Imhotep
{im-hoh'-tep}
Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian priest and vizier, served as architect and court official to King Zoser of the 3d dynasty (c.2686-2613 BC). His titles indicate that he was not of royal birth, but he was later deified--one of few nonroyals to achieve that distinction. As the chief sculptor and chief carpenter of Zoser, Imhotep is connected with Zoser's famous step pyramid complex at Saqqara (see PYRAMIDS). This complex, which includes the step pyramid itself, a burial chamber, a mortuary temple, and the court of the Heb Sed (festival of renewal), was, according to the late Egyptian writer Manetho, the first Egyptian building in stone. Manetho credits Imhotep with this invention.
Imhotep later came to be regarded as a sage, author of wisdom literature, and patron of scribes, and under the 26th dynasty (664-525 BC) he was deified. Many statuettes from the Late Dynastic Period show him seated with a scroll on his lap. He was identified by the Greeks with ASCLEPIUS, the god of healing; thousands flocked to his temples in search of cures. Imhotep's tomb was probably at Saqqara.
Io
Io, in Greek mythology, princess of Argos. She was turned into a heifer
by ZEUS to protect her from HERA's jealousy. Hera claimed the heifer and
had the many-eyed monster ARGUS guard it. When HERMES killed Argus, Hera's
gadfly drove Io until she came to rest in Egypt. There Zeus returned her
to human form. Io has been identified with the Egyptian ISIS.
Isis
{y'-sis}
In Egyptian mythology, Isis was the mother goddess of fertility and nature. Her worship was combined with that of her brother and husband, OSIRIS, and her son HORUS. She is often depicted wearing on her head the horns of a cow, encircled by either a lunar or solar disk. Her worship originated in Egypt, and by Hellenistic times she had assimilated the attributes of the major Greek divinities DEMETER and APHRODITE. By the period of the Roman Empire, she had become the most prominent deity of the Mediterranean basin, as her temple at Pompeii attests.
Isis's cult focused on the celebration of the mysteries associated with the death and resurrection of Osiris. In The GOLDEN ASS (AD c.155), Lucius APULEIUS, an African priest of Isis, left an excellent account of her appearance and mystery cult; in a dream or during initiation, Apuleius saw Queen Isis rise with the moon from the sea. In this text she has many titles, including queen of heaven, earth, and the underworld, and mother of wheat.
During the early centuries AD the cult of Isis was a formidable contender with the newly founded Christian religion. Despite purges of the followers of Isis, her worship continued well into the 6th century AD.
Ivory
Ivory, type of dentin present only in ELEPHANT tusks. Major sources are
Africa and Asia. Ivory was long used for carvings and inlay work and as
a surface for miniature painting. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Assyria,
Babylon, Greece, Rome, India, China, Japan, Byzantium, and early Christian
Europe produced works in ivory. In modern times it has also been used to
make keys for pianos and other instruments, billiard balls, and handles.
The diminishing elephant population (largely
the result of their slaughter for ivory) and efforts to protect existing
herds led to an international treaty (1990) banning the ivory trade and
the increasing use of alternative materials, such as PLASTIC and certain
specially designed substitutes, as ivory stocks are depleted. In the past,
teeth or tusks of such animals as the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, sperm
whale, and wild boar were also called ivory.
Jewelry
Jewelry, personal adornments worn for ornament, to show rank or wealth,
or to follow custom. Jewelry predates clothing, and necklaces, bracelets,
rings, pins, and earrings have been made of such materials as feathers,
shells, teeth, ivory, and metal. Bronze and silver have been used by primitive
peoples and modern designers, but gold has been the preferred metal. Jewelry
may be decorated, e.g., with ENGRAVING and ETCHING and by application of
ENAMEL, MOSAIC, GEMS, semiprecious stones, and glass.
Ancient Egyptian jewelry used colorful beads and emblematic motifs, e.g., the scarab. The Greeks made ornaments of plain gold; after 400 B.C. gems and, later, CAMEOS were used. Roman jewelry was massive, and ropes of pearls were prized. Medieval jewelry included large brooches and heavy girdles. In the Renaissance, men and women wore gold chains, jeweled collars, and pendants, often designed or even rendered by noted artists.
Ornaments crowded with stones were worn to
excess in the late 17th cent. Jewelry was almost superseded in the late
18th cent. by decorative buttons, watches, and snuffboxes, but the 19th
cent. saw the revival of the bracelet and cameo. With factory production
of jewelry, artistry declined. In the 20th cent. costume jewelry and the
wristwatch were introduced by Gabrielle Chanel and platinum became popular.
Since the craft revival of the 1960s there has been renewed interest in
handwrought jewelry.
Karnak
{kahr'-nak}
Karnak, a village on the Nile at the northern extremity of LUXOR, is the site of the greatest assembly of ancient temples in Egypt. They are spread over about 48 ha (120 acres) and range in date over about 2,000 years. By far the largest and most important is the temple of Amun (Amon-Re). In origin, it probably dates back to the Old Kingdom (c.2686-2181 BC), but the earliest surviving building is a pavilion of Sesostris I (c.1971-1928 BC).
Amun, called king of the gods, was the state god in the New Kingdom (c.1570-1085 BC). During this period kings with such famous names as Amenhotep, Thutmose, Seti, and Ramses conducted campaigns in Western Asia and Nubia, bringing back vast quantities of booty, some of which paid for building the Amun temple and made its priesthood the richest religious organization in the land. Architecturally, the temple's most impressive element is the colossal Hypostyle Hall of Seti I (c.1318-1304 BC). Its walls are decorated with scenes carved in relief and hieroglyphic inscriptions that primarily depict religious ceremonies or record historical events, such as conquests.
Khafre
{kah'-fruh}
Khafre, also called Chephren, fl. 1st half of the 26th century BC, was the fourth king of the 4th dynasty (c.2613-c.2498 BC) of ancient Egypt. The son of Khufu, he built at Giza the second of the three Great Pyramids and the Great SPHINX, whose colossal facial image may be a representation of Khafre's features.
Khufu
{koo'-foo}
Khufu, or Cheops, fl. c.2680 BC, was the king of ancient Egypt who directed the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza (see PYRAMIDS), the largest tomb-pyramid ever built. He was the son and successor of King Snefru, who founded the 4th dynasty (c.2613-2498). During his reign, Khufu mobilized nearly all of Egypt's male work force for his monumental building project. In 1954 remains of the 43-m (142-ft) funerary ship of Khufu were discovered near the Great Pyramid; a second boat was found in 1987. An ivory statuette found in the temple at Abydos and thought to depict Khufu is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
King
A king is a ruler who reigns usually for life. Originally a king was often
elected, although hereditary kingship generally became the rule. A king
normally rules alone (monarchy), although ancient Sparta sometimes had
two kings (dyarchy). In the past kings have held absolute power, but in
modern times they have usually been limited to acting as symbolic chiefs
of state.
In some civilizations, such as in ancient Egypt, the king was considered a god. Christian kings during the Middle Ages in Europe considered themselves as representatives of God's will. Absolute monarchs, such as those of the 16th to the 18th century in Europe, claimed to rule by DIVINE RIGHT and were sometimes the leaders of national churches. Today the power of most of the few monarchs that remain is limited by constitutions, and they function mainly as symbols of national unity and continuity.
Language
Also known as Hamito-Semitic languages, Afroasiatic languages are spoken
by more than 300 million persons representing a wide range of cultures
through most of the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, North Africa, and
large portions of West Africa. The languages include Arabic and Hebrew.
Afroasiatic is commonly divided into five main branches based on ancient
roots: Egyptian, Semitic, Cushitic, Berber, and Chad. Omotic, formerly
called West Cushitic, has recently been suggested as constituting a sixth
branch. These languages differ in their particulars, and the exact relationship
among the branches has not yet been established. Scholars postulate, however,
that all are derived from an unknown ancestor language that was probably
spoken in northeast Africa or the Sahara about the 6th millennium BC.
EGYPTIAN
Egyptian is the oldest attested language of the family, and it has the longest known continuous history. As a written language it proceeded in five distinct stages. The first three--Old Egyptian (c.3000 to c.2200 BC), Middle Egyptian (c.2200 to c.1200 BC), and Late or Neo-Egyptian (c.1300 to c.700 BC)--were all written in HIEROGLYPHICS. Demotic (c.700 BC to AD c.300) was written in a simplified cursive script based on hieroglyphics and spoken by early Christians. Coptic (from AD 300), written in an alphabet based on Greek and comprising many dialects, was still widely spoken in the 16th century and in some places possibly as late as the 19th century. One Coptic dialect, Bohairic, is now the liturgical language of the Christian Monophysite Coptic Church.
SEMITIC
Semitic was originally confined to the Near East but gradually spread to the Horn of Africa and then throughout North Africa. It comprises two major groups, which in turn comprise many smaller affinity groups. Semitic embraces the languages used by a number of cultures prominent in ancient times, including the people of the BIBLE, as well as modern Arabic and Hebrew.
East Semitic includes Akkadian, the language of the Assyro- Babylonians that was spoken in Mesopotamia from c.3000 to c.400 BC. It was written, usually from left to right, in a cuneiform script. West Semitic can be further divided into central and southern branches and embraces the Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, South Arabian, and Ethiopian languages. Most languages in this group were or still are written from right to left in a consonantal script without marked vowels. As Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic further developed, users added diacritical vowel symbols or "points," which are now optional. The main branches of Central Semitic are Aramaic, Arabic, and Canaanite.
Aramaic
One of the branches of Central Semitic, Aramaic was once the colloquial language of the Near East after the decline of Akkadian. It was the native tongue of Jesus Christ and the language of the Jewish Talmud. Syriac, one of its eastern branches, was used to transmit early Christian culture up to the 13th century. Today eastern Aramaic is still spoken by about 200,000 persons--many of whom are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians--in northeast Iran and neighboring areas of Iraq and the Caucasus, as well as by Jews from the same region who have immigrated to Israel. Mandaic, the language of a Gnostic sect, is also still spoken in the region.
Arabic
As a literary language, Arabic dates back to the 7th century AD. It is the language of the KORAN, the holy book of Islam, and thus assumed tremendous importance because it was adopted by most of the peoples conquered and converted by Muslim Arabs. Arabic has also been spoken by the Christian and Jewish minorities of the Islamic world. A North African branch, spoken by Christians and written in Roman characters, is the official language of Malta. A modernized version of classical Arabic, Modern Literary Arabic, is used in education, literature, and mass communication by about 208 million persons.
Canaanite
Canaanite comprises Hebrew and such ancient languages as Phoenician-Punic, Moabite, and Ugaritic. Hebrew, attested from the 10th century BC to the present, is the language of Judaism and the Old Testament Bible. Its original domain included what is now Israel and nearby areas. Biblical Hebrew is found in texts dating from c.1000 to 400 BC. Mishnaic (Rabbinical) Hebrew (AD c.200) is the language of the MISHNAH, the first great legal document of Judaism, and shows the influence of vernacular Aramaic.
Medieval Hebrew (6th to 13th century) was the written language of religious literature and poetry of Arabic-speaking Jews, notably in Spain. Early modern Hebrew developed in the 18th century and became the vehicle for a secular literature and for correspondence between Jews, mainly in Eastern Europe. The Zionist settlers of Palestine (Israel) also adopted it as a colloquial language, as a result of the systemization by Eliezer BEN-YEHUDAH early in this century. Today, Israeli Hebrew is spoken by about 4 million persons in Israel.
Phoenician-Punic was spoken in what is today Lebanon, from the 10th century BC to the beginning of the Christian era. Phoenicians brought their language to the colonies that they established around the Mediterranean, the most famous of which was CARTHAGE.
Moabite, which was related to biblical Hebrew, died out long ago, as did Ugaritic. Written in a cuneiform consonantal script, Ugaritic was the language of the city of UGARIT up to the 14th century BC. Its affiliations, as well as those of Amorite and of the language of EBLA, remain disputed.
South Semitic
South Semitic is represented by three branches whose exact relationship has not yet been discerned. The original language of the southern half of the Arabian peninsula was South Arabian and not Arabic. Epigraphic South Arabian is known only from short inscriptions dating from the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. Its main varieties were Sabaean (Sheba), Minean, Awsani, Qatabani, and Hadramauti. Modern South Arabian is not a descendant of the former. These languages are spoken by about 50,000 people in the Dhofar and on the island of Socotra (Soqotri).
Ethiopian
Spoken in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian languages were transplanted from South Arabia, possibly around 2000 BC, and were greatly transformed by the populations that adopted them. The script, written from left to right, is a continuation of the South Arabian consonantal script. Here, however, a character stands for a consonant-vowel group, and the vowel is marked by a modification of the basic shape of the consonantal letter.
Ethiopian languages comprise northern and southern branches. In the North Ethiopic group--Ge'ez, Tigrinya, and Tigre--Ge'ez was the language of civilization centering on Aksum. First attested in inscriptions from the 4th century AD, it died out as a spoken language in the 9th century but continued to be used as a literary language and as the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Tigrinya has 4 million speakers in Eritrea and the region of Tigre. The Tigre language is spoken by 1.4 million people.
The South Ethiopic group comprises two branches: Transversal South Ethiopic and Outer South Ethiopic. The chief language of the Transversal South Ethiopic branch is Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, with more than 20 million, mainly Christian, speakers. This branch also includes the almost extinct Argobba language, Harari--spoken in the Muslim city of Harar--and East Gurage. Outer South Ethiopic includes the recently extinct Gafat and the rest of the so-called Gurage languages (Soddo, Chaha, and others).
CUSHITIC
Cushitic is the most heterogeneous of the Afroasiatic languages. It comprises about 40 different languages spoken by more than 36 million persons in the Horn of Africa and surrounding areas. Beja or Bedauye, spoken in eastern Sudan, Eritrea, and northern Ethiopia by small numbers of Muslims, has been classified as North Cushitic but may be an independent branch of Afroasiatic. Central Cushitic, comprising the Agau languages, is spoken within enclaves of predominantly Semitic Ethiopia.
East Cushitic, the largest member of the group, is divided into Highland East Cushitic, with more than 5 million speakers in south-central Ethiopia (Burji, Sidamo, Hadiyya, and other languages), and Lowland East Cushitic. The latter is more widespread. Its northern branch comprises the Afar-Saho or Dankali dialect cluster, with about 2.4 million speakers located in southern Eritrea, northeastern Ethiopia, and Djibouti. The other branch contains the widest diversity. Somali, with about 7 million speakers, is the official language of Somalia and is also spoken in the Republic of Djibouti, in the Ogaden area of Ethiopia, and in the northwestern part of Kenya. It is written in Roman script, although Arabic and an indigenous script have also been used. Its closest relatives are Boni and Rendille in Kenya.
The most widely spoken Cushitic language is Oromo, or Galla, with more than 22 million speakers. It is spoken in the southern half of Ethiopia and in the adjacent areas of Kenya. It is written in the Ethiopian script and is grouped with the Konso cluster. South Cushitic comprises Dahlo or Sanye, Ma'a or Mbugu (a mixture of Cushitic and Bantu), both of which are spoken in Kenya. Iraqw, Asax, and Quadza are spoken in Tanzania.
OMOTIC
Some 30 Omotic languages are spoken in the Omo valley in southern Ethiopia by about 1.5 million people. Once considered to constitute West Cushitic, the Omotic languages are so different from the other Afroasiatic languages that their inclusion in the family has been questioned. The most important of the Omotic languages is Walamo, followed by Gonga (Kafa) and Janjero.
BERBER
The Berber languages (formerly Numidian and Libyan) at one time dominated the whole of North Africa, west of Egypt. Today the separate Berber languages are spoken in Arabic-speaking territories across North Africa by more than 15 million speakers. Tuareg is spoken in southern Algeria, Niger, and Mali. Morocco has the largest concentration of Berber speakers- -with 8.6 million speakers of the Tamazight, Tashelhit, and Tarifit dialects--followed by Algeria, with 4.7 million Kabyles, Chowiya, and other Berber tribes. These dialects are written in Arabic script, although the consonantal writing of Libyan inscriptions still survives. (See BERBERS.)
CHAD
The Chadic languages are spoken in west central Africa in the area around Lake Chad. Hausa, with 36 million speakers, is the most widely spoken, mainly in northwestern Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and northern Ghana. It is written in Roman script, although Arabic script is also used. The other Chadic languages, between 100 and 200 with a total of 15 million speakers, are located in areas east of the Hausa territory. Chadic languages comprise West Chadic (including Hausa, Bole, Kanakuru, Angas, Ron, Bade, Ngizim, Wanji), Biu-Mandara (including Tera, Margi, Higi, Mandara, Bata, Kotoko, Musgu), East Chadic (including Somrai, Dangla, Mubi, and Sokoro), and Masa as a separate branch.
CHARACTERISTICS OF AFROASIATIC
Despite grammatical differences, the kinship among the various branches of Afroasiatic can be seen through basic similarities in their structures and vocabularies. For example, all branches except Egyptian have a set of emphatic consonants in addition to voiced and voiceless consonants. Lateral consonants (for example, tl, dl) are found in some languages. The Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic languages also have tones.
All branches of the family have masculine and feminine gender distinction, usually characterized by the feminine marker t (Arabic: kalb/kalbat, "dog/bitch"); gender distinction in the plural, however, has disappeared in many of the languages. Ancient Egyptian and classical Semitic had not only singular and plural forms but a grammatical distinction for "two" or "double." Egyptian, Semitic, Berber, and, in remnants only, Cushitic use a system in which a root comprising two, three, or four consonants is used to create different words; this is done by superimposing on it a pattern comprising vowels, and often of further consonants.
Thus, in Arabic, the root k-t-b, meaning "write," is used in various combinations to form allied words, such as "writer" (ka: tib-) or "written" (maktu: b-). This root -and-pattern system is particularly important in the verbal system: an original root m-w-t produces in Arabic the words ma: ta/yamu: tu to express "he died/dies." In Semitic, Berber, and, to a limited extent, Cushitic, basic verbal conjugations are characterized by the addition of prefixes and suffixes.
Root vocalization marks tense. Egyptian, by contrast, has no prefix conjugation; its verbal system is of nominal origin--of the type "I am on/in/to doing," "is done by me," "I am a doer of" for various tenses and aspects of "I do." In Chadic, a typical conjugation comprises a preposition containing a subject marker and a tense-and-aspect marker, followed by one of the major stem forms of the verb.
Verbal derivation is quite rich in all these languages. A passive formation in t and a causative in s or its developments; a reduplication of the verb, of a syllable, or of a consonant for repeated actions; and other methods of word formation are attested everywhere. In many languages, the verb has special negative forms. Likewise, different verbal forms for main and subordinate clauses are found in several branches.
In the Cushitic and Omotic languages, the verb typically occupies the final position in the sentence, and subordinate clauses precede the main one. Ethiopian Semitic has adopted the same order of elements. In old Egyptian, Berber, and classical Semitic, the verb is at the beginning of a sentence. Akkadian, an exception, placed the verb in the final position. Coptic, modern Arabic dialects, Aramaic, and Hebrew now use a subject- verb-object order, as do almost all the Chadic languages.
In Hebrew and Arabic, adjectives follow the noun and agree with it in gender, number, and definiteness. Case marking is prepositional in Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, and Semitic, though classical Semitic has some residual suffixal cases; Cushitic and Omotic use suffixes, but Somali expresses most case relations by means of preverbal particles.
Similarity of numerals occurs only between Semitic and Berber. In both branches, nouns following smaller numerals are in the plural, but after large numbers they are in the singular. In Semitic, numerals having a feminine ending occur with masculine nouns and vice versa.
LINGUISTIC INVESTIGATION
The formal study of Hebrew and Arabic has an extensive history. Motivated by the study of Judaism and Islam, it spread widely among scholars with the influence of the two religions. Ge'ez and Amharic were first studied in the 17th century. Investigation into most of the other Afroasiatic languages grew from contact between indigenous speakers and Europeans--first travelers, then missionaries and colonial administrators, and ultimately scholars whose motives were purely intellectual.
The extinct languages--Egyptian, Libyan, and those of the Semitic group--were preserved in inscriptions that were copied and, with the help of bilingual inscriptions or of known related scripts, deciphered by scholars mainly during the past 100 years (see WRITING SYSTEMS, EVOLUTION OF). In recent years an upsurge has occurred in the study of Cushitic and Chadic languages in particular.
Modern advances in general linguistic theory have greatly stimulated the investigation of all branches. Two periodicals are devoted exclusively to the Afroasiatic language family: the Comptes Rendus of the Groupe Linguistique d'Etudes Chamito-Semitiques (Paris), founded in 1931; and Afroasiatic Linguistics (Malibu, Calif., 1974- ). The Afroasiatic Dialects series (Malibu, Calif.) publishes introductory grammars of these languages. Every 4 years an International Hamito-Semitic Congress is held.