Egypt: IMPACT OF THE GEOGRAPHY

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Advanced Cities

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Advanced Cities

Egyptian cities developed along the Nile River which provided these cities with water for irrigation, flood soil for farming, and access to transportation. Cities that were located near the Mediterranean Sea along the Nile delta were known as “Lower Egypt” (because of their low elevation near the sea) while the cites located further south were known as “Upper Egypt” (because of their higher elevation as they near the mountains of central Africa). Egyptian cities, like those in Sumer, had temples located at the heart of the city. These temples allowed priests to worship the various gods that they believed controlled nature and all aspects of Egyptian life.

Left: Cities along the Nile River were part of either “Upper Egypt” or “Lower Egypt”

Below: The city of Kamat had numerous temples inside the city.

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization:Specialized Workers

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Specialized Workers

In Egyptian society, the pharaoh (king-god) and royal family were at the top. Below them were the landowners, government officials, priests, and army commanders. The next tier of the pyramid was the middle class, which included merchants and artisans. At the base of the pyramid was the lower class, by far the largest class. It consisted of peasant farmers, laborers, and slaves. Egypt was one of the few societies in which women held many of the same rights as men.

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Technology

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Technology

The Egyptians developed a calendar to help them keep track of the time between floods and to plan their planting season. Priests observed that the same star—Sirius—appeared above the eastern horizon just before the floods came. They calculated the number of days between one rising of the star and the next as 365 days—a solar year. This calendar was so accurate that it fell short of the true solar year by only six hours. Egyptians developed a system of written numbers for counting, adding, subtracting and engineers used an early form of geometry to construct their pyramids and palaces.

Above: Egyptian calendar Above: Egyptian numbers and geometry

Above: Egyptian astronomy Above: Pyramid building

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Writing

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Writing

Egyptian writing was known as hieroglyphics. In the earliest form of hieroglyphic writing, a picture stood for an idea. For instance, a picture of a man stood for the idea of a man. In time, the system changed so that pictures stood for sounds as well as ideas. The owl, for example, stood for an m sound or for the bird itself. Hieroglyphs could be used almost like letters of the alphabet. In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered which contained a message written in three languages: hieroglyphics, “simple hieroglyphics,” and Greek. This discovery allowed historians to translate hieroglyphics.

Above: Egyptian hieroglyphics were both pictograms (symbols that served as words) and phonetic characters (symbols that represented sounds like an alphabet)

Above: The Rosetta Stone helped historians translate hieroglyphics

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization

Complex Institutions and Government

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Complex Institutions and

Government

To the Egyptians, kings were gods. The Egyptian pharaohs were thought to be almost as powerful as the gods of the heavens. The pharaoh was the center of Egypt’s religion, government, and army. Egyptians believed that the pharaoh caused the sun to rise, the Nile to flood, and the crops to grow. Egyptians believed that their king ruled even after his death. Since pharaohs were expected to reign forever, their tombs were even more important than their palaces. For the kings of the Old Kingdom, the resting place after death was an immense structure called a pyramid. The Old Kingdom was the great age of pyramid building in ancient Egypt.

Above: Egyptian pharaoh Above: Pyramids

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Complex Institutions and Religion

Characteristics of Egyptian Civilization: Complex Institutions and Religion

Like the Mesopotamians, the early Egyptians were polytheistic, believing in many gods. The most important gods were Re, the sun god, and Osiris, god of the dead. Egyptians believed in an afterlife and that people would be judged for their sins when they died. Anubis, god of the underworld, would weigh each dead person’s heart. If the heart tipped the scale, showing that it was heavy with sin, a fierce beast known as the Devourer of Souls would pounce on the impure heart and gobble it up. But if the soul passed this test for purity and truth, it would live forever in the beautiful “Other World.” Kings and queens built great tombs, such as the pyramids, and other Egyptians built smaller tombs. Royal and elite Egyptians’ bodies were preserved by mummification, which involves embalming and drying the corpse to prevent it from decaying.

Above: Egyptians believed in many gods. They believed that if a person’s heart weighed less than a feather, they could enter the “Other World” afterlife

Above: Royal and wealthy Egyptians were mummified to preserve their bodies for the afterlife.