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MummiesandPyramids
The best way the ancient Egyptians knew to preserve a body was to mummify it. The poor
placed the bodies of their dead relatives out in the sun, in the desert sand. The bodies
mummified naturally by drying out. Then, they rubbed the body with oil and spices and
wrapped it in cloth before burying it. This kept the body “fresh.” Egyptians did this because
they thought they would need to be able to walk around in the afterlife.
Anyone who could afford it went to a professional mummy maker. People wanted to look their
best in their afterlife.
Many people were made into mummies, but only the
Kings built pyramids to hold their mummies.
Pyramids were huge structures. They had storage
rooms, courtyards, secret passageways, and all kinds
of fancy traps designed to catch robbers who tried to
break into the pyramid to rob it.
Pyramids were full of treasures. The average person
created grave goods to take with them to their
afterlife. These “grave goods” were things that they created ONLY to use in their grave.
Imagine the treasures a pharaoh might feel were necessary to bring along! Most of the time,
Kings would want to bring lots of treasure and gold, as well as clothes, entertainment, and even
food!
The first pyramid, the Step Pyramid, was built around 2700 BCE, nearly 5000 years ago!
Pyramid construction was abandoned after the time of the Old Kingdom. It was simply too easy
to find a pyramid. Grave robbers knew exactly where the
pharaohs were buried, and thus knew exactly where to
find riches and wealth. If you were caught, the penalty
for grave robbing was death.
The ancient Egyptians did not simply build a pyramid,
bury a pharaoh, and walk away. A whole city grew up
around a pyramid during its construction. These cities
were called pyramid cities.
The pharaoh provided homes for everyone who worked on the pyramid construction. People
were paid for their work in goods and food and homes.
After a pyramid was finished, the pyramid city continued to exist. Some of the people who
stayed had jobs maintaining and guarding the pyramid. Others, like bakers and basket weavers,
were merchants who created needed goods.
Hieroglyphics
Before the ABCs were developed, people used to write using pictographs. Pictographs are
symbols or pictures that represent a word. (Pictograph? Picture? See the connection?!)
The Egyptians used a type of pictographs called hieroglyphics. They used them to write on
temples, tomb walls, and papyrus scrolls. Few people in Egypt knew all of the symbols, so
people specialized in writing. These writing specialists were called “scribes”.
Why Write? Writing began in Egypt to keep records of business transactions and to label
products. Writing helped people record their own history, literature, trade records, and
even everyday activities. Some of the earliest books
were written using pictographs like hieroglyphics!
•
Egypt and Kush Egypt’s Southern Neighbor:
Kush
• Nubia is located on the
Nile River, South of
Egypt
• The land was rugged
and not suited for
farming
• It had lots of minerals
such as gold and iron
Egypt and Kush traded
many goods and ideas
because each had things the
other won’t have.
• Nubia was rich in goods that were scarce in Egypt (ivory, animal skins,
timber)
• Egypt had better farming and could trade crops like grain
• In 1525 BC Egypt conquers Kush. Many things in Kush changed. Kush had
to obey the Pharaoh (King) and had to use Egyptian Kush hieroglyphics to
write. The Pharaohs also ordered the Kush to build temples to worship
Egyptian Gods. Finally, some people were taken as slaves.
SocialStructure
The pharaoh was the king of Egypt. He had all the power and owned all the land. He had many
government officials and priests who did the work of running the country
for him. (Pharaohs were usually men, but a few were women!) Generally
the pharaoh’s son became king after the pharaoh died. The royal family
lived in great luxury, with jewelry and clothes made of the finest linen.
Priests and priestesses held places of great honor in Egyptian society.
They served as religious advisors to the pharaoh and performed
ceremonies at temples, festivals, and funerals. They worked in temples
taking care of the statues that honored each god or goddess. They also
oversaw the whole process of making mummies, to ensure that each
person’s soul made it to the afterlife. Both men and women were priests.
The scribes were in a slightly lower class than the priests and government officials. They worked for
the government as the official writers and record keepers. They told the pharaoh about what was
happening in his country. They kept records of the grain supply, taxes, and court cases. Scribes spent 12
years learning more than 700 symbols in the Egyptian writing
system, hieroglyphics. Schools for scribes were very strict, and
Pharaohs
Pharaohs
beatings for laziness or not paying attention were common.
Priests
However, once done with school scribes were respected and fairly
well paid.
Scribes
Artisans
The artisans were skilled workers like carpenters, jewelers,
metalworkers, painters, potters, basket-makers, and stone carvers.
Farmers and Slaves
They usually worked under the eye of a boss in workshops, making
tools, furniture, linen cloth, jewelry, and stone statues. Pharaohs asked hundreds of artisans at a time to
work on the statues and paintings for tombs, temples, pyramids, and monuments they were building.
The artisans rarely got the respect they deserved – even the most talented were not allowed to sign their
work, because people in the upper classes viewed them as common workers. They usually worked for 9
days in a row before getting a day off. They lived in small, three-room houses and sometimes went
without food when it was hard to find work.
The peasants were at the bottom of the social pyramid, even though everyone depended on them.
They grew the crops that supplied everyone with food. Some peasants were actually slaves captured from
other countries and put to work on the pharaoh’s pyramid building projects. The peasants lived in simple
brick homes with little furniture. They often worked for 9 days straight and rested on the 10th day. They
had to pay their taxes in crops (not money), and were beaten by government officials if they were not
able to pay.
RamsesII
Ramses II, “Ramses the Great,” was the pharaoh of Egypt for 67 years. During that time, he took
over many other areas and expanded Egypt into a major empire. He even took over part of Mesopotamia!
Hattusili, king of Hatti, was also expanding his empire. When the two empires wanted the same land, they
went to war with each other. In 1280 BCE, Ramses II signed a peace treaty with Hattusili. It was translated
and written in both empires’ writing systems so both leaders had a copy.
0
This is the Egyptian copy,
written in hieroglyphics.
This is the Hittite copy, written
in Akkadian.
Parts of the Actual Treaty
(1) "Ramses, the great king, the king of the country of Egypt, shall never attack the country of Hatti to
take possession of a part (of this country). And Hattusili, the great king, the king of the country of Hatti,
shall never attack the country of Egypt to take possession of a part (of that country)."
(2) "They who observe the words that are in the silver tablet the great gods of the country of Egypt and
the great gods of the country of Hatti shall allow them to live and prosper in their houses, their country and
with their servants.”
(3) “They who do not observe the words that are in this silver tablet, the great gods of the country of
Egypt as well as the great gods of the country of Hatti will exterminate their houses, their country and their
servants."
(4) When another king came to Ramses II and asked him to be his ally against the Hittite empire, he
said, "Today there is fraternity between the Great King of Egypt and the king of Hatti.”
NaturalResourcesandGeography
The ancient Egyptians enjoyed many natural barriers. A natural barrier is something made
in nature, like a river, that blocks other people from coming in. . There were deserts to the
east and west of the Nile River, and mountains to the south. This isolated the ancient
Egyptians and allowed them to develop a truly unique culture.
The Nile is the world's longest river. It is over 4000 miles long! It is shaped like the lotus
flower so often seen in ancient Egyptian art. Each spring, water would run off the
mountains and the Nile would flood. As the flood waters receded, black rich fertile soil was
left behind. The ancient Egyptian called this rich soil The
Gift of the Nile.
Fertile soil for crops was not the Nile's only gift. The Nile
gave the ancient Egyptians many gifts. Thanks to the Nile,
these ancient people had fresh water for drinking and
bathing. The Nile supported transportation and trade. It
provided materials for building, for making cloth for
clothes, and even for making paper - made from the wild
papyrus weed, that grew along the shores of the Nile.
Because of the annual flooding of the Nile, the ancient
Egyptians enjoyed a high standard of living compared to
other ancient civilizations. Without the Nile, Egypt would
be a desert.
The majority of the people in Egypt live in the fertile areas around the Nile River. This
narrow band of farmland is usually less than 24 miles wide! The areas away from the river
are desert lands where few humans live. These deserts (deshrets) kept Egypt isolated
allowing the civilization to flourish for more than 3,000 years.