Ancient Egypt

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Ancient Egypt
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Geography

• Gift of the Nile
• Offered protection from invasion
• limited where people could settle
• Black Land- fertile
• Red Land- desert

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What was it about Egypts topography that
promoted peace and prosperity?

• Nile Valley was protected on 3 sides by desert
• natural barriers to invaders
• didnt have to use as much of their wealth for
  defense
• Irrigationcooperation

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Why is Egypt referred to as Gift of the Nile?

• Animals
• Fish, ducks, geese, edible fowl
• Papyrus-baskets, paper, sandals
• Food-grains
• Influenced art, religion etc.
• Provided for basic survival
• inspired civilization

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What is a Shaduf?

• Raised water from Nile to irrigate
• Prevented salt from building up destroying
  fertility of soil

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How did flood patterns effect Egypt?

• Emerged from south
• Spring rains sent water downstream into Nile
• Rich silt deposited
• Cooperation was essential
• Dikes, reservoirs, irrigation ditches channeled
  river stored water for dry season

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• Lower
• Upper

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What were the environmental challenges?

• Small changes in amount of water led could lead
  to starvation or destruction
• Deserts reduced interaction with other cultures
• Led to self-sufficiency

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How was Upper and Lower Egypt Unified?
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Who was Narmer?

• 3100 BCE, King of Upper Egypt united the two
  regions
• Linked north south
• First united state
• Significant trade with rest of Africa, Middle
  East Mediterranean world
• Sailboats, barges

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What is a dynasty?

• A ruling family
• Power passed from family member
• If no family member, then another was chosen
• Pharaoh-great house

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Who/What was Pharaoh?

• Claimed divine support
• Living God
• Absolute power
• Owned ruled over all the land

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What was Pharaohs job?

• Preserve justice social order- Maat
• Depended on vizier or chief minister to supervise
  government

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What did the Vizier do?

• Managed the bureaucracy
• Tax collection
• Farming
• Irrigation system
• Thousands of scribes carried out his instructions.

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Who was Ptah-hotep?

• Trained many young officials
• Wrote Instruction of Ptah-hotep
• Advised his son how to avoid errors.

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Timeline of Three Kingdoms
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Old Kingdom (2700 BCE - 2200 BCE)

• Pharaohs organize strong government
• Khufu harsh ruler, built Great Pyramid
• Pyramid Age
• giant pyramids at Giza
• New developments in agriculture
• Increased trade
• Development of cities
• Power struggles, crop failures, cost of pyramids
  caused collapse

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Djoser2630 2611 BCE

• fought off invaders and expanded territory
• New developments in agriculture, increased trade,
  development of cities
• constructed Step Pyramid at Saqqara
• Ended a famine

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Khufu2551-2528 BCE

• Ruled a united Egypt
• Used his relatives to help him
• Harsh ruler who treated his subjects cruelly
• Built the Great Pyramid at Giza

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Middle Kingdom (2050 BCE 1800 BCE)

• Corrupt government
• Frequent rebellions
• Food shortages
• People rebel
• land drained for farming
• Hyksos conquer Egypt

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Senusret I(1971 1926 BCE)

• fought against Nubia Libya
• built fortresses
• Protected gold, copper, granite resources in
  Sinai
• Encouraged cultural development
• Supervised construction of buildings
• created elaborate improvements to existing
  shrines temples
• Jubilee Chapel at Karnak
• Craftwork literature

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Ramses IIThe Great(1290 -1224 BCE)

• Most powerful ruler of the period
• Battle of Kadesh- fought to standoff against much
  larger Hittite force
• Signed 1st known peace treaty

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New Kingdom Period

• Time of Reunification
• Hyksos expelled
• Pharaohs created large empire
• Traded w/ lands along eastern Mediterranean Red
  Sea
• Great temples built
• Nubians, then others invaded

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Queen Hatshepsut(1540-1482 BCE)

• Daughter of one Pharaoh/ widow of another
• Ruled in stepsons name but then declared herself
  Pharaoh
• Encouraged trade
• Brought back ivory, spices, incense

Hatshepsuts Mortuary Temple at Deir el-Bahri-
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Akhenaten (Amenhotep)1353 1335 BCE

• Created new religion of one god-Aten
• Controversy, disputes over his religious beliefs
• Abandon Thebes built new city
• New spectacular, buildings, elaborate
  ceremonies, works of art
• Married to Nefertiti
• After death he was so unpopular that his city was
  abandoned- destroyed

El Amarna
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Akhenaten Rebel
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Nile Tour of the Pharaohs Tombs
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Nubia

• Also known as Kush
• Egyptians traded/ fought w/them
• Gold, Ivory, cattle, slaves
• Nubians served in Egyptian armies
• Egyptian art shows Nubians as soldiers,
  musicians, prisoners
• As Egypt declined, Nubia regained its
  independence
• 750 BCE Nubian kings took control
• Saw themselves as restorers of Egyptian glory
• Ruled like earlier pharaohs-respected traditions
• 650 BCE Assyrians w/ iron weapons conquered Egypt
  pushed Nubians south

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Religion
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How did religious beliefs shape the lives of
Egyptians?

• Each soul had to pass test to win eternal life
• Dead soul would be ferried across a lake of fire
  to the hall of Osiris
• Osiris would weight the soul against feather of
  truth
• Sinners would be fed to the crocodile-shaped
  Eater of the Dead
• Worthy souls would enter the Happy Field of Food

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Book of the Dead

• Spells, charms, formulas for the dead to use in
  the afterlife

• I have made no man to suffer hunger. I have made
  no one to week. I have done no murderI have not
  encroached upon the fields of another. I have
  not added to the wrights of the scales to cheat
  the sellerI have not turned back water when it
  should flow I am pure. I am pure. I am pure.

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Mummification

• Afterlife was same as life
• Body must be preserved
• Originally a privilege for rulers and nobles
• Eventually ordinary people won the right to
  mummify their dead
• Led to knowledge of human anatomy

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Egyptian Society
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Egyptian Writing

• Hieroglyphics a form of picture writing used for
  important records
• Ideograms symbolized an idea or action
• Demotic-simpler form of script for everyday
• Papyrus

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What was the Rosetta Stone?

• Black basalt slab bearing an inscription dating
  from the year 196 BCE
• Crucial key to the deciphering of Egyptian
  hieroglyphs, and the foundation of modern
  Egyptology.
• discovered in 1799 by the French troops in
  Napoleon's military expedition
• Deciphered by Jean Champollion
• Hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek

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Medicine

• Belief in magic
• Knew human body
• Observed symptoms, diagnosed illness
• Surgery, medicines

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Science

• Priest astronomers studied heavens, mapped
  constellations
• Charted movement of planets
• Practical geometry to survey land
• Engineers for the pyramids and irrigation systems

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Egyptian Painting and Sculpture

• Statues, wall paintings
• Everyday scenes of trade, farming, family life,
  religious ceremonies
• Military victories
• Unchanged style for thousands of years
• Pharaohs gods larger
• Heads limbs in profile
• Eyes shoulders facing viewer
• Some humans have animal heads showing special
  qualities

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Story of Sinuhe Popular Egyptian Folk Tale

• His majesty said, Behold thou art come. Thou
  has trodden the foreign countries and made a
  flight. But now elderliness has attach thee thou
  has reached old age Do not live in exile any
  lonegI answer What is it that my lord says to
  me? Behold, I am before thee may thy majesty do
  as he pleases
• Tells us how Egyptians viewed both themselves and
  the people of the surrounding desert