10 Piastres 1998, Egypt
| in Krause book | Number: 189a |
| Years of issue: | 1998 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | Minister of Finance: Mr. El Ghareeb |
| Serie: | The Arab republic of Egypt |
| Specimen of: | 1998 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 117 x 62 |
| Printer: | Egypt Post Printing House, Cairo |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
The funerary mask of Tutankhamun. Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt.
In the 31st century BC, when Pharaoh Men managed to conquer northern Africa near the Nile Delta, a kingdom emerged that included two components - Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, whose art history can be divided into periods: the ancient kingdom (31-22 centuries BC.), the Middle Kingdom (21-16 cc. BC.), the new kingdom (16-11 cc. BC.) and the late period (11 c. BC. - 6 century BC.).
During the first dynasties, pyramids began to be erected - “houses after life”. In the land part of the pyramids, chapels and auxiliary premises were created, and in the underground part there were burial chambers. Since death was considered an underground continuation of life, burials were decorated with jewels, everything necessary for another world, and decorated with scenes from this and that life.
A golden mask located on the mummy was found during the examination of the tomb of Tutankhamun - the pharaoh from the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom, who ruled Egypt in 1332-1323 BC. er His tomb miraculously turned out to be unoffrained and everyday objects telling about the life of one of the pharaohs survived to us. He was a young man who ruled the country for 9 years and died suddenly, probably from an illness, who did not live to be 20 years old.
The masks were created so that the pharaohs would not lose their faces in the new life and would look appropriately worthy of their dignity, despite the processes of corruption. The art of making burial objects was perfected over thousands of years, each element was proportionally verified and involved in the overall compositional structure, and also endowed with a symbolic meaning.
The golden mask of Tutankhamen, considered to be one of the great monuments of art, was made of 9 kilograms of pure gold and depicts Tutankhamun in a headdress - a scarf, one of the symbols of royal power, called "Kraft-usherbi". The two sides of the klaft, which are evenly lowered onto the necklace collar, testified that the power of the pharaoh extended into two kingdoms. On top of the scarf was fastened another symbol of power - Urey - a diadem with images of the head of a hawk and a cobra. The hawk Nekhbet and the cobra Uadzhet are symbols of two deities protecting Upper and Lower Egypt. The blue stripes on the yellow claft and on the collar - a necklace (a sign of the sun, a popular ornament in ancient Egypt) were the privilege of the pharaohs. The third symbol - a symbol of land ownership, was a patch beard. Wide-open eyes testified to the continuation of life and in the next world, and auricles - to the eternal perception of the surrounding world. (salman-spektor.livejournal.com .rus)
The burial mask of Tutankhamen made of gold was not intended for this ancient Egyptian pharaoh, but for Queen Nefertiti. This conclusion, as reported by The Independent, came the former curator of the department of Ancient Egypt in the British Museum, archaeologist Nicholas Reeves.
The scientist came to his conclusions for two reasons. First, in September 2015, a retouched stamp with the name of Queen Nefertiti was found on a gold mask. Secondly, the ears on the mask were punctured, which is typical for masks designed for women and children.
Scientists came to such discoveries after Tutankhamun’s funeral mask restoration work: her beard fell away as a result of an accident, which had to be hurriedly returned to its original place (glued) in January 2015.
In 2015, the archaeologist Reeves surprises the scientific community for the second time. The first time this happened was when he reported on the discovery of the door hidden in and supposedly leading to the tomb of Nefertiti in Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as retouched images illustrating the life of the young Pharaoh.
Pharaoh Tutankhamen from Ancient Egypt from the XVIII dynasty of the New Kingdom ruled the country around 1332-1323 BC. He died at the age of 19. His stepmother was Nefertiti, and her father was her husband Akhenaten. The causes of Nefertiti's death and the place of her burial are still unknown.
Avers:
The great Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha or Alabaster Mosque is a mosque situated in the Citadel of Cairo in Egypt and commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha between 1830 and 1848. Situated on the summit of the citadel, this Ottoman mosque, the largest to be built in the first half of the 19th century, is, with its animated silhouette and twin minarets, the most visible mosque in Cairo. The mosque was built in memory of Tusun Pasha, Muhammad Ali's oldest son, who died in 1816.
The mosque was built on the site of old Mamluk buildings in Cairo's Citadel between 1830 and 1848, although not completed until the reign of Said Pasha in 1857. The architect was Yusuf Bushnak from Istanbul and its model was the Yeni Mosque in that city. The ground on which the mosque was erected was built with debris from the earlier buildings of the Citadel.
Before completion of the mosque, the alabastered panels from the upper walls were taken away and used for the palaces of Abbas I. The stripped walls were clad with wood painted to look like marble. In 1899 the mosque showed signs of cracking and some inadequate repairs were undertaken. But the condition of the mosque became so dangerous that a complete scheme of restoration was ordered by King Fuad in 1931 and was finally completed under King Farouk in 1939.
Muhammad Ali Pasha was buried in a tomb carved from Carrara marble, in the courtyard of the mosque. His body was transferred here from Hawsh al-Basha in 1857. 
Denomination is centered.
Revers:
On the banknote are two combined images! Since the Great Sphinx is located on the eastern side of the pyramids of Giza, though behind it cannot be seen all three pyramids, as shown on the banknote.
On the foreground is Great Sphinx of Giza.
The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول Abū al-Haul, English: The Terrifying One; literally: Father of Dread), commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx (a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head) that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the face of the Pharaoh Khafra.
It is the largest monolith statue in the world, standing 73.5 meters (241 ft.) long, 19.3 meters (63 ft.) wide, and 20.22 m. (66.34 ft.) high. It is the oldest known monumental sculpture, and is commonly believed to have been built by ancient Egyptians of the Old Kingdom during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafra (c. 2558-2532 BC).
The Great Sphinx is one of the world's largest and oldest statues but basic facts about it are still subject to debate, such as when it was built, by whom, and for what purpose. These questions have resulted in the popular idea of the "Riddle of the Sphinx", alluding to the original Greek legend of the Riddle of the Sphinx.
On background are the Pyramids of Giza.
The fourth-dynasty king, Sneferu 2686 - 2667 BC, was the first to create the pyramid shape that we all recognize and associate with Egyptian architecture. He built three pyramids in all, but the first two were glorious failures.
His first, the pyramid at Medum, began as a step pyramid and was then modified to form the first true pyramid. But it was unstable and the limestone blocks began to slip. Soon, work on it was abandoned. King Sneferu then moved to Dahshur and built a second pyramid, which we now know as the “Bent Pyramid” because its upper part rises at a shallower angle of incline than the lower part.
Bent Pyramid was originally planned as a true pyramid, but the corners were built on unstable ground and the walls of the burial chambers inside began to crack and shift inward. Of necessity, the building’s geometry was altered at a point just above half its height. The angle of incline was decreased from 54º 31’ 13’’ to 43º 21’. This was probably done to alleviate the stresses in the lower part of the pyramid and make it stronger. But the bent pyramid was never used. Instead, Sneferu began a third pyramid about a mile way. This one is called the red pyramid because of the red limestone blocks used in its construction. It became the world’s first successful true pyramid.
With the red pyramid, Sneferu set the standard for all true pyramids to come. He included above ground burial chambers, a mortuary temple, and a causeway leading down to a valley temple. This was the model followed by his son, Khufu, who built the first and largest pyramid at Giza. The Giza pyramids were erected on a rocky plateau on the west bank of the Nile in northern Egypt and were connected, by covered causeways, to mortuary temples in the valley below the plateau. These temples had landing stages which were linked to the Nile by a canal. In ancient times they were included among the Seven Wonders of the World.
Khufu - 2575-2566 BC
The largest of the three pyramids at Giza, known as the Great Pyramid, is truly an astonishing work of engineering. It was built over a twenty year period. Some believe that it was built by slaves, but this is not true. One hundred thousand people worked on the great structure for three months of each year, during the Nile’s annual flood when it was impossible to farm the land and most of the population was unemployed. The pharaoh provided good food and clothing for his workers, and was kindly remembered in folk tales for many centuries.
The sides are oriented to the four cardinal points of the compass and the length of each side at the base is 755 feet (230.4 m.). The faces rise at an angle of 51º 52’ and their original height was 481 feet (147 m.). (They currently rise 451 feet [138 m.].) It was constructed using around 2,300,000 limestone blocks, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. Some blocks weigh as much as 16 tons. For centuries, the Great Pyramid was encased in smooth limestone, but this was plundered in our era to build Cairo.
Khafre 2558-2532 BC.
Khufu’s son, Khafre (also known as Chephren). His pyramid, on a nearby site at Giza, appears taller than his father’s, but this is an illusion; it is built on higher ground and was in fact, originally at 447.5 feet (136.4 m.), 33.5 feet (10.2 m.) shorter than the Great Pyramid.
Khafre’s pyramid retains some of its original limestone casing at the apex, and so it is possible to imagine how the pyramids might have appeared in antiquity. Khafre also built the Great Sphinx, which is 66 feet high (20 m.) and 240 feet long (73 m.) and is part of Khafre’s pyramid complex. It represents Ra-Harakhte, the sun god, as he rises in the east at dawn but the face of the Sphinx is a portrait of Khafre himself, and is contemporary with his pyramid. It was carved from an outcropping of limestone left after quarrying the stone for his father’s pyramid.
Unfortunately, the great sphinx has deteriorated over the millennia and was extensively renovated in ancient times. More recently it was mutilated by the Sultan Mohammed an-Nasir in AD 1300; and lost its nose in 1798, when Napoleon’s soldiers used it for target practice.
There have recently been a number of speculative theories concerning the age of the Great Sphinx, but no material evidence exists to suggest that its history should be revised.
Menkaura 2532-2503 BC.
Khafre’s son, Menkaura built the third pyramid at the Giza necropolis (cemetery). With an original height of 228 feet (70 m.), it is less than half the height of the pyramid built by his grandfather, Khufu. The lower layers consist of red granite from Aswan and the upper courses were originally made of gleaming white limestone. (http://discoveringegypt.com)
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