I just noticed something and had something of an epiphany. The pyramids represented on the US bills are not the pyramids of GIZA as everyone seems to discuss and assume.
They are in fact the pyramids of Kush, in what is now Sudan. These were built from around 500BC, by the Nubians who eventually became pharos of Upper and Lower Egypt.
They are in fact the pyramids of Kush, in what is now Sudan. These were built from around 500BC, by the Nubians who eventually became pharos of Upper and Lower Egypt.
They had been ruled
by Egypt proper a thousand years or 2 before hand, but after that had stopped,
they maintained many of the ancient ways, and so reintroduced forgotten arts
and styles back once they ruled Egypt. They are in a totally different style to
the original Pyramids of Saqqara or Giza.
For one thing, they
were built after the Pharo's death by his successor. Most importantly here
though, these pyramids reflect the same style as the ones on the dollar bills;
steep sided, were usually, although not always, built purposefully without a
cap stone of any kind, and with ridges running up each side/edge. Maybe there
is more to this.
Here are a couple
of photos I found after initially writing this message to highlight what I
mean. Brainwaves are wonderful things aren't they!
Background
Information on Kushan Pyramids of Sudan
Ancient Nubia:
Egypt's Rival in Africa
Africa's diverse
and sophisticated Nubian civilization, circa 3100 BC to AD 400, is the subject
of a major exhibition, Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa...
Only a handful of
American museums have significant Nubian collections. As a consequence, the
exhibition's traveling schedule was booked immediately with a waiting list of
more than 20 museums. The Kelsey Museum's Associate Curator of Collections,
Prof. Thelma K. Thomas, was one of the very first to reserve one of the
exhibitions traveling slots. In 1991, while plans were still being laid, she
recognized that Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa promised to be an
extremely important exhibition for this generation of museum-goers and scholars
interested in the history of Africa.
Salvage projects
necessitated by the construction of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s saved a number
of Nubian monuments from destruction by inundation and enhanced our knowledge
of ancient Nubia tremendously. It was not until 1978, in a joint project
organized by The Brooklyn Museum and the Loewey Museum of Anthropology at the
University of California at Berkeley, that a major exhibition presented this
aspect of African history to the public. Public response was overwhelming then.
Meanwhile the numbers of interested parties has grown exponentially.
Grass-roots reading groups were organized in African-American communities in
response to the dearth of presentations of just this type of information.
Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa is an excellent, in fact, prime,
opportunity for disseminating information, and for providing concrete evidence
of this past that is so eagerly sought after.
The exhibition
places ancient Nubians and their civilization in a new historical context,
offering visitors a compelling well-founded perspective on this little-known
African civilization. "Nubians in the Bronze Age, from about 3100 BC to
1000 BC, are usually thought of as divided into small chiefdoms, with the
partial exception of the Kingdom of Kush in the Middle Bronze Age. However,
recent research suggests that large kingdoms arose in Nubia much earlier than
is generally thought. Over the centuries Nubians and Egyptians competed for
power and advantage throughout the vast Lower Nile region, from the
Mediterranean Sea south to the Sixth Cataract in the Sudan. Powerful and
centrally organized early Nubians are truly Egypt's rivals in Africa"
states Dr. David O'Connor, curator of the exhibition.
The exhibition was
curated by Dr. David O'Connor while he was Curator-in-Charge of the Egyptian
Section of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Professor
in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of
Pennsylvania. He has since accepted a new professorship at the Institute of
Fine Arts of New York University. A leading authority on ancient Nubia and
Egypt, Dr. O'Connor has published several articles on the early Nubian Kingdoms
and contributed a chapter to the Cambridge History of Africa. He is the author
of Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa, the book which accompanies the
exhibition to its eight venues. Dr. O'Connor has co-curated many exhibits for
the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He is co-director of the
Pennsylvania-Yale archaeological excavation project at Abydos in southern
Egypt, where he has worked since 1967. Dr. O'Connor received his post-graduate
Diploma in Egyptology form the University College, University of London, and
his Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Cambridge, England. The Kelsey
Museum is pleased to announce that Dr. O'Connor will deliver a special lecture
at the University of Michigan in conjunction with this special exhibition.
The exhibition has
enjoyed great success since its opening at the University Museum of Archaeology
and Anthropology in October of 1992. This is clear in reviews and educative
articles in, for example, Newsweek (October 19, 1992), the Washington Post (May
10 and May 29, 1995), and the New York Times (July 2, 1995).
Dr. Thelma K.
Thomas is curator in charge of the installation of this exhibition at the
Kelsey Museum. Dr. Thomas is Associate Curator of Collections at the Kelsey
Museum and Professor of Late Antique, Early Christian, and Byzantine Art
History. While her own area of expertise, specifically that of Byzantine Egypt,
hardly overlaps with the topic of this exhibition, Dr. Thomas' graduate
training in ancient Egyptian art history and a previous position at the
Brooklyn Museum had prepared her for the signal importance of Dr. O'Connor's
exhibition.
In Ancient Nubia:
Egypt's Rival in Africa, a wide variety of artifacts, including ceramic
vessels, jewelry, statuary, and funerary inscriptions, document the rise and
fall of a series of Nubian kingdoms, the richness and variety of their
indigenous cultures, and the complicated relationships they had with the
pharaonic state of Egypt. Exhibition artifacts span a 3,500 year range, and
come from different regions of the culturally diverse Nubian civilization,
which extended over 1400 kilometers (868 miles) along the Nile Valley in what
is now southern-most Egypt and the Sudan.
Artifacts in
Ancient Nubia: Egypt's Rival in Africa are drawn from the University of
Pennsylvania's collections in the University Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology. The collection is extensive, containing more than 7,000 items,
and one of the most important in the United States. The University of
Pennsylvania was one of the major institutions involved in the salvage
archaeology of ancient Nubian civilization that occurred at various times
between 1890 and 1970, as the Egyptian government gradually transformed what
had been Ancient Nubia into a giant reservoir.
This exhibition is
supported, in part, by generous funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, as well
as the International Institute and the Office of the Vice-President for
Research of the University of Michigan.
The Kelsey Museum
has, since its inception, devoted much of its resources to the study of
Egyptian culture and its impact on world history. One field project in Upper
Egypt was just completed--it explored ancient trade between Egypt and its
neighbors farther south in Nubia and in other parts of Africa, India, the
Middle East, and Europe via excavation at the entrepot site of Coptos and
survey of the caravan routes linking Nile and Red Sea trade systems. A recent
publication and accompanying exhibition focused on 12-13th c AD trade textiles
that were found in Egypt but had been imported from India as part of an
enormous trade system during Egypt's medieval Islamic period. And, of course,
the Kelsey Museum's permanent installations and many special exhibitions have
long featured ancient Egypt. Since deciding to take this exhibition, the Kelsey
Museum has hired a new curator, Dr. Janet Richards, whose interests are much
closer to the subject of the exhibition: Indeed, she studied with Dr. O'Connor.
One of Dr. Richard's projects for the Kelsey Museum is to pursue long-term
loans of Nubian materials to enhance our permanent display of artifacts from
Nile Valley cultures.
The Kelsey Museum
of Archeology is located at 434 State Street. Museum hours are Tuesday through
Friday 9 am to 4 pm; Saturday and Sunday 1 to 4 pm. Admission is free (a
contribution is suggested). For general information call (313) 764-9304. The
Museum will arrange evening rentals for groups for the duration of the
exhibition.
source:
http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/AncientNubia/AncientNubiaPressRelease.html
THE ORIENTAL
INSTITUTE --- The University of Chicago
