Download Egyptian Achievements

Egyptian
Achievements
Weights and Measures
• -cubit—length of a mans forearm
• used many systems of pulleys for
water & the pyramids
• math—could +- X and /, used to
square things, angles
• measured fields and boundaries
every year after floods
• astronomy—maps to point out stars at
different times of year, probably used in
religion and pyramid building
Inventions
• clocks—wooden stakes
nailed together—shadow
• water clocks—like an
hourglass
• calendar—365 divided by
12 months, 30 days each
month,5 days left over –
used for feast
• -papyrus—plant which grew along the
Nile, split and mashed reeds together and
then dried in sun—first paper (valuable),
ink made from soot and water, dyes from
plants
• hieroglyphics—writing which used pictures
for sounds, first used
• by priests, most often used in carvings and
religious texts
• several forms of script developed—faster
writing, like cursive
• Rosetta Stone—
hieroglyphics were
unreadable until
stone was discover in
Rosetta, Egypt—
same story printed in
3 languages (one
Greek another
hieroglyphs, last in
Demotic)