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
