The Civilization Of Ancient EgyptHarper Collins, 3 нояб. 1999 г. - Всего страниц: 240 A leading historian and bestselling author re-creates the growth, decline, and legacy of 3,000 Years of Egyptian civilization with an authoritative text splendidly illustrated with 150 illustrations in full color. Ancient Egypt, with its legacy of pyramids, pharaohs and sphinxes, is a land of power and mystery to the modern world. In The Civilization of Ancient Egypt Paul Johnson explores the growth and decline of a culture that survived for 3,000 years and maintained a purity of style that rivals all others. Johnson's study looks in detail at the state, religion, culture and geographical setting and how they combined in this unusually enduring civilization. From the beginning of Egyptian culture to the rediscovery of the pharaohs, the book covers the totalitarian theocracy, the empire of the Nile, the structure of dynastic Egypt, the dynastic way of death, hieroglyphs, the anatomy of perspective art and, finally, the decline and fall of the pharaohs, Johnson seeks, through an exciting combination of images and analysis, to discover the causes behind the collapse of this, great civilization while celebrating the extra-ordinary legacy it has left behind. Paul Johnson on Ancient Egypt and the Egyptians"Egypt was not only the first state, it was the first country.... The durability of the state which thus evolved was ensured by the overwhelming simplicity and power of its central institution, the theocratic monarchy." "The Egyptians did not share the Babylonian passion for astrology, but they used the stars as one of many guides to behavior. No Egyptian believed in a free exercise of will in important decisions: he always looked for an omen or a prophecy or an oracle." "The development of hieroglyphics mirrors and epitomizes the history of Egyptian civilization. . . . No one outside Egypt understood it and even within Egypt it was the exclusive working tool of the ruling and priestly classes. The great mass of Egyptians were condemned to illiteracy by the complexities (and also the beauties) of the Egyptian written language." "The affection the Egyptians were not. ashamed to display towards their children was related to the high status women enjoyed in Egyptian society." "If we can understand Egyptian art we can go a long way towards grasping the very spirit and outlook on life, of this gifted people, so remote in time. The dynamic of their civilization seems to have been a passionate love of order (maat to them), by which they sought to give to human activities and creations the same regularity as their landscape, their great river, their sun-cycle and their immutable seasons." |
Результаты поиска по книге
Результаты 1 – 5 из 6
... facts of its setting : the rhythm of the Nile and its productive valley , and the circumscription of the desert . They ... fact neither assumption was correct : even Egypt and its people were subject to the slow transformations of time ...
... fact , many hippos in the Nile delta even in Roman times . But , in general , the encroachment of the desert was inexorable , driving the fauna of the plains ever further to the south , and mankind to the desert oases and , above all ...
... fact may have first led them to conceive the notion of eternity , and so to stress the transcendent importance of religion in the brief span of human life on earth . Throughout the fourth millennium , they were burying their dead in ...
... fact it would be hard to point to any Egyptian text of any period , however profane in appearance - annals , love poems , song , drama , legend - whose origins were not obviously rooted in a religious genre and which did not retain ...
... fact , being linked to the earliest writings and pictograms which began to generate magic and excitement shortly before political unity occurred . The idea of conscious statesmanship in founding the cosmos - as opposed to the crude ...