MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

AZERBAİJAN UNİVERSİTY OF LANGUAGES

FACULTY: EDUCATİON 2
SPECIALIZATION: ENGLİSH TEACHER
GROUP: 121A
TOPIC: ANCİENT EGYPT CULTURE
ACADEMIC SUFERVISOR: TARANA ZEYNALOVA
STUDENT: BAHAR RASULZADEH
 PLAN

 Life in ancient egypt

 Religion in ancient egypt
 Life after death
 Statues
 Mummification
 Literature
Ancient Egyptian Culture flourished between c. 6000 BCE with the
rise of technology (as evidenced in the glasswork of faience) and 30
BCE with the death of Cleopatra VII, the last Ptolemaic ruler of
Egypt. It is famous today for the great monuments which celebrated
the triumphs of the rulers and honored the gods of the land.
The culture is often misunderstood as having been obsessed with
death but, had this been so, it is unlikely it would have made the
significant impression it did on other ancient cultures such as
Greece and Rome.
This passion for life imbued in the ancient Egyptians a great love for their land as it was
thought that there could be no better place on earth in which to enjoy existence. While
the lower classes in Egypt, as elsewhere, subsisted on much less than the more affluent,
they still seem to have appreciated life in the same way as the wealthier citizens. This is
exemplified in the concept of gratitude and the ritual known as The Five Gifts of Hathor
in which the poor laborers were encouraged to regard the fingers of their left hand (the
hand they reached with daily to harvest field crops) and to consider the five things they
were most grateful for in their lives. Ingratitude was considered a ‘gateway sin’ as it led
to all other types of negative thinking and resultant behavior. Once one felt ungrateful, it
was observed, one then was apt to indulge oneself further in bad behavior. The Cult of
Hathor was very popular in Egypt, among all classes, and epitomizes the prime
importance of gratitude in Egyptian culture.
 Religion in Ancient Egypt
Religion was an integral part of the daily life of every
Egyptian. As with the people of Mesopotamia, the Egyptians
considered themselves co-laborers with the gods but with an
important distinction: whereas the Mesopotamian peoples
believed they needed to work with their gods to prevent the
recurrence of the original state of chaos, the Egyptians
understood their gods to have already completed that purpose
and a human’s duty was to celebrate that fact and give thanks
for it. So-called ‘Egyptian mythology’ was, in ancient times, as
valid a belief structure as any accepted religion in the modern
day
Egyptian religion taught the people that,
in the beginning, there was nothing but
chaotic swirling waters out of which
rose a small hill known as the ben-ben.
Atop this hill stood the great god Atum
who spoke creation into being by
drawing on the power of Heka, the god
of magic. Heka was thought to pre-date
creation and was the energy which
allowed the gods to perform their duties.
Magic informed the entire civilization,
and Heka was the source of this
creative, sustaining, eternal power.
The Egyptians were one of the first major civilizations to codify
design elements in art. The wall painting done in the service of
the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and
meanings. Early Egyptian art is characterized by the absence of
linear perspective, which results in a seemingly flat space.
These artists tended to create images based on what they knew,
and not as much on what they saw. Objects in these artworks
generally do not decrease in size as they increase in distance
and there is little shading to indicate depth. Sometimes,
distance is indicated through the use of tiered space, where
more distant objects are drawn higher above the nearby objects,
but in the same scale and with no overlapping of forms. People
and objects are almost always drawn in profile.
Most people in ancient Egypt were farmers. They lived with their families in houses made
of mud bricks that were near the Nile River.
The Nile flooded each year, leaving behind fertile soil for planting crops like wheat,
barley, lettuce, flax, and papyrus. As the Egyptians learned how to move river water to
their fields, they were able to grow more food, including grapes, apricots, olives, and
beans.
During flood season, farmers couldn’t tend their crops. So instead, some worked building
pyramids, tombs, and monuments. Other people worked as scribes (people who recorded
events), priests, and doctors.
Women in ancient Egypt had more freedom than those in
other ancient cultures. Like men, they could be scribes,
priests, and doctors, and they usually had the same rights as
men. Women could own their own homes and businesses.
Ancient Egyptians also like to have fun! They swam and
canoed in the Nile, played board games, and they enjoyed
making music and dancing.
 There are three key figures of the Old Kingdom
(circa 2700–2100 B.C.E.) who drove the
development of Egypt’s most famous monument,
the pyramid. As the architect to King Djoser
(circa 2650–2575 B.C.E.), Imhotep is credited
with the development of a six-layer
step pyramid at Saqqarah and is the only key
figure we cite who is not a ruler. The world’s
oldest stone monument, the Step Pyramid, was
built over a mastaba, an older form of a
rectangular, one-layer tomb in use at the time and
is considered the essential first step in the
development of the pyramid.
 Amenhotep IV (reigned circa 1353–1336 B.C.E.) instituted
dramatic changes in Egyptian religion by promoting the worship of
the sun god, Aten, at the expense of other traditional Egyptian gods.
Changing his name to Akhenaten, he declared that as pharaoh, he
was the highest priest in the land. Through this move, he effectively
dismissed the priests of the chief god of the pantheon, Amun. Busy
establishing a new capital in Amarna, he neglected other aspects of
political rule, which would have been disastrous, had he not died.
Shortly thereafter, the priests and people went back to traditional
worship and the capital returned to Memphis.
In ancient Egypt, every citizen was entitled to
a proper burial. The process, known as
mummification, is one of the oldest and most
complex burial practices in history.
The Road to the Afterlife:
Mummification preserves the body in the
most life-like state possible. Mummification,
or the embalming of a dead body, was
practiced throughout most of ancient Egyptian
history. Everyone, rich or poor, received some
kind of embalming process after death.
These images, whether statues or reliefs, were designed
to benefit a divine or deceased recipient. Statuary
provided a place for the recipient to manifest and
receive the benefit of ritual action. Most statues show a
formal frontality, meaning they are arranged straight
ahead, because they were designed to face the ritual
being performed before them. Many statues were also
originally placed in recessed niches or other
architectural settings—contexts that would make
frontality their expected and natural mode.
Statuary, whether divine, royal, or elite, provided a kind
of conduit for the spirit (or ka) of that being to interact
with the terrestrial realm.
Divine cult statues (few of which survive) were the subject of
daily rituals of clothing, anointing, and perfuming with incense
and were carried in processions for special festivals so that the
people could “see” them—they were almost all entirely shrouded
from view, but their «presence» would have been felt.
Royal and elite statuary served as intermediaries between the
people and the gods. Family chapels with the statuary of a
deceased forefather could serve as a sort of «family temple.»
There were festivals in honor of the dead, where the family
would come and eat in the chapel, offering food for the Afterlife,
flowers (symbols of rebirth), and incense (the scent of which was
considered divine). Preserved letters let us know that the
deceased was actively petitioned for their assistance, both in this
world and the next.
 LITERATURE
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/ancient-mediterranean-ap/ancient-
egypt-ap/a/egyptian-art

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://
kids.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-
egypt&ved=2ahUKEwjbpeSAydSCAxUxSvEDHUr4BesQFnoECCYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw212MlmzcCH8
lSEOC1BK8h3

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://
www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Culture/
&ved=2ahUKEwjbpeSAydSCAxUxSvEDHUr4BesQFnoECBYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0XJBEev-
epRleeqt3FscZp
Thank you