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Egyptian Culture:*
NB [Spengler draws an important distinction between “culture” and “civilization”, culture being the early period of a civilization, while civilization refers to the last stages]
Beliefs and rituals were integral within every aspect of Egyptian culture; their language has no single word corresponding to "religion"; they had a complex system of polytheistic beliefs & rituals, many practices centered on interaction with deities believed to be present in & controlling the forces of nature. Prayers and offerings were efforts to provide for the gods and gain favour. Formal religious practice centered on the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, believed to possess divine power by virtue of his position.
The Egyptian conception of the universe centered on maintaining truth, justice & a fixed eternal order in society & in heaven; this had existed since creation but was always under threat from disorder. Without order society would disintegrate. At a human level it required social cooperation & coexistence; at the cosmic level it meant the nature should function in balance. This was the central goal of Egyptian religion, achieved by sustaining the gods through offerings and by performing rituals which staved off disorder and perpetuated the cycles of nature. The most important part of the Egyptian view of the cosmos was the conception of time, vital for maintaining cosmic balance. Throughout the linear passage of time, a cyclical pattern recurred, in which balance was renewed by periodic events which echoed the original creation. Among these events were the annual Nile flood. the succession from one king to another and most important, the daily journey of the sun god Ra.
The Pharaoh was recognized as human & subject to human weakness, yet simultaneously viewed as a god, because the divine power of kingship was incarnate in him. He was an intermediary between people and the gods and key to upholding balance both in human society & in the cosmos. For these reasons, he oversaw all state religious activity.
They believed that humans possessed a "ka", or spirit. This lived on after death. In addition everyone had a "ba", spiritual forces unique to themselves and attached to the body. Rituals were used to release the "ba" so it could re-join the "ka" and live on. However each night the "ba" returned to the body, therefore preservation of the body was vital
During the late Old Kingdom (2686–2181 BC) & First Intermediate Period (2181–2055 BC), the Egyptians gradually came to believe that possession of a ba and the possibility of an afterlife in paradise extended to everyone.
Egypt had one of the first written languages, known from the hieroglyphic inscriptions preserved on monuments and sheets of papyrus. Their literature dates to the Old Kingdom (3rd third millennium BC) & is known for its hymns and mortuary texts. The oldest extant Egyptian literature is the Pyramid Texts: the mythology and rituals carved around the tombs of rulers. Exterior and interior walls, as well as the columns and piers, were covered with hieroglyphic and pictorial frescoes and carvings painted in brilliant colors. Many motifs of Egyptian ornamentation are symbolic, such as the scarab, or sacred beetle, the solar disk, and the vulture. Hieroglyphs were inscribed for decorative purposes as well as to record historic events or spells
Their architecture was made up of sun-baked mud brick and stone (mainly limestone, also sandstone & granite); architecture developed a vast array of diverse structures and great architectural monuments along the Nile. What has survived is primarily religious monuments: temples, pyramids, mastabas; massive structures characterized by thick, sloping walls with few openings. this echoes a method of construction used to obtain stability in mud walls & in a similar manner, the incised and flatly modeled surface adornment of the stone buildings may have derived from mud wall ornamentation. Although the use of the arch was developed during the 4th dynasty, all monumental buildings are post & lintel constructions, with flat roofs constructed of huge stone blocks supported by the external walls and closely spaced columns. Temples were aligned with astronomically significant events (solstices & equinoxes), requiring precise measurements at the moment of the particular event. Measurements at the most significant temples may have been ceremonially undertaken by the Pharaoh himself.
The Egyptians were one of the first major civilizations to codify design elements in art. The wall painting done in the service of the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. Their art lacks linear perspective, which results in a seemingly flat space. The artists created images based on what they knew, not what they saw. Objects in these artworks generally do not decrease in size as they increase in distance & there is little shading to indicate depth. Sometimes, distance is indicated through the use of tiered space, where more distant objects are drawn higher above the nearby objects, but in the same scale and with no overlapping of forms. People and objects are almost always drawn in profile & never facing forward. Artists status was low in the hierarchy so they could never be in front of a higher authority figure, and never be faced towards them.