The Mind of Egypt; History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs

by Jan Assmann; Translated by Andrew Jenkins

• ISBN13: 9780805054620
• ISBN10: 0805054626
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2002-04-12
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Summary

From one of the world's greatest Egyptologists, an original and brilliant study of the inner life of ancient Egypt The Mind of Egyptpresents an unprecedented account of the mainsprings of Egyptian civilization-the ideals, values, mentalities, belief systems, and aspirations that shaped the first territorial state in human history. Drawing on a range of literary, iconographic, and archaeological sources, renowned historian Jan Assmann reconstructs a world of unparalleled complexity, a culture that, long before others, possessed an extraordinary degree of awareness and self-reflection. Moving through successive periods of Egyptian civilization, from its beginnings in the fifth millennium b.c.e. until the rise of Christianity 4,500 years later, Assmann traces the crucial roles of the pharaohs, the priests, and the imperial bureaucracy. He explores the ideal relation of man to God and explains monumental architecture and ritual celebrations as expressions of that ideal. Most strikingly, he focuses on the meaningful world of ancient Egypt-the multiple notions of time, the structures of immortality, and the commitment to the principle of social justice and human fellowship. Widely acclaimed for his cross-disciplinary approach, Assmann has produced a tantalizing study of an ancient civilization, even as he has opened new directions in historical investigation.

Author Biography

Jan Assmann, a world-renowned professor of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg and winner of the prestigious German Historians Prize, has taught at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Rice, the Getty Research Center, the British Museum, and the Royal Anthropological Society. He has published, among other works, Moses the Egyptian and The Search for God in Ancient Egypt.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Introduction: The Meaningful Form of History	p. 1
The Predynastic Period and the Old Kingdom
The Beginnings	p. 27
The Old Kingdom	p. 46
The First Intermediate Period
Historical Outline	p. 81
Traces	p. 86
Messages	p. 93
Memories	p. 106
The Middle Kingdom
Historical Outline	p. 117
State, Script, Education: Despotism Illuminated from Within	p. 121
The Politicization of Connective Justice	p. 135
Wrath and Love: The Two Faces of Power and the Rhetoric of Decision	p. 143
The Foundation of Connective Justice in the Hereafter: The Judgment of the Dead	p. 157
The Two Worlds and the Language of Despair	p. 169
Representation, Mediacy, the "Riven World," and the Problem of Evil	p. 183
The New Kingdom
Historical Outline	p. 197
Cosmotheism as a Form of Knowledge	p. 204
Akhenaten's Revolution	p. 214
Personal Piety and the Theology of Will	p. 229
Ramesses II and the Battle of Qadesh	p. 247
Changing the Structure of the Past	p. 272
The Decline of the New Kingdom	p. 280
Theocracy, Polyarchy, Archaism
Tanis and Thebes: The Age of Division	p. 287
Libyan Polyarchy and the State of Napata	p. 312
Memory and Renewal: The Ethiopian and Saite Renaissance	p. 335
Egypt under the Persians and Greeks
Historical Outline	p. 367
The Demotic Chronicle and the Political Messianism of the Late Period	p. 377
The Cultural Construction of Otherness: Trauma and Phobia	p. 389
Re-Membering Osiris	p. 409
Conclusion: Egypt as Trace, Message, and Memory	p. 421
Abbreviations	p. 435
Notes	p. 437
Chronology	p. 477
Key to the Egyptian Gods	p. 485
Index	p. 487
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