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Chapter 4 (Ancient Egypt) Flashcards

1
Q

What river was central to the civilization that developed in Egypt?

A

The Nile River

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2
Q

Whats’s the world’s longest river?

A

The Nile River

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3
Q

From where to where does the Nile flow?

A

Africa to the Mediterranean Sea

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4
Q

What breaks the Nile River’s smooth course?

A

Six cataracts

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5
Q

What are cataracts?

A

Rock formations that create churning rapids

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6
Q

What was the Nile divided into?

A

Upper nile and lower nile

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7
Q

What did the lower nile region include?

A

the nile delta

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8
Q

What is a delta?

A

An area where a river fans out into various branches

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9
Q

Was the nile predictable or unpredictable?

A

Predictable

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10
Q

Why was it easy for ships to row downstream or sail upstream?

A

The current carried ships slightly downstream, the winds usually blew upstream

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11
Q

What did the nile river have annually?

A

Annual floods

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12
Q

When did the nile’s floods occur?

A

every summer

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13
Q

What did the floods deposit?

A

silt

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14
Q

What was Egypt’s climate like?

A

Consistently dry with lots of sunshine

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15
Q

What did the lack of rainfall create?

A

A landscape of striking contrast. black land and red land

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16
Q

Where was the black land?

A

a narrow stretch that ran along both sides of the nile

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17
Q

What was life at the black land like?

A

the river’s waters and nourishing dark silt allowed plants to grow and people to live

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18
Q

Where was the red land?

A

A vast, scorching desert that surrounded the nile?

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19
Q

What did the red land form?

A

It formed a powerful barrier against invasion and helped separate Egypt from the world beyond

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20
Q

What was the only major resource that Egypt lacked?

A

Timber

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21
Q

Why was Egypt able to become a huge civilisation?

A

rich in resources, huge food surplus, borders
Egypt was a crossroads for trade, lying along important trade routes

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22
Q

What did Egyptians grow to make cloth?

A

flax

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23
Q

What were the lives of poor Egyptians like?

A

Even poor people could eat well

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24
Q

When did the rivers flood?

A

July to October

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25
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
26
What did the farmers do with the floodwater?
They captured floodwater in artificial lakes and channeled it to the fields
27
What tool made irrigation easier?
Shaduf
28
What was the shaduf?
A long pole with one bucket on one end and a weight on the other
29
When did the grain harvest start?
Mid-march
30
What did farmers do during the hot summers?
They prepared their fields before the next flood
31
What did successful farming lead to?
population growth, trade, specialised jobs
32
Why did farmers group together to make larger communities?
Because building and maintaining irrigation networks took. a lot of labor
33
As villages grew into towns, who became kings?
Village chiefs
34
What was Egypt divided into?
Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt
35
Where was the Lower Egypt region?
the nile delta region
36
Where was the Upper Egypt region?
the long narrow stretch. desert
37
What did the nile serve as?
A superhighway, encouraging contact between the upper and lower nile
38
How were the Egyptians unified economically and culturally?
Goods and ideas were traded freely between the kingdoms
39
Did the Upper and Lower Egypt stay distinct?
yea
40
What kind of crown represented Egypt after it was united?
a double crown
41
Who was the king of Upper Egypt that conquered lower Egypt and became ruler of all Egypt?
Menes
42
What colour was the part of the crown that represented lower Egypt?
red
43
What colour was the part of the crown that represented upper Egypt?
white
44
What was the new capital of Egypt?
Memphis
45
What did the first kings found?
A ruling dynasty
46
What is a dynasty?
A series of rulers from the same family
47
How many dynasties and kings did Egypt have?
31 dynasties 330 kings
48
What are Egyptian kings called?
pharaoh
49
Why were kings called pharaohs?
Because people were too afraid to speak the king's name
50
What was the pharaoh like?
more than a man, worshipped as the son of Egypt's gods and a living god himself
51
What strongly overlapped in Egypt?
Religion and government
52
What was the pharaoh's main religious role?
To keep harmony by maintaining communication between Egypt's people and their gods
53
What reinforced the pharaoh's power?
Success
54
What threatened the pharaoh's authority?
Defeat, diseases, famine
55
Who did the pharaoh's day-to-day work?
Viziers
56
What are viziers?
Chief officials
57
Two viziers from where supported the pharaoh?
Upper and lower
58
Who would inherit the throne?
The eldest son of the pharaoh's principal wife
59
Why was the passing of the throne very smooth and successful?
The son often ruled alongside his father
60
What was Egypt's first great period of unity and prosperity?
the Old Kingdom
61
What did the pharaohs use their enormous wealth and power for?
to build the pyramids
62
What are pyramids?
massive monumental tombs to house their dead bodies
63
What did the pyramids represent?
the Egyptian belief that life is a passageway to the afterlife
64
Where were Egyptian kings originally buried?
Beneath low mud-brick buildings
65
Who made the fist pyramid?
King Djoser & talented vizier Imhotep
66
What was beneath the step pyramid?
a maze of chambers packed with items for the pharaoh's spirit to use in the afterlife
67
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
68
What is the biggest pyramid in the world?
the Great Pyramid of Khufu
69
How did Khufu build the pyramid?
He employed farmers unable to farm during the annual floods, and used brutal methods
70
Name two of Khufu's successors
Menkaure and Khafre
71
What did Kahfre build?
the Great Sphinx
72
What is the great Sphinx?
a symbol of divine power with a lion's body and Khafre's head
73
What was the great Sphinx carved out of?
A huge piece of limestone
74
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
75
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
76
What was Ancient Egypt's society?
A hierarchy
77
What does hierarchy mean?
people belonged to different social classes and each class had a rank in society
78
What does social structure resemble?
Egypt's pyramids
79
What did priests and nobles do?
ran the country and army
80
Who was 1st and 2nd in the social classes?
1st was pharaoh, 2nd was priests and nobles
81
Who was 3rd in the social classes?
Officials and scribes
82
What did officials and scribes do?
Kept the government running smoothly
83
Who was 4th in the social classes?
Craftsmen and merchants
84
Who was 5th on the social classes?
Farmers
85
Who was as the bottom of the social classes?
Unskilled laborers, slaves
86
Did women have the same rights as men?
Some.
87
What rights did women have?
They could own property, conduct business, and take part in court cases
88
What were poorer women's lives like?
They often worked alongside their husbands, but they could do almost any job
89
Despite the rights, what were the main roles of women?
To be a wife and raise children
90
Were Egyptians polytheistic or monotheistic?
Polytheistic
91
What did the Egyptians believe about gods?
That they controlled every aspect of life and death
92
Who was the most important god?
Re (the sun god) created the world
93
What's the name of the underworld god?
Osiris
94
What did god Anubis do?
He weighed down each dead person's heart against the weight of an ostrich feather
95
If the person is good, would his or her heart be lighter or heavier?
Good person - weighs the same, admitted to the afterlife
96
How did Egyptian's belief in god affect their daily lives?
To lead good lives and take burial seriously
97
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
98
What’s the first step of mummifing?
Specialised workers remove and preserve internal organs
99
What's the second step of mummifing?
The workers dried out the body and wrapped it in linen
100
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
101
What religious poem was read aloud at festivals celebrating the annual Nile flood?
Hymn to the Nile
102
What made the citizens doubt the pharaoh's power as a living god?
Water shortages and famines
103
What did King Mentuhotep launch?
He launched the Middle Kingdom

HISTORY (5 decks)

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