Ancient Egypt

        By: Judd H.    

They built great structures..........................learn about their life.

    The valley of the "long river between the deserts," with a lot of floods, and deposits of life-giving silt, has a year-long growing season. It was one of the earliest civilizations by humans. This civilization is almost staggering. Other land's histories are measured by the centuries, but Egypt's is measured by the millennia.

    The study of this country's history is so famous that it has its own name, Egyptology. When you study about Egyptology, you will learn about Hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics are written with such symbols. They are on mummies' graves. They tell about the person's life. Egyptology is a very cool career to have.

    From the beginning there was a concept of the Godlike character, of the king who they call Pharaoh, ever since Egypt was united (c.3200 BC).

    It was a king named Menes who is responsible for uniting his kingdom of Upper Egypt with Lower Egypt by conquering his rival kingdom in the Nile delta.

    A landmark of Egyptian history was the III Dynasty.  At this time, the religion of sun-worship was being introduced. The pharaoh's names were Nebka, Djoser, Snefru, Snedjus, Sanakht, Qa-Hedjet, Manetho, and Huni. The years were 2780-2680 B.C. The Turin-King list states that Djoser was considered the founder of the dynasty.  Snefru was the most famous Pharaoh of this dynasty.

              Here is a table of the dynasties, the years, and their famous rulers:

   During the fifteenth dynasty there were invasions starting foreign domination between the pharaohs Taharka and Assyrian. In the thirtieth dynasty, which was the last, the dynasties ended with the conquering of Alexander the Great. 

  The average Egyptian's life.........

The Peasant Farmer

    Most Egyptians were poor peasant farmers.

    They normally farmed on large estates owned by the pharaoh and the temples. Farmers would break up the soil with hoes and plows pulled by oxen. Then they scattered seeds, which were trodden into the ground by goats, sheep, and pigs. The peasant farmers worked hard, but their lives were much easier than those of other ancient farmers. Why? Because they didn't have to fertilize the ground since the Nile flood gave them new soil every year.     

           Wine Making           

        The climate of northern Egypt is warm, so grapes grew well there. Workers would pick the grapes and place them in large vats, where men would crush them with their feet to make juice. Only richer Egyptians could afford wine, but everyone enjoyed beer.                            

Gods

      The Egyptians might have had more gods than any other civilization. Their gods ruled everything. They ruled everything from the sun to the ocean. There were many animal gods, the crocodile god Sobek and the hawk god Horus are two of them. Many of these animal gods had other animals parts, too. Sobek wore ram's horns, and cobras, making him the strongest god, because he had taken these other animals' strengths. Horus was the protector of the pharaoh. Ra was just a vulture. Opet was another mixed animal. He was a hippo with a crocodile tail. Hathor was the cow goddess. If I named all the rest of the gods, it would take up a lot of pages.

Structures

      Probably the category the Egyptians are most famous for is their great and small structures. They built more structures than I can name, and that is why I have a hyperlink at the end. Some of these are The Great Pyramids, The Sphinx, and the Palmero Stone, which names the pharaohs in order.

These are The Great Pyramids.

This is the Sphinx: 

Click HERE for more info!!!!!!!, 

Only if you are interested in Ancient Egypt! This is also a hyperlink!