Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt)
(305 BC to 30 BC)
What happened?
The Ptolemaic Kingdom is a Macedonian royal dynasty, founded in 305 BC. They ruled Egypt until 30 BC, after the death of Alexander the Great. Alexander had conquered Egypt and added it to his world empire. Ptolemy I Soter succeeded in becoming Alexander’s successor in Egypt. This Ptolemaic dynasty is also the last Pharaonic dynasty. They fell when Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony were defeated by a Roman army led by the young Octavian.
Basically, the Ptolemaic Kingdom was an ancient Hellenistic state based in Egypt, founded by Ptolemy I Soter, companion of Alexander the Great. The Ptolemies were the longest and most recent Egyptian dynasty of ancient origin.
After Alexander the Great conquered Persian controlled Egypt in 332 BC during his campaigns against the Achaemenid Empire, he ruled Egypt until his death in 323 BC. His world empire unraveled quickly. Ptolemy, a Macedonian who was one of Alexander’s most trusted generals and confidants, won control of Egypt and declared himself pharaoh. To legitimize their rule and gain recognition from native Egyptian, the Ptolemies adopted the title of the pharaoh. They had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress. The monarchy maintained their Hellenistic character and traditions.
Alexandria, founded by Alexander, became the capital and a major center of Greek culture, learning, and trade for the next centuries. Following the Syrian Wars, the Ptolemaic Kingdom expanded its territory. The kingdom had a complex government bureaucracy that exploited the country’s vast economic resources to the benefit of the Greek ruling class, which dominated military, political, and economic affairs.
Native Egyptians maintained power over local and religious institutions. Provided they Hellenized, they gradually accrued power in the bureaucracy. The Ptolemies began to adopt Egyptian customs, such as marrying their siblings, and participating in Egyptian religious life. New temples were built, older ones restored.
From the mid 3rd century BC, Ptolemaic Egypt was the wealthiest and most powerful of Alexander’s successor states. They were a leading example of Hellenistic civilization. The kingdom weakened due a series of foreign wars and dynastic strife in the mid of the 2nd century BC. It became increasingly reliant on the Roman Republic. Cleopatra VII sought to restore the Ptolemaic power. Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, which ultimately led to its conquest by Rome as the last independent Hellenistic state. Roman Egypt became on of the richest provinces of Rome and a center of Hellenistic culture, with Greek remaining the main language of government until the Muslim conquest in 641 AD.
Ptolemaic Pottery
± 300 BC to ± 1 BC
Changes in pottery in Egypt during this period have been overwhelmingly interpreted as evidence of cultural change. Ceramic qualities are associated with certain cultural customs or identities. Characteristics of this period were the incurved rim bowl, casserole shape, mold made pottery and black slip pottery.
The shape of the casserole followed a gradual introduction, possibly related to new cooking techniques. The incurved rim bowl was matched by its multifunctionality, in domestic, commercial, manufacturing and bath contexts. The spread of black pottery across sites in Ptolemaic Egypt is best explained by established reduction firing techniques to multiple use tableware of similar shapes. The combination with vessels of other colors in dining assemblies suggests that an aesthetic framed its display and use. The expansion of the use of molds in other industries, such as faience and lamp manufacturing, did not result in more efficient vessels. The distinctive pathways that combine social and material values, such as new clay sources and new eating habits, guide the selection.
Harpocrates was originally an Egyptian deity. He was adopted by the Greeks and worshiped by the Greeks and Romans in later times. Originally, the god was referred to as Hor-pa-khered or Hor-pa-chered. This can be translated as “Horus the Child”. The Greeks took the name from Harpocrates. He was one of the forms of a sun god Horus, child of Isis and Osiris.
The historian Herodotus believed that the god was a sun god and had to wage war against the powers of darkness. There was an association with the Greek Apollo. He was depicted with a finger to his mouth, a symbol of childhood. The Greeks and Romans did not understand this attitude and made him the god of silence, secrets, and trust. As a result, he later became a beloved deity in the later mystical schools of philosophy.
The adult Horus was often depicted among the Egyptians with the head of a Eurasian sparrowhawk. Since the hawk flies high above the sky, it was considered sacred.
Scaled Limited Edition Replica. Found: Rosetta, Egypt (JN0681)
Rosetta Stone
± 196 BC
The Rosetta Stone was found in 1799. The dark granite stone has a size of 112 by 76 cm. It contains the same text in three different languages. The stone is therefore of immense importance for the decipherment of hieroglyphs. In 1822, the French scholar Jean-François Champollion deciphered the stone. Hieroglyphics among the Ancient Egyptians had been known for centuries. The meaning of the special characters was not. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone plays a key role in translation.
An officer of the Napoleonic army found the inscribed stone in 1799 while working on the fortress of St. Julien near the Egyptian site of Rosetta. This was not the first time, but this stone is special. Not only hieroglyphs could be found on it, but also 32 lines of demotic and 54 lines of Greek text. In Ancient Egypt, the demotic language was a folk and commercial language. The three scripts provided information about the demotic and hieroglyphic script. On the Rosetta Stone is a decree of a Synod of Priests. This synod is held in 196 BC in Memphis. Agreements are made about taxes, donations to temples, measures against flooding and the construction of statues of the Egyptian king Ptolemy V (203-180 BC). After the surrender of Alexandria by the French in 1801, the stone came into British hands. Today (2022) the stone is showed in the British Museum in London. We present a 1:3 scale copy.
The breakthrough to the translation came when the researchers discovered that the name in a cartouche had to represent a king's name. The hieroglyphs were thought to be some sort of rebus, but that was not right. Champollion compared the Greek with the hieroglyphs and deciphered the text according to the method of Akerblad. The names Cleopatra and Ptolemy have some characters in common and should be the same. He concluded that the characters in the cartouches of foreign rulers should be regarded as single-letter characters.