Egyptian interconnections in the 1st millennium BC

While many scholars have interpreted Achaemenid religious policy as one of indifference, the inscriptions on the Naoforo Vaticano statue of Udjahorresnet tell a different tale. These texts demonstrate a strategic willingness to allow—and even support—heterogeneous religious customs to the benefit of the Achaemenid Empire. On the statue of Udjahorresnet, both the religious and political importance of Neith is clear: She, as the mother of the sun god Re, was at the center of the religious cult in Sais, the political center of power for Egypt’s Twenty-sixth Dynasty. A reading of the inscriptions of Udjahorresnet’s statue reveals a deliberate policy on the part of Cambyses, and later Darius, to reestablish and maintain a critical Egyptian cult, thus imbedding Persian dominion within the religious tradition of Egypt and making a strong political statement.

The increasingly widespread use of text -messaging has led to the questioning of the social and psychological effects of this novel communication medium. A selection of findings from an online questionnaire that was developed by the author to answer this pertinent question are presented. McKenna's recent work on the way the Internet can help some people develop relationships is drawn upon and taken a step further by exploring the differences between those who prefer texting ('Texters') and those who prefer talking on their mobiles ('Talkers'). A large sample of 982 respondents completed the questionnaire. Results showed there was a clear distinction between Texters and Talkers in the way they used their mobiles and their underlying motivations. The key finding to emerge in the preliminary analyses was that Texters seemed to form close knit 'text circles' with their own social ecology, interconnecting with a close group of friends in perpetual text contact. Compared to Talkers, Texters were found to be more lonely and socially anxious, and more likely to disclose their 'real-self' through text than via face-toface or voice call exchanges. S tructural equation modeling produced a model showing that where respondents located their real-self and whether they were a Texter or a Talker mediated between the loneliness and social anxiety measures and the impact of these on relational outcomes, in line with McKenna's theoretical framework. Thus it appears that there is something special about texting that allows some people to translate their loneliness and/or social anxiety into productive relationships whilst for others the mobile does not afford the same effect. .Applications and explorations for future research are discussed.

The current article deals with Achaemenid imperial policy in fourth century BCE southern Levant, as is evident by the historical sources and the archaeological data. It is suggested that following the Egyptian rebellion of 404–400 BCE, southern Palestine underwent major transformation as a result of becoming the southwestern frontier of the Persian Empire. An attempt to reconstruct the political history and its social and economical manifestation is been offered, while focusing on the inland regions of Judah and Edom. One of the major consequences of this new geo-political reality has resulted
in the canonization of the Torah. Thus, its inception should no longer be viewed as an outcome of inner-societal compromises between different Judahite groups, but rather as a conscious response of Jerusalem’s priestly circles to early fourth century BCE Zeitgeist of the southern Levant, when Egypt was no longer a part of the Persian Empire.

This paper sets out to study the four Egyptian-like scarabs
that have been found in Ayamonte (Huelva province, Southwest- ern Spain) during the  first archaeological season in 2010. Five Phoenician tombs have been uncovered in the site of la Hoya de los Rastros with four burials each containing one Egyptian scarab dating to the eighth/seventh century B.C. The  first scarab bears the Late Period private name of Ptahhotep; the second has a carved human  figure wearing an atef crown in an advancing position with a  flail and a scepter (maybe a Levantine deity or a king wearing the atef?) without close parallels; the third has the inscription sanx- ra “Ra makes live” as a good-wishes scarab; and the fourth bears the name of the Old Kingdom king Khafra.
The study of the rare case of four scarabs found in a securely- dated context is an important contribution to the chronology of
the  first-millennium Egyptian(izing) scarabs. Furthermore, it sheds light on the perception of Egyptian objects in the Mediterranean world, and especially in the Phoenician colonies: they were probably seen as exotic luxury items, mainly belonging to the Phoenicians themselves rather than traded with native people. The Ptahhotep scarab is especially interesting due to the extreme rarity of Late Period private name scarabs outside of Egypt, attesting to its use as status-marker regardless of the meaning of the inscription; the appearance of a Khafra scarab is striking since his name was not widespread outside of Egypt as opposed to others such as Tuthmosis III.

"A doctoral research project pertaining to the presence, evolution and distribution of Egyptian scarabs in the northern Levant was conducted by Vanessa Boschloos at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Royal Museums of Art and History of Brussels. Present-day Lebanon and Syria yielded a large number of scarab-shaped seals, both Egyptian imports and non-Egyptian imitations and adaptations. They are mainly known from excavation reports but remain largely unstudied. For the first time, an exhaustive catalogue of provenanced finds from this region is offered and completes research that, until now, was mostly concentrated on scarabs from the southern Levant (Israel and Jordan). By studying the excavated material kept in public and private collections worldwide (Beirut, Aleppo, Damascus, Paris, London, Oxford,
Cambridge, Liverpool, Brussels, etc.) all available information on provenance (and, if possible, on the precise archaeological context), material, typological features, iconography and stylistic aspects was gathered. The aim of this research was to reconstruct local, regional and interregional distribution patterns and to confront the archaeological data with the known historical background of Egyptian-Levantine relations. The scarabs are a reflection of the intensity and periodicity of Egyptian influence in these sites and in the entire northern Levant. Imitations of imported scarabs and the identification of local seal workshops provide us with a clearer understanding of these Egyptian-Levantine contacts and of the impact of the imported material on the local production."

"Egyptian Objects from Etruria in the collection of August Kestner" - Thanks to August Kestner's own, handwritten inventory of his Egyptian collection we are informed that four of his Egyptian scarabs have been discovered (maybe even by himself) at Cerveteri (Caere / Italy). Two have been identified among the fine scarab collection of today's Museum August Kestner (Hannover / Germany) thanks to Plate VI in the book by Wilhelm Abeken "Mittelitalien vor den Zeiten römischer Herrschaft" (1843). - PLEASE NOTE: this topic has recently been revised and extensively enlarged with the contribution by Christian E. Loeben: "Die Sammlung von August Kestner im Werk zweier archäologischer Zeitgenossen: Wilhelm Abeken und Johann Jakob Bachofen", in: Von Kreta nach Kuba - Gedenkschrift zu Ehren des Berliner Archäologen Veit Stürmer, 2018 (PDF available here on Academia.edu). - (in German)

In the absence of adequate written evidence in the early Iron Age, our knowledge of contacts in the Mediterranean usually stem from the study and evaluation of imports and their archaeologically visible influence in indigenous material horizons. Egyptian and egyptianising objects in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, the so-called Aegyptiaca, distinctively reflect a rich and complex nexus of cross-cultural contacts between Egypt and the south eastern Mediterranean region via two main channels of communication: direct contact, mainly from the Asia Minor and East Greek areas with Egypt, and via the intermediary of Phoenician artifacts, that spread all over the Mediterranean during the orientalising and archaic periods. The Greek colony at Naukratis, in the Egyptian Delta, facilitated an undeniably great impact on one civilization to the other, which went both ways, as it is revealed in a variety of artistic and literary modes. The Aegyptiaca are somewhat related to the sacral field, but not exclusively restricted to it. Right from the start we can notice a complex interplay between the sacral, the political and economic field. Although no information on the ideological component of these votive offerings survives, the locally manufactured egyptianising objects clearly exemplify that Phoenician and Greeks had gained insight into Egyptian religious beliefs.

In the absence of adequate written evidence in the early Iron Age, our knowledge of contacts in the Mediterranean usually stem from the study and evaluation of imports and their archaeologically visible influence in indigenous material horizons. Egyptian and egyptianising objects in the Aegean, the so-called Aegyptiaka, distinctively reflect a rich and complex nexus of cross-cultural contacts between Egypt, the Aegean and the mainland Greece in the first millennium BC via two main channels of communication: direct contact of Greeks, mainly from the Asia Minor and East Greek areas with Egypt, and via the intermediary of Phoenician artifacts, that spread all over the Mediterranean during the orientalising and archaic periods. These imports are often examined alongside patterns of transmission of technology and craftsmanship, in an attempt to understand the gradual orientalising awakening of the Aegean that reached its apogee in the 7th century BC. On the other hand, the functionality and contextualization of these objects within the broader nexus of the international relations of the seventh and sixth centuries BC, must be seen as an epitome of the continuous attempts by the Saite kings of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty to re-establish a political and social link with major cultic centres in the Aegean and the Levant. Although no information on the ideological component of these votive offerings survives, the locally manufactured egyptianising objects clearly exemplify that Greeks had gained insight into Egyptian religious beliefs. The scope of this paper is to present and evaluate certain aspects of cultural interaction through the transmission of Egyptian/egyptianised symbols and ideas in archaic Greece.