Download Mr. Dowling`s Study Sheet on Ancient Egypt

Mr. Dowling’s Study Sheet on Ancient Egypt
The Gift of the Nile
The Land of the De ad
Like a giant snake, the Nile Riv er
slithers through some of the driest desert on
earth to isolate a narrow green valley . Today ,
more than sixty million p eop le live alon g the
banks of the Nile, the world's longest river. The
Nile was also home to one of the earliest
civilizations in history . Today , more than sixty
million p eople live alon g the banks of the Nile,
the world’s longest river. The Nile was also
home to one of the earliest civilizations in
history .
Ancient Egyp t could not have existed
without the great river. Every y ear, the snow in
the mountains of East Africa melts, sending a
torrent of water that overflows the banks of the
Nile. The river p icks up bits of soil and plant
life called silt. The silt is dropp ed on the banks
of the Nile as the flood reced es, and creates
excellent topsoil that p rovides two or three
crops every y ear. The ancient Greeks sp oke
with envy when they referred to Egy pt as “the
Gift of the Nile.”
We know a great deal more
about Egy ptian afterlife than we do
about their culture. The Egy ptians wrote
on sheets made from stalks of p apy rus.
The p apy rus disintegrated over time in
the humid climate. Time also
destroy ed the mud brick homes of
the Egy ptians. What we do know
about ancient Egy pt comes
mainly from their great
py ramids. The py ramids were stone structures
built as tombs and monuments to their p haraohs.
The Egyptians believed that death led to
an afterlife where the dead p erson cultivated
their Elysian Field. As long as the body existed,
a p erson continued to live in the afterlife. The
Egy p tians carefully buried their dead in dry
sand with their most treasured p ossessions.
Children were buried with their toys so that they
could p lay in the afterlife. The Egy p tians were
very careful to say only good things about the
dead.
The Egy ptians believed their lead er, the
pharaoh, was their link to the afterlife, so they
took p articular care in preserving the pharaoh’s
bodies as mummies. Egy ptian mummification
was an exp ensive and time-consumin g p rocess,
so it was used only for the p haraoh and the very
rich. The body was cut on the side to remove the
intestines, liver, stomach, and lun gs. The
organs were then wrap ped in linen and stored in
jars. The brain was removed throu gh the nose
using long hooks. The Egy ptians did not
understand the imp ortance of the brain, so they
often discarded it.
The body was stuffed for about forty
day s to drain any fluids. When the stuffing was
removed, the body was very dry , and smaller
than in life. It was again stuffed with p acking
and covered in jewels. The body was then
wrapp ed in about twenty lay ers of linen.
Ancie nt Egypt was protected from
invaders by natural borders
•
•
•
•
The land bey ond the Nile River Valley is a
desert.
There are several cataracts (or large
waterfalls) along the Nile R iver south of the
ancient civ ilization.
Not many p eople ventured into the sea
before 1500BC , so the Mediterranean Sea
formed a natural bord er. (Egypt was not
invaded by the sea until Nap oleon in the
nineteenth century )
Enemies could only invade Egy pt by
crossing the narrow Isthmus of Suez .
1998-2001 Mike Dowling, www.mrdowling.com, West Palm Beach, Florida.
The Pharaoh
The Egy ptians believed their p haraoh
was both a god and a mon arch. A monarch is a
king or a queen. Egy pt was ruled by many
p haraohs, but a few stand out.
M enes (p ronounced M EE-nes) is the
first p haraoh we know about. M enes united two
kingdo ms, called Lower Egy pt and Upp er Egy pt
and established what we now call the “Old
Kingdom” about 3100BC . M enes’ tomb wasn’t
discovered until 1897.
Royal families often intermarried
because they did not want to p roduce children
with common p eople. This was the case for
Thutmose II, an Egy ptian pharaoh who lived
around 1500BC . Thutmose married his halfsister Hatshepsut. Thutmose II had a son,
Thutmose III, by a minor wife. When Thutmose
II died his son, Thutmose III became p haorah.
However, Hatshep sut was app ointed regent
because of the boy 's y oung age. A regent is
someone who rules for a mon arch if they are too
y oung to rule. Hatshep sut and Thutmose III
ruled jointly until Hatshep sut declared herself
p haraoh. Dressed in men’s attire, Hatshepsut
administered the affairs of the nation.
Hatshep sut disapp eared shortly after Thutmose
III led a revolt to reclaim the throne. Thutmose
then destroyed Hatshepsut’s shrines and statues.
Akhenaton was a monotheistic p haraoh
who ruled with his queen, Nefertiti from 1352BC
to 1336BC . They worshipped Aten, a god of the
sun. Akhenaton and Nefrititi forbade their
subjects to worship of any other gods. They
built great statues to Aten and ordered that
statues honoring any other god be destroyed.
M ost Egyptians did not
take the faith of their
leaders, and after their
death, statues of Aten
were destroy ed.
Tutankhamen
became p haraoh shortly
after Akhenaton’s death.
He was only nine years
old, but was married to the
daughter of Akhenaton
and Nefertiti. The “boy
king” never b ecame a
“man king” because he
died of a head injury only
nine y ears into his rule.
Most of the treasures of
the py ramids were
plundered, but by
accid ent
Tutankhamen’s tomb
remain ed intact
because it was buried
by rock chip s
dump ed from the
cutting of a tomb of a
later p haraoh. The tomb lay hidden for more
than three thousand y ears until British
archaeo lo gist Howard Carter discovered it in
1922. Carter’s discovery made “King Tut” and
his buried treasures famous.
The Rose tta Stone
The ancient Egyptians were a great
my stery to scientists until they decip hered
hiero glyp hics, the writing of the ancient p eople.
The ancient
civilization was
mentioned in the
Bible, but we didn’t
know much about the
Egy p tians until a troop
of French soldiers
found a stone near the
city of Rosetta in
1799. That stone
eventually made it
possible to decode the
ancient text.
The Rosetta Stone was inscribed with a
law made in 196BC , written in two forms of
hiero glyp hics and in ancient Greek. Scientists
decided that they could learn hiero glyp ics if
they could decipher the code.
A French scholar named Jean
Champ ollion translated the Egy p tian wring into
Greek after more than twenty years of work.
Champ ollion concluded that hiero gly phics had
originally been p ictograp hs, but they stood for
sounds in later times.
Champ ollion mad e it possible to
understand hierogly p hics, and unlocked many of
the my steries of ancient Egy ptian civilization.
What my steries might a modern Rosetta
Stone uncover?
1998-2001 Mike Dowling, www.mrdowling.com, West Palm Beach, Florida.
Cleopatra
The life of Cleop atra is a story of love,
greed, and romance. Cleopatra was born in 69
BCE , after the era of the p haraohs had p assed, but
in some p arts of her kingdom the Egyptian peop le
worshipp ed her. Cleopatra was born in Egypt but
her ancestry was Greek.
Alexander the Great was a military genius
from M acedonia, a mountainous land north of
Greece. He led his army into Egypt and freed the
Egyptian p eop le from Persian rule. The grateful
Egyptian p eop le worshipp ed Alexander as a
p haraoh. Alexander’s emp ire was
divided among his top generals when
he died in 336 BCE . Ptolemy became
the ruler of Egypt and the first ruler
of the Ptolemic dynasty .
Ptolemy XII was Cleop atra’s
father. When he died in 51 BCE ,
Ptolemy XII willed that seventeeny ear-old Cleop atra and her twelvey ear-old brother, Ptolemy XIII, were
to marry and rule Egypt. Cleop atra
was a very different ruler than the
Ptolemies who came before her. She learned the
Egyptian language; the other Ptolemies sp oke only
Greek. Cleop atra also practiced the religious
customs of Egypt, and many of the Egyptians
viewed her as a p haraoh. In 48 BCE, Cleop atra’s
generals found they could not control her, so they
ousted Cleopatra and made her brother the sole
monarch of Egypt.
A few months later, a Roman army led by
Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt. Caesar was
p ursuing another Roman army that tried to keep
him from returning to Rome. Caesar’s army was
much larger than the Egyptian forces, so Cleop atra
concluded that Caesar could return her to power.
She arranged to have a huge carp et was delivered
to the 54-y ear-old Caesar. When he unrolled it, he
found the 22-y ear-old former queen wrapped
inside. Caesar and Cleop atra became lovers, and
the Roman general led his army to capture and kill
the people who removed her from power.
Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile while trying to
flee.
Egyptian law did not allow a queen to rule
without a king, so Cleop atra married another
brother, Ptolemy XIV, but she was in love with
Caesar. Caesar and Cleop atra spent the next
several months traveling along the Nile, where
Caesar saw how the Egyptian people worshipped
Cleop atra. Caesar was a very powerful general
who conquered many lands, but he knew that
becoming a p haraoh was something he could not
ever achieve.
Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BCE with
Cleop atra and their newborn son, Caesarion.
Caesar was very p opular with the Roman peop le.
They named him dictator. A dictator is a ruler
with comp lete power. Cleop atra was less p opular
with the Romans. She had called herself the “new
Isis.” Many Romans were unhappy that
Caesar was p lanning to marry a foreigner.
Caesar was murdered in 44 BCE, so
Cleop atra left Rome to return to Egypt.
She murdered Ptolemy XIV and named her
four-y ear-old son as the new king.
Rome was in turmoil after Caesar’s
murder. Several armies competed for
control. The two greatest were those of
Marc Antony and Octavian. Octavian was
the adopted son of Julius Caesar, but Marc
Antony was believed to have led a larger
army . When Antony asked Cleop atra to
meet with him, Cleop atra decided that she had
another opportunity to return to power both in
Egypt, and in Rome. A legend says that Cleopatra
adorned her ship with so many rose p etals that the
Romans knew of her fragrance before they could
see her ship . She walked off the ship dressed as
Ap hrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Antony
was immediately love-struck with the Egyptian
queen. Antony was already married to Octavian’s
sister, but he took Cleopatra as his wife, and they
had two children.
Octavian’s army defeated Marc Antony’s
forces and led an invasion of Egypt in 30 BCE .
Antony committed suicide by falling on his sword.
When Octavian called Cleop atra to appear before
him, she attempted to charm him, but Octavian
showed no interest. Fearing that she would be
forced to live as a slave in the land she once ruled,
Cleop atra decided it would be better to end her
life. According to legend, the former queen asked
that an asp , an Egyptian cobra, be delivered to her
in a basket of figs. The asp was a symbol of
divine roy alty to the Egyptians, so by allowingthe
asp to bit e her, Cleop atra is said to have become
immortal.
1998-2001 Mike Dowling, www.mrdowling.com, West Palm Beach, Florida.