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97-412: Stelae were created for many reasons. Grave stelae were used for funerary or commemorative purposes. Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines . Stelae were occasionally erected as memorials to battles. For example, along with other memorials, there are more than half-a-dozen steles erected on

194-522: A stone tortoise and crowned with hornless dragons , while the lower-level officials had to be satisfied with steles with plain rounded tops, standing on simple rectangular pedestals. Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of

291-471: A T-shaped symbol. Near the ancient northwestern town of Amud in Somalia , whenever an old site had the prefix Aw in its name (such as the ruins of Awbare and Awbube ), it denoted the final resting place of a local saint. Surveys by A.T. Curle in 1934 on several of these important ruined cities recovered various artefacts , such as pottery and coins , which point to a medieval period of activity at

388-613: A campaign against several cities loyal to the Hyksos, the account of which is preserved on three monumental stelae set up at Karnak . The first of the three, Carnarvon Tablet includes a complaint by Kamose about the divided and occupied state of Egypt: To what effect do I perceive it, my might, while a ruler is in Avaris and another in Kush, I sitting joined with an Asiatic and a Nubian, each man having his (own) portion of this Egypt, sharing

485-463: A chancellor ( imy-r khetemet ) as the head of their administration. The names, the order, length of rule, and even the number of Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are not known with complete certainty. After the end of their rule, the Hyksos kings were not considered legitimate rulers of Egypt and were omitted from most king lists. The fragmentary Turin King List included six Hyksos kings, however only

582-653: A commemorative function or served as boundary markers. Although sometimes plain, most bore a cuneiform inscription that would detail the stele's function or the reasons for its erection. The stele from Van's "western niche" contained annals of the reign of Sarduri II , with events detailed yearly and with each year separated by the phrase "For the God Haldi I accomplished these deeds". Urartian steles are sometimes found reused as Christian Armenian gravestones or as spolia in Armenian churches - Maranci suggests this reuse

679-572: A corpus of post-5th century historical texts engraved sometimes on steles, but more generally on materials such as stone and metal ware found in a wide range of mainland Southeast Asia ( Cambodia , Vietnam , Thailand and Laos ) and relating to the Khmer civilization. The study of Khmer inscriptions is known as Khmer epigraphy . Khmer inscriptions are the only local written sources for the study of ancient Khmer civilization. More than 1,200 Khmer inscriptions of varying length have been collected. There

776-532: A family unit or a household scene. One such notable example is the Stele of Hegeso. Typically grave stelai are made of marble and carved in relief, and like most Ancient Greek sculpture they were vibrantly painted. For more examples of stelai, the Getty Museum's published Catalog of Greek Funerary Sculpture is a valuable resource Steles (Chinese: bēi 碑 ) have been a major medium of stone inscription in China,

873-625: A fork on the now-dry Pelusiac branch of the Nile. Memphis may have also been an important administrative center, although the nature of any Hyksos presence there remains unclear. According to Anna-Latifa Mourad, other sites with likely Levantine populations or strong Levantine connections in the Delta include Tell Farasha and Tell el-Maghud, located between Tell Basta and Avaris, El-Khata'na, southwest of Avaris, and Inshas . The increased prosperity of Avaris may have attracted more Levantines to settle in

970-708: A great deal of Levantine pottery and an occupation history closely correlated to the Fifteenth Dynasty, nearby Tell el-Rataba and Tell el-Sahaba show possible Hyksos-style burials and occupation, Tell el-Yahudiyah, located between Memphis and the Wadi Tumilat, contains a large earthwork that the Hyksos may have built, as well as evidence of Levantine burials from as early as the Thirteenth Dynasty, as well as characteristic Hyksos-era pottery known as Tell el-Yahudiyeh Ware The Hyksos settlements in

1067-619: A hallmark of Classic Maya civilization. The earliest dated stela to have been found in situ in the Maya lowlands was recovered from the great city of Tikal in Guatemala . During the Classic Period almost every Maya kingdom in the southern lowlands raised stelae in its ceremonial centre. Stelae became closely associated with the concept of divine kingship and declined at the same time as this institution. The production of stelae by

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1164-688: A large part of Ancient Greek funerary markers in Athens. Regarding stelai (Greek plural of stele), in the period of the Archaic style in Ancient Athens (600 BC) stele often showed certain archetypes of figures, such as the male athlete. Generally their figures were singular, though there are instances of two or more figures from this time period. Moving into the 6th and 5th centuries BC, Greek stelai declined and then rose in popularity again in Athens and evolved to show scenes with multiple figures, often of

1261-484: A later Egyptian pronunciation of ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣswt as ḥqꜣ- šꜣsw , which was then understood to mean "lord of shepherds." It is unclear if this translation was found in Manetho; an Armenian translation of an epitome of Manetho given by the late antique historian Eusebius gives the correct translation of "foreign kings". "It is now commonly accepted in academic publications that the term Ḥqꜣ-Ḫꜣswt refers only to

1358-469: A monument. The soil returned to the grave cut following burial. This material may contain artifacts derived from the original excavation and prior site use, deliberately placed goods or artifacts, or later material. The fill may be left level with the ground or mounded. Headstones are best known, but they can be supplemented by decorative edging, footstones , posts to support items, a solid covering or other options. Graveyards were usually established at

1455-546: A new reading of as many as 149 years, while Thomas Schneider proposed a length between 160 and 180 years. The rule of the Hyksos overlaps with that of the native Egyptian pharaohs of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties, better known as the Second Intermediate Period . The area under direct control of the Hyksos was probably limited to the eastern Nile delta . Their capital city was Avaris at

1552-541: A personal title and epithet by several pharaohs or high Egyptian officials, including the Theban official Mentuemhat , Philip III of Macedon , and Ptolemy XIII . It was also used on the tomb of Egyptian grand priest Petosiris at Tuna el-Gebel in 300 BC to designate the Persian ruler Artaxerxes III , although it is unknown if Artaxerxes adopted this title for himself. In his epitome of Manetho , Josephus connected

1649-547: A repetitive pattern of the attraction of Egypt for western Asiatic population groups that came in search of a living in the country, especially the Delta, since prehistoric times." He notes that Egypt had long depended on the Levant for expertise in areas of shipbuilding and seafaring, with possible depictions of Asiatic shipbuilders being found from reliefs from the Sixth Dynasty ruler Sahure . The Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt

1746-922: A toponym [...] cautiously linked with the Northern Levant and the northern region of the Southern Levant." Earlier arguments that the Hyksos names might be Hurrian have been rejected, while early-twentieth-century proposals that the Hyksos were Indo-Europeans "fitted European dreams of Indo-European supremacy, now discredited." Some have suggested that Hyksos or a part of them was of Maryannu origins as evident by their use and introduction of chariots and horses into Egypt. However, this theory has been too rejected by modern scholarship. A study of dental traits by Nina Maaranen and Sonia Zakrzewski in 2021 on 90 people of Avaris indicated that individuals defined as locals and non-locals were not ancestrally different from one another. The results were in line with

1843-493: A widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population. The Ming dynasty laws, instituted in the 14th century by its founder the Hongwu Emperor , listed a number of stele types available as status symbols to various ranks of the nobility and officialdom: the top noblemen and mandarins were eligible for steles installed on top of

1940-463: Is "nowadays rejected by most scholars." It is likely that more recent foreign invasions of Egypt influenced him. Instead, it appears that the establishment of Hyksos rule was mostly peaceful and did not involve an invasion of an entirely foreign population. Archaeology shows a continuous Asiatic presence at Avaris for over 150 years before the beginning of Hyksos rule, with gradual Canaanite settlement beginning there c.  1800 BC during

2037-596: Is known to have had many Asiatic immigrants serving as soldiers, household or temple serfs, and various other jobs. Avaris in the Nile Delta attracted many Asiatic immigrants in its role as a hub of international trade and seafaring. The final powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Thirteenth Dynasty was Sobekhotep IV , who died around 1725 BC, after which Egypt appears to have splintered into various kingdoms, including one based at Avaris ruled by

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2134-684: Is the Rosetta Stone , which led to the breakthrough allowing Egyptian hieroglyphs to be read. An informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum . Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language . Standing stones ( menhirs ), set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland , were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in

2231-634: Is unclear why hostilities may have started. The much later fragmentary New Kingdom tale The Quarrel of Apophis and Seqenenre blames the Hyksos ruler Apepi/Apophis for initiating the conflict by demanding that Seqenenre Tao remove a pool of hippopotamuses near Thebes. However, this is a satire on the Egyptian story-telling genre of the "king's novel" rather than a historical text. A contemporary inscription at Wadi el Hôl may also refer to hostilities between Seqenenra and Apepi. Three years later, c. 1542 BC, Seqenenre Tao's successor Kamose initiated

2328-589: The Far East , and, independently, by Mesoamerican civilisations, notably the Olmec and Maya . The large number of stelae, including inscriptions, surviving from ancient Egypt and in Central America constitute one of the largest and most significant sources of information on those civilisations, in particular Maya stelae . The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding

2425-462: The First Dynasty of Egypt . These vertical slabs of stone are used as tombstones, for religious usage, and to mark boundaries, and are most commonly made of limestone and sandstone, or harder kinds of stone such as granite or diorite, but wood was also used in later times. Stele fulfilled several functions. There were votive, commemorative, and liminal or boundary stelae, but the largest group

2522-615: The Fourteenth Dynasty . Based on their names, this dynasty was already primarily of West Asian origin. After an event in which their palace was burned, the Fourteenth Dynasty would be replaced by the Hyksos Fifteenth Dynasty , which would establish "loose control over northern Egypt by intimidation or force," thus greatly expanding the area under Avaris's control. Kim Ryholt argues that

2619-645: The Iron Age kingdom which existed in the Armenian Highlands of modern Armenia , Turkey and Iran between the 9th and 6th centuries BC. Some were located within temple complexes, set within monumental rock-cut niches (such as the niche of the Rock of Van , discovered by Marr and Orbeli in 1916), or erected beside tombs. Others stood in isolated positions and, such as the Kelashin Stele , had

2716-535: The Late Stone Age . The Pictish stones of Scotland, often intricately carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a specialized kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Great Britain are specialized steles . Totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones , typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph , are among

2813-561: The Maya had its origin around 400 BC and continued through to the end of the Classic Period, around 900, although some monuments were reused in the Postclassic ( c.  900 –1521). The major city of Calakmul in Mexico raised the greatest number of stelae known from any Maya city , at least 166, although they are very poorly preserved. Hundreds of stelae have been recorded in

2910-566: The Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica . They consist of tall sculpted stone shafts or slabs and are often associated with low circular stones referred to as altars, although their actual function is uncertain. Many stelae were sculpted in low relief, although plain monuments are found throughout the Maya region. The sculpting of these monuments spread throughout the Maya area during the Classic Period (250–900 AD), and these pairings of sculpted stelae and circular altars are considered

3007-521: The Merneptah Stele , which features the first known historical mention of the Israelites . In Ptolemaic times (332 - 30 BC), decrees issued by the pharaoh and the priesthood were inscribed on stelae in hieroglyphs, demotic script and Greek, the most famous example of which is the Rosetta Stone . Urartian steles were freestanding stone obelisks that served a variety of purposes, erected in

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3104-528: The Twelfth Dynasty . Strontium isotope analysis of the inhabitants of Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period Avaris also dismissed the invasion model in favor of a migration one. Contrary to the model of a foreign invasion, the study didn't find more males moving into the region, but instead found a sex bias towards females, with a high proportion of 77% of females being non-locals. Manfred Bietak argues that Hyksos "should be understood within

3201-497: The battlefield of Waterloo at the locations of notable actions by participants in battle. A traditional Western gravestone (headstone, tombstone, gravestone, or marker) may technically be considered the modern equivalent of ancient stelae, though the term is very rarely applied in this way. Equally, stele-like forms in non-Western cultures may be called by other terms, and the words "stele" and "stelae" are most consistently applied in archaeological contexts to objects from Europe,

3298-836: The clerical script . Chinese steles from before the Tang dynasty are rare: there are a handful from before the Qin dynasty , roughly a dozen from the Western Han , 160 from the Eastern Han , and several hundred from the Wei , Jin , Northern and Southern , and Sui dynasties . During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions ( 墓誌 , mùzhì ) containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones. Erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became

3395-525: The composite bow , a theory which is disputed. The Hyksos did not control all of Egypt. They coexisted with the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties , which were based in Thebes . Warfare between the Hyksos and the pharaohs of the late Seventeenth Dynasty eventually culminated in the defeat of the Hyksos by Ahmose I , who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt . In the following centuries,

3492-640: The Eastern Delta. Canaanite cults also continued to be worshiped at Avaris. Following the capture of Avaris, Ahmose, son of Ebana, records that Ahmose I captured Sharuhen (possibly Tell el-Ajjul ), which some scholars argue was a city in Canaan under Hyksos control. The Hyksos show a mix of Egyptian and Levantine cultural traits. Their rulers adopted the full ancient Egyptian royal titulary and employed Egyptian scribes and officials. They also used Near-Eastern forms of administration, such as employing

3589-551: The Egyptians would portray the Hyksos as bloodthirsty and oppressive foreign rulers. The term "Hyksos" is derived, via the Greek Ὑκσώς ( Hyksôs ), from the Egyptian expression 𓋾𓈎 𓈉 ( ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣswt or ḥqꜣw-ḫꜣswt , "heqau khasut"), meaning "rulers [of] foreign lands". The Greek form is likely a textual corruption of an earlier Ὑκουσσώς ( Hykoussôs ). The first century Jewish historian Josephus gives

3686-551: The Fifteenth Dynasty invaded and displaced the Fourteenth. However, Alexander Ilin-Tomich argues that this is "not sufficiently substantiated." Bietak interprets a stela of Neferhotep III to indicate that Egypt was overrun by roving mercenaries around the time of the Hyksos ascension to power. The length of time the Hyksos ruled is unclear. The fragmentary Turin King List says that there were six Hyksos kings who collectively ruled 108 years, however in 2018 Kim Ryholt proposed

3783-408: The Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Manfred Bietak proposes that a king recorded as Yaqub-Har may also have been a Hyksos king of the Fifteenth Dynasty. Bietak suggests that many of the other kings attested on scarabs may have been vassal kings of the Hyksos. None of the proposed identifications besides of Apepi and Apophis is considered certain. In Sextus Julius Africanus 's epitome of Manetho,

3880-527: The Hyksos ( 𓋾𓈎𓈉 ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣsw, Heqa-kasut for "Hyksos"), the first known instance of the name "Hyksos". Soon after, the Sebek-khu Stele , dated to the reign of Senusret III (reign: 1878–1839 BC), records the earliest known Egyptian military campaign in the Levant. The text reads "His Majesty proceeded northward to overthrow the Asiatics. His Majesty reached a foreign country of which the name

3977-476: The Hyksos as invaders and oppressors, this interpretation is questioned in modern Egyptology. Instead, Hyksos rule might have been preceded by groups of Canaanite peoples who gradually settled in the Nile Delta from the end of the Twelfth Dynasty onwards and who may have seceded from the crumbling and unstable Egyptian control at some point during the Thirteenth Dynasty . The Hyksos period marks

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4074-571: The Hyksos by this name, instead referring to them as Asiatics ( ꜥꜣmw ), with the possible exception of the Turin King List in a hypothetical reconstruction from a fragment. The title is not attested for the Hyksos king Apepi , possibly indicating an "increased adoption of Egyptian decorum". The names of Hyksos rulers in the Turin list are without the royal cartouche and have the throwstick "foreigners" determinative. Scarabs also attest

4171-527: The Hyksos kings Khyan and Apepi, but little other evidence of Levantine habitation. Tell el-Habwa ( Tjaru ), located on a branch of the Nile near the Sinai, also shows evidence of non-Egyptian presence. However, most of the population appears to have been Egyptian or Egyptianized Levantines. Tell El-Habwa would have provided Avaris with grain and trade goods. In the Wadi Tumilat , Tell el-Maskhuta shows

4268-549: The Hyksos originated in the Levant . The Hyksos' personal names indicate that they spoke a Western Semitic language and "may be called for convenience sake Canaanites ." Kamose , the last king of the Theban Seventeenth ;Dynasty, refers to Apepi as a "Chieftain of Retjenu " in a stela that implies a Levantine background for this Hyksos king. According to Anna-Latifa Mourad, the Egyptian application of

4365-432: The Hyksos title, however, the majority of kings from the second intermediate period are attested once on a single object, with only three exceptions. Ryholt associates two other rulers known from inscriptions with the dynasty, Khyan and Sakir-Har . The name of Khyan's son, Yanassi , is also preserved from Tell El-Dab'a. The two best attested kings are Khyan and Apepi. Scholars generally agree that Apepi and Khamudi are

4462-531: The Hyksos were allowed to leave after concluding a treaty: Thoumosis ... invested the walls [of Avaris] with an army of 480,000 men, and endeavoured to reduce [the Hyksos] to submission by siege. Despairing of achieving his object, he concluded a treaty, under which [the Hyksos] were all to evacuate Egypt and go whither they would unmolested. Upon these terms no fewer than two hundred and forty thousand, entire households with their possessions, left Egypt and traversed

4559-521: The Hyksos with the Jews, but he also calls them Arabs. In their own epitomes of Manetho, the Late antique historians Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius say that the Hyksos came from Phoenicia . Until the excavation and discovery of Tell El-Dab'a (the site of the Hyksos capital Avaris ) in 1966, historians relied on these accounts for the Hyksos period. Material finds at Tell El-Dab'a indicate that

4656-571: The Maya region, displaying a wide stylistic variation. Many are upright slabs of limestone sculpted on one or more faces, with available surfaces sculpted with figures carved in relief and with hieroglyphic text . Stelae in a few sites display a much more three-dimensional appearance where locally available stone permits, such as at Copán and Toniná . Plain stelae do not appear to have been painted nor overlaid with stucco decoration, but most Maya stelae were probably brightly painted in red, yellow, black, blue and other colours. Khmer inscriptions are

4753-548: The Turin King List or from other sources who may have been Hyksos rulers. According to Ryholt, kings Semqen and Aperanat , known from the Turin King List, may have been early Hyksos rulers, however Jürgen von Beckerath assigns these kings to the Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt . Another king known from scarabs , Sheshi , is believed by many scholars to be a Hyksos king, however Ryholt assigns this king to

4850-480: The Wadi Tumilat would have provided access to Sinai, the southern Levant, and possibly the Red Sea . The sites Tell el-Kabir, Tell Yehud, Tell Fawziya, and Tell Geziret el-Faras are noted by scholars other than Mourad to contain "elements of 'Hyksos culture'", but there is no published archaeological material for them. The Hyksos claimed to be rulers of both Lower and Upper Egypt ; however, their southern border

4947-569: The ancient Near East and Egypt, China, and sometimes Pre-Columbian America. Steles have also been used to publish laws and decrees, to record a ruler's exploits and honors, to mark sacred territories or mortgaged properties, as territorial markers, as the boundary steles of Akhenaton at Amarna , or to commemorate military victories. They were widely used in the ancient Near East , Mesopotamia , Greece , Egypt , Somalia , Eritrea , Ethiopia , and, most likely independently, in China and elsewhere in

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5044-526: The archaeological evidence, suggesting Avaris was an important hub in the Middle Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean trade network, welcoming people from beyond its borders. Historical records suggest that Semitic people and Egyptians had contacts at all periods of Egypt's history. The MacGregor plaque , an early Egyptian tablet dating to 3000 BC records "The first occasion of striking the East", with

5141-409: The city of Nefrusy as well as several other cities loyal to the Hyksos. On a second stele, Kamose claims to have captured Avaris, but returned to Thebes after capturing a messenger between Apepi and the king of Kush . Kamose appears to have died soon afterward (c. 1540 BC). Ahmose I continued the war against the Hyksos, most likely conquering Memphis, Tjaru , and Heliopolis early in his reign,

5238-491: The conflict as a war of national liberation. This perspective was formerly taken by scholars as well but is no longer thought to be accurate. Hostilities between the Hyksos and the Theban Seventeenth Dynasty appear to have begun during the reign of Theban king Seqenenra Taa . Seqenenra Taa's mummy shows that he was killed by several blows of an axe to the head, apparently in battle with the Hyksos. It

5335-547: The desert to Syria. ( Contra Apion I.88-89) Although Manetho indicates that the Hyksos population was expelled to the Levant, there is no archaeological evidence for this, and Manfred Bietak argues based on archaeological finds throughout Egypt that it is likely that numerous Asiatics were resettled in other locations in Egypt as artisans and craftsmen. Many may have remained at Avaris, as pottery and scarabs with typical "Hyksos" forms continued to be produced uninterrupted throughout

5432-432: The distribution of Hyksos goods with the names of Hyksos rulers in places such as Baghdad and Knossos , that Hyksos had ruled a vast empire, but it seems more likely to have been the result of diplomatic gift exchange and far-flung trade networks. The conflict between Thebes and the Hyksos is known exclusively from pro-Theban sources, and it is not easy to construct a chronology. These sources propagandistically portray

5529-515: The earliest examples dating from the Qin dynasty . Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative, or edifying text. They can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. In addition to their commemorative value, many Chinese steles are regarded as exemplars of traditional Chinese calligraphic scripts, especially

5626-464: The east, whose coming was unforeseen, had the audacity to invade the country, which they mastered by main force without difficulty or even battle. Having overpowered the chiefs, they then savagely burnt the cities, razed the temples of the gods to the ground, and treated the whole native population with the utmost cruelty, massacring some, and carrying off the wives and children of others into slavery ( Contra Apion I.75-77). Manetho's invasion narrative

5723-539: The eastern Delta. Kom el-Hisn, at the edge of the Western Delta, shows Near Eastern goods but individuals mostly buried in an Egyptian style, which Mourad takes to mean that they were most likely Egyptians heavily influenced by Levantine traditions or, more likely, Egyptianized Levantines. The site of Tell Basta (Bubastis), at the confluence of the Pelusiac and Tanitic branches of the Nile, contains monuments to

5820-428: The end of the Fifteenth Dynasty itself. However, Vera Müller writes: "Considering that S-k-r-h-r is also mentioned with three names of the traditional Egyptian titulary (Horus name, Golden Falcon name and Two Ladies name) on the same monument, this argument is somehow strange." Danielle Candelora and Manfred Bietak also argue that the Hyksos used the title officially. All other texts in the Egyptian language do not call

5917-426: The first in which foreign rulers ruled Egypt. Many details of their rule, such as the true extent of their kingdom and even the names and order of their kings, remain uncertain. The Hyksos practiced many Levantine or Canaanite customs alongside Egyptian ones. They have been credited with introducing several technological innovations to Egypt, such as the horse and chariot , as well as the khopesh (sickle sword) and

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6014-412: The first king. Recently, archaeological finds have suggested that Khyan may have been a contemporary of the Thirteenth Dynasty pharaoh Sobekhotep IV , potentially making him an early rather than a late Hyksos ruler. This has prompted attempts to reconsider the entire chronology of the Hyksos period, which as of 2018 had not yet reached any consensus. Some kings are attested from either fragments of

6111-493: The grave. Excavations vary from a shallow scraping to removal of topsoil to a depth of 6 feet (1.8 m) or more where a vault or burial chamber is to be constructed. However, most modern graves in the United States are only 4 feet (1.2 m) deep as the casket is placed into a concrete box (see burial vault ) to prevent a sinkhole, to ensure the grave is strong enough to be driven over, and to prevent floating in

6208-459: The highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea , the Axumites erected a number of large stelae, which served a religious purpose in pre-Christian times. One of these granite columns is the largest such structure in the world, standing at 90 feet. Additionally, Tiya is one of nine megalithic pillar sites in the central Gurage Zone of Ethiopia. As of 1997, 118 stele were reported in the area. Along with

6305-492: The individual foreign rulers of the late Second Intermediate Period," especially of the Fifteenth Dynasty , rather than a people. However, Josephus used it as an ethnic term. Its use to refer to the population persists in some academic papers. In Ancient Egypt, the term "Hyksos" ( ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣswt ) was also used to refer to various Nubian and especially Asiatic rulers both before and after the Fifteenth Dynasty. It

6402-410: The instance of a flood. The material dug up when the grave is excavated. It is often piled up close to the grave for backfilling and then returned to the grave to cover it. As soil decompresses when excavated and space is occupied by the burial not all the volume of soil fits back in the hole, so often evidence is found of remaining soil. In cemeteries, this may end up as a thick layer of soil overlying

6499-645: The kings of the Fifteenth Dynasty of Egypt (fl. c. 1650–1550 BC). Their seat of power was the city of Avaris in the Nile Delta , from where they ruled over Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt up to Cusae . In the Aegyptiaca , a history of Egypt written by the Greco-Egyptian priest and historian Manetho in the 3rd century BC, the term Hyksos is used ethnically to designate people of probable West Semitic, Levantine origin. While Manetho portrayed

6596-502: The land with me. There is no passing him as far as Memphis, the water of Egypt. He has possession of Hermopolis, and no man can rest, being deprived by the levies of the Setiu. I shall engage in battle with him and I shall slit his body, for my intention is to save Egypt, striking the Asiatics. Following a common literary device, Kamose's advisors are portrayed as trying to dissuade the king, who attacks anyway. He recounts his destruction of

6693-418: The last two kings of the dynasty, and Apepi is attested as a contemporary of Seventeenth-Dynasty pharaohs Kamose and Ahmose I . Ryholt has proposed that Yanassi did not rule and that Khyan directly preceded Apepi, but most scholars agree that the order of kings is: Khyan, Yanassi, Apepi, Khamudi. There is less agreement on the early rulers. Sakir-Har is proposed by Schneider, Ryholt, and Bietak to have been

6790-432: The later history by being buried underground for several centuries. Steles created by the Kaifeng Jews in 1489, 1512, and 1663, have survived the repeated flooding of the Yellow River that destroyed their synagogue several times, to tell us something about their world. China's Muslim have a number of steles of considerable antiquity as well, often containing both Chinese and Arabic text. Thousands of steles, surplus to

6887-415: The latter two of which are mentioned in an entry of the Rhind mathematical papyrus . Knowledge of Ahmose I's campaigns against the Hyksos mostly comes from the tomb of Ahmose, son of Ebana , who gives a first-person account claiming that Ahmose I sacked Avaris: "Then there was fighting in Egypt to the south of this town [Avaris], and I carried off a man as a living captive. I went down into the water—for he

6984-702: The most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin , the architect Peter Eisenman created a field of some 2,700 blank steles. The memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Egyptian steles (or Stelae, Books of Stone) have been found dating as far back as

7081-464: The most famous mountain steles is the 13 m (43 ft) high stele at Mount Tai with the personal calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of such stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of China's minority religious communities. The 8th-century Christians of Xi'an left behind the Xi'an Stele , which survived adverse events of

7178-572: The name as meaning "shepherd kings" or "captive shepherds" in his Contra Apion (Against Apion), where he describes the Hyksos as Jews as they appeared in the Hellenistic Egyptian historian Manetho . "Their race bore the generic name of Hycsos, which means 'king-shepherds'. For hyc in the sacred language denotes 'king' and sos in the common dialect means 'shepherd' or 'shepherds'; the combined words form Hycsos. Some say that they were Arabians." Josephus's rendition may arise from

7275-459: The name in a Hyksos inscription of Sakir-Har from Avaris, the name was used by the Hyksos as a title for themselves. However, Kim Ryholt argues that "Hyksos" was not an official title of the rulers of the Fifteenth Dynasty, and is never encountered together with royal titulary , only appearing as the title in the case of Sakir-Har. According to Ryholt, "Hyksos" was a generic term encountered separately from royal titulary, and in regnal lists after

7372-411: The name of the last, Khamudi , is preserved. Six names are also preserved in the various epitomes of Manetho, however, it is difficult to reconcile the Turin King List and other sources with names known from Manetho, mainly due to the "corrupted name forms" in Manetho. The name Apepi/Apophis appears in multiple sources, however. Various other archaeological sources also provide names of rulers with

7469-447: The original ground surface. The body may be placed in a coffin or other container, in a wide range of positions, by itself or in a multiple burial, with or without personal possessions of the deceased. A vault is a structure built within the grave to receive the body. It may be used to prevent crushing of the remains, allow for multiple burials such as a family vault, retrieval of remains for transfer to an ossuary , or because it forms

7566-635: The original requirements, and no longer associated with the person they were erected for or to, have been assembled in Xi'an's Stele Forest Museum , which is a popular tourist attraction. Elsewhere, many unwanted steles can also be found in selected places in Beijing, such as Dong Yue Miao, the Five Pagoda Temple, and the Bell Tower, again assembled to attract tourists and also as a means of solving

7663-770: The pharaoh, or his senior officials, detailing important events of his reign. Some of the most widely known Egyptian stelae include: the Kamose Stelae, recounting the defeat of the Hyksos ; the Victory Stele , describing the campaigns of the Nubian pharaoh Piye as he reconquered the country; the Restoration Stele of Tutankhamun (1336 - 1327 BC), detailing the religious reforms enacted after the Amarna period; and

7760-479: The picture of Pharaoh Den smiting a Western Asiatic enemy. During the reign of Senusret II , c. 1890 BC, parties of Western Asiatic foreigners visiting the Pharaoh with gifts are recorded, as in the tomb paintings of 12th-dynasty official Khnumhotep II . These foreigners, possibly Canaanites or nomads , are labelled as Aamu ( ꜥꜣmw ), including the leading man with a Nubian ibex labelled as Abisha

7857-404: The present and the afterlife, which allowed the deceased to receive offerings. These were both real and represented by formulae on the false door. Liminal, or boundary, stele were used to mark size and location of fields and the country's borders. Votive stelae were exclusively erected in temples by pilgrims to pay homage to the gods or sacred animals. Commemorative stelae were placed in temples by

7954-547: The problem faced by local authorities of what to do with them. The long, wordy, and detailed inscriptions on these steles are almost impossible to read for most are lightly engraved on white marble in characters only an inch or so in size, thus being difficult to see since the slabs are often 3m or more tall. There are more than 100,000 surviving stone inscriptions in China. However, only approximately 30,000 have been transcribed or had rubbings made, and fewer than those 30,000 have been formally studied. Maya stelae were fashioned by

8051-401: The purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries . In some religions , it is believed that the body must be burned or cremated for the soul to survive; in others, the complete decomposition of the body is considered to be important for the rest of the soul (see bereavement ). The formal use of a grave involves several steps with associated terminology. The excavation that forms

8148-464: The relevant place of worship with an indication of the name of the deceased, date of death and other biographical data. In Europe, this was often accompanied by a depiction of their family coat of arms . Later, graveyards have been replaced by cemeteries . Hyksos The Hyksos ( / ˈ h ɪ k s ɒ s / ; Egyptian ḥqꜣ(w) - ḫꜣswt , Egyptological pronunciation : heqau khasut , "ruler(s) of foreign lands"), in modern Egyptology , are

8245-431: The religious practices of the Hyksos at Avaris with those of the area around Byblos , Ugarit , Alalakh and Tell Brak , defining the "spiritual home" of the Hyksos as "in northernmost Syria and northern Mesopotamia ". The connection of the Hyksos to Retjenu also suggests a northern Levantine origin: "Theoretically, it is feasible to deduce that the early Hyksos, as the later Apophis, were of elite ancestry from Rṯnw ,

8342-433: The same time as the building of the relevant place of worship (which can date back to the 8th to 14th centuries) and were often used by those families who could not afford to be buried inside or beneath the place of worship itself. In most cultures those who were vastly rich, had important professions, were part of the nobility or were of any other high social status were usually buried in individual crypts inside or beneath

8439-787: The stelae in the Hadiya Zone, the structures are identified by local residents as Yegragn Dingay or "Gran's stone", in reference to Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Ahmad "Gurey" or "Gran"), ruler of the Adal Sultanate . The stelae at Tiya and other areas in central Ethiopia are similar to those on the route between Djibouti City and Loyada in Djibouti . In the latter area, there are a number of anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, which are associated with graves of rectangular shape flanked by vertical slabs. The Djibouti-Loyada stelae are of uncertain age, and some of them are adorned with

8536-474: The tail end of the Adal Sultanate's reign. Among these settlements, Aw Barkhadle is surrounded by a number of ancient stelae. Burial sites near Burao likewise feature old stelae. Grave A grave is a location where a dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is buried or interred after a funeral . Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for

8633-418: The term ꜥꜣmw to the Hyksos could indicate a range of backgrounds, including newly arrived Levantines or people of mixed Levantine-Egyptian origin. Due to the work of Manfred Bietak, which found similarities in architecture, ceramics and burial practices, scholars currently favor a northern Levantine origin of the Hyksos. Based particularly on temple architecture, Bietak argues for strong parallels between

8730-595: The use of this title for pharaohs usually assigned to the Fourteenth or Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt, who are sometimes called "'lesser' Hyksos." The Theban Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt is also given the title in some versions of Manetho, a fact which Bietak attributes to textual corruption. In the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and during the Ptolemaic Period , the term Hyksos was adopted as

8827-445: Was Sekmem (...) Then Sekmem fell, together with the wretched Retenu ", where Sekmem (s-k-m-m) is thought to be Shechem and "Retenu" or " Retjenu " are associated with ancient Syria . The only ancient account of the whole Hyksos period is by the Hellenistic Egyptian historian Manetho , who exists only as quoted by others. As recorded by Josephus, Manetho describes the beginning of Hyksos rule thus: A people of ignoble origin from

8924-522: Was a deliberate desire to capitalize on the potency of the past. Some scholars have suggested Urartian steles may have influenced the development of the Armenian khachkar . Greek funerary markers, especially in Attica, had a long and evolutionary history in Athens. From public and extravagant processional funerals to different types of pottery used to store ashes after cremation, visibility has always been

9021-560: Was an 'explosion' of Khmer epigraphy from the seventh century, with the earliest recorded Khmer stone inscription dating from 612 AD at Angkor Borei . Ogham stones are vertical grave and boundary markers, erected at hundreds of sites in Ireland throughout the first millennium AD, bearing inscriptions in the Primitive Irish language. They have occasionally been described as "steles." The Horn of Africa contains many stelae. In

9118-455: Was captured on the city side—and crossed the water carrying him. [...] Then Avaris was despoiled, and I brought spoil from there. Thomas Schneider places the conquest in year 18 of Ahmose's reign. However, excavations of Tell El-Dab'a (Avaris) show no widespread destruction of the city, which instead seems to have been abandoned by the Hyksos. Manetho, as recorded in Josephus, states that

9215-467: Was marked at Hermopolis and Cusae . Some objects might suggest a Hyksos presence in Upper Egypt, but they may have been Theban war booty or attest simply to short-term raids, trade, or diplomatic contact. The nature of Hyksos control over the region of Thebes remains unclear. Most likely Hyksos rule covered the area from Middle Egypt to southern Palestine . Older scholarship believed, due to

9312-526: Was the tomb stelae. Their picture area showed the owner of the stele, often with his family, and an inscription listed the name and titles of the deceased after a prayer to one, or several, of the gods of the dead and request for offerings. Less frequently, an autobiographical text provided additional information about the individual's life. In the mastaba tombs of the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC), stelae functioned as false doors, symbolizing passage between

9409-456: Was used at least since the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2345–2181 BC) to designate chieftains from the Syro - Palestine area. One of its earliest recorded uses is found c. 1900 BC in the tomb of Khnumhotep II of the Twelfth Dynasty to label a nomad or Canaanite ruler named " Abisha the Hyksos " (using the standard 𓋾𓈎𓈉 , ḥqꜣ-ḫꜣswt , "Heqa-kasut" for "Hyksos"). Based on the use of

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