City located south of hermopolis magna on the eastern side of the Nile, Assiut was dedicated to the god wep-WAWET, the wolf deity The city was important because it was the terminus of the caravan route from the kharga OASIS and the lands below the first cataract. Assiut also served as a center for a trade route, called “the forty day ROUTE,” from Darfur to the Libyan oases. The nomarchs of Assiut were famous in many eras of Egyptian history for their military prowess and were enlisted to aid some rulers during periods of unrest.
Inscriptions carved into the tombs of the necropolis that was hewn out of the cliffs overlooking Assiut indicate the power and independent status of these locals. Most of the tombs date from the period of the Ninth (c. 2134 b. c.e.) and Tenth (2134 b. c.e.) Dynasties when the Herakleopolitan kings looked to the Assiut warriors to defend the land against the encroaching Thebans. one interesting relief among those discovered in the tombs is that of a female nomarch named Sitre, who served as regent and kept the hereditary land intact until her son reached his majority. Two Ramessid (1307-1070 b. c.e.) tombs were also found there.
Ashoka (Asoka) (d. c. 238 b. c.e.) Emperor of India A vigorous patron of the Buddhist religion, Ashoka sent an embassy to ALEXANDRIA and received one from PTOLEMY II PHILADELPHUS (r. 285-246 B. C.E.). He invited ptolemy to become a Buddhist. Buddhist monks lived in Alexandria, and there was a great procession in the city in 270 B. C.E. of Indian women, pets, and cattle, all religious and social symbols of India at the time. Ashoka sent Buddhist books to the library of Alexandria as well.
Ashurnasirpal II (d. c. 859 b. c.e.) Assyrian king who established an empire
Assurbanipal (d. c. 627 b. c.e.) Ruler of Assyria who attacked Egypt
He reigned from 669 b. c.e. until his death and succeeded his father, essarhaddon. Upon gaining the throne, Assurbanipal renewed his campaign against Egypt. He used the ruler of SAIS, necho i (r. 672-664 b. c.e.), and then psam-METICHUS I (r. 664-610 b. c.e.), to gain an Assyrian foothold on the Nile. In 663, he led a campaign against TANUTAMUN (r. 664-657 b. c.e.), the successor to taharqa (r. 690-664 b. c.e.), but Babylonian affairs caused him to halt his Egyptian efforts. His wife was Anhursharrat, and he ruled from nineveh (opposite modern Mosul, in Iraq).
Assyrians The people living on the right bank of the Tigris River at Assur, modern Kileh Shergat, in northern Iraq. The Assyrian Empire began at Assur, possibly by a ruler called Nemrod, spread into the mountains of Niphates c. 1270 B. C.E., and lasted until 740 b. c.e. Babylon fell to the Assyrians c. 1260 b. c.e., and northern Syria felt the Assyrian presence. The first known true king was Bel-bani. About 1450 b. c.e., after Egyptian supremacy, Assyria began a second period of advancement, entering Zagros and Armenia. Syria fell to their advance, as well as Phoenicia, Damascus, and Israel. The third period, c. 1100 B. C.E., was a time of further expansion. The Assyrians conquered Egypt, Susiana, Cyprus, and the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions. The expansion was halted by the Scythian invasion, by Median resistance, and by the power of Babylon. Nineveh, the last Assyrian capital, fell c. 612 b. c.e.
Astarte This was a goddess originating in Syria and brought into Egypt in the New Kingdom (1550-1070 B. C.E.). AMENHOTEP II (r. 1427-1401 B. C.E.) erected a STELA honoring her in giza. She was given the rank of a daughter of the god re and was made a consort of set. Astarte served as the patroness of the pharaoh’s chariots in military campaigns. She was depicted as a naked woman wearing the atef, or bull’s horns. She had served as a war goddess in Syria.
Asten (Astes) A deity who served as a companion of the god THOTH, the patron of wisdom, in some lists he is addressed as Astes.
Astrology A practice attributed to the ancient Egyptians, highly dramatized in the modern world. The Egyptians practiced a form of astrology, but it had little in common with that of later eras. The Egyptians practiced “astral-theology,” a form of divination that responded to the astronomical observances of their day but held no independent value.
The Egyptians were always anxious to equate human endeavors with cosmic events as observed in the night sky, and much of their writings and teachings about the spirit of MA’AT were concerned with a need to mirror the divine order demonstrated by the heavenly bodies. Horoscopes, in the modern sense of the word, were not known by the Egyptians before the fall of the New Kingdom. They did not have the traditional signs of the zodiac or the concept of planetary houses. When the Egyptians did learn about horoscopes and the attendant lore, it was from Mesopotamian and Hellenistic sources late in the Ptolemaic Period. The Egyptians had other methods of divination and fortune-telling, such as the mythological CALENDARS that dealt with lucky and unlucky days, especially as they pertained to births.
The true horoscope arrived on the Nile with the Ptolemaic Period (304-30 b. c.e.). The Babylonian zodiac and Greek interpretations replaced the Egyptian concept of the heavens. The dekans associated with astrological computations, however, had been depicted in the tomb of SENENMUT in the reign of hatshepsut (1473-1458 b. c.e.) but had not been universally regarded.
World History
