Egypt Overview

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Egypt

• Bible as History and World History I Overview PPT

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The Nile

• Giver of Life
• The Nile offered fertile lands for planting in
  Egypt
• It overflowed often in the spring do to heavy
  rains in East Africa
• After the floods would go down in summer crops
  would be planted which were harvested in late
  summer or early fall
• This patch of fertile land was known as black
  land

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Nile Taker of Life

• While flooding helped crops grow, sometimes
  waters would come farther inland resulting in
  mass death and crops being lost
• Sometime it did not flood enough and there would
  be major droughts
• It is probable that in the book of Genesis with
  the 7 year famine in Egypt that it came from
  limited flooding
• Food was stored during famines after Prime
  Minister Jospeh set up this system
• The Egyptians tried to keep track of when the
  Nile flooded by using Calendars
• The gods were usually blamed

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Inland and use of the Nile

• Past the black land was the hot, sunny dessert of
  the Nile which was called the red land
• In the Red land no crops could grow and no water
  could be found
• Therefore the Nile supported all life
• Many construction projects used the nile
• Blocks would be floated to construction sites on
  rafts
• Also water needed to make mud bricks were taken
  out of the nile
• Trade used the nile
• It was faster to go by water then by land to East
  Africa
• One problem was that once reaching the NIle River
  Delta a boat would have to be carried
• Also the river went north to south, meaning sails
  were needed to return home

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Map
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Crops

• Of the most important crops was wheat and barley
  as well as vegetables
• Papyrus was also important, as it was used to
  create paper
• The Egyptians had the hieroglyphic writing system
  to write with, which was acted out by priests
  often (the writing would come alive)

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Writing in Egypt

• Today we know much about Egyptian history because
  of Hieroglyphics
• It was not until 1799, when Napoleon invaded
  Egypt and found the Rosetta stone, before that we
  did not know much about Egyptian history.
• The stone had writing on it in Hieroglyphics but
  also Greek so by translating the Greek we know
  what the words meant.
• We now know that there was over 700 letters

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Kingdoms of Egypt

• Prior to the Great Flood, Egypt was divided into
  two kingdoms, one above the river delta and one
  below
• Egypt was united with 30 different dynasties
  ruling after the flood and some of Noahs
  ancestors moving to the fertile area
• The religion of the region probably came from
  that of the Sumerians

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Bible Prime Minister to Slaves

• The Bible records some areas of Egypt's history
• Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt
• He later became Prime Minister after explaining a
  dream given to the Pharaoh by God about a famine
  to come, probably caused by a flood or a drought
• His relatives moved to Egypt so most of the
  Hebrews in the world ended up being from Egypt
• There became so many of them that the Pharaoh
  feared a revolt and had them put into slavery
  around 1845 BC
• Moses a Hebrew, adopted as a child became Prince
  of Egypt until he killed a slave master and went
  on the run where God spoke to him from a burning
  bush, Moses then returned to take his people out
  of slavery around 1446 BC which with the help of
  God eventually happened, and later Israel would
  become a nation
• During the process of Moses leading all of the
  slaves out of Egypt, Egypt's army was killed in
  the Red Sea and lead to Eygpt being taken over by
  the Persians around 1070 BC

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Major Pharoahs

• Most of the pharaohs were men, Usually, the only
  women who had important titles were priestesses.
  However, there was a female pharaohQueen
  Hatshepsut.
• She was the daughter of King Thutmose I. He was
  determined that she follow him, and he instructed
  the nobles of the royal court that she would be
  the next ruler. Hatshepsut became queen upon the
  death of her father, about 1500 B.C. She later
  took a husband, Thutmose II.
• After his death, she crowned herself King
  Hatshepsut and became pharaoh. During her reign,
  Egypt rose to great power and wealth. It was a
  golden age of peace and prosperity.

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Egypt's time periods - Because Egypts history
is so long, historians divide it into three
periods--the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and
the New Kingdom.
Period Date Highlights
Old Kingdom 2700 2200 B.C. The capital was Memphis and then Heliopolis. The great pyramids and the Sphinx, a large statue with a head of a man and body of a lion were built.
Middle Kingdom 2100 1800 B.C. Egyptian civilization reached great heights. Engineering projects such as irrigation ditches canals were built. Egypt was conquered by invaders but then recovered. There were several capitals during this era, including Thebes and Memphis.
New Kingdom 1700 1100 B.C. This era is also called the Empire, and the capital was Thebes. Egypt conquered many areas during this time. About 1100 B.C., its great power had begun to decline.
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Tomb of King Tutankhamen

• Found in 1922
• Tomb had been hidden and not robbed resulting in
  us being able to learn about Egyptian culture
• There was four rooms in the tomb and each of them
  had the King personal possessions
• These items included a chariot, a bed, etc. made
  from gold and precious stones
• These items were to help the King in his
  afterlife
• Tut took the throne at age 9 and ruled until he
  died at 19, around 1350 BC

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Egyptian Accomplishments

• They made paper from the papyrus reed plant.
• They invented a calendar.
• They built the great pyramids.
• They invented the shadoof, a crane-like device
  for lifting water from the Nile.
• They used a loom to weave cloth for clothing.
• They invented hieroglyphics, a system of writing
  using characters in the form of pictures.

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What they thought about life after death...

• Pyramids served as tombs
• The tombs served as palaces because it was
  believed that the Kings ruled the underworld
  after death
• Because it was thought that life after death was
  more important than life in the world
  mummification was done over a 70 day period
  carefully
• The Mummification Process...
• Remove organs
• Add perfumes
• Wrap the body

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What they thought about life after death cont....

• Before Pyramids were built, the royals and upper
  class used mastabas as tombs
• King Zoser had a Pyramid built for himself when
  he died, it started as soon as a Pharaoh became
  Monarch and would not be finished until after
  their death so while the Monarch was buried in
  his chamber the upper levels would be built
• After the chamber was sealed it was not to be
  opened because a curse that had been put on the
  chamber would haunt cave robber's supposedly, so
  most caves were robbed after Egypt's fall to the
  Romans.
• Fun fact Farmers worked on the Pyramids in
  flooded years

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Giza

• Began about 2600 BC
• Built for Khufu and took 20 years

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Social Life

• The Egyptians had many different jobs.
• Some were farmers and pyramid builders others
  were scribes or priests.
• When trade expanded during Middle Kingdom, more
  people became merchants and craftspeople. This
  caused a new middle class to emerge, made up of
  artisans and scribes. I
• In the Old Kingdom, there were two levels kings
  (pharaohs) and farmers. With this new middle
  class, the social class structure has changed. In
  the last era it would have been similar to the
  middle

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Social System
Pharoah/Royals
Nobles and Priests
Craftsmen, Artisten, Scribes, Teachers, Trained
Soldiers, Public Workers
Farmers and Unskilled workers
Slaves
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Trade

• During the Middle Kingdom, Egypts power began to
  grow. By about 2040 B.C. Egypts empire had
  expanded greatly.
• The Egyptians had been trading with people from
  other lands to the north and south.
• Trade increased during this period and made the
  Egyptian economy more prosperous, or profitable.
• The Egyptians went on expeditions to southwest
  Asia to trade goods such as wheat, gold, and
  linen
• To improve transportation, they dug a canal from
  the Nile River to the Red Sea, which became a
  trade route.

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Takeover of Egypt

• After the Rule of Ramses II, Egypt was
  essentially over with as far as home rule
• The country was later invaded and conquered by
  Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians, but native
  Egyptians eventually drove them out and regained
  control of their country
• In the sixth century BC, the Achaemenid Empire
  conquered Egypt. The entire Twenty-seventh
  Dynasty of Egypt, from 525 BC to 402 BC, save for
  Petubastis III, was an entirely Persian-ruled
  period, with the Achaemenid kings being granted
  the title of pharaoh.

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Takeover of Egypt cont.

• The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling
  dynasty during the Pharaonic epoch. It fell to
  the Persians again in 343 BC after the last
  native Pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated
  in battle.
• Egypt fell then to the Greek Empire after a short
  period of freedom after the Achaemenid Empire had
  fallen to the Greeks
• Egypt would rule as a dominion of the Greek
  Empire for many years with Pharaohs like
  Cleopatra, though not Egyptian but Greek

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Cleopatra

• She fell in love with Mark Anthony, a high
  military general in Rome
• However Anthony was having a civil war in Rome
  with Octavian who would eventually conquer Eygpt
  and put it under his Empire where it would stay
  until the Turks took over Eygpt in 641 AD
• The Turks ruled until 1882 AD when the British
  took over indirectly after the Turks were
  weakened in the Napoleonic wars

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Vocab Review

• Hieroglyphics A form of writing based on
  pictures.
• Rosetta Stone A stone on which a passage was
  written in three languages Greek, Egyptian
  hieroglyphics, and a form of Egyptian cursive
  writing.
• Pyramid- A large stone building to serve as a
  house for the dead.
• Mummy A preserved dead body.
• Economy The way people use and manage resources.