Manetho ( / ˈ m æ n ɪ θ oʊ / ; Koinē Greek : Μανέθων Manéthōn , gen .: Μανέθωνος) is believed to have been an Egyptian priest from Sebennytos ( Coptic : Ϫⲉⲙⲛⲟⲩϯ ) who lived in the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the early third century BC, during the Hellenistic period .
150-536: Unas / ˈ j uː n ə s / or Wenis , also spelled Unis ( Ancient Egyptian : wnjs , hellenized form Oenas / ˈ iː n ə s / or Onnos ), was a pharaoh , the ninth and last ruler of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom . Unas reigned for 15 to 30 years in the mid- 24th century BC (circa 2345–2315 BC), succeeding Djedkare Isesi , who might have been his father. Little
300-773: 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
450-590: A pyramid in Saqqara , the smallest of the royal pyramids completed during the Old Kingdom. The accompanying mortuary complex with its high and valley temples linked by a 750-metre-long (2,460 ft) causeway was lavishly decorated with painted reliefs, whose quality and variety surpass the usual royal iconography. Furthermore, Unas was the first pharaoh to have the Pyramid Texts carved and painted on
600-576: 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 ,
750-422: A brother of Philo , and it has been suggested that this was inserted into Manetho. We do not know when this might have occurred, but scholars specify a terminus ante quem at the first century AD, when Josephus began writing. The earliest surviving attestation to Manetho is that of Contra Apionem ("Against Apion") by Flavius Josephus , nearly four centuries after Aegyptiaca was composed. Even here, it
900-546: A close study of Manetho is that not only was Aegyptiaca not preserved as a whole, but it also became involved in a rivalry among advocates of Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek histories in the form of supporting polemics . During this period, disputes raged concerning the oldest civilizations, and so Manetho's account was probably excerpted during this time for use in this argument with significant alterations. Material similar to Manetho's has been found in Lysimachus of Alexandria ,
1050-558: 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
1200-495: 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
1350-460: A list of eight successive Persian kings, beginning with Cambyses , the son of Cyrus the Great . Manetho's record of regnal years for these kings is mostly corroborated by Ptolemy of Alexandria in his Canon , excepting for the fact that Artabanus who reigned for only 7 months is omitted by Ptolemy, while Ptolemy puts 8 years (instead of 5) for Cambyses' reign. Between Cambyses' reign and Darius,
1500-648: A long reign are scenes of a Sed festival found in Unas' mortuary temple. This festival was normally celebrated only after 30 years of reign and was meant to rejuvenate the pharaoh's strength and power. Mere depictions of the festival do not necessarily imply a long reign, however. For example, a relief showing pharaoh Sahure in the tunic of the Sed festival has been found in his mortuary temple, although both historical sources and archeological evidence agree that he ruled Egypt for less than 14 full years. Other Egyptologists suspect
1650-485: A male heir. Unas had at least five daughters named Hemetre Hemi, Khentkaues, Neferut, Nefertkaues Iku, and Sesheshet Idut. The status of another possible daughter, Iput , is uncertain. The duration of Unas' reign is uncertain. As indicated above, historical sources credit him with 30 and 33 years on the throne, figures that have been adopted by many Egyptologists, including Flinders Petrie , William C. Hayes , Darrell Baker, Peter Munro, and Jaromir Malek. In favor of such
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#17327662819971800-462: A nominal feminine suffix * -at , a nominal prefix m- , an adjectival suffix -ī and characteristic personal verbal affixes. Of 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
1950-408: A part of Aegyptiaca that circulated independently. Neither survives in its original form today. Two English translations of the fragments of Manetho's Aegyptiaca have been published: by William Gillan Waddell in 1940, and by Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John Moore Wickersham in 2001. Despite the reliance of Egyptologists on him for their reconstructions of the Egyptian dynasties, the problem with
2100-442: 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
2250-518: A priest of the sun-god Ra at Heliopolis (according to George Syncellus , he was the chief priest). He was considered by Plutarch to be an authority on the cult of Serapis (a derivation of Osiris and Apis ). Serapis was a Greco-Macedonian version of the Egyptian cult, probably started after Alexander the Great 's establishment of Alexandria in Egypt. A statue of the deity was imported in 286 BC by Ptolemy I Soter (or in 278 BC by Ptolemy II Philadelphus) as Tacitus and Plutarch attest. There
2400-429: A reign of less than 30 years for Unas, owing to the scarcity of artefacts datable to his reign as well as the lack of documents dated to beyond his eighth year on the throne. Hence, Jürgen von Beckerath believes that Unas ruled Egypt for 20 years while Rolf Krauss, David Warburton and Erik Hornung shortened this number to 15 years in their 2012 study of Egyptian chronology . Krauss and Miroslav Verner further question
2550-444: 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
2700-529: A separate witness from the Book of Sothis . Unfortunately, this material is likely to have been a forgery or hoax of unknown date. Every king in Sothis after Menes is irreconcilable with the versions of Africanus and Eusebius. Manetho should not be judged on the factuality of his account, but on the method he used to record history, and in this, he was as successful as Herodotus and Hesiod. Finally, in modern times,
2850-440: A slight abbreviation, such as A'akheperen-Re ' (Throne and king-list names) becoming Khebron (XVIII.4 Thutmose II ). A few more have consonants switched for unknown reasons, as for example Tausret becoming Thouoris (XIX.6 Twosre/ Tausret ). One puzzle is in the conflicting names of some early dynastic kings— although they did not have all five titles, they still had multiple names. I.3/4 Djer , whose Son of Ra name
3000-458: A son, the "king's son", "royal chamberlain", "priest of Maat " and " overseer of Upper Egypt " Unas-Ankh, who died about 10 years into Unas' reign. The filiation of Unas-Ankh is indirectly hinted at by his name and titles and by the presence of his tomb near those of Nebet and Unas but is not universally accepted. Two other sons have been proposed, Nebkauhor and Shepsespuptah, but these filiations are conjectural and contested. Unas likely died without
3150-503: 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
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#17327662819973300-510: 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
3450-650: A third-century BC Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and author of the first history of Egypt, claims that with Unas' death the Fifth Dynasty came to an end. Unas was succeeded by Teti , the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty , possibly after a short crisis. However, the archaeological evidence suggests that the Egyptians at the time made no conscious break with the preceding dynasty and
3600-644: 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
3750-465: 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
3900-497: A year, and reduces to 214 + 1 ⁄ 2 years (another conversion attested to by Diodorus). The sum of these comes out to 1,183 + 1 ⁄ 2 years, equal to that of Berossos. Syncellus rejected both Manetho's and Berossos' incredible time-spans, as well as the efforts of other commentators to harmonise their numbers with the Bible . Ironically as we see, he also blamed them for the synchronicity concocted by later writers. It
4050-548: Is Itti is considered the basis for Manetho's I.2 Athothis. I.4 Oenephes then is a puzzle unless it is compared with Djer's Gold Horus name, Ennebu . It may be that Manetho duplicated the name or he had a source for a name unknown to us. Finally, there are some names where the association is a complete mystery to us. V.6 Rhathoures/Niuserre's complete name was Set-ib-tawi Set-ib-Nebty Netjeri-bik-nebu Ni-user-Re' Ini Ni-user-Re ' , but Manetho writes it as Rhathoures. It may be that some kings were known by names other than even just
4200-598: 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 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
4350-487: 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 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
4500-505: Is clear that Josephus did not have the originals, and constructed a polemic against Manetho without them. Avaris and Osarseph are both mentioned twice (1.78, 86–87; 238, 250). Apion 1.95–97 is merely a list of kings with no narratives until 1.98, while running across two of Manetho's dynasties without mention ( dynasties eighteen and nineteen ). Contemporaneously or perhaps after Josephus wrote, an epitome of Manetho's work must have been circulated. This would have involved preserving
4650-474: 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
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4800-403: Is generally accepted that he was reliant on one or more such lists, and it is not clear to what extent he was aware of the different pharaonic names of rulers long past (and he had alternate names for some). Not all of the different names for each king have been uncovered. Manetho did not choose consistently from the five different types of names, but in some cases, a straightforward transcription
4950-658: Is in fact the celebrated author of the Aegyptiaca , then Manetho may well have been working during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–222 BC) as well, but at a very advanced age. Although the historicity of Manetho of Sebennytus was taken for granted by Josephus and later authors, the question as to whether he existed remains problematic. The Manetho of the Hibeh Papyri has no title and this letter deals with affairs in Upper Egypt not Lower Egypt, where our Manetho
5100-500: Is known of Unas' activities during his reign, which was a time of economic decline. Egypt maintained trade relations with the Levantine coast and Nubia , and military action may have taken place in southern Canaan . The growth and decentralization of the administration in conjunction with the lessening of the king's power continued under Unas, ultimately contributing to the collapse of the Old Kingdom some 200 years later. Unas built
5250-456: Is known to have died on the year of the eleventh cattle count during Teti's reign, an event consisting of counting the livestock throughout the country to evaluate the amount of taxes to be levied. It is traditionally believed that such counts occurred every two years during the Old Kingdom and every year during the later Middle Kingdom ( c. 2055 – c. 1650 BC ). Thus, Nikau-Isesi would have lived for 22 years after Teti took
5400-491: Is known to us only through later writings by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius . Africanus relates that the Aegyptiaca mentioned a pharaoh "Onnos" reigning for 33 years at the end of the Fifth Dynasty. Onnos is believed to be the hellenized form for Unas, and Africanus' 33-year figure fits well with the 30 years of reign given to Unas on the Turin canon. The primary contemporaneous sources attesting to Unas' activities are
5550-431: Is no reason to doubt this, as admissions of this type were common among historians of that era. His familiarity with Egyptian legends is indisputable, but how he learned Greek legends is more open to debate. He must have been familiar with Herodotus, and in some cases, he even attempted to synchronize Egyptian history with Greek (for example, equating King Memnon with Amenophis , and Armesis with Danaos ). This suggests he
5700-452: 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
5850-648: Is not organized in dynasties–which were invented by Manetho–the Egyptologist Jaromir Malek explains that "the criterion for such divisions in the Turin Canon invariably was the change of location of the capital and royal residence." Malek thus suggests that the capital of Egypt, then known as Inbu-Hedj, was indeed supplanted at the time by settlements located to the South, East of South Saqqara, where Unas' palace may have been located. In
6000-560: Is on display at the Louvre Museum . It is a 17-centimetre-tall (6.7 in), 13.2-centimetre-wide (5.2 in) globular alabaster vase finely decorated with a falcon with outstretched wings and two uraei , or rearing cobras, holding ankh signs surrounding Unas' cartouche. An ointment jar bearing Unas' cartouche and Horus name is in the Brooklyn Museum . Finally, a fragment of a calcite vase rim bearing two cartouches of Unas
6150-520: Is on display in the Petrie Museum . Unas assumed the throne at the death of his predecessor Djedkare Isesi. Djedkare is thought to have been Unas' father, in spite of the complete lack of evidence bearing on the question. The succession from Djedkare Isesi to Unas seems to have been smooth. Unas had at least two queens, Nebet and Khenut , who were buried in a large double mastaba adjacent to their husband's pyramid. Unas and Nebet possibly had
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6300-680: Is one of the clues as to how syncretism developed between seemingly disparate religions. He then proceeds to Dynastic Egypt, from Dynasty One to Eleven . This would have included the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, and the early Middle Kingdom. Volume 2 covers Dynasties Twelve – Nineteen , which includes the end of the Middle Kingdom and the Second Intermediate Period (Fifteen–Seventeen—the Hyksos invasion), and then their expulsion and
6450-505: Is possible. Egyptian Men or Meni (Son of Ra and king-list names) becomes Menes (officially, this is Pharaoh I.1 Narmer —"I" represents Dynasty I, and "1" means the first king of that dynasty), while Menkauhor / Menkahor (Throne and king-list names, the Horus names is Menkhau and the Son of Ra name is "Kaiu Horkaiu[...]") is transcribed as Menkheres (V.7 Menkauhor ). Others involve
6600-400: Is said to have lived and are only mentioned in another source in the first century AD, leaving a gap of 200–300 years between the composition of the Aegyptiaca and its first attestation. The gap is even larger for the other works attributed to Manetho such as The Sacred Book that is mentioned for the very first time by Eusebius in the fourth century AD. Manetho of Sebennytus was probably
6750-658: Is said to have written exclusively in the Greek language for a Greek-speaking audience. Other literary works attributed to him include Against Herodotus , The Sacred Book , On Antiquity and Religion , On Festivals , On the Preparation of Kyphi , and the Digest of Physics . The treatise Book of Sothis has also been attributed to Manetho. These works are not attested during the Ptolemaic period when Manetho of Sebennytus
6900-399: 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
7050-606: Is speculated that Manetho wrote at the request of Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II to give an account of the history of Egypt to the Greeks from a native perspective. However, there is no evidence for this hypothesis. If such were the case, Aegyptiaca was a failure, since Herodotus' Histories continued to provide the standard account in the Hellenistic world. It may also have been that some nationalistic sentiments in Manetho provided
7200-468: Is still used as a basis for all Egyptian discussions. Volume 1 begins from the earliest times, listing deities and demigods as kings of Egypt. Stories of Isis , Osiris, Set , or Horus might have been found here. Manetho does not transliterate either, but gives the Greek equivalent deities by a convention that predates him: (Egyptian) Ptah = (Greek) Hephaistos ; Isis = Demeter ; Thoth = Hermes ; Horus = Apollo ; Seth = Typhon ; etc. This
7350-424: 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
7500-406: 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
7650-512: Is thought to have functioned as a chief priest. The name Manetho is rare, but there is no reason a priori to presume that the Manetho of the Hibeh Papyri is the priest and historian from Sebennytus who is thought to have authored the Aegyptiaca for Ptolemy Philadelphus . Manetho is described as a native Egyptian, and Egyptian would have been his mother tongue. Although the topics he supposedly wrote about dealt with Egyptian matters, he
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#17327662819977800-466: Is used universally, and this has permeated the study of nearly all royal genealogies by the conceptualization of succession in terms of dynasties or houses. Manetho's Aegyptiaca has been cited as a source for early antisemitic ideas because of his account of Exodus, in which he portrays the Jewish people as forming from a group of lepers and shepherds who were expelled from Egypt and later conquered it,
7950-495: Is usually considered more reliable, but there is no assurance that this is the case. Eusebius in turn was preserved by Jerome in his Latin translation, an Armenian translation, and by George Syncellus . Syncellus recognized the similarities between Eusebius and Africanus, so he placed them side by side in his work, Ecloga Chronographica . Africanus, Syncellus, and the Latin and Armenian translations of Eusebius are what remains of
8100-473: Is written as Manethon , Manethos , Manethonus , and Manetos . Although no sources for the dates of his life and death remain, Manetho is associated with the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (323–283 BC) by Plutarch (c. 46–120 AD), while George Syncellus links Manetho directly with Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC). If the mention of someone named Manetho in the Hibeh Papyri, dated to 241/240 BC,
8250-649: The Abydos King List , which was written during the reign of Seti I (1290–1279 BC). Unas' name is also present on the Saqqara Tablet (32nd entry) and on the Turin canon (third column, 25th row), both of which were written during the reign of Ramses II (1279–1213 BC). The Turin canon further credits Unas with 30 years of reign. These sources all place Unas as the ninth and final ruler of the Fifth Dynasty, succeeding Djedkare Isesi and preceding Teti on
8400-553: The Achaemenid interruption of Egyptian rule. Three more local dynasties are mentioned, although they must have overlapped with Persian rule. Dynasty Thirty-one consisted of three Persian rulers, and some have suggested that this was added by a continuator. Both Moses of Chorene and Jerome end at Nectanebo II ("last king of the Egyptians" and "destruction of the Egyptian monarchy" respectively), but Dynasty Thirty-one fits within Manetho's schemata of demonstrating power through
8550-626: The Aegyptiaca ( History of Egypt ) in Greek , a major chronological source for the reigns of the kings of ancient Egypt . It is unclear whether he wrote his history and king list during the reign of Ptolemy I Soter or Ptolemy II Philadelphos , but it was completed no later than that of Ptolemy III Euergetes . The original Egyptian version of Manetho's name is lost, but some speculate it means "Truth of Thoth ", "Gift of Thoth", "Beloved of Thoth", "Beloved of Neith ", or "Lover of Neith". Less accepted proposals are Myinyu-heter ("Horseherd" or "Groom") and Ma'ani-Djehuti ("I have seen Thoth"). In
8700-664: The Annals give annual reports of the activities of the kings, while there is little probability that Manetho would have been able to go into such detail. The New Kingdom lists are each selective in their listings: that of Seti I , for instance, lists seventy-six kings from dynasties one to nineteen, omitting the Hyksos rulers and those associated with the heretic Akhenaten . The Saqqara king list , contemporaneous with Ramesses II , has fifty-eight names, with similar omissions. If Manetho used these lists at all, he would have been unable to get all of his information from them alone, due to
8850-565: The Ba of Unas, as it arose from the sarcophagus thanks to resurrection utterances and surrounded by protective spells and ritual offerings. The Ba would then leave the burial chamber, which incorporates texts identifying the king with Osiris in the Duat , and would move to the antechamber symbolizing the Akhet . Included in the spells written on the walls of the antechamber of Unas are two utterances known as
9000-572: The Cannibal Hymn , which portrays the pharaoh as flying to heaven through a stormy sky and eating both gods and men. In doing so the king would receive the life force of the gods. At this point the Ba of Unas would face east, the direction of the sunrise, and beyond the pyramid masonry, the false door of the mortuary temple where funerary rituals were performed. Finally, turning left the Ba would join Ra in
9150-565: 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 ),
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#17327662819979300-555: The Greek language , the earliest fragments (the inscription of uncertain date on the base of a marble bust from the temple of Serapis at Carthage and the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus of the 1st century AD) wrote his name as Μανέθων Manethōn , so the Latinised rendering of his name here is given as Manetho. Other Greek renderings include Manethōs , Manethō , Manethos , Manēthōs , Manēthōn , and Manethōth . In Latin it
9450-583: The Muslim conquest of Egypt , although Bohairic Coptic remains in use as 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/ ,
9600-512: The Tanite Dynasty Twenty-one and Dynasty Twenty-two lineage in his Epitome such as Psusennes I , Amenemope and even such short-lived kings as Amenemnisu (five years) and Osochor (six years). In contrast, he ignores the existence of Theban kings such as Osorkon III , Takelot III , Harsiese A , Pinedjem I , and kings from Middle Egypt such as Peftjaubast of Herakleopolis . This implies that Manetho derived
9750-447: The autobiography of Weni relates many punitive raids against Canaanite nomads in the early Sixth Dynasty. To the South of Egypt, inscriptions of Unas on Elephantine record a visit of the king to Lower Nubia, possibly to receive tribute from local chieftains or because of growing unrest in the region. In addition, a relief from the causeway of Unas leading to his pyramid shows a giraffe, suggesting trade relations with Nubia. Unas' reign
9900-465: The dynasteia well. The Thirty-second dynasty would have been the Ptolemies . Most of the ancient witnesses group Manetho together with Berossos , and treat the pair as similar in intent, and it is not a coincidence that those who preserved the bulk of their writing are largely the same ( Josephus , Africanus , Eusebius , and Syncellus ). Certainly, both wrote about the same time, and both adopted
10050-588: 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"
10200-464: The pyramid of Userkaf located at the northeastern corner. In the process, workers leveled and covered older tombs located in the area, most notably the tomb of the Second Dynasty pharaoh Hotepsekhemwy (c. 2890 BC). The original Egyptian name of the pyramid was "Nefer Isut Unas", meaning "Beautiful are the places of Unas". The pyramid of Unas is the smallest of the pyramids completed during
10350-603: The "History of Egypt", may have been Manetho's largest work, and certainly the most important. It was organised chronologically and divided into three volumes. His division of rulers into dynasties was an innovation. However, he did not use the term in the modern sense, by bloodlines, but rather, introduced new dynasties whenever he detected some sort of discontinuity, whether geographical ( Dynasty Four from Memphis , Dynasty Five from Elephantine ), or genealogical (especially in Dynasty One , he refers to each successive king as
10500-403: The "Horus" name; the "Two Ladies" name; the "Gold Horus" name; the praenomen or "throne name"; and a nomen , the personal name given at birth (also called a "Son of Ra" name as it was preceded by Sa Re ' ). Some kings also had multiple examples within these names, such as Ramesses II who used six Horus names at various times. Because Manetho's transcriptions agree with many king-lists, it
10650-441: The "son" of the previous to define what he means by "continuity"). Within the superstructure of a genealogical table, he fills in the gaps with substantial narratives of the kings. Some have suggested that Aegyptiaca was written as a competing account to Herodotus ' Histories , to provide a national history for Egypt that did not exist before. From this perspective, Against Herodotus may have been an abridged version or just
10800-611: The Egyptian language shared closer linguistic ties with northeastern African regions. There are two theories that seek to establish 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
10950-409: The Fifth Dynasty points to a marked decline of the cult of the king during Unas' time on the throne. This continued under Unas' successor Teti, for whom we know only two seals bearing his Horus name. This trend reflects the lessening of the king's power in conjunction with the growth of the administration and priesthood. Meanwhile, the cult of Osiris was becoming more important with this god replacing
11100-548: The Middle Kingdom onwards. He attributes this Middle Kingdom revival to the geographic position of Unas' complex making it a natural gateway to the Saqqara necropolis. The popular cult of the deified Unas continued for nearly 2,000 years as shown by the numerous scarabs bearing Unas' name found in Saqqara and dated from the New Kingdom (c.1550–c.1077 BC) until the Late Period (664–332 BC). The epicenter of this cult
11250-429: The Old Kingdom, having a square base of 57.7 m × 57.7 m (189 ft × 189 ft) for a height of 43 m (141 ft). The pyramid of Unas is part of a larger mortuary complex built around it. It was approached via an ancient lake on the shores of which Unas' valley temple was located. This temple received the provisions for the cult of the king and the offerings to be made were prepared there. At
11400-550: The Pharaonic king-lists were generally wrong for Manetho's purposes, and we should commend Manetho for not basing his account on them (2000:105). These large stelae stand in contrast to the Turin Royal Canon (such as Saqqara, contemporaneous with Ramesses II), written in hieratic script. Like Manetho, it begins with the deities, and seems to be an epitome very similar in spirit and style to Manetho. Interestingly,
11550-597: 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
11700-525: The architects of Unas' pyramid ensured that the king would benefit from their potency even if the funerary cult was to cease. Hence, the Pyramid Texts of the pyramid of Unas incorporate instructions for ritual actions and words to be spoken, suggesting that they were precisely those performed and recited during the cult of the king in his mortuary temple. The good preservation of the texts in Unas' pyramid shows that they were arranged so as to be read by
11850-450: The back of the valley temple was the beginning of a 750-metre (2,460-foot) causeway , equaled only by that of Khufu , and leading to an upper temple adjacent to the pyramid. A thin slit in the roof of the causeway allowed the light to illuminate its walls covered for their entire length in painted reliefs. These depicted the Egyptian seasons, processions of people from the nomes of Egypt, craftsmen at work, offerings bearers, battle scenes and
12000-450: The boat crews or slaves. Another relief depicts a military campaign, Egyptians armed with bows and daggers attacking Canaanite nomads called the Shasu . Similar reliefs have been found in preceding pyramid complexes, such as that of Sahure , and they may thus be standard themes rather than depictions of actual events. Other sources tend to confirm the accuracy of these depictions; for example,
12150-500: The causeway of his pyramid complex showing emaciated people and thus suggesting times of famine. This changed when excavations at Abusir in 1996 yielded similar reliefs in the mortuary complex of Sahure, who reigned at a prosperous time in the early Fifth Dynasty. In addition, research showed that the starving people are likely to be desert dwellers, nomads distinguished by their specific hair-style, rather than Egyptians. Thus, these reliefs are now understood to be standard representations of
12300-550: The credibility of the Turin Canon concerning the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, so that the 30-year figure credited to Unas by the canon might not be reliable. Excavations of the tomb of Nikau-Isesi under the direction of Naguib Kanawati at Saqqara have yielded evidence in support of a shorter reign. Nikau-Isesi was an official who started his career during the reign of Djedkare Isesi. He lived through that of Unas and died as overseer of Upper-Egypt under Unas' successor Teti. Nikau-Isesi
12450-407: The cult of Unas adopted basilophorous names, incorporating that of the king, possibly upon taking office. Unas' funerary cult appears to have survived during the chaotic First Intermediate Period until the Middle Kingdom. By the time of the 12th Dynasty (c. 1990–c. 1800 BC), the lector-priest Unasemsaf and his family were involved in the cult of Unas. In spite of this, Unas' funerary complex
12600-619: 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'). Manetho#Aegyptiaca He authored
12750-493: The distinction between the Fifth and Sixth dynasties might be illusory. The funerary cult of Unas established at his death continued until the end of the Old Kingdom and may have survived during the chaotic First Intermediate Period. The cult was still in existence or revived during the later Middle Kingdom (c. 2050 – c. 1650 BC). This did not prevent Amenemhat I and Senusret I (c. 1990 – c. 1930 BC) from partially dismantling
12900-513: The effect is still visible in the way Egyptologists divide the dynasties of the Egyptian kings. The French explorer and Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion reportedly held a copy of Manetho's lists in one hand as he attempted to decipher the hieroglyphs he encountered. Most modern scholarship that mentions the names of the kings will render both the modern transcription and Manetho's version, and in some cases Manetho's names are even preferred to more authentic ones. Today, his division of dynasties
13050-637: 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
13200-439: 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
13350-399: The end of the Old Kingdom. This cult is attested by the tombs at Saqqara of seven priests responsible for the religious duties to be performed in the funerary complex. Three of these tombs date to the early Sixth Dynasty in the time following the death of Pepi I. Three more tombs date to the reign of Pepi II and the last one dates to the very end of the Old Kingdom (c. 2180 BC). The priests of
13500-654: The epitome of Manetho. Other significant fragments include Malalas 's Chronographia and the Excerpta Latina Barbari , a bad translation of a Greek chronology. Manetho's methods involved the use of king-lists to provide a structure for his history. There were precedents to his writing available in Egypt (plenty of which have survived to this day), and his Hellenistic and Egyptian background would have been influential in his writing. Josephus records him admitting to using "nameless oral tradition" (1.105) and "myths and legends" (1.229) for his account, and there
13650-659: The establishment of the New Kingdom (Eighteen onward). The Second Intermediate Period was of particular interest to Josephus, where he equated the Hyksos or "shepherd-kings" as the ancient Israelites who eventually made their way out of Egypt ( Apion 1.82–92). He even includes a brief etymological discussion of the term "Hyksos". Volume 3 continues with Dynasty Twenty and concludes with Dynasty Thirty (or Thirty-one, see below). The Saite Renaissance occurs in Dynasty Twenty-six , while Dynasty Twenty-seven involves
13800-547: 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
13950-401: The five official ones. Thus, how Manetho transcribed these names varies, and as such, we cannot reconstruct the original Egyptian forms of the names. However, because of the simplicity with which Manetho transcribed long names (see above), they were preferred until original king-lists began to be uncovered in Egyptian sites, translated, and corroborated. Manetho's division of dynasties, however,
14100-480: The format must have been available to him. As a priest (or chief priest), he would have had access to practically all written materials in the temple. While the precise origins for Manetho's king-list are unknown, it was certainly a northern, Lower Egyptian one. This can be deduced most noticeably from his selection of the kings for the Third Intermediate Period . Manetho consistently includes
14250-417: The generosity of the king towards the destitute and of the hardships of life in the desert regions bordering Egypt rather than referring to actual events. In his history of Egypt, Manetho states that with the death of Unas the Fifth Dynasty came to an end. This may be because Unas died without a male heir, his probable son Unas-Ankh having predeceased him. This might have caused a succession crisis hinted at by
14400-655: 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
14550-435: 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
14700-519: 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
14850-406: The historiographical approach of the Greek writers Herodotus and Hesiod , who preceded them. While the subjects of their history are different, the form is similar, using chronological royal genealogies as the structure for the narratives. Both extend their histories far into the mythic past, to give the deities rule over the earliest ancestral histories. Syncellus goes so far as to insinuate that
15000-411: The idea that Teti could legitimate his claim by marrying into the royal family is rejected by many Egyptologists, including Munro, Dobrev, Baud , Mertz, Pirenne, and Robin, who do not think that the right to the pharaonic throne passed through the female line. In addition to Manetho's statement, the Turin king list presents a special break point between Unas and his successor Teti. Although the king list
15150-419: The impetus for his writing, but that again is a conjecture. It is clear, however, that when it was written, it would have proven to be the authoritative account of the history of Egypt, superior to Herodotus in every way. The completeness and systematic nature in which he collected his sources was unprecedented. Syncellus similarly recognised its importance when recording Eusebius and Africanus, and even provided
15300-487: The importance of Osiris and Ra in ancient Egyptian religion at the time. Both gods were believed to play the key roles in accessing the afterlife, with Ra as the source of life and Osiris as the force through which the next life would be attained. Unas had a pyramid built for himself in North Saqqara , between the pyramid of Sekhemkhet and the southwestern corner of the pyramid complex of Djoser , in symmetry with
15450-426: The king as the guarantor of life after death for the pharaoh's subjects. The German Egyptologist Hartwig Altenmüller writes that for an Egyptian of the time "the [...] afterlife no longer depends on the relationship between the individual mortal and the king, [...] instead it is linked to his ethical position in direct relation to Osiris". In contrast, the cult of the sun god Ra was in apparent decline, even though Ra
15600-464: 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
15750-406: 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
15900-416: The many reliefs from his pyramid complex . Excluding these, surprisingly few documents dating to Unas' reign have survived to this day, considering the 30-year length that later records give for his reign. Excavations at Abusir , the royal necropolis of the Fifth Dynasty, have produced only four dated inscriptions safely attributable to Unas. They explicitly mention his third, fourth, sixth and eighth years on
16050-460: The mortuary complex of Unas for its materials. In parallel to the official cult, Unas may have received popular veneration as a local god of Saqqara until as late as the Late Period (664–332 BC), nearly 2000 years after his death. Unas is well attested by historical sources with three ancient Egyptian king lists dating to the New Kingdom period mentioning him. He occupies the 33rd entry of
16200-456: The nine dynasties with demigods came to 858 years. Again, this was too long for the Biblical account, so two different units of conversion were used. The 11,985 years were considered to be months of 29 + 1 ⁄ 2 days each (a conversion used in antiquity, for example by Diodorus Siculus ), which comes out to 969 years. The latter period, however, was divided into seasons, or quarters of
16350-600: The one most similar to his is the Turin Royal Canon (or Turin Papyrus ). The oldest source with which we can compare to Manetho are the Old Kingdom Annals (c. 2500-2200 BC). From the New Kingdom are the list at Karnak (constructed by order of Thutmose III ), two at Abydos (by Seti I and Ramesses II — the latter a duplicate, but updated version of the former), and the Saqqara list by
16500-400: The opposite side of the papyrus includes government records. Verbrugghe and Wickersham suggest that a comprehensive list such as this would be necessary for a government office "to date contracts, leases, debts, titles, and other instruments (2000:106)" and so could not have been selective in the way the king-lists in temples were. Despite numerous differences between the Turin Canon and Manetho,
16650-416: The other houses. The purpose of these lists is not historical but religious. It is not that they are trying and failing to give a complete list. They are not trying at all. Seti and Ramesses did not wish to make offerings to Akhenaten , Tutankhamen , or Hatshepsut , and that is why they are omitted, not because their existence was unknown or deliberately ignored in a broader historical sense. For this reason,
16800-439: The outlines of his dynasties and a few details deemed significant. For the first ruler of the first dynasty, Menes , we learn that "he was snatched and killed by a hippopotamus ". The extent to which the epitome preserved Manetho's original writing is unclear, so caution must be exercised. Nevertheless, the epitome was preserved by Sextus Julius Africanus and Eusebius of Caesarea . Because Africanus predates Eusebius, his version
16950-399: The personal name chosen by Teti upon his accession to the throne: "Seheteptawy" meaning "He who reconciles/pacifies the two lands". Teti's claim to the throne could have relied on his marriage to Iput, who may have been a daughter of Unas. This possibility is heavily debated, as the interpretation of Iput's titles that would indicate that she was the daughter of a king is uncertain. Furthermore,
17100-555: The priest Tenry. The provenance of the Old Kingdom Annals is unknown, surviving as the Palermo Stone . The differences between the Annals and Manetho are great. The Annals only reach to the fifth dynasty, but its pre-dynastic rulers are listed as the kings of Lower Egypt and kings of Upper Egypt . By contrast, Manetho lists several Greek and Egyptian deities beginning with Hephaistos and Helios . Secondly,
17250-577: The primary sources for his Epitome from a local city's temple library in the region of the River Nile Delta which was controlled by the Tanite-based Dynasty Twenty-one and Dynasty Twenty-two kings. The Middle and Upper Egyptian kings did not have any effect upon this specific region of the delta; hence their exclusion from Manetho's king-list. By the Middle Kingdom, Egyptian kings each had five different names ,
17400-519: The pyramid of Unas is the first appearance of the Pyramid Texts , one of the oldest religious texts in Egypt to have survived to this day. In doing so, Unas initiated a tradition that would be followed in the pyramid of the kings and queens of the Sixth to Eighth Dynasties, until the end of the Old Kingdom circa 200 years later. In total 283 magical spells, also known as utterances, were carved and
17550-512: 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
17700-870: 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
17850-489: The sacred space. At the southeast corner of the enclosure was a small satellite pyramid for the Ka of the king. The internal chambers of the pyramid were entered in 1881 by Gaston Maspero , who thus discovered the pyramid texts. The burial chamber housed nothing but a black greywacke sarcophagus sunk into the floor and a canopic chest. The sarcophagus proved to contain scattered bones, which may belong to Unas. The main innovation of
18000-599: 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,
18150-520: The same year. While this does seem an incredible coincidence, the reliability of the report is unclear. The reasoning for presuming they started their histories in the same year involved some considerable contortions. Berossos dated the period before the Flood to 120 saroi (3,600 year periods), giving an estimate of 432,000 years before the Flood. This was unacceptable to later Christian commentators, so it
18300-403: The scarcity of evidence dating to Unas' reign, we know very little about his activities. Existing trade relations with foreign countries and cities, in particular Byblos, seem to have continued during Unas' time on the throne. Reliefs from the causeway of his pyramid complex show two large seagoing ships coming back from an expedition to the Levantine coast with Syro-Canaanite men, who were either
18450-433: 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
18600-413: The second millennium BC these cities finally merged and gave rise to Memphis . Whatever the basis for Manetho's choice to end the Fifth Dynasty with Unas, Egyptians living at the time probably perceived no particular change from one dynasty to the next. The administration of the state shows no evidence of disturbances, with many officials continuing their careers from Unas' onto Teti's reign. These include
18750-416: The selective nature of their records. Verbrugghe and Wickersham argue: [...] The purpose of these lists was to cover the walls of a sacred room in which the reigning Pharaoh (or other worshiper, as in the case of Tenry and his Saqqara list) made offerings or prayers to his or her predecessors, imagined as ancestors. Each royal house had a particular traditional list of these "ancestors", different from that of
18900-487: The signs painted blue on the walls of the corridor, antechamber, and burial chamber of Unas' pyramid. They constitute the most complete rendition of the Pyramid Texts existing today. These spells were intended to help the king in overcoming hostile forces and powers in the Underworld and thus join with the sun god Ra , his divine father in the afterlife. By writing the texts on the walls of the pyramid's internal chambers,
19050-408: The sky by passing through the pyramid corridor. An example of a spell from the pyramid of Unas is Utterance 217: Re-Atum, this Unas comes to you A spirit indestructible Your son comes to you This Unas comes to you May you cross the sky united in the dark May you rise in lightland, the place in which you shine! Unas' most immediate legacy is his funerary cult, which continued at least until
19200-561: The son of Hystaspes, there was an interim period whereby the Magi ruled over Persia. This important anecdote is supplied by Herodotus who wrote the Magian ruled Persia for 7 months after the death of Cambyses. Josephus , on the other hand, says they obtained the government of the Persians for a year. The king-list that Manetho had access to is unknown to us, but of the surviving king-lists,
19350-480: 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
19500-567: 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
19650-592: The throne and together with the 30 years of reign credited to Unas, would have died past 70 years old. However, forensic examination of his mummy yielded an age at death of no more than 45 years old. This suggests that the cattle count occurred more than once every two years during Unas and Teti's time, possibly irregularly. If so, Unas' 30-year figure on the Turin canon, understood to mean 15 cattle counts, could translate into as little as 15 years, which together with just 11 years during Teti's reign would account for Nikau-Isesi's death at around 40 to 45 years of age. Owing to
19800-479: The throne. This relative chronology is corroborated by archaeological evidence, for example in the tomb of officials serving under these kings. In addition to these sources, Unas was also likely mentioned in the Aegyptiaca , a history of Egypt written in the 3rd century BC during the reign of Ptolemy II (283–246 BC) by the Egyptian priest Manetho . No copies of the Aegyptiaca have survived to this day and it
19950-952: The throne. Unas also left a rock inscription on the island of Elephantine , next to the First Cataract of the Nile in Nubia . In addition, several alabaster vases bearing Unas' cartouche are known. A complete vessel and additional fragments originating from Byblos on the Levantine coast are now in the National Museum of Beirut . A vase of unknown provenance is located in the National Archaeological Museum of Florence and reads "Horus Wadjtawy, living eternally, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, son of Ra, Unas, living eternally". Another vessel, of unknown origins,
20100-452: The transport of 10.40-metre-tall (34.1-foot) palmiform columns of red granite from Elephantine to Saqqara in only four days, a feat for which he was praised by the king. In addition to the important construction works undertaken in Saqqara for the construction of his pyramid complex, building activities also took place on Elephantine. Until 1996, the domestic situation during Unas' reign was thought to have been disastrous, based on reliefs from
20250-437: The transport of granite columns for the construction of the pyramid complex. At the end of the causeway was a large hall leading to a pillared open court surrounded by magazine chambers. The court led into the mortuary temple proper which housed statues of the king and where the offerings to the deceased took place. This was immediately adjacent to the eastern side of the pyramid, which was surrounded by an enclosure wall defining
20400-483: The two copied each other: If one carefully examines the underlying chronological lists of events, one will have full confidence that the design of both is false, as both Berossos and Manetho, as I have said before, want to glorify each his own nation, Berossos the Chaldean , Manetho the Egyptian. One can only stand in amazement that they were not ashamed to place the beginning of their incredible story in each in one and
20550-644: 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
20700-576: The viziers Mehu , Kagemni and Nikau-Isesi and the overseer of the province of Edfu Isi. Given that the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom might not have conceived of dynasties, the distinction between the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties might be illusory. The reigns of Djedkare Isesi and of Unas were a time of changes in Ancient Egyptian religion and in the ideology of kingship, changes that are first demonstrable under Unas. A statistical analysis of clay seal fragments bearing Horus names of pharaohs of
20850-528: The walls of the chambers of his pyramid, a major innovation that was followed by his successors until the First Intermediate Period ( c. 2160 – c. 2050 BC ). These texts identify the king with Ra and with Osiris , whose cult was on the rise in Unas' time, and were meant to help the king reach the afterlife . Unas had several daughters and possibly one or two sons who are believed to have predeceased him. Manetho ,
21000-544: Was a time of economic decline although, as the French Egyptologist Nicolas Grimal writes, it was "by no means a time of decadence". Indeed, the Egyptian state was still capable of mounting important expeditions to provide building stones for the king's pyramid complex. These expeditions are depicted on unique reliefs found in Unas' causeway and are also referred to in the autobiographical stela of an administration official. This official reports
21150-464: Was also a tradition in antiquity that Timotheus of Athens (an authority on Demeter at Eleusis ) directed the project together with Manetho, but the source of this information is not clear and it may originate from one of the literary works attributed to Manetho, in which case it has no independent value and does not corroborate the historicity of Manetho the priest-historian of the early third century BC. The Aegyptiaca ( Αἰγυπτιακά , Aigyptiaka ),
21300-672: Was also familiar with the Greek Epic Cycle (for which the Ethiopian Memnon is slain by Achilles during the Trojan War ) and the history of Argos (in Aeschylus 's Suppliants ). However, it has also been suggested that these were later interpolations , particularly when the epitome was being written, so these guesses are at best tentative. At the behest of Ptolemy Philadelphus (266–228 BC), Manetho copied down
21450-425: Was not the pyramid of Unas nor the associated mortuary temple but rather the statues of the king in the valley temple. This activity could explain why the pyramid complex of Unas was the object of restoration works under the impulse of Prince Khaemweset , a son of Ramesses II (1279–1213 BC). Ancient Egyptian language The Egyptian language , or Ancient Egyptian ( r n kmt ; "speech of Egypt")
21600-410: Was partially dismantled and its materials reemployed for the construction of Amenemhat I and Senusret Is ' own pyramid complexes. In addition to his official cult, Unas was deified and became a local god of the Saqqara necropolis. Grimal attributes this directly to the grandeur of his funerary complex. Malek doubts the existence of a popular cult of Unas during the Old Kingdom but acknowledges it from
21750-440: Was presumed he meant solar days. 432,000 divided by 365 days gives a rough figure of 1,183 + 1 ⁄ 2 years before the Flood. For Manetho, even more numeric contortions ensued. With no flood mentioned, they presumed that Manetho's first era describing the deities represented the ante-diluvian age. Secondly, they took the spurious Book of Sothis for a chronological count. Six dynasties of deities totalled 11,985 years, while
21900-428: 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
22050-479: 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
22200-417: Was still the most important deity of the Egyptian pantheon. Thus, Djedkare Isesi and Unas did not build a sun temple in contrast with most of their Fifth Dynasty predecessors. In addition, the names of Menkauhor Kaiu and Unas do not incorporate any reference to Ra, in rupture with a tradition which held since the reign of Userkaf , about a century earlier. The Pyramid Texts found in Unas' pyramid demonstrate
22350-530: 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,
22500-547: 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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