♪ [music playing--no dialogue] ♪♪ >> dr. allen lanham:well, good morning and welcome to booth libraryand our continuation of our series on ancient egypt. we are midway through our courseand we have a delightful program this morning from our universityarchivist, robert hillman, and to continue looking at thevarious facets of life during and after the ancient egyptians. so, dr. wafeek wahby of course,the coordinator.
>> dr. wafeek wahby: good morning and thank you for coming to this sessionof the "futuristic look through ancient lenses" and ilike what you said a minute ago, that this is the nearestyou can get to egypt at this time, so i hopeyou enjoy your trip. you want to know anything abouteastern illinois university history, here is the man. [laughter]. i ask him about anything, anyinformation that you want to
know, 100 years, more than100 years ago, any pictures, any image--he has amazingmemory and amazing resources, so thank you very much foraccepting to present. >> mr. robert hillman:well, first of all, i don't want to set myselfup as being an expert on egypt because i'mdefinitely not. i'm learning just like quite afew other people, this month, about egypt and i've been there,which is more than some people have done, but otherwise, i'mnot an expert at all.
in a way that the term archivesis defined today--i'm not going to go into definitions--atleast by the professionals, the ancient egyptians leftfew archives behind as to the kind of things wehave today in archives. most of the [unclear dialogue]written records, concerning the conduct fortheir affairs for example, did not survive over time. also, most of the writtenrecords pertaining to the functioning of the kings, theadministrators, priests, nobles,
merchants, all thatkind of thing, most of it did not survive. there's some examplesof things that did survive but, for themost part, it didn't. however, what i will argue isthat because of the extraordinary measures taken bythe ancient egyptians to preserve, for all eternity,certain things certain aspects oftheir culture. the things that they did leavebehind, survived for all these
centuries because of themeasures that were taken. and that these things constitutea rich archives, indeed, in place of the kind of thingsthat we think of today as archives--the writings or thescribes, the wall carvings on the temples, the paintings inthe tombs, the sculptures, both large and small, and otherobjects of of physical culture--all these thingstogether constitute the true archives of ancient egypt. they provide deep insights intothe cultural, historical,
religious and secularlife of the people. that's all we have but, insome ways, it's enough. thought you might liketo see this picture. it's a little bit grainy, butyou can sort of get the idea. some eager travelers heretrying to learn about egypt in three days. >> male audience member:[unclear dialogue]. >> mr. hillman: on the left, yes i will admit. that's my sister and mymother--the three of us took
this trip to egypt. >> male audience member: when was that? >> mr. hillman:twenty-nine, well, almost 30 years ago. next marchit'll be 30 years. so we had a lot of fun, welearned a lot, but were not there nearly long enough. it's hard to overestimate theimportance of scribes in depicting and preserving,for the future,
the culture of ancient egypt. so i'd like to talk for a littlewhile about them. it's my view that the scribeswere the true archivists of ancient egypt. this slide shows a drawingof a scribe at work, and [unclear dialogue]. also shown are some of the toolsof the trade--all of those are ceremonial versions of them--andan example hieroglyphics and then another example of a morecursive style of hieroglyphics.
and the next slide shows asculpture that the previous drawing was, no doubt, made frombecause it's almost identical. the sculpture was 2700 to 2100bc, really old. it looks very modern to me. this one's carved from a stonecalled grey rock, and the sculpture is of a seated scribeand it dates from 1400 bc, not long before the timeof king tutankhamun. i got several pictures here ofsculptures of scribes. this one is made of granite,it dates from 2400 bc,
during the old kingdom. it depicts an actualscribe, a person known as [unclear dialogue]. this one's carved out of a blockof granite around 1300 bc, again about the timeof king tutankhamun. the sculpture also depicts anactual scribe known as haremhab. and this was carved froma stone on a schist, and it dates from about 580 bc. this sculpture also portrays anactual person, a scribe named
i'm not getting thesenames right, i'm sure, but that's my versionof the names. this one is, was carved out ofwood, and about 1300 bc, and this piece shows the royalscribe amenemopet on the left, and his wife whosename was hathor. and around the base of it, ahymn to the god amun-re was inscribed at the pedestal. this is a relief carving from atomb dating to about 1300 bc, and it also depictsan actual person.
he was a royal scribenamed [unclear dialogue], the brother of kingtutankhamun's treasurer. he's shown wearing the elaboratecourt attire of the new kingdom. this one is a relief carvingfrom a mastabah, or tomb. it dates from about 2500 bc andthis piece shows three scribes at work painting hieroglyphicson papyrus scrolls. from these images i think youcan begin to appreciate the importance of scribesin ancient egypt. some even became prominentenough to have their images
carved in expensive stones thathad to be hauled hundreds of miles, and to beburied in elaborately decorated tombs of their own. so they were very prominent,some of them were very rich and very influential and held otheroffices other than scribe. less than 1 percent of thepeople in ancient egypt were literate, so these scribes wereindeed among the privileged people in the country. also, there was quite ahierarchy of scribes, and so
they had apprentices andexperienced scribes, master scribes and royal scribes, andthe latter categories of people probably mostly supervised thework of others, but they came with lots of experienceto their positions. scribes were quite often theson of a scribe, so from one generation to the next, theywere all scribes--one after the other over hundredsof years' time. this picture is from a museumdisplay obviously and it's a collection of palates and brushholders used by the scribes
during the old kingdom, so thesedate from about 2500 bc or so. red and black were thepredominant pigments used, although other colors weresometimes employed. and this one looks just like theother ones, and this dates from 1100 or about 1000 bc. about 1500 years newer than theprevious example, so you can see that apparently the scribes andthe ancient egyptian technology didn't improve very fast. it continued the same centuryafter century after century in
some cases. this slide shows an apprenticescribe's practice board. it's wood and they couldwhitewash it and practice their hieroglyphic characters. this dates from about 2000 bc. we saw these picturesright at the beginning. this is the ceremonial brushholder from tutankhamun's tomb, and the importance of royalscribes was recognized by egyptian kings to the extentthat they are placed in the
afterlife of therulers [unclear dialogue]. some of the kings may notthemselves have been literate, relying instead on their scribesand priests for preparing the way for them in a time to comeand for perpetuating their stories for future generations. this of course is a shot of thefamous rosetta stone--part of it--and along with an image ofthe man, a french linguist, jean-francois champollion, whowas given credit for finally deciphering the rosetta stone.
it's inscribed in threedifferent languages. the stone was discovered in 1799by napoleon's army in the village of rashid, a name thatwas europeanized as "rosetta". many ancient structures werelater desecrated, so this was one of the stones that had beenpart of another building at some point, and it wasfound centuries later in this small village. the rosetta stone providedscholars with the essential clues for interpretinghieroglyphic script, and thus
helped bring the story ofancient egypt to life. here's the actual rosetta stone,and it's in the british museum, as we learned earlier in one ofthe other presentations. it's made of graniteand it measures about 2 feet by 4 feet, roughly. it dates from thereign of ptolemy v, [unclear dialogue]about 196 bc. originally part of an ancienttemple, as i mentioned, the stone was inscribed with roughlythe same message in
hieroglyphics,demotic, and greek. okay now i'm going to talkfor a while about papyrus and a few other things relatedto that, but before i do, i've got some examples ofpapyrus here to pass around. these are contemporary papyri,of course, but there's quite an industry in egypt ofselling these kind of things to the tourists, so i'vegot a few samples there for you to look at. papyrus was very integral to thelives of the egyptians, egyptian
people, and it figuredlargely in their artwork, their sculpture,their architecture, their cultural identityand their commerce with other civilizations. i've read somewhere that theythink they might have even, at one time, tried tofigure out how to eat it. i don't think it was necessarybecause they had a rich granary supply in that country, butthere was a thought that they tried to figure out how tocultivate it for food, too.
this wall painting is from thetomb of menna, of a hunting scene in a papyrus thicket, andit dates from about 1400 bc. this is one that was painted ordone as a wall painting, 1600 or 1500 bc, and it's from amarnaand it depicts, obviously, ducks in a papyrus swamp--similar tothe other one, less elaborate. consider probably one of themost realistic depictions of tutankhamun, this wood andstucco sculpture shows the head of the boy king. what's interesting to my littlediscussion here is that it's
perched on topof a papyrus stalk. they could've mounted it onanything, but they put it on top of a papyrus stalk, so that'sanother indication of how important they thought thatplant was to them. this one is madeprincipally of ivory. it's a perfume jar fromthe tomb of tutankhamun, and it has papyrus-shapedhandles on this side and lotus-shaped handleson the other side. we saw [unclear dialogue]at the beginning too.
this is a papyrus, ceremonialpapyrus burnisher, and it was placed in the tombalong with other tools. they're sort of ceremonial, butthey wanted to be sure that the scribes in the afterlife hadtheir tools of their trade. and what this was used for, whenthey made the papyrus--after the papyrus was woven together--theywould take burnishers and real finely mesh the reeds together,and i'm not an expert on the technology of it, but apparentlythe papyrus i'm showing is much cruder than the versionthat they would have had
back when they used it as paper and marketed all overthe ancient world. in real life, the laborers usedmuch more utilitarian burnishers to press together and smooth thesurface of the woven papyrus reeds to create a suitablewriting surface. for centuries, egypt producedlarge quantities of papyrus, which was used for its own needsand as a major export product to trade for luxurygoods and materials not available intheir own country.
this photo shows the elaboratelydecorated coffin of a woman named nesi-khonsu--theenchantress of amun-re she was called--and this datesfrom the 9th century bc. depicted on the interior ofher coffin are scenes from "the book of the dead," butalso there's papyrus motif and it's used constantly in thetomb paintings and coffins-- it's just a veryrecurring symbol. dating from about 1040 bc, thisis one of the opening scenes of "the book of the dead" of nany,a woman in her 70's which is
pretty rare, to be 70-years-old,that age in ancient egypt. books of the dead were alsoreferred to sometimes as "books of coming forth by day". the papyrus scroll onwhich the panel was painted was found in her tomb. on the left of thescene stands osiris, the god of theunderworld and rebirth. the deceased has placed anoffering for osiris on a small table, and stalks of papyrusseparate the two images.
this is one of the principleimages of the scroll found in nany's tomb. the entire scroll measures morethan 17-feet long, unrolled. the scene depictedhere shows the climax to the journey ofthe afterlife. nany is in the hall of judgment,holding her mouth and eyes in her right hand. and behind her standsthe goddess isis, and in this scene nany'sheart is being weighed
for its truthfulness. operating the scale is ajackal-headed god anubis, who's the overseerof mummification. in the end, according to thehieroglyphic inscription--which of course, i can read, youknow--anubis announces to osiris that nany has been found worthyof entering the afterlife, to which osiris replies "giveher her eyes and her mouth since her heart is anaccurate witness". this papyrus is from "the bookof the dead" from a scribe named
ani, dating from about 1200 bc. the scene depicts ani's funeraryboat with the mummy stretched out on a bed, and below that thecanopic vessels, jars, containing ani's liver, lungs,stomach and intestines. they were removed from thebody and mummified along with the rest of the body,and they separated them and put them inthese canopic jars. the text below the scenerecounts the journey that ani is undertaking to the afterlife.
dating from about 1300 bc,this papyrus painting is from "the book of the dead" ofhunefer, and that's the theme of my t-shirt by theway--in case you get the chance to look at it later. in this scene, anubis, theoverseer of mummification --here--is introducingthe deceased to the weighing of the heart. and here's still another versionof that same scene. this is, dates from about 1250bc and it shows how important
this particular, this was sortof the climax scene of the books of the dead because that's whatdetermined whether the person was worthy or not, and probablythere aren't any that weren't worthy because they wouldn'thave had a big thing made about them and buried in a bigtomb and everything. dating from about 1000 bc, thisscene is from the papyrus scroll "book of the dead"from the tomb of henuttowy, musicianpriestess of amun-re. this scene shows the nakedfigure of henuttowy and thoth,
the god of wisdom and writing,who is represented as a baboon. both figures are paying homageto the solar disc containing the sacred eye as it risesover the mountains. dating from about 1500 bc,this papyrus panel shows queen hatshepsut, butshe's dressed as the goddess isis, andwith the god osiris. the inscription is written in amodified form of hieroglyphics, which was faster forthe scribes to execute. and we saw thissample last night.
this papyrus sheetshows an even more cursive scriptknown as hieratic. it's thought to be the world'soldest--this particular one is thought to be the oldestsurviving surgical document, written in about 1600 bc. the text describes anatomicalobservations and diagnoses and treatment of a varietyof medical problems. in addition to hieroglyphics,scribes were often expected to be literate in hieratics, whichwas used in non-ritual,
non-religious,more routine documents. okay, i want to turn for amoment to a discussion of the ancient egyptian temples. very short. we've seen quite a bit of thesebefore in the course of this symposium, so i won't dwell toomuch on it, but it's good to remember that many temples didnot survive over time. they were cannibalized fortheir billing materials, a lot of them were and so someof the ones remaining are
the fairly newerones, in some cases. there's a fewolder ones that do. of the many temple viewsthat could be shown, i'll present only a few. typically, the temples werecovered in hieroglyphics, from top to bottom--the walls,the pillars, the ceilings-- and you've got a good exampleof it in the program, where everything that you cansee in the picture basically was covered by hieroglyphics.
these inscriptions served toglorify the particular deity that was being honored by thetemple and also the pharaoh's embodiment of that god'squalities. the view shown here is the mainapproach to the luxor temple, built during the reign of ramsesii, or ramses the great, in the mid-13th century bc. the temple is guarded by anobelisk dedicated to ramses and two colossal statues of himdepicted as the god osiris. this scene is fromthe courtyard of
ramses ii, insidethe luxor temple. and this slide shows thecolossal statue of ramses ii at the entrance to the processionalcolonnade at the luxor temple. note the hieroglyphics,as i mentioned, some of which is fallen off,around the base and the throne. built during the 15th centurybc, this slide shows the main corridor through thetemple of amun at karnak, which is very close to luxor. on the left is the obelisksdedicated to queen hatshepsut,
and on the right is theobelisk of thutmose i. this slide shows the rock-cuttemples of ramses ii on the left, and queennefertari on the right, and these are at abu simbel,quite a ways south in egypt, in the 13th century bc. this is close-up of one of thefeatures in this temple here. this photo is of a colossalstatue at the temple of hathor, nefertari's temple. what is clearly visible here, asat all of the temples, is a
powerful message and the messageis sent by the sculptural works, as well as the splendidhieroglyphic inscriptions conveying important messages forfuture generations. it was the royal scribes whowrote these message on the temples and supervised theartisans who carved them in stone, thus the scribes were,in a sense, archivists, as well as artistsand craftsmen. now i'd like to talk alittle bit about the tombs of ancient egypt.
we've seen this before in thecourse of our symposium--this is the famous step pyramid of thepharaoh djoser at saqqara, about the 27th century bc. it's a central figure of a vastmortuary complex surrounded by ceremonial structures. the first egyptian pyramidever to be built, this pyramid originallystood about 203 feet tall. it's eroded away to some extent,but it was clad in polished white limestone originally.
this structure is consideredto be the earliest monumental cut stone buildingin the world. inscriptions inside the tombname the king as netjerykhet, or something like that. djoser was the name that wasused centuries later to refer to this pharaoh. in addition to being a grave forthe ruler, the purpose of the pyramid was to facilitate asuccessful afterlife for the king so that he couldbe eternally reborn.
therefore the scribes andartisans who decorated the interior took pains todocument the king's life, and to justify his worthinessfor eternal afterlife. interestingly, they evendocumented and preserved, for all time, the name of thepyramid's architect, a man named imhotep who, asi learned last night, was also a physician. so it's just incredible whatkinds of things did survive even for 4,000 or 5,000years, just amazing.
within walking distance of thestep pyramid of saqqara is the pyramid of unas, who reignedduring the 5th dynasty in the 24th century bc. this photo shows the excavated[unclear dialogue] leading up to the pyramid, as well as thepyramid itself, which has deteriorated far more than theolder one, the step pyramid. this photo, which was takeninside the pyramid of unas, has walls that are completelycovered in hieroglyphics and relief carvings.
like the step pyramid, theinscriptions here are designed to perpetuate the life of theking and to ensure his safe entry into an eternal afterlife. clearly the scribes were busyeven at this early period, and they were largelysuccessful in their endeavor to immortalizetheir king. in modern times, when the burialchamber was finally entered, about 1881, very little remainedof the contents--grave robbers had long ago gotten therefirst--but the all-important
inscriptions hadsurvived as the archives. this photo shows the burialchamber in the tomb for, built for a man named sennefer inabout 1450 bc at thebes, which is not far from cairo. highly decorated with artworkas well as inscriptions, and of course "the book of thedead," this is the tomb of a powerful administrator, buthe wasn't a pharaoh himself. he was the highly trusted aideto amenhotep ii. sennefer held many officessimultaneously, including--or
what we might call a mayor ofthe city of thebes--the chancellor to the pharaoh, theoverseer to the fields and granaries of amun, the highpriest of amun. through his many offices, hebecame rich, powerful and highly respected, and his tombsurely provides ample evidence of hisinfluential life. this is a view of the valley ofthe kings and queens, located across the nile from luxor, andthere's a lot of other views that could be taken from furtheraway that maybe gives more of
an idea of what the mountainswere like there but this is one i chose. dating from about 1300bc, this scene is from the tomb of ramses i. he was the founder of the 19thdynasty and the grandfather of the powerful ramses ii. this scene shows thepharaoh flanked by horus, god of the sky, and anubis,god of mummification. the tomb is located in thevalley of the kings.
dating from the 12th century bc,this slide shows the elaborate hieroglyphic inscriptionscovering the walls of the tomb of ramses iv, in thevalley of the kings. this one shows wall paintingsfrom tomb of ramses vi, dating from the12th century bc. inscriptions and paintingsfrom the sarcophagus chamber, this wall depicts "the bookof the earth," including the re-emergence of thesun from the earth. this photo is the modern dayentrance to the tomb of
king tutankhamun, whoreigned for a brief time in the mid-14th century bc. at the time of my visithere, some 30 years ago, throngs of tourists were stillallowed inside of the tomb. i think they have morerestricted entrance now. and of course, this is theiconic mask of tutankhamun, which covered the mummy andthis is sort of like one of the main symbols of egypt. it's used throughout, throughall kinds of decorative motifs.
i've seen it in person twoor three times in exhibits, and i saw it in themuseum in cairo. made of solid gold, inlaid withbands of lapis lazuli, carnelian, quartz, obsidian,turquoise and colored glass. in a way, even though it's anobject, it's an archival piece because it tells so muchabout ancient egypt, as do some of these otherpieces i'll be showing you. this is a photo of the elaboratependant found on the mummy of king tutankhamun,displaying the so-called
"eye of horus" which was oftenused as a protective amulet. king tutankhamun's ceremonialscepter, made of sheet gold beaten on a wooden core. this shaft is in the form ofa papyrus flower and stem, and it's embellished at eachend with a feather design [unclear dialogue] and inlaidwith carnelion, turquoise, lapis lazuli, [unclear dialogue]and glass. the inscription reads, inpart--i don't know how they could get all of this inthat inscription--but
"the good god, the beloved,dazzling of face like aton when it shines, the son ofamun, living forever". this is a decorative box inthe shape of a cartouche, with the name of theking, tutankhamun. hieroglyphic inscriptions inthis form are usually reserved for the king, althoughoccasionally the names of other people of high rank weredepicted in cartouches. of course today, anybodycan get a cartouche. it's a main toursist draw, andthe companies send
representatives on the tour bus,and the first day you're there and you decide whether you'regoing to order a cartouche, and if you do a couple dayslater they come back with your finished cartouche of your name. this one's my mother's actually. a cartouche is an oval ring thatis a representation of a length of rope--i don't know thatyou can tell that or not-- that is tied at one end. when displaying the name of theking, it symbolized everything
that the sun encircled, and isthus an indication of the king's rule in the cosmos. you've seen this boxbefore in the symposium. as dr. lanham mentionedearlier, it was a shoe box, so it's not very big but itlooks very well ornamented. it's from tutankhamun's tomb,and depicting the king hunting lions on the top, and at thebottom doing battle against the nubians--the peoplethat lived south of egypt. i'm going to show you a seriesof slides, and each one is going
to be like what was inside ofthe one before. this slide and its contents isan example of the extent to which the tomb builders, scribesand artisans would go to provide for the king's afterlife. the photo shows the exteriorof king tutankhamun's canopic shrine, guardedby four goddesses. made of wood and guilded ingold, the shrine served to protect the mummifiedremains of the king's essential internal organs.
inside that was this--it's analabaster vessel, holding four alabaster canopic jarscontaining king tutankhamun's mummified lungs, liver,stomach and intestines. and then inside of thosejars--king tutankhamun's internal organs were not placeddirectly into the alabaster jars, however, but within foursmall coffins of solid gold inlaid with coloredglass and carnelian. these were miniature replicas ofhis middle coffin and his sarcophagus, showing the king asthe god osiris, wearing an
artificial beard andholding the crook and flail. now this slide showsthe inside of one of king tutankhamun'scanopic caskets. inscribed in hieroglyphics,sorry--it was felt that the king would need his internal organsin his afterlife so everything possible was done to preservethem and have them clearly identified, in thesehieroglyphic inscriptions in here, as belonging totutankhamun. i hope that i've succeeded herein demonstrating that the
scribes in ancient egypt can beseen as the de facto archivists of their civilization. by recording historichappenings, religious rituals, royal events and activities ofdaily life in such a detailed and permanent way--on templewalls, the walls of tombs and on artifacts concealed intombs--the ancient scribes preserved the essentialelements of their culture and transmitted this wonderfulheritage through the ages. now in case you're interestedin going to egypt,
here's your ticket. this is actually the ticket thatwe used when we flew from cairo to luxor and back. egypt air. and this is a bank note that ibrought back with me. you can see all of the motifsthat are used in it still today, and they really reveretheir past in egypt and you can tell that they do. your camel is waiting.
that's all i have. [audience applause] >> dr. wahby: any questions? can you do thisarchivic presentation more interesting i wonder. any questions or comments. >> male speaker: hey, bob. were the scribes partof a priest caste or were they kind oftheir own caste?
>> mr. hillman: well, i think it depended because if they wereattached to the king's inner circle, theywould be, most of them would have been part ofthat, but there were scribes in all walks of life and their weremerchants and administrators who were in charge of differentparts of the country. you know, the daily affairsof different industries and so forth, and they all hadscribes, so i think the answer is most of them were not,but then some were.
the ones that succeeded inpreserving their work were, because the work of the otherscribes didn't survive. most of the papyrus deterioratedand some things got flooded and destroyed that way, so ithink the answer is two-fold. >> male speaker: thank you. >> female speaker: most of the scribe was wrote up and down,is that right? or it could be wrote across? >> mr. hillman:well, i think--i'm
not an expert in this atall--but i think it was mostly up and down, although i haveseen it the other way. >> dr. wahby: i think they did it both ways. but question regarding thescribes that we have seen-- do they use pencil orreed or something? >> mr. hillman: when they were writing on papyrus, they used,it was sort of like a little reed that hada slant at the end, and one account said they wouldsuck on it to make it sort
of flexible so that thepigment would adhere to it and be flexible enough sothey could draw with it. >> dr. wahby:[unclear dialogue] >> mr. hillman: in a sense, yeah. it wasn't a brushlike we know today, with bristles andthings like that. >> dr. wahby:obviously they used very high quality, orgood quality ink. >> mr. hillman: they did, yeah, obviously.
it's amazing. >> dr. wahby: [unclear dialogue]. [laughter] back to the archivingprocess--is there anything in your research that says they didit simultaneously as events are going on, or is itkind of aftermath? >> mr. hillman: i don't really know that for sure, but becauseof the time it took to do it, i think mostof it would be after
the event because it wasn'tsomething they could just scribble out--they weredoing hieroglyphics. >> dr. wahby:any indication on the reeds-- quote, unquote--theyused to cut in stone? i mean the methodor [unclear dialogue]. >> mr. hillman: you know i don't really know for sure howthey did that. we've had some talk about it in one of the othersessions i came to.
>> dr. wahby: it's amazing how accurate the lines are. >> mr. hillman: i know, and they've survived all these centuries,so they must have used some kind of a ropeto make lines with so that they couldhave straight lines. i don't read up muchon the process of it. >> dr. wahby:question--what is the fascination with this andthe [unclear dialogue].
>> mr. hillman:well, i mean this cartouche is-- you can come up and takea closer look at it-- this is part of mymother's name. she bought it when wewere over in egypt, and i didn't buy one--ilike gold jewelry and i didn't want to spend 10 timesas much, so i didn't get one. and this is course--i mean ihaven't had this more than two weeks or the papyrusmore than two weeks. >> dr. wahby: any other questions or comments?
i think we need tobring this to a close. [no dialogue].
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