡ /xoʔp/ , Sahidic and Lycopolitan ϣⲟⲟⲡ šoʔp , Bohairic ϣⲟⲡ šoʔp 'to be' < ḫpr.w * /ˈχapraw/ 'has become'. The phoneme ⲃ / b / was probably pronounced as a fricative [ β ] , becoming ⲡ / p / after

12160-870: The reality" that the geographical location of Egypt is, of course, in Africa. While the consonantal phonology of the Egyptian language may be reconstructed, the exact phonetics is unknown, and there are varying opinions on how to classify the individual phonemes. In addition, because Egyptian is recorded over a full 2,000 years, the Archaic and Late stages being separated by the amount of time that separates Old Latin from Modern Italian , significant phonetic changes must have occurred during that lengthy time frame. Phonologically, Egyptian contrasted labial, alveolar, palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, and glottal consonants. Egyptian also contrasted voiceless and emphatic consonants, as with other Afroasiatic languages, but exactly how

12288-506: The recovery of the country by the Persians, he succumbed to an invasion in 340 BC. Nectanebo II retreated south to Memphis, to which the Achaemenid king Artaxerxes III laid siege, forcing the king to flee to Upper Egypt, and eventually to Nubia. A brief liberation of the city under the rebel-king Khababash (338 to 335 BC) is evinced by an Apis bull sarcophagus bearing his name, which was discovered at Saqqara dating from his second year. The armies of Darius III eventually regained control of

12416-467: The royal funerary chamber, housing all the elements necessary to royalty: temples, shrines, ceremonial courts, palaces, and barracks. The golden age began with the Fourth Dynasty , which seems to have furthered the primary role of Memphis as a royal residence where rulers received the double crown , the divine manifestation of the unification of the Two Lands. Coronations and jubilees such as

12544-417: The royal tombs. A strong suggestion of this notion is the etymology of the name of the city itself, which matched that of the pyramid of Pepi I of the Sixth Dynasty . Memphis was then the heir to a long artistic and architectural practice, constantly encouraged by the monuments of preceding reigns. All these necropoleis were surrounded by camps inhabited by craftsmen and labourers, dedicated exclusively to

12672-599: The same graphemes are used for the pulmonic stops ( ⟨ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ ), the existence of the former may be inferred because the stops ⟨ ⲡ ⲧ ϫ ⲕ ⟩ /p t c k/ are allophonically aspirated [pʰ tʰ cʰ kʰ] before stressed vowels and sonorant consonants. In Bohairic, the allophones are written with the special graphemes ⟨ ⲫ ⲑ ϭ ⲭ ⟩ , but other dialects did not mark aspiration: Sahidic ⲡⲣⲏ , Bohairic ⲫⲣⲏ 'the sun'. Thus, Bohairic does not mark aspiration for reflexes of older *d ḏ g q : Sahidic and Bohairic ⲧⲁⲡ */dib/ 'horn'. Also,

12800-433: The script was supplanted by an early version of Coptic (about the third and fourth centuries), the system remained virtually unchanged. Even the number of signs used remained constant at about 700 for more than 2,000 years. Middle Egyptian was spoken for about 700 years, beginning around 2000 BC, during the Middle Kingdom and the subsequent Second Intermediate Period . As the classical variant of Egyptian, Middle Egyptian

12928-496: The seat of power was farther to the south, at Thinis . According to Manetho, ancient sources suggest the "white walls" (Ineb-hedj) or "fortress of the white wall" were founded by Menes. It is likely that the king established himself there to better control the new union between the two kingdoms that formerly were rivals. The complex of Djoser of the Third Dynasty , located in the ancient necropolis at Saqqara , would then be

13056-464: The six daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Her fate is unknown. Similarly, Horemheb consolidated power when he married Nefertiti's sister Mutnodjemet. There is evidence that, under Ramesses II , the city developed new importance in the political sphere through its proximity to the new capital Pi-Ramesses . The king devoted many monuments in Memphis and adorned them with colossal symbols of glory. Merneptah (r. 1213–1203 BC), his successor, constructed

13184-480: The southern Saidic dialect, the main classical dialect, and the northern Bohairic dialect, currently used in Coptic Church services. Most surviving texts in the Egyptian language are written on stone in hieroglyphs . The native name for Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is zẖꜣ n mdw-nṯr ("writing of the gods' words"). In antiquity, most texts were written on the quite perishable medium of papyrus though

13312-508: The spoken language of the time, similar to the use of classical Middle Egyptian during the Ptolemaic Period. Coptic is the name given to the late Egyptian vernacular when it was written in a Greek-based alphabet, the Coptic alphabet; it flourished from the time of Early Christianity (c. 31/33–324) , but Egyptian phrases written in the Greek alphabet first appeared during the Hellenistic period c.  3rd century BC , with

13440-526: The takeover by one of his generals, Ptolemy I . On the death of Alexander in Babylon (323 BCE), Ptolemy took great pains in acquiring his body and bringing it to Memphis. Claiming that the king had officially expressed a desire to be buried in Egypt, he then carried the body of Alexander to the heart of the temple of Ptah, and had him embalmed by the priests. By custom, kings in Macedon asserted their right to

13568-426: The temple ruins, which were later restored under the name of Rameses II. Finally, according to the tradition recorded by Herodotus, and Diodorus , Amenemhat III built the northern gate of the Temple of Ptah. Remains attributed to this king were indeed found during the excavations in this area conducted by Flinders Petrie , who confirmed the connection. It is also worth noting that, during this time, mastabas of

13696-582: The territory of the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt and establishing himself as king. This palette has been dated to ca. 31st century BC and thus, would correlate with the legend of Egypt's unification by Menes. However, in 2012 an inscription depicting the visit of the predynastic king Iry-Hor to Memphis was discovered in the Sinai. Since Iry-Hor predates Narmer by two generations, the latter cannot have been

13824-415: The throne by burying their predecessor. Ptolemy II later transferred the sarcophagus to Alexandria, where a royal tomb was constructed for its burial. The exact location of the tomb has been lost since then. According to Aelian , the seer Aristander foretold that the land where Alexander was laid to rest "would be happy and unvanquishable forever". Thus began the Ptolemaic dynasty , during which began

13952-644: The values given to those consonants by the neuere Komparatistik , instead connecting ⟨ꜥ⟩ with Semitic /ʕ/ and /ɣ/ . Both schools agree that Afroasiatic */l/ merged with Egyptian ⟨n⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨ꜣ⟩ , and ⟨j⟩ in the dialect on which the written language was based, but it was preserved in other Egyptian varieties. They also agree that original */k g ḳ/ palatalise to ⟨ṯ j ḏ⟩ in some environments and are preserved as ⟨k g q⟩ in others. The Egyptian language has many biradical and perhaps monoradical roots, in contrast to

14080-502: The victory over the invaders by the Thebans. Some Eighteenth Dynasty kings, particularly Amenhotep II (r. 1427–1401/1397 BC) and Thutmose IV (r. 1401/1397–1391/1388 BC) gave considerable royal focus to Memphis, but for the most part, power remained in the south. With the long period of peace that followed, prosperity again took hold of the city, which benefited from her strategic position. Strengthening trade ties with other empires made

14208-491: The west bank of the Nile . The modern cities and towns of Mit Rahina, Dahshur , Abusir , Abu Gorab , and Zawyet el'Aryan , south of Cairo, all lie within the administrative borders of historical Memphis ( 29°50′58.8″N 31°15′15.4″E  /  29.849667°N 31.254278°E  / 29.849667; 31.254278 ). The city was also the place that marked the boundary between Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. (The 22nd nome of Upper Egypt and 1st nome of Lower Egypt). Today,

14336-548: The whole Nile Valley under Kushitic control in the second year of his reign. Overall, the Kushite kings ruled Upper Egypt for approximately one century and the whole of Egypt for approximately 57 years, from 721 to 664 BC. They constitute the Twenty-fifth Dynasty in Manetho's Aegyptiaca . Furthermore, these Kushite kings were supported by Amun clergy at Thebes and believed their power was claimed through Amun of Jebel Barkal and Amun of Karnak. They are depicted in art as having worn

14464-399: Was believed to be under the protection of the god Ptah , the patron of craftsmen. Its great temple , Hut-ka-Ptah (meaning "Enclosure of the ka of Ptah"), was one of the most prominent structures in the city. The name of this temple, rendered in Greek as Aἴγυπτoς (Ai-gy-ptos) by Manetho, is believed to be the etymological origin of the modern English name Egypt . The history of Memphis

14592-513: Was buried in the Valley of the Kings after reigning as king himself (r. 1319–1292 BC). He had been commander of the army under Tutankhamun and Ay . Maya was overseer of the treasury during the reigns of Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb. Ay had been Tutankhamun's chief minister, and succeeded him as king (r. 1323–1319 BC). To consolidate his power he married Tutankhamun's widow Ankhesenamun , the third of

14720-466: Was essentially based on gold, with 26th dynasty Egypt an important economic ally. Napatan architecture , paintings, writing script, and other artistic and cultural forms were in Kush style. Egyptian burial customs were practised, including the resurrection of pyramid building. Also, several ancient Egyptian deities were worshipped. The most important god was Amun , a Theban deity. The Temple of Amun and

14848-442: Was initiated for temples across the country. In Memphis, a powerful new wall was rebuilt for the Temple of Ptah, and developments were made to temples and chapels inside the complex. Nectanebo II meanwhile, while continuing the work of his predecessor, began building large sanctuaries, especially in the necropolis of Saqqara, adorning them with pylons, statues, and paved roads lined with rows of sphinxes. Despite his efforts to prevent

14976-620: Was later eclipsed by the great Alexandrian Serapeum , built in Ptolemy's honour by his successors. The Decrees of Memphis were issued in 216 and 196 BC, by Ptolemy IV and Ptolemy V respectively. Delegates from the principal clergies of the kingdom gathered in synod , under the patronage of the High Priest of Ptah and in the presence of the king, to establish the religious policy of the country for years to come, also dictating fees and taxes, creating new foundations, and paying tribute to

15104-459: Was permanently installed within the city, probably in the great north wall, near the domineering palace of Apries. The excavations by Flinders Petrie revealed that this sector included armouries. For almost a century and a half, the city remained the capital of the Persian satrapy of Egypt ("Mudraya"/"Musraya"), officially becoming one of the epicentres of commerce in the vast territory conquered by

15232-428: Was published by Adolf Erman in 1894, surpassed in 1927 by Alan Gardiner 's work. Middle Egyptian has been well-understood since then, although certain points of the verbal inflection remained open to revision until the mid-20th century, notably due to the contributions of Hans Jakob Polotsky . The Middle Egyptian stage is taken to have ended around the 14th century BC, giving rise to Late Egyptian. This transition

15360-479: Was recorded; or the Afroasiatic family has so far been studied with an excessively Semitocentric approach; or, as G. W. Tsereteli suggests, Afroasiatic is a sprachbund , rather than a true genetic language family. The Egyptian language can be grouped thus: The Egyptian language is conventionally grouped into six major chronological divisions: Old, Middle, and Late Egyptian were all written using both

15488-462: Was taking place in the later period of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (known as the Amarna Period ). Original Old Egyptian and Middle Egyptian texts were still used after the 14th century BCE. And an emulation of predominately Middle Egyptian, but also with characteristics of Old Egyptian, Late Egyptian and Demotic, called " Égyptien de tradition " or "Neo-Middle Egyptian" by scholars,

15616-525: Was that Menes , the first king to unite the Two Lands , established his capital on the banks of the Nile by diverting the river with dikes. The Greek historian Herodotus , who tells a similar story, relates that during his visit to the city, the Persians , at that point the suzerains of the country, paid particular attention to the condition of these dams so that the city was saved from the annual flooding . It has been theorised that Menes may have been

15744-476: Was the ancient capital of Inebu-hedj , the first nome of Lower Egypt that was known as mḥw ("North"). Its ruins are located in the vicinity of the present-day village of Mit Rahina (Arabic: ميت رهينة ), in markaz ( county ) Badrashin , Giza , Egypt . Along with the pyramid fields that stretch on a desert plateau for more than 30 kilometres (19 mi) on its west, including the famous Pyramids of Giza , Memphis and its necropolis have been listed as

15872-515: Was the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period (1075–664 BC). The fragmentation of power in Egypt allowed the Kushites to regain autonomy as they became increasingly estranged from Theban clergy. They founded the Kingdom of Kush , which was centered at Napata. A stela erected in Napata in the eighth century presents a Kushite king (whose title has been hammered out) as the only ruler legitimated by

16000-482: Was the southernmost permanent settlement in the New Kingdom of Egypt (16th–11th centuries BC) and home to Jebel Barkal , the main Kushite cult centre of Amun . It was the sometime capital of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and, after its fall in 663 BC, of the Kingdom of Kush . In 593 BC, it was sacked by the Egyptians and the Kushite capital was relocated to Meroë . Even after this move, Napata continued to be

16128-417: Was there (at El-Kurru and Nuri ) that all 25th dynasty pharaohs are buried under the first pyramids that the Nile valley had seen since the Middle Kingdom . The Napatan dynasty continued to rule the Kushite state, which flourished in Napata and Meroë until at least the second century AD. Napata remained the centre of the Kingdom of Kush for another two generations, from the 650s to 590 BC. Its economy

16256-412: Was unable to defeat the Assyrians, who backed Necho's son, Psamtik I . Tantamani eventually abandoned his attempt to conquer Lower Egypt and retreated to Napata. However, his authority over Upper Egypt was acknowledged until 656 BC, when Psamtik I dispatched a naval fleet to Upper Egypt and succeeded in placing all of Egypt under his control. The 25th dynasty ended with its rulers retreating to Napata. It

16384-547: Was used as a literary language for new texts since the later New Kingdom in official and religious hieroglyphic and hieratic texts in preference to Late Egyptian or Demotic. Égyptien de tradition as a religious language survived until the Christianisation of Roman Egypt in the 4th century. Late Egyptian was spoken for about 650 years, beginning around 1350 BC, during the New Kingdom of Egypt . Late Egyptian succeeded but did not fully supplant Middle Egyptian as

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