UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

The legacy of Pharaonic Egypt
distribution of these objects that makes it possible to discover the bonds
which linked Egypt to other nations long ago.
All artistic objects in ancient Egypt were made, not for the sake of
art alone, but above all as an expression of the Egyptian belief that life
relating to the living world would be repeated after death.
Religion
This can be considered as one of the philosophical contributions of Egypt.
For the ancient Egyptians developed a number of theories concerning the
creation of life, the role of the natural powers, and the response of the
human community towards them; also the world of the gods and their
influence on human thought, the divine aspect of kingship, the role of the
priesthood in the community and the belief in eternity and life in the
netherworld.
It was their profound experience in such abstract thought that influenced
the Egyptian community to such an extent that it had a lasting effect on
the outside world. Particularly apparent to the historian is the Egyptian
religious influence in certain Graeco-Roman religious objects, as can be
seen by the popularity of the goddess Isis and her cult in classical antiquity.
Transmission of the Pharaonic legacy. Role of the Syro-Palestinian
Corridor
Phoenicia played a special and important role in transmitting the Pharaonic
legacy to the rest of the world.
Egypt's influence on Phoenicia can be traced through the economic and
cultural contacts between the two areas. Such a relationship became'
apparent when trade and exploration started to expand during the preand
protodynastic times, in order to fulfil the vast needs of those periods.
Even the invention of writing as an essential means of communication
developed partly as a result of economic and religious factors. That is to say,
the contacts with Phoenicia were indispensable to import vital raw materials
like wood, for example, which were necessary for the erection and construction
of shrines and religious monuments.
Egyptian traders established a shrine of their own at Byblos, a city with
which they had very close trade contacts. Egyptian culture and ideas were
spread throughout the Mediterranean basin by the intermediary of
the Phoenicians.
The influence of Egyptian culture on biblical wisdom, among other
things, is noteworthy (see Chapter 3). With regard to the Levant, commercial
and cultural relations existed throughout the second and first
millennia before our era, which include the Middle and New Kingdom as
well as under the late dynasties. Relations naturally increased following
Egyptian political and military expansion, and Egyptian artistic patterns
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