Page 30 - AAA Every Day – AAA Hudson Valley – September/October 2019

Visit Ancient Egypt
Learn about the Egyptian afterlife at the Albany Institute of History & Art.
Ancient Egypt was one of the world’s first great civilizations and formed the roots of our culture. Situated in northeast Africa, Egypt combined the traditions of Africa, the Near East and the Mediterranean world to create a legacy of art and culture like no other.
Ancient Egypt owed its success to its geography. Although a desert country, it was watered by the Nile River and its annual flooding, which brought some of the most fertile soil in the world. The river begins far to the south in Africa, and starting at Aswan, creates a lush river valley which courses through the desert cliffs. Here it fans out into a
accurate drawings were not only an invaluable tool for scholars but served as inspiration for artists, architects and artisans. Although found by the French, an inscribed fragment known as the Rosetta Stone was captured by the British and taken to the British Museum. The stone, containing hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek, enabled researchers to translate Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs provided the
key to understanding the world of Ancient Egypt. Archaeologists in the 1800s and 1900s found burial tombs with funerary texts, statues and carvings whose hieroglyphics described beliefs about the afterlife. People were, and continue to be, fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians and how they prepared for the journey through the afterlife. Museums are often how modern- day people learn about Ancient Egyptians and their
Accurate and detailed scholarship on ancient Egypt started with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798. Napoleon brought scholars and artists to record everything in Egypt from the ancient monuments and artifacts to flora, fauna and the Islamic culture they encountered. Their research was published in the Description de l’Egypte (1809-1828). The painstakingly
without leaving the area
delta north of Cairo, finally emptying into
the Mediterranean
Sea through several branches. The river provided the primary means of transportation in Egypt as well as being a source of food and water.
Figure 2. Base of Ankhefenmut’s coffin. Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, ca. 1069-945 BC. Wood, gesso, and pigment, H. 18 3⁄4 in. x L 76 1⁄4 in. x W 10 5/8 in., Bab el-Gasus, Egypt. Albany Institute of History & Art, gift of Samuel W. Brown, 1909.18.1b
beliefs and see artifacts from different periods of Ancient Egyptian civilization. The Albany Institute of History & Art in downtown Albany, New York is one such museum. In addition
to jars, jewelry, statues and everyday objects from Ancient Egypt, the Albany Institute has two Ancient Egyptian mummies and their
Dynastic Egyptian
civilization, the era
when its kings or
pharaohs ruled it, lasted for nearly 3,000 years and was remarkable in its stability and continuity. Did you know that Cleopatra VII’s reign is closer to our time than she was to the pyramids of Giza?
coffins, one dating from the Third Intermediate Period of the 21st Dynasty (ca. 1069-945 BC) and the other from the Early Ptolemaic Period (305-200 BC).
Museum visitors soon discover that the journey to the afterlife was not for the faint of heart. “The Book of the Dead,” an anachronistic name of texts collected by Karl Lepsius in 1842, are funerary spells and hymns needed for a safe journey through the Ancient Egyptian afterlife. The Ancient Egyptians referred to these passages as texts “For Going Forth by Day.” The ultimate goal for deceased Ancient Egyptians was to make the afterlife an
Figure 1. Book of the Dead of Nespasef. Late Period, 26th Dynasty, ca. 664-525 BC. Papyrus and ink, H. 14 1⁄4 in. x W. 76 in., Albany Institute of History & Art, gift of Miss Ellen Campbell, 1900.3.10
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