posted
Interesting about the work to restore Minoan paintings in Egyptian palaces at Tell el-Dab‘a/‘Ezbet Helmi in the eastern Nile Delta (from 18th Dynasty).
The paintings are an interesting example of cultural contact between Egypt and the Minoan culture.
quote:Two of the palaces of the famous ancient Egyptian naval base Peru-nefer near Tell el-Dab‘a/‘Ezbet Helmi in the eastern Nile Delta, which date to the reign of Hatshepsut/Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, were embellished with Minoan wall paintings (see project »Ancient Egyptian palaces«). Unfortunately, they were no longer in situ on the walls, but had fallen to the ground, as they had been painted on hard lime plaster unsuitable for the mud-brick walls of the palace (as such soft building materials shrink over time). From there they were picked up, taken out of the palace and dumped down the landing of the entrance ramp or disposed of in several middens near the beginning of the ramp.
quote:The reconstruction of the mural scenes from thousands of plaster fragments is the subject of this project. Only about 5-20 % of the former wall programme has been preserved. With the aid of the corpus of Minoan and Mycenaean art, including small-scale art and glyptic, the frescoes are being reconstructed.
There is also a project to visualize the palaces and paintings through computer graphic. It is presented in a short video with prof Irmgard Hein from the Institute for Egyptology, the University of Vienna, Austria
quote: A short presentation on The Early 18 Dynasty in the Nile Delta. Contexts for the visualisation of an Egyptian palace area by Prof. Irmgard Hein
posted
It would be interesting to see the impact of the Minoan community in the Delta, was there an Egyptian colony at Knossos?
Posts: 8804 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wikipedia has an article about the Minoan frescoes from Tell el-Dab'a. It refers to some discussions about the nature of the contacts between Minoans and Egyptians. Among other things there has been hypotheses about marriage between Minoan and Egyptian royalties.
quote: The Minoan wall paintings at Tell el-Dab'a are of particular interest to Egyptologists and archaeologists. They are of Minoan style, content, and technology, but there is uncertainty over the ethnic identity of the artists. The paintings depict images of bull-leaping, bull-grappling, griffins, and hunts. They were discovered by a team of archaeologists led by Manfred Bietak, in the palace district of the Thutmosid period at Tell el-Dab'a. The frescoes date to the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, most likely during the reigns of either the pharaohs Hatshepsut (reigned c. 1479 – 1458 BCE) or Thutmose III (reigned 1479 – 1425 BCE), after being previously considered to belong to the late Second Intermediate Period. The paintings indicate an involvement of Egypt in international relations and cultural exchanges with the Eastern Mediterranean either through marriage or exchange of gifts.
quote: Much has been said about the importance of the paintings and their origin. The question of why these paintings appear in the Thutmosid palaces is a perplexing question for archaeologists and Egyptologists. According to Bietak, the use of specific Minoan royal motifs in a palace in Tell el-Dab'a indicates "an encounter on the highest level must have taken place between the courts of Knossos and Egypt." Manfred Bietak offers us one hypothesis. He points to the presence of Minoan royal emblems, the full scale griffins, and the large representation of the female in the skirt might suggest a political marriage between Thutmose III and a Minoan princess. The paintings are unique. They are one of a kind, and they compare with artwork from Knossos. Nanno Marinatos has made the case that the rosette motif, which is a prominent feature of the Taureador paintings, reproduces the Knossian rosettes and that it is a distinct Minoan symbol. In regards to Egypt, the paintings reveal an international era of cultural interaction between Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean. They also point to Tell el-Dab'a as a place where these cultural exchanges took place, meaning the city was incredibly important to Egypt. Marinatos has additionally argued that the Tell el Dab'a paintings are evidence of a koine, a visual language of common symbols, which testifies to interactions among the rulers of neighboring powers. The marriage of a Minoan princess to an Egyptian pharaoh may be one possible scenario but there are other ones. Minoan Knossian authority was involved in Egyptian affairs possibly because Crete had a strong naval force to offer the pharaoh.
Manfred Bietak is a professor of Egyptology at the University of Vienna. He and his team dicovered the Minoan paintings at Tell el-Daba. He and other researchers have debated about the frescoes since they were discovered.
Another article which discusses Tell el-Dabá and Minoan - Egyptian relations
Matić, Uroš. 2015. ´Was there ever a “Minoan” princess on the Egyptian court?´ In A History of Research into Ancient Egyptian Culture Conducted in Southeast Europe (ed. M. Tomorad), 145-156. Oxford: Archaeopress Minoan princess in the Egyptian court?
-------------------- Once an archaeologist, always an archaeologist Posts: 2684 | From: Sweden | Registered: Mar 2020
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Sorry for the late response, but I've been scouring the archives for an old thread on the topic of Minoan goods found in tombs in the Delta that date as far back as the Old Kingdom. These items included pottery, jewelry, and even small labrysi (double-headed axes).
It's been so long so that thread is probably deleted. Anyway here is a 2003 paper documenting trade between Crete and Egypt that go as far back as the Eneolithic to Early Bronze Ages.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Sorry for the late response, but I've been scouring the archives for an old thread on the topic of Minoan goods found in tombs in the Delta that date as far back as the Old Kingdom. These items included pottery, jewelry, and even small labrysi (double-headed axes).
It's been so long so that thread is probably deleted. Anyway here is a 2003 paper documenting trade between Crete and Egypt that go as far back as the Eneolithic to Early Bronze Ages.
The events shown in the Suppliant Maidens is already supported by Haplogroups(E-V13 is heavily concentrated in the mediterranean). I also recall that the Minoans derived their script from the Egyptian one, and even worshiped some Egyptian gods.
Posts: 78 | From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2022
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ As I understand it, the Minoans had their own script Linear A that was derived from an earlier hieroglyphic system that was unique to the Minoans. As for Egyptians gods, I've heard this hypothesis but I haven't seen any concrete evidence of this unless you have.
Posts: 26239 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Every since Arthur Evans discovered the Hieroglyphic and Linear A writing of Crete there has been a search for the authors of this writing.
Some Grecian traditions indicate that Libyans (called Garamante) formerly lived on Crete. This suggest that some of the Eteocretans may have spoken one of the ancient languages of Libya.
A major group from Libya that settled Crete were the Garamante. Robert Graves in (Vol.1, pp.33-35) maintains that the Garamante who originally lived in the Fezzan fused with the inhabitants of the Upper Niger region of West Africa.
This theory is interesting because the chariot routes from the Fezzan terminated at the Niger river. In addition, the Cretan term for king "Minos", agrees with the MandeManding word for ruler "Mansa". Both these terms share consonantal agreement : M N S.
The name Garamante, illustrates affinity to Mande morphology and grammar. The Mande language is a member of the Niger-Congo group of languages. The name for the Manding tribe called "Mande", means Ma 'mother, and nde 'children', can be interpreted as "Children of Ma", or "Mothers children " (descent among this group is matrilineal) . The word Garamante,can be broken down into Malinke-Bambara into the following monosyllabic words Ga 'hearth', arid, hot'; Mante/Mande , the name of the Mande speaking tribes. This means that the term: Garamante, can be interpreted as "Mande of the Arid lands" or "Arid lands of the children of Ma". This last term is quite interesting because by the time the Greeks and Romans learned about the Garamante, the Fezzan was becoming increasingly arid.
Keftiu
The Egyptians called the Cretans Keftiu. There is agreement between the Keftiu names recorded by Egyptian scribes (T.E. Peet, "The Egyptian writing board BM5647 bearing Keftiu names". In , (ed.) by S Casson (Oxford, 1927, 90-99)), and Manding names.
Keftiu
The root kef-, in Keftiu, probably is Ke'be, the name of a Manding clan , plus the locative suffix {i-} used to give the affirmative sense, plus the plural suffix for names {u-}, and the {-te} suffixial element used to denote place names, nationalities and to form words.
On the Egyptian writing board there are eight Keftiu names. These names agree with Manding names:
Keftiu....... Manding
sh h.r........ Sye
Nsy ..........Nsye
'ksh .........Nkyi
Pnrt Pe,..... Beni (name for twins)
'dm ..........Demba
Rs............. Rsa
This analogy between Keftiu and Manding names is startling.
In conclusion, the evidence of similarity between Keftiu names and names from the Manding languages appear to support Graves view that the Eteocretans, who early settled Crete may have spoken a language similar to the Mande people who live near the Niger. Conseqently, there is every possibility that the Linear A script used by the Keftiu, which is analogous to the Libyco Berber writing used by the Proto-Mande .This is further support to Cambell-Dunn' s hypothesis that the Minoans spoke a Niger-Congo language.
see:
C. A. Winters, "The influence of the Mande scripts on ancient America", de l'IFAN>, t59, serB, no.1, (1977) pp.941-967.
C.A. Winters, "The ancient manding Script", In , (ed.) by Ivan van Sertima, ( London: Rutgers University Press Transaction Press , 1981) pp.208-214), may be written in an aspect of the Manding (Malinke/Bambara) language.
Clyde Winters, Archaeological Decipherment of Ancient Writing Systems, 2016.
Clyde Winters, The Kushites Who, What, When, Where, 2018.
.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ As I understand it, the Minoans had their own script Linear A that was derived from an earlier hieroglyphic system that was unique to the Minoans. As for Egyptians gods, I've heard this hypothesis but I haven't seen any concrete evidence of this unless you have.
I thought I had a source, but I can't find it. It's possible my memory may have been acting wonky and it never existed in the first place. I wish there was more research regarding Minoans connection with the rest of Africa, but I'll have to spend more time looking at what we have so far.
Posts: 78 | From: Canada | Registered: Nov 2022
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic