Ancient Egypt

by Joe Smoe
Starting about 8,000BC, all of Northern Africa became a drier, more desert-like
place. Back then, man lived in nomadic groups of hunters and gatherer. The cli
mate forced man to migrate to more hospitable lands, some migrated to Nile River
Valley which is a vast land surrounding the Nile River. There in this land abu
ndant with life, there were plenty of food and water for these people. During t
he Neolithic Revolution (10,000BC to 3,500BC) man discovered the art of agricult
ure, this skill arrived in Egypt approximately 7,000BC. Humans were finally abl
e to use the rich silt brought by the yearly flooding of the Nile River which an
nually flooded since 60,000 years ago.
The Nile River is the world's longest river , it is approximately 4,160 miles lo
ng and flows from the highlands in Central Africa to the Mediterranean Sea. It
is the main reason why the Ancient Egyptians were such a successful people, the
moisture from the river was the only thing keeping Egypt from change to a desert
. Even back then, everybody knew that without the river they had no chance of s
urvival. First of all the main food the Egyptians ate were bread made from the
grain grown with the precious silt and water from the Nile River. Barges and bo
ats made with papyrus reeds or wooden planks(used after 3,000BC) were filled wit
h different thing such as grains were floated downstream and carried by the curr
ent, or if they needed to be floated upstream, you would simply just raise the s
ails up and the ship would sail upstream, the Egyptians invented sails at approx
imately 3,200BC. Although the Nile is such an abundant source of life, it ferti
lize just a narrow strip of land, eventually the Egyptians built large irrigatio
n systems which would carry water into the desert.
Ancient cultures were often plagued with warfare and attacks from other cultures
, Egypt's geography protected it from most of its neighbors. The Mediterranean
Sea, the Red Sea, the Nubian Desert, and the Libyan Desert surrounded Egypt, it
was very hard for an outside to even enter Egypt. In the Nile River there are s
ix cataracts, waterfalls or rapids, these prevented people from a region called
Kush which would be modern day Ethiopia from using the river to travel to Egypt
and attack it. Still there were invaders who would attack Egypt, from the Sinai
Peninsula invaders attacked Egypt, but Egypt also used this land as a path to c
onquer other people.
The small villages that lined the river eventually became two kingdoms, Upper Eg
ypt and Lower Egypt. The name of the king that eventually united the two kingdo
ms is Menes, he originally ruled just Upper Egypt, but by conquering Lower Egypt
, he not only increase his own power, he created one of the greatest civilizatio
ns ever. His successors, the king after him, wore a double crown to symbolize t
hat they ruled both kingdoms.
Sometime between 1,554BC and 1,304BC, people began calling their kings "pharaohs
" which means "great house". Egyptians believed that the pharaohs were descenda
nts of the sun god, Amon-Ra. A "dynasty" is a government where the right to rul
e passes father to son. Occasionally these dynasties were overthrown or died ou
t and a new dynasty is formed. The first dynasty was said to have been establis
h by King Menes who united Upper Egypt with Lower Egypt. There are about 30 dyn
asties that ruled Egypt, historians and archeologists have divided the history o
f Egypt into three parts based on these dynasties. The Old Kingdom(2,700BC to 2
,200BC), the Middle Kingdom(2,050BC to 1,800BC), and the New Kingdom or Empire A
ge(1,570BC to 1,090BC).
With every ancient society we have seen a unique religion, the Egyptians are no
exception. Egyptian mythology or religion did not influence their culture as re
ligion did to other cultures much, a unified sense of faith never existed among
them. What I mean by this is that since each city worshipped a different god or
goddess, there wasn't really a togetherness in their religion. So if I use the
word "worship" in this report, I am referring to the fact that they thought tha
t god or goddess was important. In fact the Egyptian religion contains a remark
able amount of conflicting beliefs, this is probably base on the fact that their
religion is just a collection of stories and mythology
The earliest of the Egyptian gods to be invented were in the form of animals suc
h as the sacred cat of Babastis, these gods were worshipped before Egypt united.
Later however, gods were half human-half animal creatures, usually a human wit
h the head of some animals.
According to the Egyptian account of creation, only the ocean existed at first.
Then Ra, the sun(later confused by the Egyptians with Amon, this created a new g
od Amon-Ra), came out of an egg (a flower, in some versions) that appeared on th
e surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and
the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood
on Geb, who became the earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled ov
er all. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis
and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the earth, helped by Isis, his sist
er-wife. Set, however, hated his brother and killed him. Isis then embalmed her
husband's body with the help of the god Anubis, who thus became the god of embal
ming. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the net
herworld, the land of the dead. Horus, who was the son of Osiris and Isis, later
defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the earth.
The Ancient Egyptians also believed in life after death, in fact they have the w
orld's most elaborate rituals. After a person dies the Egyptians believes that
the soul or ka live in the kingdom of the dead, but the believed that the ka cou
ld not survive without the body. The Egyptians mummify the body in order to kee
p it preserved, but in the event that the corpse is destroy there are wood or st
one replicas of the body which will serve as a body, the more replicas in a tomb
the better chances of the ka surviving.
After leaving the tomb, the souls of the dead supposedly were beset by innumerab
le dangers, and the tombs were therefore furnished with a copy of the Book of th
e Dead. Part of this book, a guide to the world of the dead, consists of charms
designed to overcome these dangers. After arriving in the kingdom of the dead,
the ka was judged by Osiris, the king of the dead. The Book of the Dead also c
ontains instructions for proper conduct before these judges. If the judges deci
ded the deceased had been a sinner, the ka was condemned to hunger and thirst or
to be torn to pieces by horrible executioners. If the decision was favorable,
the ka went to the heavenly realm of the fields of Yaru, where grain grew 3.7 m
(12 ft) high and existence was a glorified version of life on earth. All the ne
cessities for this perfect existence, from furniture to reading matter, were, th
erefore, put into the tombs. As a payment for the afterlife and his benevolent
protection, Osiris required the dead to perform tasks for him, such as working i
n the grain fields. Even this duty could, however, be obviated by placing small
statuettes, called ushabtis, into the tomb to serve as substitutes for the dece
ased.
Egypt had a very simple social structure consisting of only three classes. The
ruling class were on the top of the list followed by the middle class, and on th
e bottom of the list were the peasants and slaves. The ruling class were the mo
st respected and well treated people in the society, besides the pharaoh the pre
ist were the most important people in the society because people thought that th
ey cuold talk to the gods who controled everything from life to death. The prie
st often positions as governors of provinces, court officials, or tax collectors
. The chief minister, who administered the business of the country in choosen f
rom this class. The middle class were a small group of people who consists of m
erchants, traders, and artisans. Traders brought dyes, gold, and ivory which th
e merchants sold to the nobles, artisans were paid by nobles to make things such
as pottery, stone carvings, glass objects, wooden carvings, and linen so fine t
hat it looked like silk. Most Egyptians were farmers who does the same thing ea
ch day over and over again, they waited for the Nile to flood and then they plan
t their crops when the water recedes. The peasant live a simple life with brick
houses and few furniture, they paid half their harvest to government tax. They
were also require to work on palaces, temples, clear irrigation ducts, and serv
e in the army. Slave were mostly descendants of war prisoners some lived like f
ree peasant and others llived in the houses of nobles serving them.
The ancient Egyptian society really respected women, women had the right to buy
or sell land. There weren't many divorces, but women had the right to divorce a
s well as men. The most important thing that makes it more equal for woman are
that property is inherited through the female line.
In the Egyptian society, there were few people who were not farmers besides the
nobles. Since the Egyptians didn't have any money, worker were often paid in wh
eat and barley or other goods, extra amounts could be traded for needed goods or
services. Farmer worked mostly on the land of the royal family, temples, and o
ther rich people, they got a small amount of the crop because a large amount was
taxed. Others rented lands of their own from rich landowners. Craftsmen worke
d in small shops which they manufacture things such as pottery, bricks, tools, g
lasses, weapons, furniture, jewelry, perfume, rope, basket, mats, and writing ma
terials. Miners mined for limestone, sandstone, copper, gold, tin, gems, and gr
anite for the construction of pyramid and monuments. Traders sailed to differen
t lands trading for stuff like silver, iron, horses, ivory, leopard skins, coppe
r, cattle, cedar logs, and spices. The royal family and temples also employed o
ther kinds of skilled workers such as architects, engineers, carpenters, artists
, sculptors, bakers, butchers, teachers, scribes, accountants, musicians, butler
s, and shoemakers.
The Egyptians had many different invention and contribution to future society.
First of all, all the Egyptian had many advances in the math and sciences. Each
year after the floods by the Nile River, farmers had to measure the boundary li
nes all over again. This led them to develop advance ways to measure the land.
Geometry was the most advance field of mathematics they developed, they knew ho
w to figure out the volume of a circle or the area of a square. Needs to predic
t the yearly flooding of the Nile forced them to look carefully at the stars. T
heir priest-astronomers developed the first 365-day calendar; there were 12 mont
hs, three seasons(the Nile flooding season, the planting season, and the harvest
season), each month had 30 days and the last month had 5 extra days. The probl
em with their calendar is that they did not account for leap years, later on, th
e Romans and Greeks modified this calendar to the one that we use today. The st
one cutting and medical techniques developed by the Egyptians were also very imp
ressive. They used hot fire and cold water make rock crack. They had ways to t
reat bone and spinal injuries too, the Greeks and Romans learned most of their m
edical knowledge form the Egyptian. These contribution as well as the monument
and marks left behind made Ancient Egypt such a renown place. Nowadays, Ancient
Egypt is gone and what is left behind is just a fraction of what was.