Ancient Egypt Focuses on “Cultural Memory”

Abstract

The existence of culture is impossible without memory as a supra-individual intellectual and communicative system in synchronous and diachronic dimensions. From semiotics in pre-written (as in unwritten) cultures, all facts, phenomena, events, objects, etc., are natural and cultural texts, as they contain information encrypted in image-symbolic language, which explains the mythological consciousness of the cultures of antiquity. In this context, this article examines the forms of keeping in the collective memory of the basic spiritual values of the culture. The basis of myth-religious ideas was the idea of returning to the origins, of the great-time creation of the world. This sacred time was repeated in rituals, cementing the identity of the population of ancient Egyptian culture through centuries and millennia. The main channels of cultural memory keeping were temples and texts and rituals. The king responsible for the prosperity of society played a key role. The cult of the ruling and deceased king had a cosmogony basis. The notions of the cyclical movement of time, the victory of order over chaos were reflected at all levels and spheres of society. The central model of an orderly world with a dedicated core was a model for social structure, temple buildings, burial complexes of elite necropolises, rites, compositions on ritual objects. Cultural memory kept ancient symbols, placing them in the contexts of subsequent eras, as a reminder of the ancient, eternal foundations of culture.