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Transcript
ANCIENT EGYPT: Your Name ________________ What is a Civilization? The word civilization means a place where people live together, and use each other’s resources in a community or larger state. People didn’t use to live in cities or countries. Many were nomadic, meaning they moved from place to place looking for the best resources to help them live. The first civilizations all had something in common. First of all, they were situated on rivers that provided them with the water they needed and transportation. Secondly, they were easily defended, because they were either surrounded by deserts, seas, mountains, or all of those. This allowed their cities to grow because they didn’t have to spend all their time on self-defense. Thirdly, their river valleys were very fertile. They were able to settle down and live in the same spot permanently. This also gave them time to start thinking, which leads to new ideas and invention. The Geography of Egypt Even today, only 1% of the country of Egypt is habitable by people on a permanent basis. 99% of the land is covered by rocky desert with very little or no water. Egypt became important because of a single river--the longest river in the world--which cut a 750 mile green ribbon of life through barren desert lands. The Nile River Valley featured dry air, most soil, lots of a good stone (for building), and mild floods, which would blanket the valley with new silt (fresh topsoil) every spring. Because of this there was always plenty of food to eat. The First Four Civilizations in No Particular Order • YELLOW RIVER in China. •The TIGRIS-EUPHRATES river in Iraq. •The INDUS river valley in Pakistan. •The NILE river valley in Egypt. As I mentioned previously, each of these four areas offered three key parts to allow them to stay. Lots of water, easily defensible, and fertile crop land. Unfortunately, we won’t have enough time to study all of the early civilizations... we’ll be concentrating on Egypt and the Nile River Valley. YELLOW RIVER NORTHERN CHINA INDUS RIVER WESTERN INDIA-PAKISTAN The Two Egypts When Egypt first started, the country was divided into an UPPER KINGDOM and a LOWER KINGDOM. The Lower Kingdom was found on the Nile Delta, where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile flows north. This is why the Lower Kingdom was actually located on the northern half of Egypt, and the Upper Kingdom on the southern half. TIGRIS-EUPHRATES MESOPOTAMIA (MODERN IRAQ) *Peru and Mexico? We'll discuss this in class some 1 more. Egypt is Unified Into One Country Around 3000 B.C. (that’s right.... 5000 years ago!) King Menes conquered Lower Egypt, and made both countries combine under his leadership. He started a dynasty. This means that his family would be the leaders of the country until they completely died out or were violently removed. During this time, Egyptians invented.... •Linen: this was much more comfy to wear than sheepskins or clothes made out of grass. They also invented cotton fabrics, which they would wrap the papyrus in. If you like wearing the clothes you are wearing today, thank the Egyptians. •Paper: it wasn’t paper really, but called papyrus. The Egyptians were the first to write something other than using soft mud or carving on stone. Papyrus is a plant that grows along the Nile. •Writing: the Egyptians invented a written language called hieroglyphics. Their writing was based on pictures. The Egyptian for Rameses II, Nefertiti, and Hatshepsut are found above. •Beauty Aids: Egyptians invented cosmetics, hair dyes, wigs, and other things like combs, jewelry, etc. They even invented a formula to make their enemies hair fall out. That’s what they did to this poor guy... Egyptian Kings In the old days, the kings of Egypt were killed by the priests when they were too weak to rule. Not only did they kill the king, but also all of his servants. They built him a burial house called a “house of eternity.” This idea didn’t last forever though. The kings finally wised up and got enough money to pay soldiers to defend themselves against priests who wanted them murdered. This forced the priests to substitute statues and paintings instead of the bodies of servants into the tombs when the king died of natural causes. The kings liked this idea, so they hired more and more artists to make sculptures of them while they were still alive. As soon as the king died, the artwork was buried. The kings thought that this was a way to keep them immortal (alive forever). The bad news for them though was that it was usually robbed by tomb robbers. This made kings and future kings very uneasy. So to protect them after they died, they had themselves buried into underground tombs with secret tunnels. Because their bodies rotted faster underground, Egyptian chemists invented the mummification. The priests drained the body of fluid, inserted chemical preservatives, and then wrapped the body in layers and layers of cloth. The mummies were then placed into a golden sarcophagus (or tomb-statue) that would also help to preserve the bodies. That is why you can go to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities today, and see the actual bodies of kings who died over four thousand years ago. That is, if you want to.... Pyramids are Invented King Zoser asked his architect Imhotep to build him a tomb that would display his supreme status. Imhotep built the tomb out of stone, instead of the usual brick, and included a maze of underground passages. As the rock from the underground came up, it was used to pile a stepped-pyramid on top of the tomb. A period of trial and error followed, where one pyramid collapsed, and another was changed, before they came up with the most common design around 2600 B.C. The first pyramid looked like this, and is still standing after 4603 years! 2 page 2 King Khufu Khufu was a king who thought he was great enough to have the first great pyramid. He made 100,000 people work 20 years on his tomb. The people hated him, but he got his tomb. This started a 500 year long rule of Pharaohs... who was a king but treated like a god. (Pharaoh is Egyptian for “Great House”--they thought they were so great that people couldn’t even say their names, so they had to call their leaders “Great House” instead.) Pyramids were covered in ancient times with plaster. This has since worn off. Khufu had a nice one. To the left, Khufu's name spelled in heiroglyphs. The Pyramid of Khufu, also called Cheops, was also sometimes called Philitis, who was a local shepherd. The people of Egypt hated Khufu so much, that they started call the pyramid Philitis.... Egyptians Invent Taxes The Egyptian word for taxes meant “labor.” The Pharaohs would make every one of their subjects give them free labor during the year. This worked for a long time, because the people not only thought of the Pharaoh as a living god, but also because they didn’t want to get squashed by his army. Even so, local governors were trying to grab their share of “tax-payers” and in the process, made the Pharaoh mad. Around 2200 B.C., the king was overthrown, and these governors would rule their own small areas of the Nile River Valley. This lasted for 300 years. Egypt is Conquered By Horses The Hyksos were a tribe of barbarians that came from the north. They had a new weapon that terrified the Egyptians--chariots. The Egyptian soldiers were powerless against the speed and size of the chariots, so they had to give up. Two hundred years of Hyksos rule taught the Egyptians a valuable lesson-they needed their own horses! Mastering the chariot himself, Ahmose chased the Hyksos back into Asia, and eliminated all of the other kings who opposed him. This is Ahmose's battle ax. He saved Egypt by defeating the Hyksos with chariots. He was very young when became king. The Egyptian Empire The next pharaoh, Thutmose I, went about conquering lands around Egypt and fathering many children. Unfortunately for him, all were daughters. According to Egyptian law, one of the daughters had to marry the next pharoh--who was her brother (yuk!) Thutmose II was sickly and died very early. His wife/sister’s name was Hatshepsut. She knew that only men could be pharaohs, and she wasn’t fired up to marry another brother, she pretended to become a man. “King” Hatshepsut brought Egypt 20 years of peace. She/he encouraged Egypt to trade with other cultures around the Nile, bringing great wealth to her country. When she died, her nephew Thutmose the Great, went on a rampage, killing and conquering for 30 years. The Height of the Egyptian Empire The Egyptians were actively trading with all the tribes of the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1500 B.C., Egyptian scientists discovered that they could make a much harder metal if they melted copper and tin together. They called this bronze. It revolutionized tools and weapons. The Empire continued to run smoothly for three more generations with the Egyptians trading with other cultures. Unfortunately, they continued to marry their daughters. Their gene-pool was getting pretty thin. One Pharaoh Changes Everything King Akhenaton made everybody mad when he said the sun god (Amon) was the only god in Egypt. Every city had their own god, so when he said this, it made everybody realize that he was going to make everything in Egypt his. And by the way, he said he was the only person that was able to hear what Amon wanted, so everybody had to listen to him. Anyway, he spent all of Egypt’s money on building a brand new capital city (called Akhenaton), and didn’t take the time to realize that his people were hungry and revolting against him. Everything really fell apart when his wife, Nefertiti (she was very beautiful and smart. By the way--this is a famous statue of her in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin) left him because he fell in love with his nephew. The guy was a very strange man. One historian's works that I read called Akhenaton "the world's first individual" because he was a revolutionary. He made a single religion, saw the beauty of the earth around him, and changed the traditions of a very traditional country. But most Egyptians were happy when he died. page 3 King Tutankhamon (King Tut) King Tutankhamon was a little boy when he became Pharaoh, and died before his 20th birthday. He is so famous because his tomb remained undiscovered until this century! Remember, tomb robbers had taken almost everything they could find, but Tutankhamon’s tomb somehow was never discovered. Archeologists (people who dig things up) discovered a secret entrance to this tomb in the 1920s, and when they opened the door, found that the tomb had been sealed since the young boy’s death over 3000 years ago. They found gold, jewels, and the sarcophagus of Tut, considered by most to be the most beautiful example ancient art ever discovered. The walls were covered with hieroglyphics that explained about life in Egypt during the time of Tut. It was one of the greatest historical finds of this century. That is why King Tut is so famous. Ramses the Great Ramses was a young pharaoh who wanted to defeat the Hittites, which had pushed south into present day Israel. He spent a couple of years gathering supplies and men to make his attack on their city of Kadesh. The Hittite king heard of Ramses plan, and began to build his own army. In April of 1288 B.C., the greatest battle of the ancient world began when Ramses attacked the city of Kadesh. Ramses thought the city was abandoned, because he didn’t see any soldiers around. What he didn’t know was that the Hittites were hiding on the other side of the city’s walls. Ramses order his men to go to the city (into the Hittites trap), even though it must have been pretty obvious that Hittites were around (if fresh horse-droppings are any clue). Anyway, the Hittites cut Ramses soldiers in half, and began to massacre them. Ramses finally woke up to what was happening, and ordered his men to retreat. He was only able to escape because the Hittites began to loot and steal from the Egyptians that they had already killed. Ramses ordered a 4 The Sarcophagus of King Tutankhamon was found along with the rest of valuable items inside his tomb, which remained much as it did 3000 years ago. It was discovered in 1923. counterattack, and it became the Egyptians turn to massacre the Hittites. By the end of the day, thousands of men and horses were dead, and nothing really had changed at all. In the end, Ramses gave the Hittes the city of Kadesh (which they already had) and he got a daughter of the Hittite king. He spent the rest of his life fathering children (our best guess is 50 sons and 52 daughters) and making monuments to himself. He did deliver Egypt into a time of peace, and from peace, comes strength. Egypt Fades After the death of Ramses, future Pharohs spent all their money on themselves, rather than making Egypt better and stronger. Within 300 years, Egypt was conqured by a variety of foreign armies, including the Greeks and Romans. So What? Egypt has given us some unbelievable buildings, some of which are still standing after 3000 years of being built. They invented written language. They invented many kinds of art. They were the first to show that you can make your country strong by trading with other countries. They invented papyrus, the first type of paper. They invented bronze, which revolutionized tools. They left some fun stories to listen to. They left their mark on history forever. by Joe Waite