Egypt and the Nile

Class Objective

We will explore how Egypt prospered while surrounded by the Sahara desert.

Egypt

The Nile River was the lifeblood of the original Egyptian civilizations.

The Nile river is the longestriver on Earth.

The Nile brings water fromthe mountains of central Africa.

The Egyptians were so thankful for the life the Nilebrought them that they worshiped it as a god.

The Nile made travel easier. Just let the current push you from upper Egypt towards lower Egypt. (upper is in the south)

To travel upstream was a little more difficult. Luckily for the Egyptians the wind usually blows from North to South. They could use large sailsto go upstream.

The Nile river was not as temperamentalas the Euphrates and Tigris rivers of the Middle East.

If the river was a few inches lowthousands could starve.

If it flooded over its banks too far it could wipe out villages and destroy crops.

Egyptian Kingdoms

Around 3,200 B.C., Egypt was in two separate kingdoms.

– Upper Egypt

– Lower Egypt

Upper Egypt was ruled by a strong kingnamed Menes.

Under his leadership all of Egypt was

united.

There was one major difference between Egyptian and Mesopotamian rulers.

In Mesopotamia, kings and rulers were looked on as representatives of God.

In Egypt, their kings were gods – known as pharaohs.

A theocracy is the type of government in which the ruler is a divine figure.

Egyptians believed that their kings even ruled after their deaths.

Carving of Pharaoh

Because Pharaohs were believed to be eternal their tombswere even moreimportant than their palaces.

Pyramids were the resting place after death for pharaohs.

The Old Kingdom was the great age of pyramid building in ancient Egypt. These buildings were

marvelous engineering achievements.

The Sphinx

Egyptians used both Granite and Limestoneblocks that were quarried 400 miles upriver.

Each block was perfectly cut and weighed at least 2 ½ tons up to 15 tons.

Over 2 million of these blocks were stacked with precision to a height of 481 feet.

The pyramids also represent the strength of the civilization.

The old Kingdom dynasties had developed the economic strength to support massive public works.

Egyptian Culture

The early Egyptians were polytheistic(more than one god).

The most important gods were Ra, the sun god, and Horus, the god of light.

The goddess that was most important was Isis, who represented the ideal mother and wife.

Egyptians worshiped more than 2,000 gods and goddesses.

They also built huge temples to these deities.

Hieroglyphics was the writing system that

was used by the Egyptians. Through

these writings we can recreate a picture of

their culture.

Death

Egyptians believed in an afterlife.

They believed that Osiris, the powerful god of the dead, would weigh each dead person’s heart.

To win eternal life, the heart could be no heavierthan a feather.

Osiris Weighing a heart

Funerals

People planned for their burials, so that they might safely reach the Other World.

Mummification

Egyptians preserved a dead person’s body by mummification.

Mummification is the embalming and drying the corpse to prevent it from decaying.

Mummies were typically buried in their sarcophagus.

Process of Mummification

“First, they draw out the brains through the nostrils with an iron hook…. Then with a sharp stone they make an incision in the side, and take out all the bowels…. Then, having filled the belly with pure myrrh, cassia, and other perfumes, they sew it up again; and when they have done this they steep it in natron [a mineral salt], leaving it under for 70 days…. At the end of 70 days, they wash the corpse, and wrap the whole body in bandages of waxen cloth.”

Herodotus, The History of Herodutus

Sesqenenre Tao II

Ramses II

Book of the Dead

The text consists of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, and into the afterlife.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duat