Stiefel's+Egypt

No Name's Domain ╚Egypt╝ -Geography- -Enviornmental Challenges- -Government- -Writing- -Transportation- -Important People- -Government- -Social Class- -Religion- -Afterlife- -Architecture- -Technology- -Time Period-
 * Located in Africa
 * Nile River
 * Fertile Soil (silt)
 * Black land (fertile soil), Red land (desert)
 * Flooding - predictable flooding
 * Knew when it was going to flood - just didn't know how much
 * Considered the Nile as a god
 * Egypt was a "gift of the Nile"
 * West of fertile crescent
 * Nile Floods once a year
 * Used rivers for trade
 * Flooding - too much (crops and houses destroyed) / too little (starving)
 * Warfare - desert cut off from warfare, did not have constant war like in Mesopotamia
 * Religion based ; Theocratic
 * Rules for the area like Hammurabi's code
 * Hieroglyphics = sacred carving
 * Simple pictographs were the earliest form of writing
 * Picture stood for an idea
 * Then writing became more complex, pictures stood for sounds as well as ideas
 * Hieroglyphics could almost be used like letters of the alphabet
 * First writing was done on stone/clay
 * Invented new writing surface: papyrus (reeds/grass thats stuck together then dried)
 * Rosetta Stone - Found in 1799 ; has three languages written on it (Greek and two forms of hieroglyphics)
 * used Greek to decode hieroglyphics (this was how we learned how to read hieroglyphics)
 * Boats on the Nile
 * Traveled against the current (used a sail)
 * Water highways promoted trades and also unified villages.
 * Narmer united upper and lower egypt, established the first dynasty.
 * Pharaohs (thought of as gods)
 * Theocracy - Goverment based on religion
 * divides into upper/lower egypt, 31 dynasties
 * Pharaohs controlled nature
 * Pharaohs ruled after death
 * Pyramids - Final resting place for the dead
 * Powers of pharaohs decline 2180 B.C - end of old kingdom
 * Middle kingdom (2040-1640 B.C) - stron pharaohs regained control
 * Hykas took over Egypt (1630-1523 B.C)
 * *1 Highest, 4 Lowest*
 * 1.) Kings/ Queens, royal family
 * 2.) Wealth landowners, goverment officials, priests, army commanders
 * 3.) Middle class, merchants/artisans
 * 4.) Lower class (largest group) peasants, farmers, laborers
 * 5.) Slaves (labor from wars, work for rich people and in goldmines)
 * Theocracy = Government
 * Pyramids are bruial grounds/tomb for afterlife
 * Mummifications - Preserve bodies, spirit will use body in afterlife
 * Worshipped over 2000+ gods (polytheism)
 * Re, Osiris, Isis, Anubis - All different gods
 * Egyptians believe in an afterlife
 * When someone dies, their heart is weighed by scales in the afterlife.
 * If the person's heart is heavy with sin, it is eaten by the devourer of souls.
 * If the person's heart is light as a feather, they will go to a world of good.
 * Kings ruled (even after death)
 * Ka - Pharaoh's spirit in afterlife
 * Pyramids/tombs
 * Mummification
 * Embalming
 * Book of Dead
 * Comparison to Mesopotamia (afterlife is a bad place in Meso.)
 * Ziggurat (Mesopotamia) vs Pyramid (Egypt)
 * Ziggurat was used for Social Events while Pyramids are used as a resting place for the dead
 * Engineering feats
 * Amazing builders
 * used stone, granite, and limestone
 * Pyramids helps say the Government is strong - it takes great organization to get all the workers together to build
 * Papyrus
 * Calender - Kept track of time between floods
 * Calender - 365 days (12 months - 30 days)
 * Used stars to calculate
 * Developed a system of numbers for counting, adding & subtracting (used for business and taxes)
 * Geometry - Survey and reset property boundaries (after floods)
 * Math helped engineers/architects to make pyramids
 * First to use stone columns
 * Medicine: Could check heart rate/pulse, set broken bones, treat wounds/fevers, knew surgery
 * Embalming - Chemicals are put inside the body to preserve it
 * Cosmetics - Protected workers from sun/heat and was used to enhance beauty.
 * Egyptain men and women applied makeup, called kohl, to their eyes
 * The dark eye makeup softened the glare of the sun, The oils protected thei skin from the dry air.
 * 5,000 B.C. - Lived in farming villages
 * 3,200 B.C. - Under rule of separate gods
 * 3,000 B.C. - Unification of Egypt
 * 3,200 - 2,700 B.C. - Great civilization
 * 2,660 - 2,1800 B.C - Old Kingdom