egypt

“To whom can I speak today? Hearts are rapacious. And everyone takes his neighbor’s goods… To whom can I speak today? Men are contended with evil. And

goodness is neglected everywhere.”- From a Papyrus, “The Man who was Tired of Life”

EGYPT

INTRODUCTION It would be hard to find two other ancient

civilizations that present as sharp a contrast as Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Although they were only some 800 miles apart, the two civilizations evolved through very different patterns of beliefs and values.

Unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt was an island in time and space that enjoyed a thousands years of more of civilized living with little disturbance from the outside world.

THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Like Mesopotamia, Egypt depended on the waters of a great river system.

Egypt is, and has always been, the valley of the Nile – a green strip averaging about thirty miles wide, with fierce desert hills on either side. The 4,000 mile river originates in the lakes of central Africa

and flows north until it empties into the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria.

Unlike the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile is a compassionate river and without it life in Egypt would have been unthinkable.


Unlike the Tigris, the Nile annually would swell gently until it overflowed its low banks and spread out over the valley floor, carrying with it a load of extremely fertile silt.

Two or three weeks later, the flood would subside, and the river would recede, depositing the silt to renew the valley with a fresh layer of good topsoil.

The Egyptians trapped receding waters in a series of small reservoirs connected to an intricate system of ditches that would later convey the water into the surrounding fields for irrigation.

NILE RIVERThe river derives its names from the Greek word “Neilos,” which means valley; the ancient Egyptians named the river “Ar,” which means black referring to the black sediment left behind from flooding.


Climatic advantages make Egypt an ideal area for intensive agriculture and it has supported three crops a year for a very long time. The entire year is one long growing season in Egypt.

The climate is moderate and constant, with no storms and no frosts ever. The sun shines in modern Egypt an average 361 days per year

and there is no reason to think that it was any different 4,000 years ago.

Rain is almost unknown and the temperature is in the seventies year-round.

In Mesopotamia, by contrast, farmers have always had to cope with excessive heat, drought, sandstorms, occasional floods, and insect invasions.

EGYPT’S PROTECTIVE ISOLATION

Unlike Mesopotamia, which had no real natural boundaries and was repeatedly invaded from all sides, Egypt was secure in its geographic isolation.

The country was also protected against invasion by the deserts on the east and west of the valley and by the cataracts (rapids) of the northerly flowing Nile, which prevented easy passage from the south.

On the north, the sea gave the Nile delta some protection from unwanted intruders, while still allowing the Egyptians to develop maritime operations. Only on the northeast where the narrow Sinai peninsula links

Egypt to Asia was a land-based invasion possible. Most of Egypt’s eventual conquerors arrived from this

direction.

EGYPT’S PROTECTIVE ISOLATION

Egypt’s natural walls kept it safe from external danger for a very long time. For about 2,500 years, Egyptian civilization developed in

almost unbroken safety. This isolation did have its drawbacks though.

When serious external challenges finally did come, the Egyptian governing class and general society were not prepared to resist effectively and could not adequately respond to the new situation.

EGYPT’S UNIQUENESS No other ancient civilization was so “different” as Egypt. The country possessed everything needed for a decent

life: Excellent agriculture. Natural barriers against invasion. Great natural resources. A skilled and numerous population.

Together, they gave Egypt advantages that could only be coveted.

Over time, the Egyptian educated class, especially the officials and priests, developed a sort of superiority complex toward foreigners that is rivaled in history only by that of the Chinese.

EGYPT’S UNIQUENESS The Egyptians were convinced that the gods smiled

on them and their land, that they already possessed the best of all worlds in Egypt, and that they could learn nothing of significant value from others.

So secure were the Egyptians for so long that their security eventually turned into a weakness. Their conviction of superiority became kind of a mental

cage, hemming in their imaginations and preventing the Egyptians from responding to change.

In short, they lost their abilities to adapt effectively but this weakness took a very long time to show itself – about 2,000 years.

THE PHARAOH: EGYPT’S GOD KING

In contrast to Mesopotamia, Egypt was quickly and easily unified.

At about 3100 B.C., all of the middle and lower reaches of the Nile valley came under one ruler – the pharaoh. The term pharaoh means “from the great house.”

The first pharaoh was called Menes but he appears to have been merely a legend – or if he existed in fact, we know nothing of him but his name.

The period from 3100 to about 2500 B.C. was Egypt’s foundation period and the time of its greatest triumphs and cultural achievements. During these centuries, the land was ruled by an unbroken line

of god-kings who apparently faced no serious threats either inside or outside their domain.

MENESEgyptologists identify Menes with the early dynastic period pharaoh Narmer, both of which are credited with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt.


It is important to recognize that the pharaoh was not like a god; instead, he was a god, a god who chose to live on Earth for a time.

From the moment that his days-long coronation ceremony was completed, he was no longer a mortal man. He had become immortal, a reincarnation of the great divinity

Horus. The pharaoh’s will was law and his wisdom was all-

knowing. What he desired was by definition correct and just. What he did was the will of the almighty gods, speaking through

him as one of them. His regulations must be carried out without question.

Otherwise, the gods might cease to smile on Egypt.

HORUSHorus was often the ancient Egyptian’s national patron god depicted as a falcon-headed man wearing the pschent, or a red and white crown, as a symbol of kingship over the entire kingdom of Egypt.


His wife and family, especially his son who would succeed him, shared to some degree in this celestial glory. Only the reigning pharaoh was divine, however.

Such powers in the monarch are quite rare in history and Egypt’s god-king was truly extraordinary in his powers and in the prestige he enjoyed among his people.

GOVERNMENT UNDER THE PHARAOH

The pharaoh governed through a bureaucracy, mainly composed of noble landowners who were responsible to him but were granted local powers.

There were two intervals in Egypt’s long history when the pharaoh’s powers were seriously diminished, in the so-called Intermediate Periods of 2200-2100 B.C. and 1650-1570 B.C. The causes of the first breakdown remain unclear but it

was not the result of invasion as was the second breakdown.


What enabled the pharaoh to retain such power over his subjects for so long?

For almost 2,000 years, the belief in the divinity of the king or queen persisted, as did the conviction that Egypt was specially favored and protected by the gods. There were at least three female pharaohs: Cleopatra,

Nefertiti, and Hatshepsut. This was the result of the happy situation that Egypt

enjoyed through climate and geography. Additionally, nature provided a perpetual abundance

making Egypt the only place in the known world at that time to export grain surpluses.

CLEOPATRA VII PHILOPATORThe ancient sources, particularly the Roman ones, are in general agreement that Cleopatra committed suicide by inducing an Egyptian cobra to bite her bosom (some poets mention two bites).

NEFERTITIScholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as Neferneferuaten after he husband’s death and before the accession of Tutankhamen.

HATSHEPSUT

Egyptologist James Henry Breasted regards Hatshepsut as “the first great woman in history of whom we are informed.”


Furthermore, for 3,000 years of civilized life, Egypt was only rarely touched by war and foreign invasion.

For a very long time, until the Empire period, no army – the great eater of taxes – was necessary.

THE THREE KINGDOMS It has been customary to divide Egypt’s ancient

history into dynasties (periods of monarchic rule by one family).

In all there were thirty-one dynasties, beginning with the legendary Menes and ending with the dynasty that fell to the Persian invaders in 525. The greatest were those of the pyramid-building epoch and

those of the Empire, about 1500-1300 B.C.

The dynasties are traditionally grouped into three kingdoms: the Old Kingdom the Middle Kingdom the New Kingdom

THE OLD KINGDOM The Old Kingdom (3100-2200 B.C.), which extended

from Menes to the First Intermediate Period, was ancient Egypt’s most fertile and successful era.

During these 900 years, both form and content were perfected in most of those achievements that made Egypt great: Art and architecture Divine monarchy Religion Social and economic stability Prosperity

The pharaohs were unchallenged leaders who enjoyed the willing loyalty of their people.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM The Middle Kingdom (2100-1650 B.C.) followed the

First Intermediate Period with 500 years of political stability and the continued refinement of the arts and crafts.

Trade with neighbors, including Mesopotamia and Nubia, gradually became more extensive.

The condition of the laboring poor seems to have gradually worsened while a small middle class of officials and merchants began to make itself apparent.

Religion became more democratic in its view of who could enter the afterlife.

THE NEW KINGDOM The New Kingdom (1550-700 B.C.) is also known as

the Empire. This term actually belongs only to the New Kingdom’s first

three centuries (1550-1250). The Empire began after the defeat of the Hyksos

invaders in the 1500s, the Second Intermediate Period. It lasted through the years of imperial wars against the

Hittites and others in Mesopotamia, which ended with Egyptian withdrawal.

Then came long centuries of weakness and decline that ended with Egypt’s conquest by foreigners.

THE NEW KINGDOM The Empire became an ambitious experiment in which

the Egyptians attempted to convert others to their lifestyle and government. The experiment did not work well because no one was able to

understand the Egyptian view of life or wanted it to be imposed on them.

By 1100 B.C. the pharaoh ruled only the Nile valley. During their last 300 years of independent existence, the

Egyptians were frequently subjected to foreign invasion, both over the Sinai desert and from the south by way of the great river. Before the Persians arrived in 525, the Kushites (Ethiopians) and

the Nubians (Sudanese) had repeatedly invaded – a sure sign that the power of the god-king over his people was weakening.

THE NEW KINGDOM Even after the Persian conquest, which marked the

real end of ancient Egypt’s existence as an independent state, the life of ordinary people in fields and orchards saw no marked change.

The lifestyle and beliefs of the inhabitants were by now so deeply rooted that no foreign overlord could alter them.

CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENTS

The wealth of the pharaoh and the willingness and skill of his people allowed the erection of the most stupendous monuments put up by any people or government anywhere: The pyramids and temples of the Old Kingdom, which visitors have

marveled at ever since. The pyramids (built between 2600-2100 B.C.) were designed

as tombs for the living pharaoh and were built while he was still alive. They possessed immense religious significance for the Egyptians. The Great Pyramid of Giza (Khufu or Cheops), located a few miles

outside present-day Cairo, is easily the largest and grandest edifice ever built.

Much is still unknown about the pyramids’ true purposes but the perfection of their construction and the art of the burial chambers show Egyptian civilization at its most impressive.

THE GREAT PYRAMID OF GIZA

The Great Pyramid is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one to remain largely intact.


The pyramids were not the only stone monuments erected along the Nile.

In the period around 1300, several warrior-pharaohs celebrated the fame of their empire by erecting enormous statues of themselves and their favored gods and even larger temples in which to put them. At the Nile sites of Karnak and Tel el Amarna, some of these still

stand. Most losses of artistic and architectural wonders in Egypt

have been caused not by time or erosion but by vandalism and organized tomb and treasure robbers over many centuries. All of the pharaoh’s tombs discovered to date, except the famous

King Tutankhamen, have long since been robbed of the burial treasure interred with the mummy of the dead king-god.

THE GOLDEN DEATH MASK OF TUT

The mask is adorned with the emblems of the vulture Nekhbet and cobra Wadjet, both protective symbols of the pharaoh.


The Egyptians’ mastery of stone is rivaled in Western civilization only by the artistry of the classical Greeks and Romans.

Additionally, most of this art was apparently created by artists and architects who did not know the principle of the wheel and had only primitive tools and what we consider very clumsy mathematics and physics.

Other art forms in which Egypt excelled included: Fresco painting (tinting freshly laid plaster on interior walls). Fine ceramics of all sorts and uses. Imaginative and finely worked jewelry in both stones and

metals. Miniature sculptures.


Hieroglyphics (sacred carvings) were pictographs that could convey either an idea, such as “man,” or a phonetic sound, by picturing an object that begins with a strong consonantal sound. This beginning of an alphabet was not fully developed,

however. The use of hieroglyphics, which began as far back

as 3000 B.C., gradually faded out after Egypt lost its independence in the sixth century B.C.

The complete repertory of 604 hieroglyphic symbols is now deciphered, enabling the reading of many thousands of ancient inscriptions.

RELIGION AND ETERNAL LIFE

Egypt’s religion was almost infinitely polytheistic. At least 3,000 separate names of gods have been

identified in Egyptian writing, many of them the same deities but with different names over the centuries.

Chief among them were the gods of the sun, Amon and Ra (who were originally separate but later combined into one being).

Other important deities included: Isis, the goddess of the Nile and of fertility. Osiris, god of the afterlife. Horus (Isis and Osiris’ son), made visible in the ruling

pharaoh. Ptah, the god of all life on Earth.


The Egyptians believed firmly in the afterlife. Originally, it was viewed as a possibility only for the upper

class, but gradually, the afterlife was democratized. By 1000 B.C., most Egyptians believed in a scheme of

eternal reward or punishment for their ka, which had to submit to Last Judgment by Osiris. “Ka” referred to the life-essence that could return to life, given

the correct preparation, even after the death of the physical body.

Egyptians thought of eternity as a sort of endless procession by the ka of the deceased through the heavens and the gods’ dwellings. The individual would proceed in a stately circle around the sun

forever. There was no need to work and no suffering – such was heaven.


The notion of hell as a place for the evil to pay for their sins came along in Egypt only during the New Kingdom, when things had begun to go sour.

In the reign of the young and inexperienced Akhnaton (1367-1350), the priests opposed a unique experiment: The pharaoh’s attempt to change the basic polytheistic

nature of Egyptian religion. Why the young Akhnaton (aided by his beautiful

wife Nefertiti) chose to attempt to introduce a monotheist, “one god,” cult of the sun god, newly renamed Aton.


The pharaoh announced that Aton was his heavenly father and that Aton alone was to be worshipped as the single and universal god of all creation.

The priests naturally opposed this revolutionary change, and as soon as Akhnaton was dead, they denounced his ideas and went back to the traditional methods of worship. Akhnaton is thought to have been poisoned.

This attempt at monotheism is a great novelty in ancient civilization, and will not be heard of again until the emergence of Judaism.

EGYPTIAN DAILY LIFE The Egyptian population was composed

overwhelmingly of peasants, who lived in the villages that crowded along the Nile.

Each village followed a similar pattern: The huts were set close together within the village and the

fields lay outside. Several adults lived in each hut. Each day the peasants would go to work in the fields, care for

the irrigation works, or tend the animals. Egypt had no real cities as in Mesopotamia.

Egypt’s capital cities, such as Memphis, Tel el Amarna, and Thebes, were really royal palaces and pleasure grounds for the wealthy, not commercial centers.

The common people had nothing to do with the capitals except for occasional huge labor project.

egypt

Documents

egypt advantages

modern egypt

egypts uniqueness

natural barriers

great natural resources

nile delta

nile riverthe river

egypts god king