How Precious Metals Were Used in Ancient Egypt

Precious metals have been valuable resources for centuries, going back to ancient civilizations specially the Egyptian one. 

If you’ve frequented museums, it’s likely that you’ve seen golden jewelry and sarcophagi on display. These and other artifacts were crafted by hand all those years ago with a variety of precious metals and gemstones. In fact, the ancient Egyptians mastered mining and metallurgy, creating the foundation for modern metal smiting.

Extracting metals from ores was an expensive process since the tools were barely harder than rock and transportation was cumbersome. Therefore due to the cost of new material, many metal objects were melted down for a new purpose once they were no longer useful.

Gold Pharaonic Mask

Today’s surviving artifacts are mostly objects that were deliberately buried within tombs, as opposed to everyday items of the time period.

Egyptians found many uses for a variety of metals. Here is how these metals were used back then.

Copper

Copper was the first metal used by ancient Egyptians. They mined the metal up to 5,000 years ago and, in fact, the oldest Egyptian artifacts made of copper consist of beads and small tools. Copper was rarely found in a pure state, often containing small amounts of zinc, iron, or arsenic. Eventually, the Egyptian people began deliberately mixing tin with copper to make bronze, a much stronger alloy.

Copper objects of the era were often cast, which was a difficult process due to bubble formation during the pouring of the metal. The Egyptians with time learned that hammering copper increased its hardness, but could lead to the metal becoming more brittle. They combated the brittleness by annealing or tempering, which involved heating the metal to soften it slightly. These techniques were used to make weapons, tools, vessels, statues, and ornaments out of copper.

Gold

Gold nuggets

Gold was commonly used to make jewelry and ornaments for two main reasons: the first is that the Egyptians believed gold to be the flesh of the sun god Ra and the second because gold was plentiful in the region. 

Artisans made amulets, death masks, diadems, ornamental weapons, vessels, and funeral art out of gold to adorn the tombs of pharaohs. Some of these objects were decorative, meant to shower the fallen leaders with wealth and beauty. Other objects were created as good luck charms that were believed to ensure a safe journey to the afterlife. 

Royals and the wealthy largely controlled the gold market, however non-royal Egyptians were also known to own gold jewelry.

Goldsmiths shaped the yellow metal by casting and hammering, while adding embellishments with techniques like embossing and engraving. Precious stones and glass were often set into decorative gold pieces. Gold was also pounded into thin plates, which could be glued or riveted onto other materials. This technique was used in the making of columns, obelisks, furniture, coffins, death masks, and jewelry. Artisans also created gold leaf, which could be applied to surfaces using type of gesso.

Ancient Egyptians frequently used a naturally occurring alloy known as electrum, which consisted of gold, silver, and a small amount of copper. It was pale amber in color. Electrum was used to make chariots, columns, thrones, offering tables, statues, amulets, and jewelry.

War Chariot

Silver

Silver was far scarcer than gold in ancient Egypt, which made it a highly valuable commodity. The white metal was treated much like gold and electrum, used to meet a variety of needs. One unique use for silver was that artisans would beat it into sheets to plate mirror surfaces. When used for ornamental purposes, silver could be stained black using sulfur. The top of the great pyramid of giza was apparently cover with electrum to be seen from far.

Bronze

Though techniques for working with bronze resembled those of copper, bronze allowed for a big improvement in the creation of tools and weapons. Egyptians produced the bronze alloy by mixing a small amount of tin with copper during the smelting process. Bronze was harder than copper and melted at a lower temperature, which made is easier to cast.

Some historians believe that bronze was discovered when artisans accidentally mixed tin and copper ores. Egyptians then deliberately began producing bronze and copper-arsenic alloys, and also imported bronze from neighboring lands. Artisans used bronze to create not only tools and weapons, but also ornamental doors for temples and shrines, vessels, offering tables, statues, and jewelry.

Tin

The tin used to produce bronze was likely imported from western Asia. Despite its use in bronze production, tin was rarely used by itself. Some small pieces of tin jewelry from the era have been found, but tin finds are scarce. However, tin oxide was added to glass to make it opaque.

Iron

Iron was known as the “metal of heaven” because the only known sources of it came from meteoric sources until 500 BC. Most of the iron used by ancient Egyptians to make tools and weapons was imported. Iron was the most utilitarian metal at the time (most often used to make knives), but it was used ornamentally as well. Various iron compounds were also used as coloring agents for decorative items like amulets and beads.

Metals in History

While we do have a decent understanding of how the ancient Egyptians used a variety of precious metals and other materials, plenty of information has been lost to history. Many metal objects were melted down long ago, and many tombs and other sites have been looted over the years. The remaining artifacts tell a skewed history, since we don’t have all the facts.

Yet, there’s a lot we have learned from what remains. And history shows us that precious metals were just as important and coveted to ancient Egyptians as they still are to people in today’s society.

Article: published by PROVIDENT METALS 

Edited and mise en page for this blog

All Copyright preserved.

Music of Egypt

Musicians depicted on Pharaonic paintings

    Music has been an integral part of Egyptian culture since antiquity. Music and dance were highly valued in ancient Egyptian culture, but they were more important than is generally thought: they were integral to creation and communion with the gods. The Bible documents the instruments played by the ancient Egyptians, all of which are correlated in Egyptian archaeology. Music was everywhere in Ancient Egypt  at civil or funerary banquets, religious processions, military parades and even at work in the field. The Egyptians loved music and included scenes of musical performances in tomb paintings and on temple walls, but valued the dance equally and represented its importance as well.

Musicians in temple

Egyptian music probably had a significant impact on the development of ancient Greek music, that in turn  influenced the early European music well into the middle Ages. 

    Egyptian modern music is considered as a main core of Middle Eastern and Oriental music as it has a very big influence on the region due to the popularity and huge influence of Egyptian Cinema and Music industries. The tonal structure of Oriental Middle Eastern music is defined by the maqamat مقامات, loosely similar to the Western modes, while the rhythm of Middle Eastern music is governed by the iqa'at اقاعات, standard rhythmic modes formed by combinations of accented and unaccented beats and rests.    

Evidence shows the earliest instruments in Ancient Egypt were rattles, dating to the 5th millennium BCE, followed by clappers and flutes in the 4th millennium. Harps and drums are only attested in the middle of the 3rd millennium.

    Some of the oldest and most important Egyptian musical instruments were stringed instruments. These included three sizes of lyres, an asymmetrical instrument with two arms and a crossbar attached to a sound box. The strings, connected to the
crossbar and the sound box, were plucked to make a sound.

Egyptian Sistrums in the louvre

  

    There are many depictions of harp players in early Egyptian art, and it seems harps were favored instruments. They were sometimes complex and beautiful; some were decorated with inlays of ivory, silver, and gold that signaled their importance and status as object.

Some History

    The ancient Egyptians credited the goddess Bat with the invention of music. The cult of Bat was eventually syncretized into that of Hathor because both were depicted as cows. Hathor's music believed to have been used by Osiris as part of his effort to civilize the world. Furthermore the deity Merit is depicted present with Ra or Atum along with Heka (god of magic) at the beginning of creation and helps establish order through music. The lion-goddess Bastet was  considered a goddess of music.

Sistrum a Pharaonic Musical
Instrument

Neolithic period

     In prehistoric Egypt, music and chanting were commonly used in magic and rituals. Rhythms during this time were unvaried and music served to create rhythm. Small shells were used as whistles.

Menit-necklace

The menit-necklace was a heavily beaded neck piece which could be shaken in dance or taken off and rattled by hand during temple performances and the sistrum (plural sistra), was a hand-held rattle/percussion device closely associated with Hathor but used in the worship ceremonies of many gods by temple musicians and dancers.

Man playing Harp

Predynastic period

    During the predynastic period of Egyptian history, funerary chants continued to play an important role in Egyptian religion and were accompanied by clappers or a flute. Despite the lack of physical evidence in some cases, Egyptologists theorize that the development of certain instruments known of the Old Kingdom period, such as the end-blown flute, took place during this time.

    Dancing was associated equally with the elevation of religious devotion and human sexuality and earthly pleasures. In Egyptian theology, sex was simply another aspect of life and had no taint of 'sin' attached to it.     

Lyre

Old Kingdom

    The evidence for instruments played is more securely attested in the Old Kingdom when harps, flutes and double clarinets were played. Percussion instruments and lutes were added to orchestras only around the Middle Kingdom. Cymbals frequently accompanied music and dance, much as they still do in Egypt today.

     The ancient Egyptians had no concept of musical notation. The tunes were passed down from one generation of musicians to the next. Exactly how Egyptian musical compositions sounded is, therefore, unknown, but it has been suggested that the modern-day Coptic liturgy may be a direct descendent. Coptic emerged as the dominant language of ancient Egypt in the 4th century CE, and the music the Copts used in their religious services is thought to have evolved from that of earlier Egyptian services just as their language evolved from ancient Egyptian and Greek.

HARP

Medieval music

     Early Middle Eastern music was influenced by Byzantine and Persian forms, which were themselves heavily influenced by earlier Greek, Semitic, and Ancient Egyptian music.

    Egyptians in Medieval Cairo believed that music exercised "too powerful an effect upon the passions, and leading men into gaiety, dissipation and vice." However, Egyptians generally were very fond of music. Schools taught the Quran by chanting. 

Kanoun music instrument

  The music of Medieval Egypt was derived from Greek and Persian traditions. "The most remarkable peculiarity of the Arab system of music is the division of tones into thirds," although today Western musicologists prefer to say that Arabic music's tones are divided into quarters. The songs of this period were similar in sound and simple, within a small range of tones. The singer was the only person to embellishes the simplicity of Egyptian music. Distinct enunciation and a quavering voice are also characteristics of Egyptian singing. (Example Oum Kalthoum)    

Oud music instrument

    Male professional musicians during this period were called Alateeyeh (plural), or Alatee الاتي (singular), which means "a player upon an instrument". However, this name applies to both vocalists as well as instrumentalists. This position was considered disreputable and lowly. However, musicians found work singing or playing at parties to entertain the company. They generally made very little money a night, but earned more by the guests' giving’s.

Alemah

    Female professional musicians were called Awalim عوالم (pl) or Alemah عالمه  which means a educated female. These singers were often hired on the occasion of a celebration in the harem of a wealthy person. They were not with the harem, but in an elevated room that was concealed by a screen so as not to be seen by either the harem or the master of the house. The female Awalim were more highly paid than male performers and more highly regarded than the Alateeyeh الاتيه as well. Female performer who so enraptured her audience earned up to fifty pounds for one night's performance from the guests and host, themselves not considered wealthy.

     Egyptian music began to be recorded in the 1910s when Egypt was still part of the Ottoman Empire. The cosmopolitan Ottomans encouraged the development of the arts, encouraging women and minorities to develop their musical abilities. By the fall of the Empire, Egypt's classical musical tradition was already thriving, centered in the city of Cairo. In general, modern Egyptian music blends its indigenous traditions with Turkish and western elements.

Hasaballa Band

    In the second half of the 19th century, the Hasaballah genre of popular improvisational brass band folk music emerged, initiated by clarinetist Mohammad Hasaballah and his band, also called Hasaballah, playing in Cairo's music and entertainment quarter on Mohammed Ali Street. The typical line-up of trumpet, trombone, bass and snare drums, was popular, such as at family events, for well over a century, and is still played.

Oum Kalthoum

    Since the end of World War I, some of the Middle East's biggest musical stars have been Egyptian. Contemporary Egyptian music traces its beginnings to the creative work of luminaries such as Abdu-El Hamuli, Almaz and Mahmud Osman, who were all patronized by the Ottoman Khedive Ismail, and who influenced the later work of the 20th century's most important Egyptian composers: Sayed Darwish, Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Abdel Halim Hafez, and Zakariya Ahmed. Most of these stars, including Umm Kulthum and Nagat El-Saghira, were part of the traditional Egyptian music. Some, like Abd el-Halim Hafez, were associated with the Egyptian nationalist movement from 1952 onward.

Western classical music imprint on Egypt

    Cairo Opera House, a landmark in the cultural landscape of Egypt and the Middle East Western classical music was introduced to Egypt, and, in the middle of the 18th century, instruments such as the piano and violin were gradually adopted by Egyptian composers. Opera also became increasingly popular during the 18th century, Giuseppe Verdi's Egyptian-themed "Aida" was premiered in Cairo on December 24, 1871 in the Cairo Opera, build in the capital Cairo for the inauguration of the Suez Canal by Princess Eugenie of France.

Cairo opera house

    By the early 20th century, the first generation of Egyptian composers, including * Yusef Greiss, * Abu BakrKhairat, and Hassan Rashid as they began writing music for Western instruments.

*click on name to for more information...

The second generation of Egyptian composers included notable artists such as Gamal Abdelrahim. Representative composers of the third generation are Ahmed El-Saedi and Rageh Daoud. In the early 21st century, even fourth generation composers such as Mohamed Abdel-Wahab Abdelfattah (of the Cairo Conservatory) have gained international attention.

Percussion instrument "Tabla"

To be noted: Cairo-born "click on name" for video... * Fatma Said (start singing at 8:00 minutes into video) is the first Egyptian soprano to sing at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, and from 2016 she took part in BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme.

 Article constructed from different internet informations and pictures.

TAHRIR SQUARE

Finally, Cairo has an Obelisk like Rome, Paris and London

NEW TAHRIR SQUARE

Pharaoh Ramses II

Also known as Ramses the Great, was the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom, itself the most powerful period of Ancient Egypt.

UNFINISHED OBELISK ASWAN
abandonted in granite quarry

Ramses II Obelisk Carved out of pink granite is distinguished by the beauty of its inscriptions depicting Ramses II standing before one of the deities, surrounded by inscriptions of his various titles.

The obelisk installed in “Tahrir Square” is one of many obelisk belonging to King Ramses II this one found in San el-Hagar archaeological area in Sharqiyah is nearly 17 meters (half the hight of Lateran Basilica in Rome at 32.2 m) in  high when fully assembled and weighs an impressive 90 tons.

What exactly is an Obelisk?

INSTALLING RAMSES II OBELISK
IN TAHRIR SQUARE (2020)
CAIRO - EGYPT

An obelisk is a stone rectangular pillar with a tapered top forming a pyramidion, set on a base, erected to commemorate an individual or event and honor the gods. The ancient Egyptians created the form at some point in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-c. 2613 BCE) following their work in mud brick mastaba tombs and prior to the construction of the Step Pyramid of Djoser (c. 2670 BCE). It is thought that the earliest obelisks served as a kind of training for working in stone on monumental projects, which was a necessary step toward pyramid building.

The name "obelisk" is Greek for "spit", as in a long pointed piece of wood generally used for cooking, because the Greek historian Herodotus was the first to write about them and so named them. The Egyptians called them “tekhenu”, which means, "to pierce" as in "to pierce the sky". The earliest obelisks no longer exist and are only known through later inscriptions but appear to have been only about ten feet (3 meters) tall. In time they would reach heights of over 100 feet (30 meters). 

PLACE CONCORDE, PARIS

Although many cultures around the world from the Assyrian to the Mesoamerican employed the obelisk form, only ancient Egypt worked in monolithic stone, almost always red granite. Each ancient Egyptian obelisk was carved from a single piece of stone, which was then moved to its location and raised onto a base. While archaeologists and scholars understand how these monuments were carved and transported, no one knows how they were raised; modern day efforts to replicate the raising of an obelisk, using ancient Egyptian technology, have failed.

The obelisk symbolized the sun god Ra, and during the religious reformation of Akhenaten it was said to have been a petrified ray of the Aten, the sundisk.

LONDON OBELISK

Around 30 B.C., after Cleopatra "the last Pharaoh" committed suicide, Rome took control of Egypt. The Ancient Romans were awestruck by the obelisks they saw, and looted the various temple complexes; in one case they destroyed walls at the Temple of Karnak to haul them out. The majorities of obelisks were dismantled during the Roman period over 1,700 years ago and were sent to different locations. More Obelisks and the best were shipped out of Egypt by the Romans than what remain now in Egypt.

TALLSEST EGYPTIAN OBELISK
"LATERAN BASILICA" ROME

The largest standing and tallest Egyptian obelisk is the Lateran Obelisk in the square at the west side of the Lateran Basilica in Rome at 105.6 feet (32.2 m) tall and a weight of 455 metric tons.

The well-known iconic 25 meters (82 ft), 331-metric-ton is the obelisk at Saint Peter's Square. Brought to Rome by the Emperor Caligula in AD 37,

Pope Sixtus V was determined to erect the obelisk in front of St Peter's, of which the nave was yet to be built. He had a full-sized wooden mock-up erected within months of his election. Domenico Fontana, the assistant of Giacomo Della Porta in charge of the Basilica's construction, presented the Pope with a little model crane, made of wood and a heavy little obelisk of lead, which Sixtus himself was able to raise by turning a little winch with his fingers. Fontana was given the project. Half-buried in the debris of the ages, it was first excavated as it stood; then it took from 30 April to 17 May 1586 to move it on rollers to the Piazza: it required nearly 1000 men, 140 carthorses, and 47 cranes. The re-erection, scheduled for 14 September, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, was watched by a large crowd.

CLEOPATRA NEEDLE - SAINT PETER VATICAN

Here is a list of the many Egyptian obelisks around the world, while a total of eight only are left in Egypt.

Hieroglyphs on
OBELISK

One In France

Pharaoh Ramses II, Luxor Obelisk, in Place de la Concorde, Paris

One in Israel

Caesarea obelisk

Thirteen in Italy

(Includes the one located in the Vatican City).

Eight in Rome.

One in Piazza del Duomo, Catania (Sicily)

One in Boboli (Florence)

One in Urbino

Two in museums.

REMAINING OBELISK IN KARNAK TEMPLE LUXOR EGYPT

  

One in Poland

Ramses II, Poznań Archaeological Museum, Poznań 

(on loan from Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung, Berlin)

One in Turkey

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, the Obelisk of Theodosius in the Hippodrome of Constantinople (now Sultan Ahmet Square), Istanbul

Four in United Kingdom

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", beside the Thames Victoria Embankment, in London

Pharaoh Amenhotep II, in the Oriental Museum, University of Durham

Pharaoh Ptolemy IX, Philae obelisk, at Kingston Lacy, near Wimborne Minster, Dorset

Pharaoh Nectanebo II, British Museum, London (pair of obelisks)

OBELISK IN CENTRAL PARK NY

One in the United States

Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, "Cleopatra's Needle", in Central Park, New York

Tahrir  (Ismaileya) Square 1941

Ismaileya Square (1944) 

Contrary to the beleive that the "Mugamaa" governmental building 
was build after the 1952 revolution. 

The Mugamaa complex replaced
part of this garden and was inaugurated in 1949
by King Farouk

Tahrir square, showing a pedestal and 

the Mugamaa complex. (1967) 

Tahrir (Liberty) Square used to be called Ismailiah square (Khedive Ismail) until the 1952 Revolution. Many projects to beautify the square failed to materialize and Tahrir stayed over 60 years without purpose. In 2011 the people revolution, millions of peaceful demonstrators  came to the square to protest against the regime and eventually toppled the President Hosny Mubarak. 

Some additional notes added to the blog on Juin 3, 2020