Download 5-3 Notes: The Pyramid Builders

5-3 Notes: The Pyramid Builders
The Old Kingdom
• Legend says a king named
Narmer united Upper and
Lower Egypt – some
historians think he
represented several kings
who gradually joined the
two lands
• After Egypt was united, its
ruler wore the double
crown – the red Crown of
Lower Egypt and the white
Crown of Upper Egypt
The First Dynasty
• The First Dynasty of the
Egyptian Empire began
around the year 2925 BCE
• A dynasty is a line of rulers
from the same family –
succession is the order in
which members of a dynasty
inherit a throne (more than
30 dynasties ruled Egypt)
• Historians divide ancient
Egypt into the Old Kingdom
(which began around the
year 2575 BCE), Middle
Kingdom, and the New
Kingdom
Pharaohs Rule
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The king of Egypt became known as
the pharaoh, which means “great
house” and was originally used to
describe the king’s palace – The
pharaoh ruled from the capital city of
Memphis
Ancient Egyptians thought the
pharaoh was a child of the gods and a
god himself/herself
If the pharaoh and his subjects
honored the gods, their lives would be
happy
If Egypt suffered hard times for a long
period, the people blamed the
pharaoh for angering the gods – in
such cases a rival might drive him from
power and start a new dynasty
Government and religion were not
separate in Egypt – priest had a lot of
power in the government and some
high officials were priest
Pyramids
• The first rulers in Egypt were
often buried in an underground
tomb topped by mud brick
• Some kings replaced the mud
brick with a small pyramid of
brick or stone
• A pyramid is a structure shaped
like a triangle with four sides that
meet at a point
• Around 2630 BCE, King Djoser
built a much larger pyramid
called a step pyramid over his
tomb (the oldest known large
stone structure in the world!)
• A step pyramid is a pyramid that
has sides that rise in giant steps
The Great Pyramid
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80 years after Djoser built the step
pyramid, a pharaoh named Khufu
ordered the construction of the largest
pyramid ever built
Each side was 760 feet long along the
base and the core was built from 2.3
million blocks of stone
Miners cut the huge blocks of stone
using copper saws and chisels – Other
teams of workers pulled the stone
slabs up long, sloping ramps to their
place on the pyramid –
Farmers hauled the stone during the
flooding season – Stone cutters and
overseers worked year round
The pyramid took approximately 20
years to build and an estimated 20,000
Egyptians worked on it
A town called Giza was built for the
pyramid workers and the people who
fed, clothed, and housed them
Grave Robbers
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Eventually Egyptians stopped
building pyramids for a number of
reasons
Pyramids drew attention to the
tombs inside of them, and grave
robbers stole the treasures and
even the mummies buried in the
chambers
Egyptians believed that if the
person buried in the pyramid was
robbed, they could not have a
happy afterlife
During the New Kingdom, pharaohs
began building more secret tombs
in an area called the Valley of the
Kings
The pharaohs hid their bodies and
possessions in mountains near the
Nile hoping to protect their bodies
and treasures from grave robbers
Inside the Tombs
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Pyramids normally had several passageways
leading to different rooms to confuse grave
robbers
Sometimes relatives like the queen were buried in
extra rooms
Tombs were supposed to be the palaces of
pharaohs in the afterlife – mourners filled the
rooms with objects the pharaoh would need
(ranging from food to furniture to luxury items!) –
Some tombs even had small statues that were
supposed to be servants of the pharaoh
Artists decorated royal tombs with wall paintings
and sculptures carved into the walls (meant to
glorify the gods and the dead person, so they had
perfect features)
Artists had strict rules for portraying humans
(head, arms, and legs from the side – front of the
body from the neck to the waist)
Wall paintings showed the pharaoh enjoying
himself so he could have a happy afterlife
Common scenes included pharaohs fishing in a
marsh, riding into battle, and people providing for
the needs of the dead person (like
growing/preparing food, caring for animals, and
building boats)
Robbers stole the treasures from almost every
tomb, with the exception of one secret tomb from
a New Kingdom pharaoh
The Middle Kingdom
• By around 2130 BCE, Egyptian
kings began to lose their power to
local rulers of provinces – for
around 500 years the kings kept
Egypt together but with a weaker
central government (this period is
known as the Middle Kingdom)
• Rulers from the Middle Kingdom
also faced challenges from outside
enemies
• A nomadic people called the
Hyksos invaded Egypt from the
northeast – they conquered Egypt
using better weapons and horsedrawn chariots
• After about 100 years the
Egyptians drove the Hyksos out of
Egypt and began the New Kingdom