Chapter 4 (Ancient Egypt) Flashcards
What river was central to the civilization that developed in Egypt?
The Nile River
Whats’s the world’s longest river?
The Nile River
From where to where does the Nile flow?
Africa to the Mediterranean Sea
What breaks the Nile River’s smooth course?
Six cataracts
What are cataracts?
Rock formations that create churning rapids
What was the Nile divided into?
Upper nile and lower nile
What did the lower nile region include?
the nile delta
What is a delta?
An area where a river fans out into various branches
Was the nile predictable or unpredictable?
Predictable
Why was it easy for ships to row downstream or sail upstream?
The current carried ships slightly downstream, the winds usually blew upstream
What did the nile river have annually?
Annual floods
When did the nile’s floods occur?
every summer
What did the floods deposit?
silt
What was Egypt’s climate like?
Consistently dry with lots of sunshine
What did the lack of rainfall create?
A landscape of striking contrast. black land and red land
Where was the black land?
a narrow stretch that ran along both sides of the nile
What was life at the black land like?
the river’s waters and nourishing dark silt allowed plants to grow and people to live
Where was the red land?
A vast, scorching desert that surrounded the nile?
What did the red land form?
It formed a powerful barrier against invasion and helped separate Egypt from the world beyond
What was the only major resource that Egypt lacked?
Timber
Why was Egypt able to become a huge civilisation?
rich in resources, huge food surplus, borders
Egypt was a crossroads for trade, lying along important trade routes
What did Egyptians grow to make cloth?
flax
What were the lives of poor Egyptians like?
Even poor people could eat well
When did the rivers flood?
July to October
What did farmers do while the river was flooded?
They plowed the soft ground, and scattered seeds. used animals to trample the seeds into the soil
What did the farmers do with the floodwater?
They captured floodwater in artificial lakes and channeled it to the fields
What tool made irrigation easier?
Shaduf
What was the shaduf?
A long pole with one bucket on one end and a weight on the other
When did the grain harvest start?
Mid-march
What did farmers do during the hot summers?
They prepared their fields before the next flood
What did successful farming lead to?
population growth, trade, specialised jobs
Why did farmers group together to make larger communities?
Because building and maintaining irrigation networks took. a lot of labor
As villages grew into towns, who became kings?
Village chiefs
What was Egypt divided into?
Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt
Where was the Lower Egypt region?
the nile delta region
Where was the Upper Egypt region?
the long narrow stretch. desert
What did the nile serve as?
A superhighway, encouraging contact between the upper and lower nile
How were the Egyptians unified economically and culturally?
Goods and ideas were traded freely between the kingdoms
Did the Upper and Lower Egypt stay distinct?
yea
What kind of crown represented Egypt after it was united?
a double crown
Who was the king of Upper Egypt that conquered lower Egypt and became ruler of all Egypt?
Menes
What colour was the part of the crown that represented lower Egypt?
red
What colour was the part of the crown that represented upper Egypt?
white
What was the new capital of Egypt?
Memphis
What did the first kings found?
A ruling dynasty
What is a dynasty?
A series of rulers from the same family
How many dynasties and kings did Egypt have?
31 dynasties
330 kings
What are Egyptian kings called?
pharaoh
Why were kings called pharaohs?
Because people were too afraid to speak the king’s name
What was the pharaoh like?
more than a man, worshipped as the son of Egypt’s gods and a living god himself
What strongly overlapped in Egypt?
Religion and government
What was the pharaoh’s main religious role?
To keep harmony by maintaining communication between Egypt’s people and their gods
What reinforced the pharaoh’s power?
Success
What threatened the pharaoh’s authority?
Defeat, diseases, famine
Who did the pharaoh’s day-to-day work?
Viziers
What are viziers?
Chief officials
Two viziers from where supported the pharaoh?
Upper and lower
Who would inherit the throne?
The eldest son of the pharaoh’s principal wife
Why was the passing of the throne very smooth and successful?
The son often ruled alongside his father
What was Egypt’s first great period of unity and prosperity?
the Old Kingdom
What did the pharaohs use their enormous wealth and power for?
to build the pyramids
What are pyramids?
massive monumental tombs to house their dead bodies
What did the pyramids represent?
the Egyptian belief that life is a passageway to the afterlife
Where were Egyptian kings originally buried?
Beneath low mud-brick buildings
Who made the fist pyramid?
King Djoser & talented vizier Imhotep
What was beneath the step pyramid?
a maze of chambers packed with items for the pharaoh’s spirit to use in the afterlife
What surrounded the step pyramid and why?
Huge buildings and temples surrounded the step pyramid, creating a place where the king’s spirit could live in luxury for eternity
What is the biggest pyramid in the world?
the Great Pyramid of Khufu
How did Khufu build the pyramid?
He employed farmers unable to farm during the annual floods, and used brutal methods
Name two of Khufu’s successors
Menkaure and Khafre
What did Kahfre build?
the Great Sphinx
What is the great Sphinx?
a symbol of divine power with a lion’s body and Khafre’s head
What was the great Sphinx carved out of?
A huge piece of limestone
What was the Great Pyramid a symbol of?
The pharaoh’s status as a living god and the unity of religion and government in Egypt
Why were palaces and government buildings placed around the city?
So that the pharaoh could continue running the country while building his home for the afterlife
What was Ancient Egypt’s society?
A hierarchy
What does hierarchy mean?
people belonged to different social classes and each class had a rank in society
What does social structure resemble?
Egypt’s pyramids
What did priests and nobles do?
ran the country and army
Who was 1st and 2nd in the social classes?
1st was pharaoh, 2nd was priests and nobles
Who was 3rd in the social classes?
Officials and scribes
What did officials and scribes do?
Kept the government running smoothly
Who was 4th in the social classes?
Craftsmen and merchants
Who was 5th on the social classes?
Farmers
Who was as the bottom of the social classes?
Unskilled laborers, slaves
Did women have the same rights as men?
Some.
What rights did women have?
They could own property, conduct business, and take part in court cases
What were poorer women’s lives like?
They often worked alongside their husbands, but they could do almost any job
Despite the rights, what were the main roles of women?
To be a wife and raise children
Were Egyptians polytheistic or monotheistic?
Polytheistic
What did the Egyptians believe about gods?
That they controlled every aspect of life and death
Who was the most important god?
Re (the sun god) created the world
What’s the name of the underworld god?
Osiris
What did god Anubis do?
He weighed down each dead person’s heart against the weight of an ostrich feather
If the person is good, would his or her heart be lighter or heavier?
Good person - weighs the same, admitted to the afterlife
How did Egyptian’s belief in god affect their daily lives?
To lead good lives and take burial seriously
Why are the bodies of pharaohs and other powerful people preserved as mummies?
A dead person’s spirit needed food and a body, the spirit would need to recognise the body after death
What’s the first step of mummifing?
Specialised workers remove and preserve internal organs
What’s the second step of mummifing?
The workers dried out the body and wrapped it in linen
What’s the final step of mummifing?
The body’s placed in a coffin, and priests performed special rituals that intended to give life to the mummy
What religious poem was read aloud at festivals celebrating the annual Nile flood?
Hymn to the Nile
What made the citizens doubt the pharaoh’s power as a living god?
Water shortages and famines
What did King Mentuhotep launch?
He launched the Middle Kingdom
