Victory's Museum Trip II - The Museo Egizio of Turin V

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Today I would like to continue to share with you some beautiful antiquities in the Predynastic period. Moreover, I would like to share with you one very important treasure in Museo Egizio, it is not belong to the Predynastic period, while it is so important for the whole Egyptian history, it is The Turin King List.

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The Turin King List (1292 - 1190 BC)

The Turin King List is an ancient Egyptian hieratic(a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics; used especially by the priests) papyrus thought to date from the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II. It is a priceless document for the reconstruction of Egyptian chronology, this text, copied by a 19th Dynasty scribe on the back of an administrative papyrus carrying account, is the only king list on papyrus of the time of the pharaohs still in existence.

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It was called the "Royal Canon" by Champollion, who identified and described it for the first time in 1824. The king list was meant to record all the kings of Egypt and the exact length of their reign - including the god-kings and even pharaohs who were usually ignored on monuments. The kings are organised in groups already corresponding to the dynasties in the same order as they appear in Manetho, a historian of Ptolemaic era whose numbering system for the dynasties is still used today (It divides the old Egyptian period into the old kingdom, the middle kingdom and the new kingdom ). The list is very fragmentary, but could contain much information that is still unknown. For checking the full list on the list, please go to wiki see them. [//]:# (!steemitworldmap 45.0684296 lat 7.6843041 long ME5 d3scr)

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A Predynastic burial (3600 - 3350 BC)

In the Predynastic Period, the dead were usually laid on their sides in oval or round pits. Sometimes they were wrapped in animal skins or reed mats. Direct contact with the sodium oxide-rich sandy soil dried up the body and naturally preserved it. The below figure shows one burial in this period, but its assemblage does not come from an archaeological excavation. It was purchased in Egypt at the beginning of the 20th century. It consists of the body of an adult man, about forty years of age, and grave goods including arrows, baskets containing textile fragment, and a pair of sandals. Recent scientific testing of the body and the textiles in the baskets suggest that they may indeed belong to the same burial. The tests also revealed the presence of a vegetable oil on the textiles, possibly applied during the funerary ritual.

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Rectangular sarcophagus vase with lid (3300 - 2592 BC)

The rectangular sarcophagus vase with lid in below figures shows from natural mummification to embalming. In the religious ideology of the Predynastic Period, the body of the deceased and its preservation after death were already a major concern. The notion of eternal life after death and the observation that the dry desert climate preserved the bodies of human beings and animals must have stimulated a search for methods to artificially preserve dead bodies. These methods became all the more necessary when the bodies were progressively isolated from the sand and its drying effect, first with mats and skins, later with the introduction of the coffin. Very few mummies from the early Dynastic Period are preserved. The deceased was wrapped in linen bandages treated with resin and a salt called natron. The internal organs were not removed. The body was then placed in a contracted position in rectangular coffins of wood or clay.

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From next post, we will enter the old kingdom period. I am not the researcher of history or archaeology. Just want to share with you some beautiful antiquities. If I made some critical errors in my post, please feel free to help me correct them, thank you very much.

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