First Civilizations Africa and Asia

1. First Civilizations Africa and Asia 3200 B.C. – 500 B.C.

2. S.W.B.A.T • Describe the Kingdoms and religious beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians.

3. Geography • The fertile lands of the Nile Valleyattracted Stone Age farmers. People migrated from the Mediterranean area, from hills and deserts along the Nile, and from other parts of Africa. • Without the Nile river, Egypt would be swallowed up by the barren deserts that surrounded it. While the desert protected Egypt from invasion, it also limited where people could settle. • In order to try and control the raging Nile River, people built dikes, reservoirs, and irrigation ditches. This allowed them to channel the rising river and store water for the dry seasons.

4. The Nile River The Nile is the longest river in the world. It is 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers) long. This is the distance from New York to San Francisco and halfway back again. Mediterranean Sea The Nile Red Sea Egypt

5. Without the Nile there would have been no civilization in Egypt because it is a desert. During the rainy season, the Nile River floods its banks and pours sand, silt, and nutrients into the surrounding desert soil. Over centuries the Nile has brought rich farming soil and water to the desert.

6. Ancient Egyptian history is broken up into two sections: The Old Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. • During the Old Kingdom, Egyptian rulers called pharaohs organized a strong, centralized state. Pharaohs claimed divine support for their rule. • Egyptians believed the pharaoh was a living god. The pharaoh thus had absolute power, owning and ruling all the land in the kingdom.

7. Old Kingdom New Kingdom Late Period Middle Kingdom BCE BCE 712 3200 2060 1580 5500 2156 1640 332 1070 2nd Intermediate Period Pre-Dynastic Greco-Roman Period 1st Intermediate Period 3rd Intermediate Period Timeline of Egyptian History Ancient Egyptian history lasted for about 5500 years. Historians divide Egyptian history into smaller units of time called periods. There are nine periods of Egyptian history, starting in the Stone Age and ending in Roman times.

8. Duties of Pharaoh • Serve as commander-in-chief of the army. • Approve public building projects of the various nomes. • Approve irrigation projects. • Find ways to calm civil riots. • Make appointments to the bureaucracy. • Consider taxes. • Listen to and answer requests from foreign kings. • Make laws. • Decide in capital cases whether to impose a death sentence or commute a case (spare the guilty person’s life).

9. The Pyramids • During the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians built the majestic pyramids that still stand at Giza. The pyramids were tombs for eternity. • Because Egyptians believed in an afterlife, they preserved the bodies of their dead rulers and provided them with everything they would need in their new lives. • To complete the pyramids, workers hauled and lifted millions of limestone blocks, some weighing two tons or more. The builders had no iron tools or wheeled vehicles. Building pyramids too so long that pharaoh’s would often begin building their tomb as soon as they inherited the throne.

10. Great Pyramid of Giza

12. Cairo Photo of the pyramids taken from Earth’s orbit at 202 nautical miles (374 km) by a space shuttle astronaut.

13. The New Kingdom • Power struggles, crop failures, and the massive cost of the pyramids contributed to the collapse of the Old Kingdom. During the New Kingdom, powerful and ambitious pharaohs created a large empire. • At its height, the Egyptian empire reached the Euphrates River. This age of conquest brought Egypt into greater contact with southwestern Asia as well other parts of Africa.

14. Powerful Rulers • One monarch of the New Kingdom, Hatshepsut, was a woman who exercised all the rights of a pharaoh. From 1503 B.C. to 1482 B.C., she encouraged trade with eastern Mediterranean lands and along the Red Sea coast of Africa. • The most powerful pharaoh of the New Kingdom was Ramses II. Between 1290 B.C. and 1224 B.C., Ramses pushed Egyptian rule northward as far as Syria. • After Ramses II, Egyptian power slowly declined. Invaders, such as the Assyrians and Persians, conquered the Nile region. Later, Greek and Roman armies would invade from the north.

15. Hatshepsut, a Woman Pharaoh Hatshepsut was the great wife of the Pharaoh Thutmosis II, who died without any male heirs. Hatshepsut took over Egypt. She maintained peace during her 21 years as Pharaoh of Egypt. All ceremonies and rites for Pharaoh were made for men. Hatshepsut had to wear a false beard to conduct matters of state. When she died, a sphinx statue of her was made with a ceremonial beard.

16. Hatshepsut’s Temple Hatshepsut commanded her advisor andlover, Senmut, to build her temple. It is one of the most beautiful temple complexes in all of Thebes.

17. Mummified remains of Ramses II

18. Ramses II

19. Egyptian Religion • In the sun-drenched land of Egypt, the chief god was the sun god, Amon-Re. The pharaoh, whom Egyptians viewed as a god as well as a monarch, was closely linked to Amon-Re. Only the pharaoh could conduct certain ceremonies for the sun god. • Egyptians also worshiped Osiris and Isis. Osiris was the ruler of the underworld, as well as the Nile River. Egyptians believed that Osiris controlled the annual flood that made the land fertile.

21. Isis had special appeal for women, who believed that she had first taught women to grind corn, spin flax, weave cloth, and care for children. Isis was worshipped as the ideal motheras well as the goddess of nature and magic’ • Egyptians believed that Osiris and Isis had promised them eternal life after death. Belief in the afterlife affected all Egyptians, from the highest noble to the lowest peasant.

22. Isis

23. Belief in An Afterlife • The Egyptians believed that each soul had to pass a test in order to win eternal life. According to Egyptian belief, the dead soul would be ferried across a lake of fire to the hall of Osiris. • There, Osiris would weigh the dead person’s heart against the feather of truth. Those he judged to be sinners would be fed to the crocodile-shaped Eater of the Dead. Worthy should would enter the Happy Field of Food, where they would live forever in bliss.

24. Egyptians believed that the afterlife would be much like life on Earth. As a result, they buried the dead with everything they would need for eternity. • To give a soul use of its body in the afterlife, Egyptians perfected the skills of mummification, the preservation of the dead. • Skilled embalmers extracted the brain of the dead person through the nostrils and removed most of the internal organs.

25. Egyptian Pharaohs (Kings) would have their organs taken out and placed in jars to be preserved for the afterlife.

27. They filled the body cavity with spices, then later dried and wrapped the body in strips of linen. This costly process took months to complete. • At first, mummification was a privilege reserved for rulers and nobles. Eventually, ordinary Egyptians also won the right to mummify their dead.

29. S.W.B.A.T. • Explain the discovery of King Tut’s tomb and Egyptian Society.

30. The Tomb of Tutankhamen • Many pharaohs were buried in the desolate Valley of the Kings. Their tombs, filled with fantastic riches, were a temptation to robbers in ancient times. As a result, most royal tombs were stripped of their treasures long ago. • Then, in 1922, the British archaeologist Howard Carter unearthed the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen. It had remained almost untouched for more than 3,000 years. The tomb and its treasures have provided a wealth of evidence about Egyptian civilization.

31. Howard Carter and King Tut

32. The body of the 18-year-old “King Tut”had been placed in a solid-gold coffin, nested within richly decorated outer coffins. • Today, the dazzling array of objects found in the tomb fills several rooms in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. They include chariots, weapons, furniture, jewelry, toys, games and food. • Tutankhamen was only a minor king. We can only imagine what treasures must have filled the tombs of great pharaohs like Ramses II.

33. King Tut

36. Egyptian Society • Like other early civilizations, Egypt had its own class system. As both a god and an early leader, the pharaoh stood at the top of society, along with the royal family. • Directly under the pharaoh were the high priests and priestesses, who served the gods and goddesses. • Next came the nobles, who fought with pharaoh’s wars. A tiny class of merchants, scribes, and artisans developed slowly. They provided for the needs of the rich and powerful.

38. Egyptian women generally enjoyed a higher status and greater independence than women elsewhere in the ancient world. Under Egyptian law, women could inherit property, enter business deals, buy and sell goods, go to court, and obtain a divorce. • Women’s work was not just confined to the home. They manufactured perfume and textiles, managed farming estates, and served as doctors. • Women could also enter the priesthood, especially in the serves of the goddesses. Despite their many rights and opportunities, few women learned to read and write.

40. Written Records • Like other early civilizations, the ancient Egyptians developed a form of picture writing. Hieroglyphics were used to keep important records. Early on, priests and scribes carved hieroglyphics on stone. • Inscriptions on temples and other monuments preserved records of Egyptian culture that have endured for thousands of years. • The Egyptians also learned to make a paper-like writing material from papyrus, a plant that grows along the banks of the Nile. Writing with reed pens and ink on the smooth surface of papyrus strips was much easier than chiseling words onto stone.

43. The Rosetta Stone • After the New kingdom declined, Egyptians forgot the meaningsof ancient hieroglyphics. Not until the early 1800s did a French scholar, Jean Champollion, unravel the mysterious writings on Egypt’s great monuments. • Champollion managed to decipher, or decode, the Rosetta Stone. This flat, black stone has the same message carved in three different forms of script—hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. • By comparing the three versions, Champollion patiently worked out the meanings of many hieroglyphic symbols. As a result of this, scholars could now read thousands of recordsfrom ancient Egypt.

44. Jean Champollion

46. The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC by King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three languages: Hieroglyphs, demotic script, and ancient Greek. Because the same text is used in all three scripts it provided the translation for Hieroglyphics.

47. Advances in Medicine and Science • The ancient Egyptians accumulated a vast store of knowledge in fields such as medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. When they had a problem, they used trial and error to find a solution. • Like most doctors until recent times, Egyptian physicians believed in various kinds of magic. Yet, through their knowledge of mummification, they learned a lot about the human body. • They also became skilled at observing symptoms, diagnosing illnesses, and finding cures. Many medicines that Egyptian doctors prescribed are still used, including anise, castor beans, and saffron.

49. S.W.B.A.T. • Explain Egyptian contributions to Science and Mathematics and the Mesopotamian Culture.

50. Egyptian priest-astronomers studied the heavens, mapping out constellations and charting the movements of the planets. With this knowledge, they developed a calendar that had 12 months of 30 days each and 5 days added at the end of each year. • Nile floods forced Egyptians to redraw the boundaries of fields each year. To do this, they developed practical geometry to survey the land. • Egyptian engineers also used geometry to calculate the exact size and location of each block of stone to be placed in a pyramid or temple.