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6-2 Notes: Land of the Pharaohs
Menes unifies Egypt
• Villages of Egypt banded
together and formed two
kingdoms – Upper Egypt
(white crown) and Lower
Egypt (red crown)
• 3100 B.C.E. – Menes, king of
Upper Egypt, overthrew the
king of Lower Egypt
• To show his victory, he wore
a double crown (combining
the red and white crowns)
• Menes became the first
pharaoh, or ruler of Egypt
(the word actually means
“great palace”)
• This time period of unification
is called the “Old Kingdom”
(2700 – 2200 B.C.E.)
Government & Religion in the Old Kingdom
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Pharaoh’s headquarters
located in Memphis, Egypt
Pharaoh made local leaders
his area governors –in charge
of collecting taxes; managing
distribution of flood water, silt;
local judges
Egyptians believed that the
pharaoh was a god, often
identified with the sky god
Horus and sun god Ra
Ra – Most important god in
Egyptian pantheon
Egyptian gods stood for many
things, mostly nature, industry,
and protection
Osiris – god of afterlife –
important because Egyptians
believed their dead went on to
the “Next World”
Egypt’s Economy
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Economy is the way people
manage money and resources
for the production of goods and
services
All things in Egypt were
property of the pharaoh
Pharaoh collected taxes from
everything produced in Egypt –
from farmer surpluses to
manufactured goods like linen
cloth and baskets
Pharaoh forced people to work
on buildings and canals during
flooding season
Egyptian craft workers and
artists worked almost
exclusively for the pharaoh
No money in ancient Egypt –
everything traded according to
value
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Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics were a system of
writing made of around 800
picture-signs (hieroglyphs) that
stand for objects or sounds
Scribes, or writers, traveled around
recording details such as surplus
values and taxes owed
Only boys were taught how to
write at school
Papyrus, a reed that grows along
the Nile, was used as paper –
Scribes used sharpened reeds as
pens
400 A.C.E. – Hieroglyphics fell out
of use, meaning lost
1799 A.C.E. – French soldier
digging in Rosetta, Egypt finds a
stone that contains the same
message in both Egyptian
hieroglyphics and Greek – 1822
A.C.E. – Champollion, a French
scholar, decodes stone unlocking
the secret language of
hieroglyphics
Building the Pyramids
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Pyramids were built as tombs
for pharaohs
Pharaoh Khufu commissioned
the building of the Great
Pyramid at Giza (Egypt’s
largest pyramid) in 2600
B.C.E.
Pyramid required 22 years to
build, involving 100,000
workers
Average weight of each block
is 2.5 tons (5,000 lbs), total of
2,300,000 blocks!
Many believe that costly
building projects such as this
stirred great anger amongst
people in Egypt
2000 B.C.E. – Upper Egypt
revolts and set up a new
pharaoh who located his