Egypt..
the Civilization of Human Giving

Scientists are almost unanimous that the ancient Egyptian civilization is the oldest civilization in human history. The Egyptian civilization with all its achievements in progress and advancement in all fields of life is a civilization of human bounty based on its highly elevated religious values that emphasize the equal standing of humanity before God, both in the temporal life and in the after life. History records a lot of pioneering civilized gifts that Egypt has given to humanity of which its useful effects remain till today.

Egyptians and the Discovery of Time
It was not strange that humanity has discovered the time of Phemto second which is part of million of billion of one second by the Egyptian scientist, Dr. Ahmad Zweil, simply because he is the descendant of the ancient Egyptians who were the first to discover time and timing. Human history had given tribute to them for it. They were the first to set the calendar year, dividing it to 365 days which Julius Ceasar used 3000 years later and we still use till now.

This important discovery was the outcome of the ancient Egypian's knowledge of astronomy as they left painted or carved maps of the sky on the ceilings of cemeteries and temples, chronided timetables showing the movement of stars at night. Some astronomical messages, mostly date back to the late age of their civilization. Their calendars gave witness to the efforts they had exerted to study celestial bodies. After long and considerable experiments, they were able to define the real year with astonishing accuracy. Based on their observations of stars and stellar motion, the Egyptians divided the night and day into 12 hours each.

The Egyptians identified 6 of the nine planets, all associated with the names of gods:
(1) Famars, Red Horus.
(2) The Big Bear, the Ox Leg.
(3) Cygnus, the man who has the head of a hawk and his arms folded upward.
(4) Orion.
(5) The South Star.
(6) Cassiopia which is a man raising his arms.

Orientation of buildings and edifices played a very important role in the religious life of the ancient Egyptians. Illustrations of foundations and religious and magical rituals related to them drawn on the walls of the temples indicate that all religious buildings started with monitoring stars to know the right direction of the temple they want to build.

It is known that the Pharaonic annual calendar was introduced in 4241 B.C. and it was the first fixed date in history. The American historian Henry Yersteed gave the evidence that the calendar began at the start of the Nile inundation which from time to time comes with the SIRIUS Feast with the sunrise in the eastern horizon in July, 19. The Sirius year was a quarter day longer than the calendar year which had 365 days. The Sirius year and the calendar year started at the same day in 4241, 2780, 1320 B.C. and 140,141,142, 143, 144 A.C.

This shows that Sirius star which the Greeks called Sothis played a very important role in the historical calculations of the ancient Egyptians. Moreover, registering some occasions which coincided with the rise of the sun came at the expense of the increasing difference between their short year of 365 days and the real year of 365.24 days.

Timetables that show Time
For the ancient Egyptians, the day began at sunrise, when Nut, the sky “gave birth” to the sun in the east. The sun envisioned as a male deity sailed the celestial waters in his “day-boat”.
Moreover, ancient Egyptians used the sundial and sand clocks to know the time during the day.

On the other hand, they depended on special timetables to know the time at night. They drew maps for the groups of stars and explained on them when one star or another appears on the horizon and through that they could know the time at night, depending on the existence of specific star groups in a specific place in a specific time.

The same timetable was used for nearly ten days, totalling 36 timetables, each used for more than 10 days of the Egyptian year. So, it was considered one of the most wonderful manifestations of human genius.
Afterwards, those timetables become highly important in the map of the 12 signs (of the Zodiac) then in the Helinistic astrology.

Egyptians and the Mummification Miracle
For most people, the art of mummification and mummies are synonymous with ancient Egypt.
The art of mummification, invented by the ancient Egyptians, was one of the most important secrets of which humanity is unable to decipher its symbols till today despite the considerable scientific progress man has attained at both the theoritical and practical levels.
Had it not for mummification, we could not have enjoyed having a look at the faces of great Pharaohs like Thothmus III and Ramsis II to recognize them after more than 30 centuries.

Mummies were a fictious subject for many famous writers such as the imaginary stories of Edgar Alan Poe that make old mummies come back to life again, the exciting tales by Theophile Gauthier about the beautiful mummy Tahaser and the charming Princess Ita that sheds away her exciting spirit when she knew how much the body loses when it is kept for so long centuries.

Herodotus collected useful information about mummification as he described the process of mummification by ancient Egyptians as the following:
The brain is removed via the nostrils with an iron hook, and what can not be reached with the hook is washed out with drugs; next the flank is opened with a flint knife and the whole contents of the abdomen removed; the cavity is then thoroughly cleaned and washed out, firstly with palm wine and again with an infusion of ground spices. After that, it is filled with pure myrrh, cassia, and every other aromatic substance, excepting frankincense, and sewn up again, after which the body is placed in natron, covered entirely over, for seventy days.
Chemists, in the modern age proved that treating the body with dry natron, removes all remaining moisture in the mummy after seventy days.

When this period is over, the body is washed and then wrapped from head to foot in linen cut into strips and smeared on the under side with gum, which is commonly used by the Egyptians instead of glue.

Most of Egyptian texts agree with Herodotus that mummification took a total of 70 days from the death of the person until his burial.

This 70-day limit for embalming is perhaps derived from the 70-day disappearance and reappearance cycle of the star Sirius. Sirius was associated with Osiris, god of the After world, who like the star vanished for 70 days before being resurrected. Egyptians might imitate this cycle of time and used it with their dead people to guarantee that they would be resurrected.
The straps wrapped around the corpse were very long as the mummies were very carefully wrapped in several hundred metres of linen. The fingers, hands and legs were wrapped first with very thin straps after which the whole body would be wrapped.

Then, the mummy would be wrapped with bigger straps to form the Outer strap. These straps were put in a solution to make the straps stick together which gives the corpse the smell of ointments. Mummification is still one of the most mysterious and ambiguous secrets of ancient Egyptians.

Egyptians and the Encyclopedia
History mentions that ancient Egyptians are the first to write encyclopedias such as the first encyclopedia on earth in Amenemope encyclopedia known as, the House of life. This encyclopedia preceded Ephraim chaimbers by 3000 years.
In the ancient Egyptian encyclopedia, they mentioned the existing elements in the sky, on earth, in life, in water and the social categories in the state, foreign states and the cities of Egypt, all kinds of buildings, lands, food, drinks, what is gotten from mountains and what flood irrigates as well as all what grows on land and everything lightened by the Pharaonic god Raah.

Egyptians and Diplomacy
There is an old hieroglyphic inscription showing an ambassador holding a quill and fox leather. There is no doubt that it is the oldest drawing for a diplomat.
The old documents show that diplomatic activity had many methods in the Old Egyptian Kingdom. We find King Sonouhi negotiating with Jordanians to gain their support to Egypt.
Diplomatic speech should be used such as: “Ayoubi Ibn Raa sends his greetings to the son of Nubia”.

When the relations between the Hyksos King and the King of Thebes were strained, he had to make an alliance with the King of Nubia.
Egypt and Asian coutries attained a very high degree in mastering diplomatic dealing including rules of decorum, warning and manoeuvres to gain dignity and prestige or gold donations that Egypt used to give to its neighbours. They also used to exchange emissaries with foreign countries. There was continuous interference in the affairs of Phoenician, Palestinian and Syrian provinces.
We find that the Pharaoh, like any other king, supported his loyal followers and excluded -when necessary- his followers whose loyalty he doubted. He kept their children in his palace to guarantee their loyalty. So, we find that diplomacy was adopted in all matters and protocols since 2000 B.C.

Diplomatic Messages
Ancient Egyptians exchanged diplomatic messages with other governments in Akkadian and in Cuneiform writing as illustrated by Amarna and Ugarit murals (stellas) in Phoenicia and Boghazkoy, the capital of the Hethites in Central Asia.
The style of writing diplomatic messages and what it includes of greetings differed according to the position of the writer who writes to the Pharaoh. The king signed his letters to the Pharaoh by saying (your brother). On the other hand, the rulers and followers address the Pharaoh in their messages by (your servant). Failure to send presents to the Pharaoh when he acceded the throne or ignoring inquiring about the Pharaoh's condition were considered aggressive acts. Queens also exchanged letters to promote friendship between their husbands.

There were very strict and harsh traditions with regard to marriage especially what concerns equality between the husband and his wife; for example when the Pharaoh sent a reply to the king of Babylonia who proposed to his daughter; he said, “The daughter of the Pharaoh of Egypt should not be married to anybody”.

Political Treaties
As political treaties and agreements are a sign of the most elevated stages of political and diplomatic maturity, history records that the ancient Egyptians were the first to conclude the first peaceful treaty signed by men on earth.
That is the famous treaty signed by Ramsis II with the Hithiti king Hattuslis in about 1280 B.C. They signed it after they had reminded each other of the previous links between the two countries, so they were going to sign a treaty of permanent peace and friendship and an alliance based on reciprocal cooperation, the most prominent terms of which were refraining from assaulting each other, complying with the terms of the previous treaty, uniting against any outside aggression and any internal coup and agreeing on the terms of deportation of persons non grata.

The agreement stated granting unconditional amnesty to anyone asking for assylum in the other country and extraditing him to his country. The treaty was written in clear and specific articles. Its terms were guaranteed by summoning their gods to give witness to its signatories and bring curse on whoever breaks it.

Egyptians and the Universe
Egyptians produced an idea about the universe based on the geographical conditions of the Nile Valley. They considered the world, a land through which the Nile was passing and surrounded by water which was gifted by the first god, Nun who created life, the Nile and rain and above the flat land, a sky resembling a ceiling separated from the earth by the “god Shu”, the god of air.
There were pillars in the four corners of the earth on which the sky relied.
This image was firstly used for the small world which was known for the inhabitants of the Nile Valley since prehistoric ages, then its area stretched gradually in all directions through journeys and conquests without any change in the general concept of the world.
They thought that edges of the world were the places from which wind came. Its eastern edge was the place from which the sun rises from the ocean in the morning then sets in the evening in its western edge and goes to the underworld.
Egyptians made the south their direction, the west in their right and the east in their left. They did not consider any place, a flat plateau except their valley despite the hills bordering it or Nubia or Syria. They considered these countries mountainous regions.

Egyptians and the Invention of Writing
Ancient Egyptians hand a great number of symbols expressing materialistic things and actions easily indicated by their images. It was an enjoyable way of expression but very limited in scope. How could they express words like master, servant, wife or brother? And how could they express tenses, pronouns, demonstratives or infinitives such as habit, health, illness, thinking or nouns and verbs like do, love or contemplate?
The ancient Egyptians solved this problem by inventing writing which becomes actually a historical turning point in the life and destiny of humanity as a whole. It was a shift which took humanity from the age of expression by images of realistic things to the age of artificial expression by voice in language.
Symbols show images not words. Every person can understand from the symbol of the fish that it is a fish. Yet, abstract ideas can not be experssed by images.

It is necessary to use voices to indicate a word in a specific language. It is not enough to see the images to understand the meaning of the written letter or the written word, but it had to be pronounced to know the meaning from the voice not the image.
The ancient Egyptians like many other peoples were of semetic language groups. They considered vowels of secondary importance, so they only used consonants in their writings. Words in their language were composed of signs of one, two or three letters. They concluded that the signs fall into three categories: “phonograms” (representing the consonantal sounds of ancient Egyptian); "logograms” or “ideograms” (signs that represent whole words); and “determinatives” (signs that clarify the sense of a word in a particular context).
In this way, they had 24 signs, every sign represented only one consonant. By using those alphapetical letters, they helped them to avoid using hundreds of signs. Those alphabetical signs were not used except in ancient texts in which words were written phonetically or in writing royal names such as Ptolemy, Cleopatra, Ceasar and others.

Ancient Egyptians invented a way of writing which can represent all existing words in their language through signs which represented real things and more than 150 phonetic symbols written unilaterally. It expressed all phonetic formations.
Writing was improved and revised as the following:
1- The phonetic formation was used for signs to help in reading the signs of pictures and to indicate the right reading of the image symbol. They wrote obelisk and pronounced it (Takhn) which means t+kh+n plus the image. They used the two ways to complete each other: the image signs and the phonetic signs.
2- Phonetic signs were used to facilitate reading. On adding a phonetic sign or more to a bilateral or a trilateral sign to facilitate reading the sign.
3- It was necessary also to avoid any confusion between the phonetic sign and the image sign.
4- As in all languages, there were words of identical sounds or at least words which had the same consonants. As there were no vowels, a lot of words which had different pronunciation were written in the same way. So, they used special words to distinguish between them. A special word is a symbol, added to the phonetical symbols to indicate the type of the word representing it. The special word was not pronounced but it had only a visual value, so it was very necessary to use a lot of special words. There were 100 special words at least.

Egyptians and Medicine
Ancient Egyptians made great achievements in medicine and surgery. The Greek medicine learned from the Egyptian medicine a lot to the extent that it can be considered an extention of it. The Egyptian papyri in Kahoon, Adon Smith, Waypers, Host, London, Carlsburg and Berlin are only excerpts from original ones including physicians, magicians, dentists, ophthalmologists and others including veterinarians.
It included treatments written by ancient Egyptian physicians describing what should be done in general medicine, gynecology, bone surgery and ocular diseases. They studied the heart, blood vessels reaching every organ and respiratory system diseases such as bronchitis and laryngitis.
They also used honey, cream, milk, herbs, injection and castor oil. Texts indicate that they knew dentistry. From examining mummies, they discovered that they knew how to fill the teeth with a special kind of Egyptian cement and used gold to tie it. They knew how to treat eye diseases. A number of prescriptions were found, treating trachoma, cataract and night blindness for which they used a mixture of animal liver to treat it.
They were very accurate in watching the symptoms of any disease and they used very effective drugs. With regard to bone surgery as came in Adon Smith Papyrus, it was nearly very scientific.
The ancient Egyptian medicine was very famous in the Far East. Abu Krat and Gullen did not deny what they learned from the Egyptian papyri which they studied in Amhuteb temple in Memphis.