When people think of ancient Egypt, they think of all the famous sites
that are still around to visit and see.
The Pyramids at Giza are often what people think of as they're shown in cartoons and
movies and they were built over 4,500 years ago.
Many people are fascinated with ancient Egyptians and they are often shown walking...
like this, which they didn't, thank you fact robot.
Let's get into some real stories about the people that lived there for thousands of years
and talk about why their civilizations lasted so long and had a such a lasting influence.
Ancient Egypt was located in...
Egypt, along the Nile River, and the Nile River was a great place for a civilization.
While almost all civilizations lived along rivers, the Nile River has some special things
about it that make it especially good.
The Nile river is the longest river in the world, which not only provided water for Egyptians
and also Nubians living near the southern Nile, it helped transportation and crops,
especially in the Nile delta.
A delta is where a river “fans out” near the ocean into smaller streams, which gives
water to a larger area of land.
The Nile River also flows north, which helped transport stone from the south to build with,
and it floods regularly, once a year bringing silt, which is very fine soil, good for farming crops.
Ancient Egypt lasted a very long time, so before getting to the timeline of ancient
Egypt, let's look at some more recent events to compare and get a better idea of how long
long ancient Egypt lasted.
Here's a single block of the timeline.
The Worldwide Web, which is the beginning of the modern internet was invented about
30 years ago, which is this much on the timeline block.
The lightbulb was invented about 150 years ago, this much on the timeline and the newspaper
was invented about 400 years ago, which is the entire block.
This is the entire timeline of ancient Egypt, and here's the block, so you have a better
idea of how long it lasted.
The first period of ancient Egyptian civilization, the Predynastic Period, was much like most
civilizations in the Bronze Age, people farmed near the river, shared a common language and
culture which lasted about two thousand years from 5000-3100 BCE.
The Archaic period started around 3100 BCE when Menes founded the capital of ancient
Egypt in Memphis, in the north, near the Nile River delta.
Memphis became a large, beautiful city famous for its white walls.
Menes made Pharaohs the powerful leaders of Egypt from then on, Pharaohs were thought
to be part king, part god and their families ruled as part of their dynasty, or period
of rule by the same family.
After the Archaic Period, the Old Kingdom began in 2686 BCE.
The Old Kingdom's first Pharaoh, Djoser was the first to ask for a pyramid to be built
as a tomb for his body after death.
It looks different than most people's ideas of a pyramid, it's a step-pyramid.
The Old Kingdom was a time of peace and good fortune and the most famous pyramids at Giza
were built under the fifth and sixth dynasties.
There was a problem with building giant stone pyramids though, it's very, very expensive.
Priests gained more power towards the end of this period and as the wealth of the kingdom
declined, the Old Kingdom ended in chaos in 2181 BCE.
But don't worry, the kingdom will be back.
Memphis remained capital after the Old Kingdom, and the First Intermediate Period lasted for
nearly one hundred years until 2055 BCE.
The First Intermediate Period had many rulers, wars, starvation and disease.
It was not a good time to live in Egypt.
A Theban prince, Mentuhotep managed to gain power of all of the kingdom and unite all
of it once again, ending this period.
The Middle Kingdom had powerful Pharaohs once again and worked to regain its wealth.
They captured Nubia, the civilization to the south and expanded trade into Asia.
They also continued building pyramids and had the first female ruler of Egypt, that
wasn't Cleopatra, it was Queen Sobekneferu.
After her death the problem with building new pyramids happened once again... throwing
the region into chaos for almost two hundred years, for the Second Intermediate Period,
1786-1567 BCE.
But this isn't the last time you'll see the kingdoms...
The New Kingdom began when Ahmose I reunited the kingdom in 1567 BCE.
The New Kingdom established one of the world's first great empires, conquering the Nubians
and moving north into Asia's Euphrates River valley as well.
We know the most about the Pharaoh's tombs built during this time because Tutankhamen's
tomb was found almost undisturbed, and we will talk more about him later.
Once again, after about 500 years, great building projects and invasions made the kingdom decline.
The last two periods, the Third Intermediate Period and the Late Period, were again ones
of decline and unification.
In the end, Greeks and Persians had built giant empires that were bigger and more powerful
than Egypt.
Cleopatra, the famous Queen of Egypt was able to keep Egypt independent for a while through
diplomacy, but eventually the Romans decided to conquer it ending its timeline in 30 BCE.
One of the most famous Pharaohs was Tutankhamun of the New Kingdom, often called King Tut.
For centuries after Egypt declined, thieves took things from the pyramids and tombs of
the dead pharaohs because they often held valuable items.
Even though these things are important to study history, they were stolen and sold.
Even mummies were stolen as they were ground up into dust and sold as medicine, which is
not at all a good for anyone's health, and, gross.
Egyptologists (people who study ancient Egypt) worked to protect the artifacts of Egypt so
that they could study them.
Tutankhamun is famous as his tomb was quite small and it was discovered in 1922 almost
completely untouched.
Tutankhamun...
I'm just going to call him King Tut as well, became pharaoh when he was just nine years old.
Because he was so young, he relied upon advisors around him to make important decisions about
leading the country, and the most important decisions he made were about the religion.
His tomb was one of the smallest because he died at age eighteen, so he was only a pharaoh
for nine years.
Tombs and treatment of the dead were very important in ancient Egypt, the pyramids,
were built as tombs for pharaohs.
The Egyptian Book of the Dead was a guide on funerals and spells to protect the dead
and it was written on papyrus, which was invented in Egypt, it was like paper made from a small plant.
Preservation of a person's heart and body was important for the afterlife, people also
tried to bring their stuff and even their cats!
It was believed that after they died, the god Osiris opened the door to the afterlife.
Anubus, god of the dead would guide a person to have their heart weighed.
It was thought that doing good deeds in life would give someone a light heart, while doing
bad things would make the heart heavy.
Every person's heart would be weighed against a feather, Thoth, the god of wisdom and writing
and also the scribe of the gods would write down its weight.
If the heart was lighter than the feather, the person might to go to the Land of Two
Fields, if it was heavier, Ammut was quite happy about that.
Ammut was a god with a crocodile head, it was believed if you did something really bad
during your lifetime that the god Ammut would eat you.
As long as your body had also been preserved (or mummified, made into a mummy), if your
heart was lighter than a feather and if someone had written down your name, you were off to
sail on Ra, the Sun god's boat, into the Land of Two Fields.
From there your soul could both visit your family and enjoy the afterlife.
Believing this happens after death (or being eaten by a crocodile god) also caused people
people to behave pretty well.
Now, if you're neither dead nor royalty in ancient Egypt, what would your life be like?
Egypt had very defined social classes, which was very common.
Royalty, Pharaohs and their families had the highest position in ancient Egyptian society.
Nobles, the most powerful people in government after Pharaohs and priests were the next most
powerful class.
After them it was soldiers, artisans and scribes, the people that wrote official documents in society.
Hieroglyphic writing was learned by few people and used for royal documents written by scribes,
many people used Demotic script for everyday writing.
Hieroglyphics are understood by Egyptologists thanks to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone,
which translated hieroglyphics into Demotic and Greek.
Some of the first History (with a capital 'H') created in history (little 'h') was the
Greeks studying Egypt, so the Greeks provided many secondary sources on Egypt, and with
the Rosetta Stone, modern Historians can read their primary texts.
Getting back to the hierarchy, farmers and laborers were the citizens with the least
social status, and slaves were at the bottom of the hierarchy, not being considered citizens,
but possessions.
While the hierarchy in Egypt was similar to many other ancient civilizations, most of
its citizens enjoyed a better life than in many other places at the time.
Women had more rights, they were allowed to own property, sign contracts and even become
rulers of Egypt.
Happiness was considered important for all citizens, ma'at the idea of harmony and balance
in all aspects of one's life was thought to lighten one's heart for the afterlife and
was represented by its own goddess, Ma'at.
Ancient Egyptians enjoyed sports included hockey, handball, archery and Egyptians even
invented bowling!
Children were taught to swim while young, swimming was popular, and kids played many
water games.
Senet, a board game was also popular, which was like the game of Life, based on playing
a story of living and the afterlife.
Music, dance, gymnastics, and wrestling were also popular, and among the upper classes,
hunting large or small animals was a favorite pastime.
Education in ancient Egypt for most children was done by parents, most children grew up
and did the same jobs as their parents did.
Children of royalty, both boys and girls, since women in royal families were also involved
in government, would have formal schooling in writing, math, geography, cartography (study
of maps), science, ceremonial dance and music.
Boys in wealthy families would go to school, and studied what were called ‘wisdom texts’
with lessons about literacy and practical information for careers.
Many Egyptian students' families wanted important jobs in the royal palace, the temples or army,
a government job, tax collector or even practicing medicine with priests.
Middle class families might send sons for an apprenticeship, which was learning a craft
or special skill like creating jewelry, pottery, music or weaving and for a fee, children would
live with a master working for free while they learning from them.
Some boys, especially in the New Kingdom, joined the military which was considered very
important but was very hard and involved years of training.
Ancient Egypt lasted for five thousand years.
In its Late Period, Egypt had expanded its ruling further west in Africa, and north and
west into Asia and the onto island of Cyprus.
It was expensive and difficult to rule over this much land, and at the same time, the
Roman Empire was the most powerful in the region and was looking to grow larger.
Egypt had already adopted Greek into it's language as ancient Greece was also very influential
and Egypt became less powerful in comparison.
The last ruler of Egypt, Cleopatra, knew that Egypt's military was no match for the Romans
power and formed an alliance with Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome, trying to keep Egypt's independence.
Things didn't work out well for Caesar and when he died, The Romans took over Egypt in
30 BCE.
A civilization that lasted five thousand years is difficult to sum up in a few minutes, and
Egypt had periods of peace, wealth and power as well as war, decline and created some of
the great wonders of the ancient world.
The study Egypt is what inspired the creation of the subject of History itself.
Egypt is unique for the length of time its ancient civilization lasted, the amount of
rights given to women and its influence upon history which still fascinates people today.
We hope you enjoyed our visit to Egypt and remember kids, say no to mummy cures.
Bye for now!