1,721,013 research outputs found
Jebel Barkal. Gods Queens and Archaeologists under the Mountain. Ediz. bilingue
No full textA COMIC ON JEBEL BARKAL AND THE ITALIAN ARCHAEOLOGICAL MISSION IN SUDAN
...a Nubian King and a powerful Queen built a great city, between desert, the Nile, and Jebel Barkal, the Pure Mountain. Studies conducted all around the Sudan by archaeologists and historians also tell us about the deities that these Meroites worshipped and to whom they dedicated impressive temples. But how can an Archaeological Mission gain all this information? What people does it consist of, and, above all, what do they do
Manipulating Image, Processing Script: Construction and Deconstruction of the Human Figure in the Pyramid Texts
No full textIn 2015 I wrote a brief essay presenting my PhD research, at the time in progress, about the manipulation of anthropomorphic determinatives in the Pyramid Texts, which appear to be always truncated or totally omitted.
There, in the paragraph devoted to the Research Structure of the thesis , I posed some questions to which I would have liked to answer in the continuation of my work, that are the following:
Can the alteration or omission of human determinatives in the Pyramid Texts be integrated in – and caused by – an early stage of evolution of the Egyptian hieroglyphic system?
Could the alteration or omission of human determinatives in the Pyramid Texts be due to reasons of space?
Could the alteration or omission of human determinatives in the Pyramid Texts be due to the meaning of the lexemes with which these classifiers are associated?
Are the alterations and omissions of human determinatives a practice restricted to the royal context?
In the present paper I will try to discuss some aspects of these queries, on the basis of the study carried out in the last two years and thanks also to the suggestions received just during the 7th Old Kingdom Art and Archaeology Conference
Recensione del volume "Torino e Parigi agli albori dell'egittologia. Il carteggio tra Francesco Salvolini e Costanzo Gazzera"
No full text“sTi ddwn: The Scent as mark of Divinity and Otherness”
No full textL’interpretazione egiziana del mondo passa attraverso un universo fatto,
non solamente di conoscenze e competenze, ma anche di sensazioni fisiche. In
questa prospettiva, l’esperienza empirica ben si inserisce in quel bagaglio culturale
che gli Egiziani potevano reinterpretare in modi e contesti diversificati.
Parte di questo database esperienziale sono immagini, suoni, gusti e
odori; perché i cinque sensi costituiscono la via maestra per raccogliere le
informazioni fornite dal mondo terreno, e anche da quello divino.
Odori e profumi rappresentano solo una delle modalità attraverso cui
gli uomini possono percepire la presenza divina – insieme con suoni e colori
particolari o con una crescente percezione di paura e confusione – probabilmente
anche grazie alle loro rarità e preziosità, avendo esse origine da terre
lontane e leggendarie.
Un ottimo esempio di questa elaborazione è fornito da Ddwn, una divinità
menzionata già nell’Antico Regno dal corpus dei Testi delle Piramidi
come Hwn SmAw di.f snTr; Dedwen è descritto come un giovane di bell’aspetto
che fornisce incenso al sovrano defunto ed è dunque connesso con la Bassa
Nubia e con il deserto sud-orientale, da cui le spezie provengono.La ricerca di prodotti esotici ed essenze nelle regioni lontane e poco
conosciute, condotta sin dalla dinastia e ancor più dalla , divenne funzionale
proprio alla costruzione culturale del mondo esterno e del concetto
di alterità. Questa alterità avvolge la figura di Ddwn proprio attraverso
l’incenso, un’essenza esotica che finisce per assumere connotazioni rituali
in contesti funerari – come quello dei Testi delle Piramidi – e significati simbolici
in associazione al divino.The Egyptian interpretation of the world passes through a universe not
only of knowledge and skills, but also of physical sensations. In this perspective,
the empiric experience can be integrated into that cultural baggage
that the Egyptian can reinterpret in different ways and contexts. Part of this
experiential database are: images, sounds, tastes and smells, the five senses
being the main road to gather informations from the earthly world, but also
from the divine.
Scents and smells are one of the ways in which humans can feel the
presence of the gods – together with particular sounds or colours and an
increasing perception of fear or confusion – maybe also because they were
especially sought after for their value and their exoticism, having origin in
distant and legendary lands.
A good example of this idea is provided by Ddwn, a god already mentioned
in the Old Kingdom corpus of the Pyramid Texts as a Hwn SmAw di.f snTr;
he is a good-looking youngster who provides the incense for the dead king
and, therefore, is linked to the Lower Nubia and the southern-oriental desert,
whence spices came from.
Indeed, the search for exotic products and essences in distant and
unknown lands was widespread in Egypt since the iv dynasty – and even
more from the vi – and it was functional to the cultural construction of the
external world and of the otherness.
This otherness envelops the figure of Ddwn by means of the incense, foreign
scent which comes to assume ritual connotations in a funerary context
– as that of the Pyramid Text is – and symbolic meaning in association with
the divine
Il liuto di Resheph. Come suona un dio siriano in Egitto
No full textResheph, dio di origine siriana con caratteristiche “ctonie” e guerriere, appare nell’iconografia egiziana nella forma di uno smiting god: posa aggressiva, passo incedente, braccio sollevato a brandire un’ascia, una mazza, una lancia; eppure, nei sei casi su citati, egli è accompagnato anche da un “lutelike object”, dalla cassa tondeggiante e dal lungo manico, sulla cui estremità si avvolgeva un nastro con terminazione a nappe.
Tenendo conto del fatto che questo sembrerebbe essere l’unico abbinamento noto in Egitto tra questo oggetto e una figura divina, è interessante riflettere su quale valore possa assumere lo strumento musicale associato a un dio straniero e abitualmente marziale, e come possa contribuire a definirne gli aspetti meno manifesti, non ultima una sua eventuale “dimensione sonora”
Figli non partoriti. Adozione e schiavitù infantile in antico Egitto.
No full textThe aim of this paper is to give a brief overview of some strategies for the inclusion of children in the Egyptian society, with particular regard to sons who do not have a biological relation with their parents but who are acquired through assimilation practices, such as the adoption of an orphan or the emancipation of a young slave. For this purpose, some literary attestations will be examined in order to show how in ancient Egypt a “nobody’s child” could turn into a legitimate child
“Write to Dominate Reality: Graphic Alteration of Anthropomorphic Signs in the Pyramid Texts”
No full textThe communicative process implies objects, sounds, images and words which can convey ideas and cultural ways of
interpreting and representing a society; therefore, many linguistic anthropologists—especially Searle, but also Bauman
and Briggs–underline how speech and textual acts are regulated by defined cultural schemes, and how their study
cannot exclude analysis of the original context as well as of the specific conventions ruling it. This paper is intended
to provide an interpretation of some particular graphic solutions concerning the human determinative occurring in
the Pyramid Texts of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, and to analyze the possible reasons and underlying anthropological
apparatus that led to these choices
Image Processing. Elaboration and Manipulation of the human figure in the Pyramid Texts
No full textThe importance of the Pyramid Texts in Egyptological studies is confined not only to the content of the formulas or to their value in terms of the afterlife of the king; we can also focus attention on the epigraphic perspective and therefore on the semiotic one as well. Of interest here are the processes altering the grapheme and, in particular, the human classifier that we can recognize in almost all the Pyramid Texts of the 5th and 6th dynasties. The manipulation of signs seems to be viewed as a definite way to affect reality. In Egyptian written signs are not only the messengers of a spoken language but they come into existence and start to work from the very moment they are engraved onto stone. The ancient origins of these texts can explain their performative values: hieroglyphs are characterized by a creative power and sometimes by dangerous properties,
so they require expedients in order to prevent them from damaging the dead king. This contribution is part of a broader PhD topic, whose goal is to attempt an interpretation of the particular graphic solutions of the human figure occurring in the Pyramid Texts and to evaluate if they can be compared with specific examples of manipulation of the image in different contexts of the contemporary iconographical scenery repertoire
“La lama che taglia teste e asporta cuori. Integrità e mutilazione nell’aldilà egiziano”
No full textSenza il corpo, che rappresenta uno degli elementi fondamentali dell’individuo, nessuno può proseguire la propria esistenza terrena, né quella oltremondana. Solamente l’esecuzione di un corretto rituale può salvare l’uomo dalla distruzione totale, dalla mt m wḥm, “seconda morte, morte ripetuta. Il formulario funerario egiziano, dall’Antico al Nuovo Regno, contempla
sempre espressioni riferibili alla ricomposizione del cadavere e al ripristino delle funzioni vitali. Contestualmente, però, mutilazione e decapitazione rappresentano le punizioni più temute nel regno dei morti, perché la scomposizione, minando l'integrità del defunto, lo condanna all'annullamento. In tal senso i Testi delle Piramidi costituiscono una fonte particolarmente significativa
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