Short answers Flashcards
What is the importance of the Nile River to the Egyptian people?
The Nile provided three important things: travel so people could trade, water so that people could irrigate their crops, and the flooding provided silt for the crops.
Who had the most and least power in Egyptian society? Why?
The pharaohs had the most power because everyone thought they were gods and they were responsible for keeping the gods happy. The slaves had the least power because they were war prisoners or debtors.
What was the Egyptian religion like? What were their beliefs about the afterlife?
The religion was plythestic. They believe that if they served the gods well, the gods would reward them with good crops and a happy life. They believed in an afterlife which would be happy. Anything that they would be buried with would be taken with them into the afterlife. They also preserved their body through embalming and mummification so that their body would be whole in the afterlife.
Compare and contrast the Egyptian civilization with Mesopotamia. Name on similarity and one difference between the two
Both were advanced civilizations and were located by major river sources. Both had a social class, where the rulers were on top and the slaves were on the bottom. They both believed that the way they lived impacted the way the gods would treat them. However they had different views of the afterlife. Egyptians ruled with dynasties and Mesopotamians ruled with kings.
What is the relationship between pyramids, mummification and embalming?
Priests would embalm or preserve a dead body for the afterlife by taking out the organs. Then they would dry the body out with salts during the mummification process. Lastly, if you were rich, your sarcophagus would be buried in a pyramid.
Why were the pyramids built?
Rulers of ancient Egypt called pharaohs wanted a more permanent structure to memorialize “how great they were.”
