The exhibition beautifully captures how religion shaped the region
by GARRY SHAW | 17 December 2015
In the British Museum's latest exhibition, Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs, there is a long fragment of papyrus, one of many on display, written in Greek and called the Gospel of Thomas. What is striking about this fragment is not its beauty or penmanship, but the era in which it was written. In Oxyrhynchus, an Egyptian city, the scroll’s Christian owner had copied the text less than 300 years after the death of Jesus, a time when the ancient Egyptian gods were still widely worshipped, before the acceptance of Christianity across the Roman Empire and before the appearance of Islam. To many of his contemporaries in Egypt, this ancient copyist—a man simply trying to preserve his messiah's sayings—would have been a rebel. He could not have predicted how Egypt, and the whole world, would change over the coming centuries, or that the church would forbid Christians from reading the very text he was copying once the contents of the New Testament had been agreed upon.
Religious development—its continuation and transformation—is at the heart of Egypt: Faith After the Pharaohs. It is what makes the show so fascinating and ambitious. Taking visitors from 30BC to AD1171, the exhibition is divided into three main sections, covering the Romans in Egypt and their interactions with the Jews and early Christians, the transition to Egypt as part of a Christian Empire and then, through the Byzantine Era, onwards into the Islamic Period. It is a millennium often ignored by museums in favour of Egypt's more ancient glories. Where most exhibitions end, this one begins.
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Sunday, November 29, 2015
What Is Coptic and Who Were the Copts in Ancient Egypt?
A short history of ancient Egyptian language
By Megan Sauter
What is Coptic, and who were the Copts in ancient Egypt?
The Coptic language is the final stage of ancient Egyptian language. Even though it looks very different from texts written in Old Egyptian using hieroglyphs, the two are related. In his article “Coptic—Egypt’s Christian Language” in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Leo Depuydt gives a short history of the development of ancient Egyptian language and shows where the Coptic language fits in that timeline, as well as answering the question: Who were the Copts.
What Is Coptic?
The Coptic language developed around 300 C.E. in Egypt. It is Egyptian language written using the Greek alphabet, as well as a couple of Demotic signs. This script was much easier to learn than the earlier writing systems used in ancient Egypt: hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic scripts.
Coptic was the lingua franca of Egypt when Egypt was predominantly Christian. Many assume that the Coptic language was developed primarily to spread Christianity, but Depuydt disagrees. He supports the great Belgian Coptologist Louis Théophile Lefort’s theory that the Coptic language was created by another group—the Jews.
By Megan Sauter
What is Coptic, and who were the Copts in ancient Egypt?
The Coptic language is the final stage of ancient Egyptian language. Even though it looks very different from texts written in Old Egyptian using hieroglyphs, the two are related. In his article “Coptic—Egypt’s Christian Language” in the November/December 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Leo Depuydt gives a short history of the development of ancient Egyptian language and shows where the Coptic language fits in that timeline, as well as answering the question: Who were the Copts.
What Is Coptic?
The Coptic language developed around 300 C.E. in Egypt. It is Egyptian language written using the Greek alphabet, as well as a couple of Demotic signs. This script was much easier to learn than the earlier writing systems used in ancient Egypt: hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic scripts.
Coptic was the lingua franca of Egypt when Egypt was predominantly Christian. Many assume that the Coptic language was developed primarily to spread Christianity, but Depuydt disagrees. He supports the great Belgian Coptologist Louis Théophile Lefort’s theory that the Coptic language was created by another group—the Jews.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Mummy Mask May Reveal Oldest Known Gospel
by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | January 18, 2015
A text that may be the oldest copy of a gospel known to exist — a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that was written during the first century, before the year 90 — is set to be published.
At present, the oldest surviving copies of the gospel texts date to the second century (the years 101 to 200).
This first-century gospel fragment was written on a sheet of papyrus that was later reused to create a mask that was worn by a mummy. Although the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs wore masks made of gold, ordinary people had to settle for masks made out of papyrus (or linen), paint and glue. Given how expensive papyrus was, people often had to reuse sheets that already had writing on them.
In recent years scientists have developed a technique that allows the glue of mummy masks to be undone without harming the ink on the paper. The text on the sheets can then be read.
The first-century gospel is one of hundreds of new texts that a team of about three-dozen scientists and scholars is working to uncover, and analyze, by using this technique of ungluing the masks, said Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
"We're recovering ancient documents from the first, second and third centuries. Not just Christian documents, not just biblical documents, but classical Greek texts, business papers, various mundane papers, personal letters," Evans told Live Science. The documents include philosophical texts and copies of stories by the Greek poet Homer.
The business and personal letters sometimes have dates on them, he said. When the glue was dissolved, the researchers dated the first-century gospel in part by analyzing the other documents found in the same mask.
A text that may be the oldest copy of a gospel known to exist — a fragment of the Gospel of Mark that was written during the first century, before the year 90 — is set to be published.
At present, the oldest surviving copies of the gospel texts date to the second century (the years 101 to 200).
This first-century gospel fragment was written on a sheet of papyrus that was later reused to create a mask that was worn by a mummy. Although the mummies of Egyptian pharaohs wore masks made of gold, ordinary people had to settle for masks made out of papyrus (or linen), paint and glue. Given how expensive papyrus was, people often had to reuse sheets that already had writing on them.
In recent years scientists have developed a technique that allows the glue of mummy masks to be undone without harming the ink on the paper. The text on the sheets can then be read.
The first-century gospel is one of hundreds of new texts that a team of about three-dozen scientists and scholars is working to uncover, and analyze, by using this technique of ungluing the masks, said Craig Evans, a professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.
"We're recovering ancient documents from the first, second and third centuries. Not just Christian documents, not just biblical documents, but classical Greek texts, business papers, various mundane papers, personal letters," Evans told Live Science. The documents include philosophical texts and copies of stories by the Greek poet Homer.
The business and personal letters sometimes have dates on them, he said. When the glue was dissolved, the researchers dated the first-century gospel in part by analyzing the other documents found in the same mask.
Monday, December 29, 2014
The online battle for papyrus texts
Papyrus scrolls are also now increasingly desirable items in the distinctly 21st Century world of the online auction trade, writes Philip Sherwell
By Philip Sherwell, New York
By Philip Sherwell, New York
They are tattered yellowing fragments of bygone civilisations, ancient manuscripts that open a remarkable window on previous millennia, including the earliest days of Christianity.
But papyrus scrolls are also now increasingly hot items in the distinctly 21st Century world of the online auction trade.
A rectangular scrap measuring about 4.5 inches by 1.5 inches and featuring 15 partial lines of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad in the elegant hand of a 4th Century Egyptian scribe was just [DEC] picked up by an unidentified European buyer for £16,000 after a feverish Internet auction battle.
That price was way above the posted estimated but is typical of the sums that collectors will now spend to lay their hands on these fingerprints from the past.
Indeed, it is not just modern art that has been setting jaw-dropping records at auction recently - so have ancient scrolls.
When a fragmentary parchment sheet from the 3rd century AD featuring portions of Paul’s epistle to the Romans was bought at Sotheby’s for £301,000 auctioneers and antiquity experts alike were stunned.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Ancient Egyptian Handbook of Spells Deciphered
by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor | November 20, 2014
Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells.
Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.
The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex.
"It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014).
The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."
For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then "drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left."
Researchers have deciphered an ancient Egyptian handbook, revealing a series of invocations and spells.
Among other things, the "Handbook of Ritual Power," as researchers call the book, tells readers how to cast love spells, exorcise evil spirits and treat "black jaundice," a bacterial infection that is still around today and can be fatal.
The book is about 1,300 years old, and is written in Coptic, an Egyptian language. It is made of bound pages of parchment — a type of book that researchers call a codex.
"It is a complete 20-page parchment codex, containing the handbook of a ritual practitioner," write Malcolm Choat and Iain Gardner, who are professors in Australia at Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, respectively, in their book, "A Coptic Handbook of Ritual Power" (Brepols, 2014).
The ancient book "starts with a lengthy series of invocations that culminate with drawings and words of power," they write. "These are followed by a number of prescriptions or spells to cure possession by spirits and various ailments, or to bring success in love and business."
For instance, to subjugate someone, the codex says you have to say a magical formula over two nails, and then "drive them into his doorpost, one on the right side (and) one on the left."
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Ancient Last Supper charm found in John Rylands Library
A 1,500-year-old papyrus charm thought to be "the first ever found to refer to the Last Supper and use magic in the Christian context" has been discovered in the vaults of a Manchester library.
The fragment was found at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library by researcher Dr Roberta Mazza.
Dr Mazza said it was an "incredibly rare example of the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people".
She said it would have been put in a locket to protect wearers from danger.
The document, written in Greek, has been held by the library since 1901, but was largely ignored until Dr Mazza came across it.
'Doubly fascinating'
On one side, it has a combination of biblical passages from the books of Psalms and Matthew, while on the other is part of a receipt for payment of grain tax.
Dr Mazza said the amulet maker "would have cut a piece of the receipt, written the charm on the other side and then folded the papyrus to be kept in a locket".
She said the use of written charms was an ancient Egyptian practice, which was adopted by early Christians, who replaced prayers to Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods with passages from the Bible.
The papyrus may have been originally owned by a villager living near Hermopolis - now called Al Ashmunin - in east Egypt and "we now think knowledge of the Bible was more embedded in sixth century AD Egypt than we realised," she said.
"This is an incredibly rare example of Christianity and the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people - not just priests and the elite.
"It's one of the first recorded documents to use magic in the Christian context and the first charm ever found to refer to the Eucharist - the Last Supper - as the manna of the Old Testament."
She said it was "doubly fascinating because the amulet maker clearly knew the Bible, but made lots of mistakes".
"Some words are misspelled and others are in the wrong order - this suggests that he was writing by heart rather than copying it."
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-29028009
The fragment was found at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library by researcher Dr Roberta Mazza.
Dr Mazza said it was an "incredibly rare example of the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people".
She said it would have been put in a locket to protect wearers from danger.
The document, written in Greek, has been held by the library since 1901, but was largely ignored until Dr Mazza came across it.
'Doubly fascinating'
On one side, it has a combination of biblical passages from the books of Psalms and Matthew, while on the other is part of a receipt for payment of grain tax.
Dr Mazza said the amulet maker "would have cut a piece of the receipt, written the charm on the other side and then folded the papyrus to be kept in a locket".
She said the use of written charms was an ancient Egyptian practice, which was adopted by early Christians, who replaced prayers to Egyptian and Greco-Roman gods with passages from the Bible.
The papyrus may have been originally owned by a villager living near Hermopolis - now called Al Ashmunin - in east Egypt and "we now think knowledge of the Bible was more embedded in sixth century AD Egypt than we realised," she said.
"This is an incredibly rare example of Christianity and the Bible becoming meaningful to ordinary people - not just priests and the elite.
"It's one of the first recorded documents to use magic in the Christian context and the first charm ever found to refer to the Eucharist - the Last Supper - as the manna of the Old Testament."
She said it was "doubly fascinating because the amulet maker clearly knew the Bible, but made lots of mistakes".
"Some words are misspelled and others are in the wrong order - this suggests that he was writing by heart rather than copying it."
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-29028009
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Egypt dig may have unearthed earliest image of Jesus
Curly-haired young man on wall of 6th-century early Christian tomb could have been Christ, postulate Spanish Egyptologists.
By Ruth Schuster | Apr. 27, 2014
A team of Spanish Egyptologists may have found one of the earliest-known pictures of Jesus Christ, in a 6th-century tomb unearthed in Upper Egypt. That and other images are painted onto the walls of a crypt inside an underground structure, whose use has otherwise baffled the finders.
The main attraction at Al Bahnasa is Oxyrhynchus, which was a regional capital in ancient Upper Egypt some 160km south of Cairo, where interestingly the locals apparently worshipped a sacred Nile fish that, according to legend, swallowed Osiris' penis when he was dismembered by his brother Seth. The ancient city also boasts a number of temples to Osiris. But the "exceptional" discovery the archaeological team made in the tomb dates from a much later era, the 6th century C.E., says the team headed by Spanish archaeologist Josep Padro.
The tomb is believed to have been the interment site for a writer and a priestly family, though the archaeologists do not understand the function of the underground stone structure, they admit. But inside the crypt, they found an image from the first Coptic Christian period showing a young man with curly hair and a short tunic, with a hand raised in blessing.
That, the team postulates, could be one of the earliest-known representations of Christ known in the world. Coptic writing surrounding the image is under translation.
It bears noting that portrait art at the time did not always seek to capture the realistic image of a precise person. The product could be representative rather than specific: the artist would give the king a kingly brow and nose, rather than seek to capture his actual likeness, warts and all. Even if the image found was a representation of Jesus Christ, it might not necessarily have been based on specific knowledge of his appearance, of which no known description exists. Roman portrait is one example that differed in conveying realism, even to the extreme.
An even earlier image believed to be of Jesus Christ – beardless and walking on water - was found in Syria in 2011, from around the year 235 C.E. That and several scenes from the New Testament were found at a house that served as a church in the intensely multicultural city of Dura-Europos.
More extremely early depictions of Jesus Christ, mostly as a baby but some in adult form, were found on the walls of tombs dating from the 2nd and 3rd century in the Rome catacombs.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com
By Ruth Schuster | Apr. 27, 2014
A team of Spanish Egyptologists may have found one of the earliest-known pictures of Jesus Christ, in a 6th-century tomb unearthed in Upper Egypt. That and other images are painted onto the walls of a crypt inside an underground structure, whose use has otherwise baffled the finders.
The main attraction at Al Bahnasa is Oxyrhynchus, which was a regional capital in ancient Upper Egypt some 160km south of Cairo, where interestingly the locals apparently worshipped a sacred Nile fish that, according to legend, swallowed Osiris' penis when he was dismembered by his brother Seth. The ancient city also boasts a number of temples to Osiris. But the "exceptional" discovery the archaeological team made in the tomb dates from a much later era, the 6th century C.E., says the team headed by Spanish archaeologist Josep Padro.
The tomb is believed to have been the interment site for a writer and a priestly family, though the archaeologists do not understand the function of the underground stone structure, they admit. But inside the crypt, they found an image from the first Coptic Christian period showing a young man with curly hair and a short tunic, with a hand raised in blessing.
That, the team postulates, could be one of the earliest-known representations of Christ known in the world. Coptic writing surrounding the image is under translation.
It bears noting that portrait art at the time did not always seek to capture the realistic image of a precise person. The product could be representative rather than specific: the artist would give the king a kingly brow and nose, rather than seek to capture his actual likeness, warts and all. Even if the image found was a representation of Jesus Christ, it might not necessarily have been based on specific knowledge of his appearance, of which no known description exists. Roman portrait is one example that differed in conveying realism, even to the extreme.
An even earlier image believed to be of Jesus Christ – beardless and walking on water - was found in Syria in 2011, from around the year 235 C.E. That and several scenes from the New Testament were found at a house that served as a church in the intensely multicultural city of Dura-Europos.
More extremely early depictions of Jesus Christ, mostly as a baby but some in adult form, were found on the walls of tombs dating from the 2nd and 3rd century in the Rome catacombs.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com
Monday, January 27, 2014
How women's wisdom was lost
Papyrus shreds reveal there was a time when female deities were fundamental to popular belief. Yet ancient geopolitics caused them to be sidelined
By Bettany Hughes The Guardian, Sunday 26 January 2014
A mummified crocodile in the back streets of Oxford might not be an obvious guardian for one of life's great mysteries. But some 2,000-year-old treacle brown remains made up of recycled scraps of Egyptian papyrus, torn up to encase the reptile, hide hard evidence of a substantial historical cover-up. Now stored in 100-year-old kerosene cans and Huntley & Palmers biscuit tins, the ancient fragments were originally dumped as rubbish in ancient Oxyrhynchus (the town of the sharp-nosed fish). Their salvation, by two British archaeologists from 1896, who heard that locals were using the papyri fragments as organic fertiliser, was a godsend: these unpromising shreds rewrite history.
So far just 5% of the million or so fragments have been translated; but they embody the concerns and priorities of the man (and woman) on the street from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Here is an unofficial snapshot of life at the birth of the modern world. Crucially, this was a time and place where Woman Wisdom, Sophia in ancient Greek, walked the streets. We find her name again and again in Jewish, Christian and pagan papyrus texts. Sophia – a mystical female presence whose appearance is only fleeting in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament – was clearly once a household name and a fixture in everyday lives.
Today we talk a great deal about the perilous place that female opinion and understanding has on the world's stage. The Oxyrhynchus papyri suggest there was a time when female wisdom was foundational to popular belief. Yet Sophia became a casualty of geopolitics. When Christianity developed as the dominant religion of the new Roman Empire under Constantine I in the fourth century AD, it needed "tidying up". Suddenly Christians didn't have just a faith, but a territory of their own. A muscular military structure protected the (extensive) domains of the One True God, and a burgeoning population of (male) scribes and clerics set out to protect the new Christian canon from heresy.
By Bettany Hughes The Guardian, Sunday 26 January 2014
A mummified crocodile in the back streets of Oxford might not be an obvious guardian for one of life's great mysteries. But some 2,000-year-old treacle brown remains made up of recycled scraps of Egyptian papyrus, torn up to encase the reptile, hide hard evidence of a substantial historical cover-up. Now stored in 100-year-old kerosene cans and Huntley & Palmers biscuit tins, the ancient fragments were originally dumped as rubbish in ancient Oxyrhynchus (the town of the sharp-nosed fish). Their salvation, by two British archaeologists from 1896, who heard that locals were using the papyri fragments as organic fertiliser, was a godsend: these unpromising shreds rewrite history.
So far just 5% of the million or so fragments have been translated; but they embody the concerns and priorities of the man (and woman) on the street from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Here is an unofficial snapshot of life at the birth of the modern world. Crucially, this was a time and place where Woman Wisdom, Sophia in ancient Greek, walked the streets. We find her name again and again in Jewish, Christian and pagan papyrus texts. Sophia – a mystical female presence whose appearance is only fleeting in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament – was clearly once a household name and a fixture in everyday lives.
Today we talk a great deal about the perilous place that female opinion and understanding has on the world's stage. The Oxyrhynchus papyri suggest there was a time when female wisdom was foundational to popular belief. Yet Sophia became a casualty of geopolitics. When Christianity developed as the dominant religion of the new Roman Empire under Constantine I in the fourth century AD, it needed "tidying up". Suddenly Christians didn't have just a faith, but a territory of their own. A muscular military structure protected the (extensive) domains of the One True God, and a burgeoning population of (male) scribes and clerics set out to protect the new Christian canon from heresy.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Earliest Case of Child Abuse Discovered in Egyptian Cemetery
by Joseph Castro, LiveScience ContributorDate: 28 May 2013
A 2- to 3-year-old child from a Romano-Christian-period cemetery in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, shows evidence of physical child abuse, archaeologists have found. The child, who lived around 2,000 years ago, represents the earliest documented case of child abuse in the archaeological record, and the first case ever found in Egypt, researchers say.
The Dakhleh Oasis is one of seven oases in Egypt's Western Desert. The site has seen continuous human occupation since the Neolithic period, making it the focus of several archaeological investigations, said lead researcher Sandra Wheeler, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Central Florida. Moreover, the cemeteries in the oasis allow scientists to take a unique look at the beginnings of Christianity in Egypt.
In particular, the so-called Kellis 2 cemetery, which is located in the Dakhleh Oasis town of Kellis (southwest of Cairo), reflects Christian mortuary practices. For example, "instead of having children in different places, everyone is put in one place, which is an unusual practice at this time," Wheeler told LiveScience. Dating methods using radioactive carbon from skeletons suggest the cemetery was used between A.D. 50 and A.D. 450.
When the researchers came across the abused toddler — labeled "Burial 519" — in Kellis 2, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. But when Wheeler's colleague Tosha Duprasbegan brushing the sand away, she noticed prominent fractures on the child's arms.
"She thought, 'Whoa, this was weird,' and then she found another fracture on the collarbone," Wheeler said. "We have some other kids that show evidence of skeletal trauma, but this is the only one that had these really extreme fracture patterns."
A 2- to 3-year-old child from a Romano-Christian-period cemetery in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, shows evidence of physical child abuse, archaeologists have found. The child, who lived around 2,000 years ago, represents the earliest documented case of child abuse in the archaeological record, and the first case ever found in Egypt, researchers say.
The Dakhleh Oasis is one of seven oases in Egypt's Western Desert. The site has seen continuous human occupation since the Neolithic period, making it the focus of several archaeological investigations, said lead researcher Sandra Wheeler, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Central Florida. Moreover, the cemeteries in the oasis allow scientists to take a unique look at the beginnings of Christianity in Egypt.
In particular, the so-called Kellis 2 cemetery, which is located in the Dakhleh Oasis town of Kellis (southwest of Cairo), reflects Christian mortuary practices. For example, "instead of having children in different places, everyone is put in one place, which is an unusual practice at this time," Wheeler told LiveScience. Dating methods using radioactive carbon from skeletons suggest the cemetery was used between A.D. 50 and A.D. 450.
When the researchers came across the abused toddler — labeled "Burial 519" — in Kellis 2, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first. But when Wheeler's colleague Tosha Duprasbegan brushing the sand away, she noticed prominent fractures on the child's arms.
"She thought, 'Whoa, this was weird,' and then she found another fracture on the collarbone," Wheeler said. "We have some other kids that show evidence of skeletal trauma, but this is the only one that had these really extreme fracture patterns."
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Cemetery Reveals Baby-Making Season in Ancient Egypt
by Owen Jarus, LiveScience ContributorDate: 16 May 2013
The peak period for baby-making sex in ancient Egypt was in July and August, when the weather was at its hottest.
Researchers made this discovery at a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt whose burials date back around 1,800 years. The oasis is located about 450 miles (720 kilometers) southwest of Cairo. The people buried in the cemetery lived in the ancient town of Kellis, with a population of at least several thousand. These people lived at a time when the Roman Empire controlled Egypt, when Christianity was spreading but also when traditional Egyptian religious beliefs were still strong.
So far, researchers have uncovered 765 graves, including the remains of 124 individuals that date to between 18 weeks and 45 weeks after conception. The excellent preservation let researchers date the age of the remains at death. The researchers could also pinpoint month of death, as the graves were oriented toward the rising sun, something that changes predictably throughout the year.
The results, combined with other information, suggested the peak period for births at the site was in March and April, and the peak period for conceptions was in July and August, when temperatures at the Dakhleh Oasis can easily reach more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius).
Thursday, May 9, 2013
The Ancient Library of Alexandria
The West’s most important repository of learning
by J. Harold Ellens • 05/01/2013
In March of 415 C.E., on a sunny day in the holy season of Lent, Cyril of Alexandria, the most powerful Christian theologian in the world, murdered Hypatia, the most famous Greco-Roman philosopher of the time. Hypatia was slaughtered like an animal in the church of Caesarion, formerly a sanctuary of emperor worship.1 Cyril may not have been among the gang that pulled Hypatia from her chariot, tearing off her clothes and slashing her with shards of broken tiles, but her murder was surely done under his authority and with his approval.
Cyril (c. 375–444) was the archbishop of Alexandria, the dominant cultural and religious center of the Mediterranean world of the fifth century C.E.2 He replaced his uncle Theophilus in that lofty office in 412 and became both famous and infamous for his leadership in support of what would become known as Orthodox Christianity after the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451), when basic Christian doctrine was solidly established for all time.
Cyril’s fame arose mainly from his assaults on other church leaders, and his methods were often brutal and dishonest. He hated Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, for example, because Nestorius thought Christ’s divine and human aspects were distinct from one another, whereas Cyril emphasized their unity. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, Cyril arranged for a vote condemning Nestorius to take place before Nestorius’s supporters—the bishops from the eastern churches—had time to arrive. Nor was Cyril above abusing his opponents by staging marches and inciting riots. It was such a mob, led by one of Cyril’s followers, Peter the Reader, that butchered the last great Neoplatonic philosopher, Hypatia.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Truth Behind Gospel of Judas Revealed in Ancient Inks
By: Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer
Published: 04/08/2013 11:37 AM EDT on LiveScience
A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged.
Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags — until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.
"What the French study told us is that ink technology was undergoing a transition," Barabe told LiveScience. The Gospel of Judas' odd ink suddenly fit into place.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Coptic Culture: Past, Present and Future - A Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2013.02.08
Mariam F. Ayad, Coptic Culture: Past, Present and Future. Stevenage: Coptic Orthodox Church Centre, 2011. Pp. xiii, 238. ISBN 9781935488279. $45.00.
Reviewed by Heike Behlmer, Universität Göttingen
The present volume comprises papers from a conference held in May 2008 at the Coptic Orthodox Centre in Stevenage, UK. The conference brought together specialists in the history and culture of Egypt and the Coptic Orthodox Church from late antiquity to the present day and Coptic clergy and laypersons interested in the cultural and literary heritage of their church. This approach has led to fruitful discussions among the participants, the results of which are documented in this well-produced and accessible volume.
“The Coptic Orthodox Church: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”, the introductory remarks by Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK (p. 1-10) focus on the traditional pillars of the Coptic Orthodox faith in the modern context of a diaspora community. This introduction is followed by 19 contributions touching on four main areas of research: (1) continuities and discontinuities between Pharaonic and Christian Egypt, (2) sources for our knowledge about late antique and early medieval Egypt, (3) questions of heritage preservation and (4) the artistic tradition of the modern Coptic church.
The first group of articles focuses on linguistic links between the Pharaonic and later periods and the survival of ritual practices. Mariam Ayad’s contribution “The Death of Coptic: A Reprisal” (p. 11-41) takes issue with the notion of Coptic as a “dead” language and makes some very valid points: in the past scholars have often shown little interest in the entire use-life of the Coptic language, neglecting the study of later, especially liturgical Coptic. While her concerns are shared by the vast majority of modern scholars, I am uncertain about her choice of a case study, a retranslation of the Paschal hymn into Ancient Egyptian, using hieroglyphs to render the words of Egyptian origin, intended to visualise the link between the modern liturgy and the ancient language. This link is well known and a translation from the Coptic into an Ancient Egyptian that never existed in the form set forth in the article seems to confuse the issue unnecessarily.
Friday, December 28, 2012
To the earth, a sun is born
Jenny Jobbins explores the way in which the peoples of the Roman Empire clung to their old festivals but gave them new meaning
In the northern hemisphere, the Sun reaches the lowest point of its power in its annual cycle at the end of December. The Winter Solstice, the shortest day, falls on 21 or 22 December, and a few days later the days visibly begin to lengthen. To the people of the ancient world, the guaranteed rebirth of the sun meant a time to celebrate vegetation and — especially in northern climates — a time to feast on the remainder of the harvest that could not be stored, and to kill and eat the livestock that could not be fed over the winter. The ensuing lean period would come to an end with the new growth of crops in Spring.
The Solstice period was celebrated in Rome by the week-long Roman festival of Saturnalia, Saturn being the god of agriculture. Many religions took the post-Solstice emergence of the sun as the time to celebrate the birth of their divinity or their divine leader. The birthdays of Horus in Egypt; the sun god Attis in Phrygia; Krishna in India; Freyr (son of Odin) in Scandinavia; Mithra, the saviour and Light of the World of the Zoroastrians Persians; the sun god of the Greeks, Apollo; Adonis; Dionysus (Bacchus) and Hercules (son of Zeus) were all held on or about 25 December. Mithra was eventually adopted as the main god of the Roman army, and from the latter part of the third century AD he was identified with Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), the sun god of the later Roman Empire whose feast, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, was also celebrated on 25 December. Alexander the Great also claimed that he was born on that day.
In the northern hemisphere, the Sun reaches the lowest point of its power in its annual cycle at the end of December. The Winter Solstice, the shortest day, falls on 21 or 22 December, and a few days later the days visibly begin to lengthen. To the people of the ancient world, the guaranteed rebirth of the sun meant a time to celebrate vegetation and — especially in northern climates — a time to feast on the remainder of the harvest that could not be stored, and to kill and eat the livestock that could not be fed over the winter. The ensuing lean period would come to an end with the new growth of crops in Spring.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Jesus's Wife? Scholar Announces Existence of a New Early Christian Gospel from Egypt
ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2012) — Four words on a previously unknown papyrus fragment provide the first evidence that some early Christians believed Jesus had been married, Harvard Professor Karen King told the 10th International Congress of Coptic Studies today.
King, the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School, announced the existence of the ancient text at the Congress's meeting, held every four years and hosted this year by the Vatican's Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum in Rome. The four words that appear on the fragment translate to, "Jesus said to them, my wife." The words, written in Coptic, a language of ancient Egyptian Christians, are on a papyrus fragment of about one and a half inches by three inches.
"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim," King said. "This new gospel doesn't prove that Jesus was married, but it tells us that the whole question only came up as part of vociferous debates about sexuality and marriage. From the very beginning, Christians disagreed about whether it was better not to marry, but it was over a century after Jesus's death before they began appealing to Jesus's marital status to support their positions."
Roger Bagnall, director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in New York, believes the fragment to be authentic based on examination of the papyrus and the handwriting, and Ariel Shisha-Halevy, a Coptic expert at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, considers it likely to be authentic on the basis of language and grammar, King said. Final judgment on the fragment, King said, depends on further examination by colleagues and further testing, especially of the chemical composition of the ink.
One side of the fragment contains eight incomplete lines of handwriting, while the other side is badly damaged and the ink so faded that only three words and a few individual letters are still visible, even with infrared photography and computer photo enhancement. Despite its tiny size and poor condition, King said, the fragment provides tantalizing glimpses into issues about family, discipleship, and marriage that concerned ancient Christians.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Egypt: The End of a Civilisation
By Dr Aidan Dodson
Defining the end point
The civilisation of ancient Egypt can be traced back in recognisable form to around 3000 BC. It was to endure for over three millennia and it is perhaps the most instantly recognisable of all ancient cultures today. The question of how it came to an end is a perennially popular one, but actually quite difficult to answer, as it is by no means agreed as to what constitutes 'the end' of Egypt as an ancient civilisation.
Is it the definitive end of native Egyptian rule (at least until the 20th century)? In this case the answer would be the flight of King Nectanebo II in 342 BC. Is it Egypt's absorption into the Roman Empire in 30 BC? Or the last appearance of the ancient hieroglyphic script just before AD 400? Or the closure of the last pagan temples in the sixth century?
In many ways the last suggestion is perhaps the most appropriate, as in all the other cases, the core religious and artistic values of the country continued on, albeit increasingly debased and under pressure. However, the demise of the hieroglyphs was a manifestation of the decline and fall of the ancient religion in the face of Christianity, itself ultimately to be supplanted by Islam.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
From the Sands of Egypt
By Michael Gordon Fri, Apr 13, 2012
The discovery of the world's largest trove of ancient writings has opened an unparalleled window on a vanished world.
El-Behnesa, Egypt, 1896. There was little to see. It was a landscape of windblown sand surrounding a sleepy arab village. But for Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, young English scholars of classicism from the Queen's College in Oxford, there was something about the place that screamed at them. Set astride a small river that anciently served as a canal of the Nile, they knew it was the location of two ancient cities, the more ancient called Per-Medjed, a capital of the Egyptian 19th Dynasty, and the younger called Oxyrhynchus Polis (meaning "City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish"), a Greco-Roman town initially under the Ptolemaic rulership of 3rd-1st century B.C. Egypt. Now, only a lone well-weathered Greek column, a few traces of stone and banks of sand hinted at an ancient presence. This place was nothing like the visual splendor that greeted explorers and adventurers at sites like Luxor, Giza, and Abu Simbel.
But Grenfell and Hunt were not interested in architecture. They were interested in researching ancient papyri, and having recently excavated in the Fayum area, the region surrounding the well-known ancient Egyptian site of Crocodilios, they had hopes that this new, relatively obscure site might yield something significant.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Hypatia of Alexandria
To conclude this "Alexandria" week and the International Women's Day read the following article about Hypatia of Alexandria:
In the four hundred and fifteenth year of the Common Era, in the city of Alexandria, a tragedy occurred that, according to those who write history, was so insignificant it has barely rated a mention in even the most extensive of historical records. However, this event was not only tragic for the individuals involved, but has had far-reaching consequences for anyone who has ever valued the importance of intellectual freedom and scientific enquiry.
Hypatia of Alexandria, a mathematician, was dragged from her carriage and savagely murdered by a Christian mob in 415CE. She is perhaps better remembered for how she died rather than the way in which she lived. However, Hypatia lived an extraordinary life as the pre-eminent mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and astrologer of her time.
It is not surprising that we have very little knowledge of Hypatia's life. Even in the early fifth century, Christian historians had achieved predominance and it is unlikely that they would have wanted to consign knowledge of this tragedy to history. She was a strong supporter of free enquiry and her murder is believed by many to symbolise the end of an era of intellectual freedom. Margaret Wertheim, in her excellent book 'Pythagoras' Trousers' states, "The great era of Greek mathematical science, which began with the birth of a man, finished with the death of a woman."
Hypatia was born at a time when attitudes to women were deeply influenced by the misogyny of Aristotelian philosophy. Although Plato, and Pythagoras before him, had believed in the intellectual equality of women and both philosophers had encouraged full education of women, Aristotle felt that they did not have the intellectual capabilities of their male counterparts. It was due to the good fortune of having an enlightened father that Hypatia was able to rise above this misogyny and become one of the most educated and influential people of her time.
"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we
travel, the more truth we comprehend. To understand the things that are at our
door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie
beyond."
Hypatia
Hypatia
In the four hundred and fifteenth year of the Common Era, in the city of Alexandria, a tragedy occurred that, according to those who write history, was so insignificant it has barely rated a mention in even the most extensive of historical records. However, this event was not only tragic for the individuals involved, but has had far-reaching consequences for anyone who has ever valued the importance of intellectual freedom and scientific enquiry.
Hypatia of Alexandria, a mathematician, was dragged from her carriage and savagely murdered by a Christian mob in 415CE. She is perhaps better remembered for how she died rather than the way in which she lived. However, Hypatia lived an extraordinary life as the pre-eminent mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and astrologer of her time.
It is not surprising that we have very little knowledge of Hypatia's life. Even in the early fifth century, Christian historians had achieved predominance and it is unlikely that they would have wanted to consign knowledge of this tragedy to history. She was a strong supporter of free enquiry and her murder is believed by many to symbolise the end of an era of intellectual freedom. Margaret Wertheim, in her excellent book 'Pythagoras' Trousers' states, "The great era of Greek mathematical science, which began with the birth of a man, finished with the death of a woman."
Hypatia was born at a time when attitudes to women were deeply influenced by the misogyny of Aristotelian philosophy. Although Plato, and Pythagoras before him, had believed in the intellectual equality of women and both philosophers had encouraged full education of women, Aristotle felt that they did not have the intellectual capabilities of their male counterparts. It was due to the good fortune of having an enlightened father that Hypatia was able to rise above this misogyny and become one of the most educated and influential people of her time.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
From Ptolemaic and Roman rule to the Arab Conquest (332 BC - 646 AD)
Ptolemaic Egypt began when a follower of Alexander the Great
Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in
305 BC and ended with the death of Queen Cleopatra
VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic
Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in
the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia.
Alexandria became the capital city and a center of Greek culture and trade.
To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they referred to themselves as successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt well after the Muslim conquest.
Eventually the Ptolemies faced rebellions of native Egyptians often caused by an unwanted regime and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation by Rome.
To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they referred to themselves as successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt well after the Muslim conquest.
Eventually the Ptolemies faced rebellions of native Egyptians often caused by an unwanted regime and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation by Rome.
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Religion Of Ancient Egypt
Religion played a central role in the daily lives of ancient Egyptians and inspired many of the Egyptian civilization’s most extraordinary vestiges, including temples, pyramids and other wonders. Their rich spiritual world included complex beliefs about the afterlife and multiple deities with specific associations, such as the sun god, Ra, and Osiris, ruler of the underworld. It revolved around the Egyptian pharaoh, who maintained an intermediary position between humanity and the gods, and became fully deified after death or, occasionally, during his lifetime. Ancient Egyptian religion underwent significant changes during its 3,000 years of existence and ultimately faded with the arrival of Christianity in the early centuries A.D.
Introduction
The Egyptian religion was the indigenous beliefs of ancient Egypt from predynastic times (4th millennium BCE) to the disappearance of the traditional culture in the first centuries CE.
Nature and significance
Egyptian religious beliefs and practices were closely integrated into Egyptian society of the historical period (from c. 3000 BCE). Although there were probably many survivals from prehistory, these may be relatively unimportant for understanding later times, because the transformation that established the Egyptian state created a new context for religion.
Religious phenomena were pervasive, so much so that it is not meaningful to view religion as a single entity that cohered as a system. Nevertheless, religion must be seen against a background of potentially nonreligious human activities and values. During its more than 3,000 years of development, Egyptian religion underwent significant changes of emphasis and practice, but in all periods religion had a clear consistency in character and style.
It is inappropriate to define religion narrowly, as consisting only in the cult of the gods and in human piety. Religious behaviour encompassed contact with the dead, practices such as divination and oracles, and magic, which mostly exploited divine instruments and associations.
There were two essential foci of public religion: the king and the gods. Both are among the most characteristic features of Egyptian civilization. The king had a unique status between humanity and the gods, partook in the world of the gods, and constructed great, religiously motivated funerary monuments for his afterlife. Egyptian gods are renowned for their wide variety of forms, including animal forms and mixed forms with an animal head on a human body. The most important deities were the sun god, who had several names and aspects and was associated with many supernatural beings in a solar cycle modeled on the alternation of night and day, and Osiris, the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld. With his consort, Isis, Osiris became dominant in many contexts during the 1st millennium BCE, when solar worship was in relative decline.
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