Ancient Egypt was a society that began about 3150 BC and lasted until 20 BC when it was invaded by the Roman Empire. It grew along the River Nile on the continent of Africa. Its land went from the Nile delta to Nubia, a kingdom which today is mostly in Sudan.
By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to describe
For most of its history, Egypt was prosperous due to the water from the Nile ensuring good crops. Each year, the Nile River rose above its bank and flooded the land. Farmers used the fertile soil the river left behind to grow plants that could be eaten as food. Therefore, Ancient Egypt became known as the Gift of the Nile.
Historians divide up the timeline of Ancient Egyptian history by the dynasties of the Pharaohs. A dynasty was when one family maintain power, handing down the throne to an heir. There are generally considered to be 31 dynasties over the nearly 3000 years of Ancient Egyptian history.
Pharaohs
Egyptians called their rulers kings, queens, or pharaohs. Whatever their title, they were the most important people in ancient Egypt. They made the laws and were in charge of the army.
The most famous Egyptian pharaoh today is, without doubt, Tutankhamen. Often called King Tut today, he is largely famous today because much of his tomb remained intact and we have one of the greatest Egyptian treasures from his rule. He became Pharaoh at the age of 9. He tried to bring back the gods that his father had banished.
Government
Ancient Egypt was split up into many different districts called sepats. The first divisions were created during the Predynastic Period, but then, they were small city-states that ruled themselves. When the first pharaoh came to power, the sepats remained and were much like the countries today. There were 42 sepats and each was ruled by a governor chosen by the pharaoh. In later years, the districts were called nomes and the governor was called a nomarch.
Ancient Egypt had a lot of different taxes but there was no real money, so people paid each other with goods or work. The person who watched the tax collection was a scribe, and every tax collector in Egypt had to tell him every day how many taxes they had collected.
Each person paid different taxes based on the work that they did: craftsmen paid in goods, hunters and fishermen paid with food, and every single household in the country had to pay a labor tax every year by helping with work for the country, like mining or for canals.
Writing
Hieroglyphics – Ancient Egyptians used little pictures, called hieroglyphs, to make words. Hieroglyphs is one of the two oldest written languages. It is composed of some 500 symbols that look like pictures. Each picture could be a sound, part of a word, or a whole word.
Hieratic script - In day-to-day writing, scribes used a cursive form of writing, called hieratic, which was quicker and easier. This script was used by priests for everyday writing on paper (made from the papyrus plant), wood, or cloth. Sometimes the sheets of paper were joined together to make scrolls.
Demotic script – This script was used by ordinary people. This became the main writing style.
Coptic script – It is a modified Greek alphabet. It is the last stage of the Egyptian language.
Modern Egyptians speak a dialect of Arabic.
Religion
Religion was very important to Ancient Egyptians. To Egyptians, animals were holy and were worshiped. Because of this, Egyptians domesticated animals very early and took very good care of them.
The center of any Egyptian town was the temple, and this building was used for everything from the town hall to a university in addition to its religious services. Egyptians created a lot of art of their gods. The pharaohs were also thought to be a god.
The Egyptians believed that there was a life after death. They thought that people had two important parts: "ka", or life force that they only had while alive, and "ba" which was more like a soul. If the "ka" and "ba" could be united in the afterworld the person would live in the afterlife. A key component was that the body is preserved for this to happen. This is why the Egyptians used the embalming process, or mummification, to preserve the dead.
Gods and Goddesses
They believed in a wide variety of gods and goddesses. These gods could take different forms, usually as animals. There were some gods and goddesses that were more important and prominent than others. Here are some of the more important ones:
Ra - Ra was the sun god and the most important god to the Ancient Egyptians. Ra was drawn as a man with a hawk head and a headdress with a sun disk. Ra was said to have created all forms of life and was the supreme ruler of the gods.
Isis - Isis was the mother goddess. It was thought that she would protect and help people in need. She was drawn as a woman with a headdress in the shape of a throne.
Osiris - Osiris was the ruler of the underworld and god of the dead. He was the husband of Isis and the father of Horus. Osiris was drawn as a mummified man with a feathered headdress.
Horus - Horus was the god of the sky. Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris. He was drawn as a man with the head of a hawk.
Thoth - Thoth was the god of knowledge. He blessed the Egyptians with writing, medicine, and mathematics. He was also god of the moon. Thoth is drawn as a man with an Ibis bird head. Sometimes he was represented as a baboon.
Pyramids and Mummies
In ancient Egypt, pyramids and tombs were burial places for important people, such as pharaohs. Pyramids were made from stone blocks. It took thousands of people and millions of stone blocks to build a pyramid. After the stone blocks were cut, they were pushed and pulled on sleds across the sand by workers.
When important ancient Egyptians such as pharaohs died, their bodies were treated in a special way. For example, everything inside a pharaoh’s body, except the heart, was taken out. The pharaoh’s insides were placed in canopic jars.
The rest of the body was then wrapped in lots of strips of cloth and placed in a wooden box. The wrapped body is called a mummy. Often, a painted mask was placed over the mummy’s face.
Ancient Egyptians believed that their gods and goddesses would judge every pharaoh’s life by weighing the pharaoh’s heart. If a pharaoh had been good, he would have a light heart. But if he had not been good, his heart would be heavy.
When a pharaoh’s body was ready, it was taken to a tomb or pyramid. The walls of these burial places were painted with pictures of things the pharaohs enjoyed when they were alive.
Many treasures made of gold and jewels have been found buried inside Egyptian tombs and pyramids. The mummies of Egyptian pharaohs have been found too.
Achievements
Engineering was an important activity in Egypt. Engineers were able to measure and survey the distance between two points. They designed and made the pyramids, which are nearly perfect geometrically. They could make cement and developed large irrigation networks.
With the Nile River playing a major role in the lives of the Egyptians, building ships was a big part of their technology. They originally built small boats from papyrus reeds, but later began to build large ships from cedar wood imported from Lebanon.
Mathematics was also important. For numbers, they used a decimal system. They didn't have numerals for 2 - 9 or zero. They just had numbers for factors of 10 such as 1, 10, 100, etc. In order to write the number 3, they would write down three number 1s. To write the number 40, they would write down four number 10s.
All Egyptians wore makeup, even the men. They made a dark eye makeup called kohl from soot and other minerals. The makeup was a fashion statement, but it also helped them protect their skin from the hot desert sun.
Another ability of the Egyptians was glass making. Archeologists have found many pieces of beads, jars, figures, and ornaments in tombs across the nation.
Because their bread had so much grit and sand in it, the Egyptians had a lot of problems with their teeth. They invented the toothbrush and toothpaste in an effort to take care of their teeth. They used a wide variety of ingredients to make their toothpaste including ashes, eggshells, and even ground-up ox hooves.
