Transcript Introduction - DePaul University

Ancient Egypt
Robin Burke
GAM 206
Outline
o Bibliographies
o Game Analysis continued
o Egypt
Analysis Paper
o extension until Monday
Bibliographies
o Three possible grades
o Plus, Check, Minus
o Era
omeans you forget to specify a
historical context (time/place)
Reference format
o Many people had inadequate
references
o references have a purpose!
o doing them correctly is not hard
o http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/a
pa.html
Web references
o Very few correct web references
o Here is a correct example
o Piccione, Peter (1980) "In Search of the
Meaning of Senet". Eliott Avedon Museum
and Archive of Games. Retrieved
September 26, 2006 from
http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Arch
ives/Piccione/
o Note
o title, author, name of site, date created,
date retrieved
o the reader must be able to follow your
footsteps
Primary sources
o Very few correct references to primary
sources
o (partly my fault)
o usually you will be referring to a document
quoted somewhere else
o you need both pieces of information
o you need to identify your source as specifically as
you can
o Correct example
o Alfonso X, king of Castile and Leon, 1221-1284,
"Manufacture of chess board and pieces." From
Libros del ajedrez, dados y tablas (Folio 3R).
Reproduced in Alphonso X Book of Games.
Retrieved September 26, 2006 from
http://games.rengeekcentral.com/F03Rchessintro
.html
Game analysis
o We want to use games as
sources
o primary sources related to
particular periods
o What can we learn?
o what questions do we ask to
understand a game?
Framework
o Rules
o formal structure of the game
o how the game works
o how outcomes are determined
o Play
o what it is like to play the game
o Culture
o how the game makes contact with
society
o If this topic interests you, consider
taking GAM 224
Experiential
o What is the game like to play?
o cannot be answered by analysis
o you must play the game
o not always enough?
o Example
o awari
o What makes a game "fun"?
Core mechanic
o What is it that players do?
o move pieces
o draw cards, discard
o run around a field
o Are decisions easy to make?
o game moves faster
o Briscola
o Do they involve strategic calculation?
o game moves slower
o Chess
o Do they involve private information?
o players may try to guess the others' situation
o players may try to deceive each other
o Poker
Roles / Simulation
o Does gameplay involve roles
that players take on?
o Tapp Tarock
o President
o Does it simulate or abstract some
real activity
o Diplomacy
o Fun may be in doing these roles
o performance
o wish fulfillment
Narrative
o Game take place over time
o can be said to have narrative structure
o For example
o every chess game starts the same
o but ends (generally) differently
o there is a story in there
o Simplest example
o Rock-Paper-Scissors
o For some games this narrative is the
whole point
o Game of Life
Questions to ask
o What makes the game fun?
o What do players do to play?
o Are there roles?
o What degree of performance is
involved?
o What is the narrative structure of
the game?
o Is it delineated in advance or
emergent?
Cultural
o What can we learn from a game
about its creators and players?
o Some obvious places to start
o they enjoy its core mechanic
o they enjoy the roles that the game
provides
o they enjoy its narrative structure
More in-depth
o Cultural / societal factors
o Predispose players to enjoy these
things?
o Predispose players to accept a
certain narrative?
o Yalom's argument
o chivalry
o mariolatry
o existing role models
o predisposed players to accept a
powerful queen piece
Egypt
o "The gift of the Nile"
o Herodotus
o What was this gift?
o water
o silt
o The other gift of geography
o isolation
Geography
o East
o Arabian desert
o West
o Sahara desert
o North
o "blue desert"
o South
o mountains
o cataracts of the Nile
o Nile was a natural "highway"
o excellent internal mobility
o Result: Egypt was difficult to invade
Stability
o Maintained cultural and political
continuity (more or less) from
3100 BCE to 525 BCE
o the same religion
o the same art
o the same language
o Think about this!
o Let's go back 2600 years from
today
o Unique in this extremely long
period of relative stability
Civilization Rule #1
o You must grow more food than
you can eat
o Surplus means
o artisans
o commerce
o taxes
o full-time armies
Civilization Rule #2
o Surplus requires infrastructure
o In Egypt
o irrigation
o granaries
o land reclamation
o port facilities
Civilization Rule #3
o Infrastructure requires
organization
o the state
o In Egypt
o theocracy
o the ruler (pharoah) was a god
ocoronation was ascension to godhood
o succession took place through
female progeny
o"marry the right woman"
oand also through assertion of power
Periods
o Early Dynastic
o 3100-2686
o Upper and lower suddenly (or gradually?)
became united
o Old Kingdom
o 2686-2181
o Pyramids are built
o Middle Kingdom
o 1991-1786
o Advances in technology and crafts
o New Kingdom
o 1567-1085
o Colonial expansion and then collapse
Isolation Ends
o Nubians
o 8th century BCE
o Assyrians
o 7th century BCE
o Persians
o 6th century BCE
o Greeks
o 4th century BCE
o Romans
o 30 BCE
o Persians
o 616 CE
o Arabs
o 639 CE
Sources
o Many written sources
o papyrus scrolls
owell preserved
Forms of writing
o Hieroglyphic
o "sacred pictures"
o Hieratic
o shorthand for hieroglyphic
o easier to write fast
Demotic
o Evolved to replace hieratic
o except in religious texts
Rosetta stone
o Contains the same inscription in
ohieroglyphic
odemotic
oGreek
o deciphered by
Jean Francois
Champollion in
1822
What do they say
o Political
o Lists of kings
o establishing legitimate succession
o Laws
o Accounts of battles
o Commercial
o tax records
o land records
o contracts
o Religious
o prayers
o instructions for rituals
Example: The Negative Confession
I have not blasphemed a god,
I have not robbed the poor.
I have not done what the god abhors,
I have not maligned a slave to his master.
I have not caused pain,
I have not caused tears.
I have not killed,
I have not ordered to kill,
I have not made anyone suffer.
I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,
I have not depleted the loaves of the gods,
I have not stolen the cakes of the dead.
I have not copulated nor defiled myself.
I have not increased nor reduced the measure,
...
I have not added to the weight of the balance,
I have not falsified the plummet of the scales.
I have not taken milk from the mouths of children,
...I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure!
From The Book of the Dead
Other sources
o Many artifacts
o pottery
o funereal artifacts
o jewelry
o statues
o Bodies
o mummified remains
Death and Mummies
o Egyptians were obsessed with
death
o probably the desert was one
reason
o earliest, clearest articulation of an
afterlife
o Afterlife = Continuation of Life
o in the land of the gods
o very materialistic
oyou could take it with you
Case in Point
o Tutankhamen
o a totally minor king
o last of his dynasty
o disgraced because of his father
Akhnaten
o And yet he is buried with a
mound of loot
o http://www.kingtut.org/chicago/ga
llery2.htm
Including this
o A board for the game of Senet
o actually 4 different Senet boards in
the tomb
Social Organization
o Court
o royal family
o multiple wives / concubines
o advisors / ministers
o Priesthood
o mostly hereditary
o secluded in temples and religious cities
o embalmers
o Commoners
o farmers
o artisans
o Slaves
o usually foreigners captured in battle
o could hold important jobs
Egyptian Technology
o Egyptians were great builders of stone
and brick
o pyramids
o temples
o wood was rare and very precious
o Egyptians had very advanced
medicine
o much admired and copied by the
Greeks
o Egyptians developed mathematics
o especially geometry and surveying
o Erotosthenes (276-194 BCE) measured the
circumferences of the earth
Egyptian Religion
o Religion was very concrete
o Images of the gods were the gods
o They had to be fed, robed, sung to,
praised, and otherwise cared for
o Gods expected perfection
o Religion was not particularly public
o There were regular public rituals
o Temples were built to exclude common
people
o especially from the innermost holy places
o Many of the rituals were secret
knowledge
o severe penalties for disclosure
Gods
o Amun-Ra
o
o
o
o
national god of Egypt
identified with the pharaoh
sun god
bringer of life, creator
o Osiris
o order and virtue
o killed by Seth and
resurrected
o god of the dead
o Isis
o wife and sister (!) of Osiris
o Horus
o son of Osiris after his rebirth
o represented as a falcon
o Seth
o god of evil and disorder
Afterlife
o Egyptian beliefs very influential
o some argue Christian views derive
from them
o After death
o join with the Amun-Ra when setting
o travel through the underworld
o soul would be judged
o passing through 12 "houses"
o reward
oeternal life
o rising with the sun god