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Egypt
By
Ann Heinrichs
Author’s Purpose: To Inform
Land of the Pharaohs:
• Farming along the Nile began as early as 7000 B.C.
• Two Kingdoms:
– Upper Egypt in the south
– Lower Egypt in the northern Delta
• Menes- Egypt’s first pharaoh (or king) united the two
kingdoms
• Ancient Egypt was governed by one dynasty (or
ruling family) after another.
• 31 dynasties reigned between 3100 B.C. and 332 B.C.
Levels of Society:
• The pharaoh and his family were at the top part of
society.
• Upper class were priests, nobles, doctors & high-ranking
officers
• Middle class were artisans, merchants, & engineers
– Scribes – (professional writers) held a special place of
honor.
– Scribes wrote letters & government documents &
recorded the pharaoh’s decrees.
– Every family hope to have a son become a scribe
• Common people were farmers, laborers & soldiers
Love & Marriage:
• Love was an important part of marriage
• Women in ancient Egypt had more rights than
women in many cultures have today.
• They could:
– Own property
– Buy & sell goods
– Inherit wealth
– Sue for divorce if they had a good reason
• They couldn’t:
– Work outside the home
Homes, Adornments, & Games:
• Most people lived in simple houses made of
mud bricks
• Wealthy people had beautiful homes with
dozens of rooms
Men & Women
• Women painted fingernails, wore hair ornaments &
jewelry
• Both men & women wore lightweight linen skirts or
robes
• Lower-class people went barefoot
• Upper-class people wore leather sandals and wigs
– Ancient paintings & artifacts show how much Egyptians
loved games
• Played leapfrog & tug-of-war
• Wooden toys
– Girls played ball while riding piggyback
– Grownups played senet (similar to checkers)
– Played ‘snake’ on round board shaped like coiled
snake
• On p. 253, study the picture and write a sentence about
what she is doing……..
Ancient Cuisine
• Typical meal included vegetables and fruit such as beans,
lentils, peas, cucumbers or cabbage. Fruits were figs,
dates, pomegranates, melons or grapes.
• Hunters went into desert for wild game.
– Included antelope, gazelle, ducks, geese, quail, pigeon,
beef & fish
– Bread was a basic everyday food.
• Pharaohs & nobles had own bakeries
• In most homes, women ground wheat & barley
into flour and baked loaves in clay pots
The Cycle of Floods
• Three seasons of 4 months each:
– Akhet flooding of the Nile. This was when the new year
began
– Peret in November when the waters receded and plowing &
planting began
– Shemu the dry season from March to July
•
• Floodwaters left a deposit of silt that fertilized the fields and
produced abundant crops
• Farmers produced more than enough food for Egypt’s people
• Ancient Egypt has been called the “granary (grainhouse) to the
world
– Grain & other crops were traded with Africa & Asia
Animal Life & Climate
• Ancient Egypt swarmed with animals that no longer live there
– Hippos, lions, baboons, wildcats, gazelles, Golden jackals,
flamingos, red-breasted geese
• As the climate grew hotter & dryer, the animals went away
– Egyptians left paintings of them.
• Many animals were drawn in hieroglyphic symbols
• Some were honored as gods
Hieroglyphs (picture symbols)
– Began as early as 3000 B.C.
– Represented objects, ideas, homophones, sounds,
singular or plural nouns, or verbs
– By 300 B.C. there were more than 700
hieroglyphic symbols
Life Everlasting
– Most people did not live past their thirties
– Every Egyptian, from pharaoh to laborer,
believed in life after death
– They also believed that the dead would enjoy all
their earthly comforts in the afterlife.
– Burial chambers were filled with favorite
possessions, clothes, furniture, games & food.
Mummies
– After death the body was made into a mummy to keep it
from decaying.
– Mummification could take as long as 70 days
– Mummies of some pharaohs were encased in jewelencrusted gold & placed in a stone coffin
– Scrolls of the Book of the Dead were buried with the body
• These were special prayers & instructions for getting
through the mysterious world of the dead
Pyramids
– Pharaohs built fabulous toms for themselves to
ensure they would have eternal life.
– Imhotep built the 1st pyramid called a ‘step
pyramid’
– 4th Dynasty pharaohs built the most famous
pyramids
How Did They Build the Pyramids?
– Ancient Egyptians left only a few clues about how
they built them
– Greek historian Herodotus says that 100,000 men
worked on the Great Pyramid in 3 month shifts!
• Then another 100,00 went to work
–This went on for more than 20 years!!
Kingdoms Unite & Divide
– Memphis was Egypt’s capital during the Old
Kingdom period
• Memphis lies about 15 miles south of what is
now Cairo
Hyksos
– Hyksos – were Asian people that rose to power in the
1600sB.C.
– They taught the Egyptians about the art of war
• The Hyksos introduced horse-drawn chariots, bronze &
iron swords & other military gear
The New Kingdom: Conquests &
Construction
• The New Kingdom Period - Thebes was the capital
• Egyptians were now a major world power with new
military skills
• They acquired new lands – which were new sources
of wealth
• Pharaohs built huge temples, monuments & statues
of themselves
• Ramses II was the greatest builder of all
The New Kingdom
• The rulers of the New Kingdom built
necropolises- cities of the dead
• They are known today as:
– Valley of the Kings
– Valley of the Queens
– Tombs of the Nobles
• In 1995, the largest tomb was discovered in
the Valley of the Kings
– It holds most of Ramses II’s 52 sons
– 60 tombs have been found there so far
– That is only a small part of those waiting to be
discovered
The End