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Glossary:

A


Accessory	Thing that is extra, helpful, useful, but not essential part of.


Acquisition manner	The method by which the museum acquired the object.


Aha Dn1	The first king of Dynasty One. The unification of the "Two Lands" at the beginning of the dynastic era is attributed to him. He initiated military and economic activities with the southern and western neighbours of Egypt.


Ahhotep Dn18	The queen mother of king Ahmose, first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The wife of king Seqnenre.


Ahmose Dn18	The founder of Dynasty Eighteen and responsible for the final termination of the Hyksos occupation of Egypt. He reformed Egypt's administrative system and secured its frontiers.


Ahmose Meret-Amon Dn18	Sister and wife of king Amenhotep I. Her tomb is situated in Deir-el Bahari at Thebes.


Akh	One of the three major components of the personality (along with the ba and the ka), the akh was the essence of each individual's immortality, leaving the body at death to join the circumpolar stars. It was represented by the crested ibis hieroglyph.


Akhenaten Dn18	The heretic king. The Great revolutionist of the ancient world. Famous for his monotheistic attitude. The Aten was the single supreme deity in Egypt during his reign. Moved the capital to Tell-el Amarna and established a new art style.


Am-duat	The "Book of What is in the Underworld". It describes the journey undertaken by the solar bark through the 12 hours of the night to reappear the next morning.


Amarna	Modern name for the site where Akhenaten founded his new capital and residence city called Akhetaten (the horizon of the Aten). The village is about 190 miles south of Cairo.


Amarna Period	Named for the site Amarna; used to designate the part of Akhenaten's reign spent there, or the entire length of his rule.


Amasis Dn26	A veteran of the Nubian campaigns who managed to defeat king Wahibre (Apries), and grasp the throne of Egypt. He attempted to restrict the internal racial conflicts common at the time by granting specific trading rights to foriegners settling in the Delta. Mediterranean trade was a keynote of the reign of Amasis.


Amenemhat II Dn12	Third king of the Twelfth Dynasty. Ruled for approximately 35 years.


Amenemhat III Dn12	Sixth king of the Twelfth Dynasty. He maintained a firm rule over the country and successfully managed its foreign affairs. Ruled for approximately for 45 years.


Amenhotep I Dn18	Second king of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Undertook several successful military campaigns in Nubia and against the Libyans to secure the Egyptian borders. Took great care of Egypt's internal affairs.


Amenhotep II Dn18	Son of Tuthmosis III and his successor. Known for his physical strength and power. He retained his father's empire and maintained peace. Ruled for approximately 24 years.


Amenhotep III Dn18	Son and successor of Tuthmosis IV. With his accession Dynasty Eighteen reached its peak. Famous for his genuine interest in art and architecture and as a great peace maker. Ruled for approximately 37 years.


Amenhotep IV Dn18	SEE AKHENATEN.


Amenhotep called Huy Dn18	A royal scribe, and perhaps identical with an official of the same name who is known as the great steward of Amenhotep III.


Amenhotep son of Hapu Dn18	Inspite of his humble background, Amenhotep won himself several promotions, until he reached the highest offices in the country. During his life time he was the "director of all royal works" and later on, after his death, he was deified.


Amenirdis I Dn25	Daughter of king Kashta. During the reign of her brother Piankhy she was made God's wife of Amon, and adopted as successor in the capital Thebes.


Amon	A minor god of the city of Thebes, the cult of which gained prominence through the political rise of the city at the beginning of the New Kingdom. Represented as a man, sometimes ithyphallic.


Amoneminet Dn18	The overseer of the king's craftsmen during the later part of the Eighteenth Dynasty. He was buried at Sakkara.


Amset (Imseti)	One of the four sons of Horus. The human-headed guardian of the canopic jar of the liver. SEE ALSO HAPI, DUAMUTEF AND KEBEHSENUF.


Amulets	Symbolic figures or objects worn by the living and the dead for their protective powers.


Ankh	The hieroglyphic sign for life.


Antef Dn11	A chancellor and overseer of troops during the reign of Mentuhotep II.


Anubis	The Patron god of embalmers. A god of the dead who is shown as a jackal or as a man with a head of jackal. Closely connected with the nomes of Middle Egypt, and the 12th, 17th, and 18th, nomes of Upper Egypt.


Apis bull	The personification of the ka of Ptah, the god of Memphis.


Archaeology	Study of man's past and his cultural remains.


Architecture	Art and science of building.


Ashait Dn11	The royal wife of Mentuhotep II.


Atef crown	A crown worn by the god Osiris, and by the king. It is composed of a central mitre mounted upon two ram's horns, surmounted by a sun disk and flanked by two ostrich feathers.


Aten	The Aten is the sun-disc god, worshipped as the great creator during the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). Represented as a sun disc with human arms bearing the ankh (life) sign.


Atum	A form of the sun god at Heliopolis. Represents the setting sun.


Auib-Re Hor Dn13	A king from the Thirteenth Dynasty. He was buried at Dahshur.


Ay Dn18	Ay was the second in command acting as the principle advisor to Tutankhamon. Following the death of Tut, Ay ruled as king of Egypt. His reign lasted for about four years during which he contributed monuments to the temples at Karnak and Luxor .


Archaic Period	A term used for the first two dynasties of ancient Egyptian history.


Ba	One of the elements of the human personality. Identified as the soul or spiritual element of an individual. Depicted on tomb walls as a human-headed bird.


Barque	Model boat used to carry the image of a deity at festival times.


Bastet	A cat goddess whose cult center was Bubastis in the Delta. Originally a lioness-goddess, but with time it came to represent the tame aspect of that goddess. It is in Lower Egypt that she appears particularly as a cat.


Beard	From the Old Kingdom onward, the king often wears a long, square-ended artificial (or false) beard, fastened by a strap along the jawbone.


Block statue	Schematic cube-shaped representation of a squatting human figure.


Book of Gates	Funerary composition decorating royal sarcophagi and tomb walls describing the passage of the sun-god Re through the twelve gates of the under world.


Book of the Dead	Collection of funerary spells usually written on papyrus and placed with the deceased in the tomb.


Buchis	Sacred bull of Armant assimilated to Montu.


Byblos	A site on the coast of Lebanon north of Beirut. The major port through which Egypt imported timber.


CD-ROM	[Compact Disk-Read Only Memory] a disk on the surface of which are microscopically small pits for storing computer data which can be read using laser light.


Canopic jars	Funerary jars containing human organs extracted during the process of mummification. The stoppers of the jars took the shape of the heads of the four sons of the god Horus, who are the patrons of the liver, lungs, stomach and intestine.


Cartouche	Sign representing an oval loop of rope with the ends bound together, within which the birth and coronation names of the king are inscribed. The cartouche was also used for the names of the god Aten and the Divine Votaress in Late Period Thebes.


Category	A standard classification that is used to divide the collections of a museum.


Cavitto Cornice	An Egyptian architectural element consisting of an incurvate cornice stylized after palm fronds.


Click	Pressing the mouse left button on a specific item on the computer screen.


Clothing	Covering for a person's body.


Co-regency	Period during which a king and his successor rule jointly.


Colossus	Same as statue but bigger than normal human size - over 2 mt.


Computer	A programmable electronic device designed for storing, retrieving, and processing data.


Condition	The state of preservation of the object.


Coronation name	Royal throne name, one of the five elements in the king's titulary. The royal throne name or the prenomen was written inside a cartouche and usually accompanied by the phrase Nsw Bity (He of the Sedge and the Bee) or Neb Tawy (Lord of the Two Lands).


Crook or heka scepter	Crooked sceptre serving as part of the royal insignia.


Cult object	SEE RELIGIOUS OBJECTS.


Cursive	Rapid, handwritten form of the script, chiefly hieratic and demotic.


Date of find	Date when object was discovered.


Demotic	From Greek "popular", a further elaboration of hieratic. Developed in northern Egypt in the 7th century BC. The normal everyday script of the Late and Graeco-Roman Periods. Latest dated text 452 AD.


Dier El Bahari	A site on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor.


Dier el Medina	The village of craftsmen who were responsible for the preparing of the royal tombs at Thebes during the New Kingdom.


Divine Votaress	Chief priestess of Amon at Thebes from the New Kingdom to the Late Period. In the 23-26th Dynasties the holder of the title and her "adopted" successor played a powerful role in political control of the country.


Djed	The hieroglyphic sign of a pillar. It symbolised stability and duration.


Djer Dn1	Third king of the First Dynasty. His reign was characterized by further developments in foreign policy. He also set about the economic and religious organization of the country. Established a palace at Memphis and built his tomb at Abydos.


Djoser Dn3	Second king of the Third Dynasty. Ruled for approximately 19 years. Owner of the Step pyramid at Sakkara. He is famed for having invented stone-built architecture with the help of his architect Imhotep.


Duamutef	One of the four sons of Horus. The dog-headed guardian of the canopic jar of the stomach. ALSO SEE HAPI, AMSET AND KEBEHSENUEF.


Dwarf Seneb Dn5	Seneb was "chief of all the palace dwarfs", charged with the care of the royal wardrobe. He was also attached to the funerary cults of kings khufu and Djedf-re of the Fourth Dynasty. He was buried at Giza.


Dynasty	A line of kings, usually related by blood, who succeeded each other on a throne. Egyptian history was divide into (31) dynasties by Manetho. SEE ALSO TIME PERIODS


Egyptology	The science of studying Ancient Egypt.


Ennead	Group of nine gods. The earliest and most famous of which was the "Great Ennead" of Heliopolis, consisting of Ra-Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, and Seth.


Excavation number	Object discovery number.


Excavator name	Name of the discoverer who found the object.


Ethiopian Period	Egypt was under the rule of Ethiopian kings. The capital was moved to Napata, near the forth cataract.


Faience	Fired quartz paste with a vitrified outer layer.


False door	Funerary architectural element imitating a door through which the spirit of the deceased could communicate with the world of the living.


Fan-Bearer on the Right of the king	Court title, probably purely honorific or ranking of high officials of the New Kingdom. The right was the prestigious side.


Fayum	An oasislike region southwest of the Nile Delta.


Figure	Not fully shaped statue, but still finished by the artist: different from unfinished statue.


Figurine	Same as figure but much smaller below - 30 cm. - also, like for example erotic, shaped differently from normal or in a material which is unusual ex. wax (votive figurines)


Flabellum	A large ceremonial fan, with a long handle and ostrich feathers, connected with royalty.


Flagellum	SEE FLAIL SCEPTRE.


Flail or nekhakha	A sceptre composed of a handle and three loose strands. It served as part of the royal insignia.


Furniture	All those movable things such as chairs, beds, etc needed in a house, office, etc.


Geb	The Earth god. Always represented as a man. Member of the Ennead of Heliopolis and male counterpart of the sky goddess Nut.


God's Wife	SEE DIVINE VOTARESS


Graeco-Roman Period	Marked by the invasion of Alexander the Great to the Egyptian territory, in 332 B.C. It comprises a series of Greek (ptolemaic) and Roman rulers.


Hapi	One of the four sons of Horus. The baboon-headed guardian of the canopic jar of the lungs. SEE ALSO AMSET, DUAMUTEF AND KEBEHSENUEF.


Hapy	God of the Nile in the innundation. Represented as a man with full, heavy breasts, a crest of papyrus on his head and bearing heavy laden offering tables.


Har-hotep Dn11	A chancellor who lived during the Middle Kingdom.


Harasphes	The god worshipped in the form of a ram at Heraclopeolis.


Hat Dn18	Hat was probably an "adjutant" in the chariot force. There is a possibility that he might have owned a tomb in the Amarna area.


Hathor	A goddess represented as a cow, as a cow-headed woman, or as a woman with a horned headdress. She is the suckler of the king and "the Golden One". Equated by the Greeks with Aphrodite. Cult centers were in Denderah, Thebes, Gebelin and Memphis.


Hatshepsut Dn18	The famous queen of Deir El-Bahari. Attained power through her husband Tuthmosis II, and her father Tuthmosis I. She sent expeditions to Punt and ordered some major constructions in Thebes. Ruled for approximately 20 years.


Heb-Sed Festival	A jubilee festival that the king celebrated usually after thirty years of rule. The powers of the king were symbolically rejuvenated during the festival.


Heka	See Crook.


Hesire Dn3	A high official during Dynasty Three. His titles include "chief of the royal scribes", "chief of Buto", "chief dentist", and "greatest of the tens of Upper Egypt". He was buried in a tomb at Sakkara.


Hetepdief Dn3	Probably the cult priest of kings Hetepsekhemwi, Raneb, and Nynetjer of the Second Dynasty. He held the title "great of incense in the red house". Not much is known about him. He was buried in a tomb at Memphis.


Hetepheres Dn4	Queen mother of khufu, and wife of Senefru. She was buried at Giza.


Hieratic	From Greek "sacred", the normal form of the script, mostly written on papyri or ostraca. The earliest hieratic documents date to the Fourth Dynasty, but the origins of hieratic are probably almost as early as the hieroglyph script itself. Hieratic signs lost the pictorial character of hieroglyphs and are often joined together.


Hieroglyph	From Greek "sacred carving". Egyptian writing system, used from the late Predynastic Period until the end of the fourth century AD. It consisted of pictorial signs and was used for the monumental form of the script.


High priest	Conventional translation of the title of the head of the local priesthood.


Horus	The falcon god. Originally the sky god. Identified with the king during his life time. Son of Isis, and avenger of his father Osiris. Cult centers: Delta, Edfu, Hierakonpollis and Behdet.