posted
It is generally understood, that in the modern era China was the most recalcitrant nation on the planet, smugly resting on its ancient historical superiority laurels over the 'western devils' while Japan embraced this new phenomena and left China in the parking lot...now, China has swallowed its ego and the world is changing again...
I have long maintained that the Masai people of Kenya are recalcitrant, extremely conservative living remnants of Ancient Egyptian civilization; Ancient Rgypt was perfect, so to hell with 'progress'...
Nowhere is this clearer than in their concept of Good versus Evil, and the color of each... The Masai are monotheistic, and they call God Enkai or Engai. Engai is a single deity with a dual nature: Engai Narok (Black God) is benevolent, and Engai Nanyokie (Red God) is vengeful.
This was the exact same ideology of Ancient Egypt...
Now...if you can't identify the 'clone' of Tutankhamen in this photo...I can't help ya... Posts: 3344 | From: Berkeley | Registered: Oct 2003
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No... Not seeing it myself. I can see Linford Christie...
The Masai at home in Tanzania. You think this is a remnant of Egyptian civilization?
A remnant of this?
In what way a remnant? That would be excessive regression, never mind conservativism.
I would have thought the heirs to Egyptian civilization would more likely have gone on to build things like this:
this:
this:
and this:
The religious beliefs you allude to doesn't really corelate. The Egyptians had the black land and the red land, the desert and the fertile nile valley with its dark soil. This environmental inspiration would be meaningless in the grassy land of the Masai Mara. The Massai dual-natured god Engai sounds more reminiscent of the Sumerian gods Enlil and Enki, meanwhile.
Posts: 870 | From: uk | Registered: Apr 2011
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This style has nothing to do with Egypt and is related to Persian/Turkish Style Architecture. The Egyptians would be rolling in their graves knowing such an ugly style on their Land.
Posts: 8805 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
I think both ancient and medieval Egyptrians would be be more upset about the hideous buildings of the 20th century, but be that as it may. The point is it's architecture, and evidence of the fact that civilization endured in Egypt.
An example from another country... Do you think the builders of this:
would recognize or necessarily approve of this style of architecture from a later time (?):
Probably not but there is no reason to say it was built by a different race of people! it just shows different prevailing influences. The Egyptian civilization was an Egyptian affair, and Egyptians stayed in Egypt. They did not forget about writing books or building cities in stone.
Posts: 870 | From: uk | Registered: Apr 2011
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The point is it's architecture, and evidence of the fact that civilization endured in Egypt.
I never denied this but the Style you posted is of Persian and to a certain extent Roman influence. The A. Egyptians had their own building style which has been lost due to Foreign Rulers control of the Nile.
Of interesting note is that the people to preserve a unique Egyptians building style were the Nubians. Not even the Upper Egyptians had preserved the style, and thanks to Egyptian Architect Fathy who discovered Nubian Masons still using the style. He feared it was lost(and it WAS lost in A. Egypt) and to pay respect to the Nubian Masons he would use the Nubian Masons to reintroduce the Ancient Style and to teach others people the techniques. Fathy gave the Nubian people their credit.
Not only does this prove Egypt's connection to Nubia but shows the Nubians were Learned Architects in their own right.
Fathy and the Nubian Vault... An ancient architectural technique, traditionally used in Sudan and central Asia, but until now unknown in West Africa, can provide the answer to the current problems of house-building in the Sahel. This technique - “la Voute Nubienne” or VN - makes it possible to build houses with vaulted roofs (on top of which a traditional flat roof terrace can be constructed) using basic, readily available local materials and simple, easily learnt, procedures.
Fathy's solution was to turn to sun-dried bricks made of mud and reinforced with straw: adobe. He engaged the advice of structural engineers and soil-mechanics specialists to ascertain the maximum strength and durability of adobe under different conditions. After this research, in the early 1940's, he began to design dwellings that demonstrated an unprecedented degree of harmony with the natural environment, climate and local culture, and the spiritual tradition of Islam. With inspiration from the very soil of Egypt, he aimed to help the poor build for themselves.
Yet roofing remained a problem. In rural Egypt, the fellahin could afford neither wood nor corrugated galvanized metal for roofs, nor could they even buy the wood needed to make forms to shape vaulted adobe roofs. Fathy's early attempts at building adobe vaulting without wooden forms—the only economically sensible solution—resulted in a series of discouraging collapses. This was particularly maddening because it was clear from his visits to Upper Egypt that just such form-less vaulting had been used for millennia to build ordinary houses, tombs and even royal buildings, such as the granaries of the first-century-BC Ramesseum, one of the great monuments of Thebes.
Fathy feared that the secret had been lost, but in 1941, in the Nubian village of Abu al-Riche, he found village masons building catenary vaults of mud brick that could measure two stories high, up to three meters (10 ˝') wide and of any desired length, without forms. (See "How to Build A Nubian Vault," page 24.) The technique, he was exhilarated to learn, was simple enough to teach to any willing person.Posts: 8805 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
Rahotep, what is funny is that the Gothic Style is not native to the English but to the French. Also the Neo-Classical style although influenced by the Italian Renaissance is actually a better example of a Native English Architecture style as the Neoclassical Style was pretty much developed in London..
Also the British/English did employ "Gothic Revival" as can be seen by Ivy League Style Architecture. So there was a movement to go back to the Gothic Style, but like I said the Neo-Classical Style is a better representation of an "English Style" and IMO looks better than the Gothic Style.
quote:Originally posted by rahotep101:
would recognize or necessarily approve of this style of architecture from a later time (?):
Probably not but there is no reason to say it was built by a different race of people! it just shows different prevailing influences. The Egyptian civilization was an Egyptian affair, and Egyptians stayed in Egypt. They did not forget about writing books or building cities in stone.
Posts: 8805 | From: The fear of his majesty had entered their hearts, they were powerless | Registered: Nov 2007
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posted
It's true that purer Egyptian forms survived longer in Nubia due to the distance from Greco-Roman influence. The old style was very much connected to the old gods, though, and when the Nubians became Christians they also tended to follow the Eastern Orthodox style of architecture, whith strong Roman/Byzantine influences.
This is a capital from an early Nubian church, obviously based on a classical Greek/Roman prototype:
Nubians were fine architects, but like the Egyptians they were open to foreign influence. Christianity had its dominant style (Romano-Byzantine) and Islam had its own (Arab/Persian)
A Nubian mosque has obvious Arabic influences...
By the way the style of Salisbury Cathedral 'Early English Gothic' is, as its name suggests, recognizably English. Not many French cathedrals look much like that. Some of the earliest pointed arch vaults and flying buttesses actaully appear on Durham Cathedral, so England was quite important to the birth of gothic.
Classical's good too, there's even the odd bit of Egyptian revival architecture from the 19th and early 20th century...
quote:Originally posted by Wally: It is generally understood, that in the modern era China was the most recalcitrant nation on the planet, smugly resting on its ancient historical superiority laurels over the 'western devils' while Japan embraced this new phenomena and left China in the parking lot...now, China has swallowed its ego and the world is changing again...
I have long maintained that the Masai people of Kenya are recalcitrant, extremely conservative living remnants of Ancient Egyptian civilization; Ancient Rgypt was perfect, so to hell with 'progress'...
Nowhere is this clearer than in their concept of Good versus Evil, and the color of each... The Masai are monotheistic, and they call God Enkai or Engai. Engai is a single deity with a dual nature: Engai Narok (Black God) is benevolent, and Engai Nanyokie (Red God) is vengeful.
This was the exact same ideology of Ancient Egypt...
Now...if you can't identify the 'clone' of Tutankhamen in this photo...I can't help ya...
I'm sorry Wally but this seems to be another thread that is obtuse and silly.
The Masai really from a cultural point of view at best may be called recalcitrant predynastic Egyptians but not actual pharaonic Egyptians. The Masai with their cattle culture and black god cult and other traditions reflect a mere substratum of a greater Nilotic culture that was also ancestral to ancient Egypt.
Nabta became a habitable area because of a climatic change that occurred over North Africa around 12,000 years ago. This climatic change was caused by a northward shift of the summer monsoons. This shift brought enough rain to the Nabta region to enable it to sustain life for both humans and animals. Although it was a small amount of rain, usually around four to eight inches (10-15 cm) per year, it was enough to fill the playas with water for months at a time. Between 11,000 and 9300 years ago, Nabta saw its first settlements. The people living at Nabta herded cattle, made ceramic vessels, and set up seasonal camps around the playa. These people regarded cattle in much the same way as modern peoples of West Africa regard them. The blood and milk of the cattle was more significant than the meat. The ceramics that were found from this period are minimal, but are considered to be some of the oldest identified in Africa.
Posts: 26302 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
I'm aware of no evidence of cattle-blood consumption in Egypt, predynastic or otherwise. If anything I suspect that a blood taboo similar to that of the hebrews and muslims was in force. The Bible forbids the consumption of blood, and Islamic halal meat must be drained of blood. The jews got their pork taboo and their thing for curcumsision from Egypt so it seems a fair guess that the ban on blood-consumption also has Egyptian origins. Apparently an inscription at the Edfu temple also mentions a god that dislikes menstruating women. There again the Goddess sekhmet was said to drink blood.
Posts: 870 | From: uk | Registered: Apr 2011
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^ The hypothesis that they consumed cattle blood is based on the fact that there is virtually no evidence of cattle butchered in the area. This is also coupled with by the fact that the milk of ancient recently domesticated cattle is difficult to digest not only because of the lactose but other proteins. Blood itself is hard to digest because of the hemogloblin and its too high iron concentration but when both blood and milk are mixed together the effects of the hemoglobin and the difficult milk proteins are more or less canceled out. Which is why many Nilotic peoples to this day drink their cattle blood mixed with milk.
Also, I fail to see how Hebrew laws and its derived Islamic laws of later times have to do with Nilotic culture especially in neolithic times. In fact there are South Semitic speaking peoples of southern Arabia like the Mahra (many of whom are African in appearance) who until recently also practiced the custom of drinking their cattle's blood and milk.
Posts: 26302 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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