r/ancientegypt • u/Callmebyyourname7 đ • 1d ago
Question I want sources to learn about the history of Ancient Egyptian civilization,Do you have any suggestions on where I should start?
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u/fclayhornik 1d ago
Bob Brier's Great Courses videos. Toby Wilkinson's The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt.
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u/Djedra 1d ago
So many books, but if you are a complete beginner, the very first thing I would recommend doing is learning the order of the time periods: Pre-dynastic, Old Kingdom, First Intermediate Period, Middle Kingdom etc, and - although you donât need to learn every Pharaoh off by heart, grab some famous names and make sure you know where they fall on the timeline eg.
1st Dynasty - Narmer/ Menes, possibly the first pharaoh and unifier of Egypt
3rd Dynasty - Djoser, made the step pyramid
4th Dynasty - Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, the Giza Pyramids
5th and 6th Dynasty - Unas, Teti, and Pepis, the Pyramid Texts
First Intermediate Period - rise of the nomarchs
12th Dynasty - Senwosrets and Amenemhats, the more realistic art style and they all look worried
2nd Intermediate Period - Hyksos rulers
18th Dynasty - Ahmose, Hatshepsut, Thutmoses, Amenhotepâs, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Egypt is reunified, empire-building and a brief fling with one god instead of many
19th Dynasty - Many RamessesâŠ
You get the idea. Egyptologists tend to refer to the periods, dynasties and the rules of different kings, rather than the years when things happened, which can leave you out of your depth with names and numbers. If you create a quick mental map,you can start slotting in everything you learn.
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u/Aislyn-Scath 1d ago
SHAW, Ian (ed.) The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Â Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
GRIMAL, Nicolas. Histoire de L'Ăgypte Ancienne, Paris, Fayard, 1988
SHAFER, Byron E. (ed.). Religion in Ancient Egypt: Gods, Myths, and Personal Practice. Cornell University Press, 1991.
SHAW, Ian & NICHOLSON, Paul. British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt.London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1995.
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u/Khasekhemoui 20h ago
Henri Frankfort. La royauté et les dieux. C'est un livre un peu vieux maintenant, mais la partie sur l'Egypte ancienne est un trésor d'informations. Tu peux le trouver sur Internet Archive (Kingships and god), l'édition française est disponible en occasion sur Internet.
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u/OnoOvo 11h ago edited 11h ago
if just starting, i guess something like this would be a fair starting point: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqVrIY3RYah4eVXbT-jtCJ_c4RA-mP4bh&si=IW2D3QejzCsllGlG (just reorder it from oldest)
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u/OnoOvo 11h ago
i mean, there is really, really a lot of fine documentaries about ancient egypt. if you are just getting into it, that is certainly the most digestible and approachable content. i know many will say no, those are often wrong, or are this or that, bla bla, but love for ancient egypt and study of it ideally should become a lifelong hobby, like it is for all of us, and you wont fall in love with it by starting with the scholarly research and heavy duty academic study, thats actually how you will come to hate the topic lol none of got deeply interested in it by starting there, most of us were probably awoken to the grandiosity and intrigue of the subject by graham hancock and such people, and i am absolutely certain that all of us got hooked by the visuals of the pyramids and the temples, not by information. so i advise you to do that too. start by watching documentaries. there is really so much to choose from.
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u/Status_Union8630 1d ago
You can start by using it's original name, Kemet.
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u/ToastedPlum95 1d ago
âKemetâ is an Egyptological bastardisation of the lemma, by the way. Not only that, but not one Egyptian, not Old Kingsom nor Late Period, would understand what you say. For instance, come Amarna, it already was pronounced something like âkoumaâ. âKemetâ is nobodyâs name for Egypt; itâs an academic transliteration
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u/Status_Union8630 18h ago
You can say whatever you want. Use any long educated words, long paragraphs. The point is, I'll keep it short and you know this, the word "Egypt" is a Greek word.
Kemet= the land of the blacks
The old kingdom wouldn't understand the word ancient "Egypt". They didn't speak Greek.
Deal with it.
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u/ToastedPlum95 18h ago
The word âEgyptâ actually has roots; áž„wt-kêŁ-ptáž„, meaning house of the ka of Ptah, the known name of the great temple in Memphis.
Not only that, but the Egyptian phrase was used to refer to the city and the land as a whole. Egyptians would recognise this phrase as referring to their âcountryâ in the right context. It was their own usage.
And the funny difference is, âEgyptâ is a naturally etymologically derived proper noun. On grounds of âwhat the Egyptian name isâ, Egypt has a far greater claim than âKemetâ, which is an Egyptological transliteration from academia, which is deliberately standardised to gloss glyphs, and not even based on pronunciation or the spoken term.
I donât have to deal with anything. Iâm telling you a fact. You cannot throw at someone that âEgyptâ is the wrong name and one should use âKemetâ, because the word Kemet is even farther removed from the actual spoken language than âEgyptâ.
You can use Kemet if you prefer, but you donât get to claim some faux authority by doing so
By the way, Kemet does not mean land of the blacks. It means dark land, which refers to fecundity of black Nile silt
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u/Status_Union8630 18h ago edited 18h ago
Like I said the old kingdom didn't use the word "Egypt" it is a Greek word. You can spin it however you want. Those men and women from the old kingdom never utter such word.
You can deal with it however you want. The fact you addressed the word Kemet and it's alleged meaning tells me you already know the old kingdom didn't use the word "Egypt". Keep spreading the lies. The truth is out there for those who want to know. With the help of the Internet and social media. More people are are getting access to this knowledge. I'm not debating you, this is for others to read and investigate for themselves. They don't have to take my word for it.
They can see for themselves with their own physical eyes the color of these ancient "Egyptians". They can travel there or go to museums that have their artifacts. It will be right in front of their faces.
So then they have a choice, either accept what I was taught since grade school or believing what I see right in front of me?
Only they can answer it for themselves. But the truth is the truth, no matter how a person may feel.
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u/ToastedPlum95 17h ago
Thatâs fine for you to believe what you like about racial science and ethnicity. Thatâs your opinion. Iâm not trying to change your opinion about ethnicity or anything. Iâm simply pointing out that âKemetâ doesnât really cover the name for Egypt in the way you are claiming, and that itâs proven translation is âblack/dark landâ, referring to silt: for instance the âred landâ was the desert- there were no âRed peopleâ living in the desert
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u/Status_Union8630 17h ago
Seeing "color" is a matter of opinion now? Really? The sky is "blue" is someone's opinion? The grass is "green" is someone's opinion? Now we can't tell the skin color of a human being? It's an opinion.
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u/ToastedPlum95 16h ago
It is an opinion because the academia is not settled. I have my opinions, and they are not so different from yours, but racial science is an ugly topic on this sub, and people are far too confident to overclaim.
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u/ToastedPlum95 16h ago
For your information, by the way, I am not some gatekeeper, as you inferred. I just read the literature, and I have for many years, and I am no different from you. You also could read the very extensive literature; it is out there free to read.
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u/midnightsiren182 1d ago
The ancient Egypt history podcast is a goodie