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Geography: The Nile
Longest River
4,000 miles long
Flows through the Sahara Desert
Without water, nobody could live
Natural protection
Geography: The Nile Delta
Delta –
Mouth of a
River
Silt Deposits
Longest
Delta in the
World
Geography
Black Land
Red Land
Cataracts
The Sahara
Gave comfort to the Egyptians
It was difficult to cross
Discouraged people from invading
The Fertile Nile Valley
The Annual Flooding of the
Nile
Nile Irrigation – The Shaduf
Two Kingdoms
1st were villages – 5,000 BC
Villages consolidated into two kingdoms
Northern Kingdom
Southern Kingdom
Northern Kingdom
Lower Egypt
Lower end of
Nile
Occupied most
of the Delta
Cobra Goddess
Snake was their
symbol
Southern Kingdom
Upper Egypt
Laid along the rivers
Stretched from south of
the delta to the 1st
Cataract
Prayed to a vulture
goddess
The vulture was their
symbol
A white crown Symbolized
Upper Egypt
Unification
3100 BC
King Menes
Memphis became the
Capital
Adopted the Symbol of
Lower and Upper Egypt
Established the 1st
Dynasty
Wore a red and white
crown – using the two
kingdom’s colors
Old Kingdom: 3rd Dynasty 2650 BC
Lasted 500 years
The pyramids
Near Giza
Tombs
Changed over time
Mostly peasants built them
Pharaohs
Government developed during the Old
Kingdom
Head of the government
Means “Great House”
Owned all the land
Their word was law
Acted as judges
Leaders of the Egyptian Army
A god in human form
Theocracy
Egyptian Bureaucracy
Middle Kingdom
Old Kingdom collapsed in 2100 BC
200 years of civil war
Famine made things worse
In 2055 BC, a new dynasty emerged
Strong leadership – strong economy
Trade Routes were not Always safe
1650 BC – the Hyksos invaded the Nile Delta
The Hyksos brought superior military technologies
They ruled for 100 years
Egyptians resented being ruled by foreigners
They rose against the Hyksos
New Kingdom
Egyptians realized that they could not rely
solely on geographic barriors for protection
Created a powerful military
Adopted Hyksos weaponry
Expanded their empire
Headed into Nubia and conquered the
Kingdom of Kush and forced them to pay
tribute to Egypt
Reign of Hatshepsut
Encouraged trade
Brought gold, apes, and
myrrh
One of the few women
to rule egypt
Referred to herself as the
“son of the sun god”
Her nephew took over
after she died and tried
to destroy any evidence
of her ruling
Akhenaton: Monotheism in Egypt
1353 BC – Amenhotem IV took over
Changed his name to Akhenaten,
which means, “beloved of Aten”
Egyptians were polytheistic, but he
changed Egypt to a monotheistic
culture during his reign
Banned worship of any other god
other than Aten
Stripped power from the priests of
other gods and ordered their god’s
image be destroyed
This religion didn’t last past his
death
Pharaoh Tutankhaman restored the
worship of Egypt’s traditional gods
and moved the capital back to
Thebes
Great Hymn To Aten
Ramses the Great
Hittites from Mesopotamia invaded
Egyptian territory
Ramses II led his army out to
confront the Hittites
According to Hittite records, the
Hittites won
The Egyptian records say that the
Egyptians won
However, the two armies agreed to
a truce
Ramses married a Hittite princess
He ruled for 60 years
Built more temples and
monuments than any other
pharaoh
Egypt’s decline
First major invasion – the sea peoples
Priests and nobles struggled for power
Egypt broke into smaller states
Over the next 700 years, foreign rulers controlled
Egypt
Libyans
Kushites
Then the Assyrians
Then the Persians
Then the Egyptians drove the Persians out
Then the Persians returned
Then in 332 BC Alexander the Great marched into Egypt