Philae temple complexThe Philae temple complex (ˈfailiː; Φιλαί or Φιλή and Πιλάχ, فيلة fiːlæ, Egyptian: p3-jw-rķ' or 'pA-jw-rq; ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕ, ⲡⲓⲗⲁⲕϩ, ˈpilɑk, ˈpilɑkh) is an island-based temple complex in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt. Until the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the temple complex was located on Philae Island, near the expansive First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt. These rapids and the surrounding area have been variously flooded since the initial construction of the Aswan Low Dam in 1902.
Egyptian hieroglyphsEgyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪrəˌɡlɪfs, ˈhaɪroʊˌɡlɪfs) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood. The later hieratic and demotic Egyptian scripts were derived from hieroglyphic writing, as was the Proto-Sinaitic script that later evolved into the Phoenician alphabet.
Ancient Egyptian funerary textsThe literature that makes up the ancient Egyptian funerary texts is a collection of religious documents that were used in ancient Egypt, usually to help the spirit of the concerned person to be preserved in the afterlife. They evolved over time, beginning with the Pyramid Texts in the Old Kingdom through the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom and into several books, most famously the Book of the Dead, in the New Kingdom and later times. Pyramid Texts The funerary texts of the Old Kingdom were initially reserved for the king only.
Egyptian languageThe Egyptian language or Ancient Egyptian (r n km.t) is an extinct Afro-Asiatic language that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts which were made accessible to the modern world following the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian scripts in the early 19th century. Egyptian is one of the earliest written languages, first being recorded in the hieroglyphic script in the late 4th millennium BC. It is also the longest-attested human language, with a written record spanning over 4,000 years.
MummyA mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay further if kept in cool and dry conditions. Some authorities restrict the use of the term to bodies deliberately embalmed with chemicals, but the use of the word to cover accidentally desiccated bodies goes back to at least 1615 AD.
MeroëMeroë ('mɛroʊiː; also spelled Meroe; Meroitic: Medewi; مرواه and مروي; Μερόη) was an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site is a group of villages called Bagrawiyah (البجراوية). This city was the capital of the Kingdom of Kush for several centuries from around 590 BC, until its collapse in the 4th century AD.
Osiris mythThe Osiris myth is the most elaborate and influential story in ancient Egyptian mythology. It concerns the murder of the god Osiris, a primeval king of Egypt, and its consequences. Osiris's murderer, his brother Set, usurps his throne. Meanwhile, Osiris's wife Isis restores her husband's body, allowing him to posthumously conceive their son, Horus. The remainder of the story focuses on Horus, the product of the union of Isis and Osiris, who is at first a vulnerable child protected by his mother and then becomes Set's rival for the throne.
