From securing a ship, to tying cattle to a post, building shelters and curing headaches, rope and string were a multipurpose commodity in ancient Egypt. The technology to make rope and string is presumably one of the oldest, predating stone working. Due to the perishable materials used for rope, no extant examples have survived in Egypt until the predynastic period. The material used most widely for the production of rope was papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and other sedges of the Cyperusfamily. For large ropes, the entire stem was used, while smaller string was made of the rind of papyrus stems. The production of papyrus sheets for writing required the thick triangular stems to be peeled and sliced. The peelings made a strong raw material from which extremely fine string could be made. Many examples of such string were found in archaeological contexts, for instance in cordage from the Giza Plateau, in the rubbish tips of the building phases of Khufu's pyramid (ca. 2600 BCE). Its...
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The ba, a concept often translated as ‘soul,’ is an integral part of a person. The ba is depicted as a bird with a human head and is the free-ranging part of a human being. When a person dies, the body is entombed, but the ba can exit the tomb, to return each night to the body.
References
Kemp, Barry J. and Gillian Vogelsang‐Eastwood. The Ancient Textile Industry at Amarna. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2001.
Teeter, Emily. Techniques and Terminology of Rope-making in Ancient Egypt. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 73 (1987): (71–77.
‐‐‐. The World According to Basketry: An Ethno‐Archaeological Interpretation of Basketry Production in Egypt. Research School of Asian African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS), Leiden, 1999.
Wendrich, Willeke. Entangled, Connected or Protected? The Power of Knots and Knotting in Ancient Egypt. Through a Glass Darkly: Magic, Dreams and Prophecy in Ancient Egypt. Ed. Kasia Spaszkowska. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2006. 243–69.
Wendrich, Willemina. Preliminary Report on the Amarna Basketry and Cordage. Amarna Reports V. Ed. Barry J. Kemp. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1989. 169–210.
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Wendrich, W. (2008). Rope and Knots in Ancient Egypt. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8686
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