Ancient Egypt
By: Samantha Joiner
Physical Geography of Ancient Egypt
Egypt's Physical Geography.
Egypt is a beautiful desert. But just from your past knowledge about deserts? And what about rivers? Egypt has a long river that flows through it. Although only a little actually flows through Egypt. Egypt is also known as the “Gift of the Nile”, called this by Herodotus Egypt has many secrets and mysterious truths.
There are several key parts of physical geography when it comes to Egypt. Obviously the Nile is one. The Nile is the longest river in the world at an astounding 4,160 miles. The Nile has more than one part. There is a Blue Nile and a White Nile. The Nile runs south to north,lower Egypt is at the north end and upper Egypt is at the south end.
The Nile was very important to the ancient Egyptians. The Nile protected Egypt, but there were so many more reasons. The Nile brought water to Egypt allowing it to thrive. Water also let people farmed and wash clothes. One reason is pretty obvious and important. Drinking, people used the water for a drink, without it they would have died in the first week of living there. Also when the river flooded it helped the farmers water their crops.
Okay, in your home do you have a security alarm? Well people in ancient Egypt didn’t have that sort of thing, so they had to rely on their surroundings. Egyptians had many things in their physical geography that could help protect them from invaders. Going back to what I said in the very beginning deserts are hard to cross. Bringing an army across a desert is wishful thinking. Even if they each carried a gallon of water they’d end up running out of water and dying.
Another thing that helped keep the invaders out, the Nile. The Nile flows quickly and even if it didn't the cataracts would still make it dangerous to cross. Cataracts a.k.a rapids are very dangerous. But I guess that was a con for the Egyptians.
Now that you know some more about Egypt and its’ physical geography do you think that the Western desert is beautiful? Would you want to swim in the Nile? Egypt is beautiful but dangerous, the physical geography helps keep a safe haven from invaders… It helps with daily life… But if you're not careful it could take away your life.
Samantha JoinerThe Social Hierarchy of Ancient Egypt
Social Hierarchy of Ancient Egypt…
Have you ever heard the statement “social hierarchy”? Do you know what it means? Well it sorta means the social order. The food chain of people, like on an airplane first class and coach. Its really easy to understand. In this essay I’m gonna be showing you the Egyptian social hierarchy.
At the very top of the social hierarchy are the Pharaohs. The pharaohs were like the kings and queens. They were very important, the pharaohs decided pretty much everything in Egypt. Some pharaohs started ruling around age twelve. The youngest pharaoh that we know of started ruling at nine, King Tutankhamen.
Underneath the pharaohs were the nobles. The nobles were people from rich and powerful families, but a lower ranking than a pharaoh. The officials helped with the government. The officials made sure everything ran right and kept everything on track like a train.
Beneath the nobles and officials were the scribes and craftspeople. The scribes were the smart ones who knew how to write. The more important people hired the scribes. The people who hired the scribe would tell the scribe what they wanted them to write and they wrote it. The craftspeople made things. They made things like pottery and toys ETC. The craftspeople were very important and creative.
And lastly there were slaves and farmers along with servants. These people did all of the physical work and stuff. If you went to a market and bought some fresh vegetables guess who was farming them. The lowest level in the social hierarchy. So truly the people you had to thanks for food were the slaves, the farmers, and the servants.
The social hierarchy was very important it showed people who they were and what their privileges were. So in conclusion, the social hierarchy helped us become what we are today, so we can add one more thing to thank the past about.
Samantha Joiner
The Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone…
Have you ever heard of the Rosetta Stone? It truly is an amazing piece of history. The Rosetta Stone was found by a group of French soldiers, rebuilding a fort in Rosetta. But now it is in a museum in London. In this essay I will be telling you all about the Rosetta Stone, and the writing on it.
As I have already told you, the Rosetta stone was found by a group of french soldiers. These soldiers were rebuilding one of their forts. Whilst they were doing their rebuilding they found a huge polished stone. This happened in 1799, but the stone was carved in 196 B.C. The Rosetta Stone got it’s name from the town it was found in, a town in the delta called Rosetta.
The writing on the Rosetta Stone is very confusing. It took several hundred years for someone to decipher it. Mostly because the stone has two different languages on it. And it is written in three different scripts Hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. The reason it is written like that is because those were the three scripts being used in Egypt at the time. And the one person who did decipher it is named Jean-Francois Champollion.
Jean-Francois Champollion is one sharp crayon in the box. One thing that helped him when it came to deciphering the stone was that he can read Greek and coptic. Champollion used his knowledge of Greek and coptic to understand some words then used his knowledge of those words as a manual to the other scripts.
At the top of the stone are hieroglyphics, the script for religious or important things. In the middle is the demotic script, and demotic was the common tongue. And at the very bottom is Greek the script for the rulers or pharaohs of Egypt at the moment. It was written with all three scripts so that anyone could read it.
This stone was very important because it is the key to understanding the Egyptian hieroglyphics. We use this stone to help us understand the Egyptians, so that is why the Rosetta Stone is so important.
Samantha JoinerThe Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone
Jean Francois Champollion
The Religion of Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt Religion
Ancient Egyptians religious beliefs are extremely different to our modern day religion yet strangely sort of similar. Egyptians believed in polytheism which is the worship of many gods at once. We only believe in one God.
Egypt burial tombs are very different from ours. We have a little wake or funeral and the body gets burried in nice clothes into the ground inside a casket. But Egyptians had huge tombs called pyramids. These pyramids are made out of stone and they’re very large. The way the Egyptians prepared the body is also very different. The Egyptians would turn the bodies into mummies.
The process of mummification is very difficult and long and every mummy has a reason for being mummified, normally it's because the mummy was a pharaoh. In mummification they whisk your brain until it's the consistency of a smoothy then they flip the body upside down for the brain to drain through the nose. They then cut out all the organs, then drain the body of moisture with salt. The reason they do all this is because they believe that the person being mummified needs their body for the afterlife, or else they can’t go to the afterlife. The Ancient Egyptians made temples to worship their gods.
Now back to the subject of pyramids. Pyramids are large three-sided tombs made out of stone. Djoser created the pyramid but not with his own hands he had slaves do it for him, but he still thought of the idea. These pyramids are still standing today well most of them are. Some pyramids have they’re own mummy.
Ancient Egyptians believed that everybody has a ka and a ba. A ka is like a spiritual duplicate. The ka was the life force of the body and left the body at death. The ancient egyptians believed that they needed to prepare or mummify, was to ensure that the ka had a home in the afterlife. The ba is seen as the human headed bird, hovering over a dead body or leaving a tomb aka pyramid. It was believed that only the pharaoh had a ba. The ba was symbol for power.
The god of embalming and mummification is Anubis. Anubis also helped the deceased ka find its way along to the body. Anubis is often mistaken for the god of death but, that is Osiris. Ancient Egyptians believed in many gods hint polytheism. There was a god for pretty much everything, music, childbirth, death… While they believed in many gods at once, most christians believe in only one God. Polytheism is quite remarkable really. Ancient Egyptians built temples to specific gods, and sacrifices and offerings.
Ancient Egyptians religion was a very important practice of Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians believed that the gods decided whether or not to give them rain for crops or children to bless the home. So in conclusion Egyptian religion was very important and we’re learning more about it everyday.
Samantha JoinerAncient Egypt VS Mesopotamia
Ancient Egypt VS Mesopotamia…
Have you ever compared one thing to another? You most undoubtedly have, you probably do it without thinking about it. What about two different places or locations? I’m going to compare Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia. Both of them are quite important to our history, they both gave us contributions, like the pyramids and irrigation.
The Ancient Egyptians gave us artifacts and beautiful art, but Ancient Mesopotamia gave us something we need to live, irrigation. Both places have given us amazing things that we use everyday. And both places pretty much invented irrigation, the Ancient Egyptians emulated the idea of irrigation.
And both the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Mesopotamian's practiced polytheism. Which means both places worshiped more than one god. Like how the Greeks believed in Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Aphrodite, Hermes. Anyway, the two may have had different gods but that doesn’t mean much. Also both places are very hot and dry, almost like a desert.
Now for the differences between the two. Ancient Egypt to me is just a slight bit more modern than Ancient Mesopotamia. That may seem silly considering Ancient Egyptians probably look like cave people compared to us speck and spotless clean modern human beings. But Ancient Mesopotamian's would then seem like dinosaurs… :) It’s just I think the Egyptians were more civilized is all.
This may sound ridiculous but Ancient Mesopotamia is is most likely a whole lot smaller than Ancient Egypt. But both have a river right next door, which helped with a growing a civilization.
Ancient Egypt and Ancient Mesopotamia are very similar but extremely different. In my opinion I feel like if you're interested by this, then maybe you should do some researching of your own.
Samantha Joiner