In ancient Egyptian mythology, falcons held a prominent position, often associated with the sun god Horus, a god of kingship and the sky. Frequently depicted as a falcon or a falcon-headed man. His right eye represented the sun, and his left eye represented the moon, embodying power and healing.
Revered as guardians, symbols of power, and even depicted as the souls of pharaohs in the afterlife. Falcons were also revered as sacred animals, with mummified falcons and even falcon eggs being offered as gifts to the gods.
Poster Visuals:
Main title image - Amenemhat I Ancient Egyptians primarily wrote using hieroglyphs, a system of pictorial symbols that represented sounds, words, or ideas.
A Serekh is a rectangular enclosure, often depicted with a palace facade design below it, used hieroglyphs to represent the name of a pharaoh in this case the name of Amenemhat I. It's topped with the falcon god Horus, signifying the king's divine connection.
The Serekh shown was illustrated from a limestone wall-block from the city of Koptos (Qift), modern-day Egypt. It’s found in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London.
Hieroglyphs at the top right The Prophecy of Neferti is one of the few surviving literary texts from ancient Egypt. It dates from the 12th Dynasty (1991-1786 BCE) and presents a pseudo-prophecy which was likely written to legitimize the rule of Amenemhat I, (1976-1947 BCE), the first pharaoh of the 12th Dynasty, by portraying his rise as the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy.
Translation: “The sun will separate from the people. Although it will rise at its time, no one will know that the day has arrived.”
Pyramid of Amenemhat I Amenemhet I, built a pyramid near the village of el-Lisht. It is believed that his capital, Itj-tawi, is also near this pyramid, but this is still to be discovered. The pyramid is in a poor state of preservation in modern day, and the remaining elements are about twenty meters tall now, but several parts of the complex can still be made out.
Modern scholars are still not sure about the construction of pyramids. A radical new idea was presented by Jean-Pierre Houdin, a French architect in 2008. The theory suggests that for the bottom third of the pyramid, the blocks were hauled up a straight, external ramp. A second ramp was then built, inside the pyramid, on which the blocks for the top two-thirds of the pyramid could be hauled up and placed in position https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGV1EQ-xx-M
The 365-day civil calendar The dates shown for the 12th Dynasty and the years that Amenemhet I lived appear to run backwards.
The ancient Egyptians used a calendar with 365 days, but it lacked leap years. In the context of ancient Egyptian history, dates are sometimes described as "backwards" because the calendar they primarily used, the civil calendar, did not account for leap years and therefore drifted out of alignment with the solar year.
This drift meant that events recorded in the calendar would appear to move backwards through the seasons over time.
Mummy of a Falcon The body of the mummified animal was first wrapped in linen strips and then shaped into a form reminiscent of a human mummy wrapped in a linen shroud. https://egypt-museum.com/falcon-mummy/
Find out more about Egyptian history
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities – Discover Egypt’s Monuments An official Egyptian government resource offering detailed-researched information about ancient monuments, museums, and historical sites across Egypt. 🌐 https://egymonuments.gov.eg/
Image: Lanner falcon in flight by EcoView Video by Marilene Coelho: https://www.pexels.com/video/a-hawk-flying-in-the-sky-with-a-blue-sky-17168129/
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