BICOL UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

ANCIENT EGYPT
EARLY HUMAN CIVILIZATIONS

GROUP 3
Justin Colina STS PROF.
Michael Consorte
Engr. Sylvester Ruivivar
Arvin James Dagta
Irina Isabel Dy
Joshua Jason Fernandez
Ericson Fertalcorin
Abby Gayle Gervacio
Vinzent Jhon Cris Iglopas
 INTRODUCTION
The Ancient Egypt is the most powerful civilization in the history and around 3100
B.C. to its conquest by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.-ancient Egypt was the
preeminent civilization in the Mediterranean world. But, before the empire was a series
of small independent city-states that located along the Nile River. It was divided into
two regions and it was named according to the flow of river named Upper Egypt
(Upstream) and Lower Egypt (Downstream). Around 3100 B.C the two halves united
creating one Egyptian state. The reign of the civilizations is divided into 3 major
periods called Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, and 2 periods of
instability in between called First Intermediate, and Second Intermediate Periods.
The Old Kingdom began with the third dynasty of pharaohs. The third dynasty’s King
Djoser asked Imhotep, an architect, priest and healer, to design a funerary monument
for him. The Egyptian pyramid-building reached its zenith with the construction of the
Great Pyramid at Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo. During the third and fourth dynasties,
Egypt have fun from the golden age of peace and prosperity, the pharaohs had
provided stable central government and they have no serious threats from abroad.
The fifth and sixth dynasties was out of money to spend because of huge expense of
pyramid building. Later on, after the death of sixth dynasty’s King Pepy II, the old
kingdom ended.
In the fall of the third kingdom, the seventh and eighth dynasties consisted of a
rapid succession until about 2160 B.C. The First Intermediate Period was a dynamic
time where rule of Egypt was roughly equally divided between two competing power
bases. One of those bases was at Heracleopolis in Lower Egypt, a city just south of the
Faiyum region. The other was at Thebes in Upper Egypt. The country lacked the unity it
had maintained since the time of Narmer, this period ended with the rise of
Mentuhotep II of Thebes. The Theban prince Mentuhotep managed to topple
Heracleopolis and reunited Egypt, beginning the 11th dynasty and ending the First
Intermediate Period.
A new capital was established, around 2000 BC, a pow
erful leader named Mentuhotep II became king of southern Egypt. He launched an
attack on the north and eventually reunited Egypt under one rule. This began the
period of the Middle Kingdom. Under the rule of Mentuhotep II, Thebes became the
capital of Egypt. The Middle Kingdom was a time of achievements for the ancient
Egyptians. Art took on new styles and techniques, like the block style, where art was
produced from large blocks of stone. It was during the Thirteenth Dynasty that the
pharaoh's control of Egypt began to weaken. A group of kings in northern Egypt, called
the Fourteenth Dynasty, split from southern Egypt. As the country ended, the Middle
Kingdom collapsed and the Second Intermediate Period began.

 The Second Intermediate Period begins as the Egyptian rulers of the 13th Dynasty
move the capital from Itj-tawi (in Lower Egypt near Lisht, south of Memphis) back to
Thebes, the old capital of the late 11th Dynasty in Upper Egypt, loosening their control
over the north. Around 1650 B.C., a rulers known as the Hyksos took advantage of
Egypt’s instability to take control. Hyksos ruled concurrently with the line of Theban
rulers of the 17th dynasty, who retained control over most of southern Egypt despite
having to pay taxes to the Hyksos. The fall of Itjtawy to the Hyksos was the final straw.
At Thebes, another former royal city, the Egyptian nobles declared their independence
from the Hyksos ruled kingdom and started an Egyptian led seventeenth dynasty.
In the late Second Intermediate Period, the Theban Monarchs begun to expel the
Hyksos kings from the Delta. Ahmose I unified Egypt that leads to the New Kingdom.
In Dynasty 18, Ahmose's successors conducted military campaigns that increased
Egypt's influence in the Near East and established Egyptian control over Nubia until the
fourth cataract. As a result, the New Kingdom pharaohs wielded unimaginable power,
much of which they lavished on their gods, particularly Amun-Re of Thebes, whose cult
temple at Karnak was expanded by succeeding generations of rulers and filled with
votive statues commissioned by kings and courtiers alike. The ancient Egyptian city of
Thebes was a cultural and religious center during the New Kingdom. The pharaohs
built their mortuary temples here and were buried in huge rock-cut tombs. A town was
established in western Thebes for the artists who created these tombs; they left a
wealth of information about life in an ancient Egyptian community. The New Kingdom
of Egypt was a period of nearly 500 years of political stability and economic prosperity,
and produced an abundance of artistic masterpieces. Known especially for
monumental architecture and statuary honoring the gods and pharaohs, it also
produced many works of art created for use by nonroyal individuals.
The next 400 years–known as the Third Intermediate Period–saw important changes
in Egyptian politics, society and culture. Centralized government under the 21st
dynasty pharaohs gave way to the resurgence of local officials, while foreigners from
Libya and Nubia grabbed power for themselves and left a lasting imprint on Egypt’s
population. The 22nd dynasty began around 945 B.C. with King Sheshonq, a
descendant of Libyans who had invaded Egypt during the late 20th dynasty and
settled there. Many local rulers were virtually autonomous during this period and
dynasties 23-24 are poorly documented.
The Persians invaded Egypt again in the mid-fourth century B.C., restoring their
kingdom under Ataxerxes III in 343 B.C. Alexander the Great of Macedonia overcame
the Persian Empire's forces and conquered Egypt only a decade later, in 332 B.C.
Following Alexander's death, Egypt was controlled by a succession of Macedonian
kings, beginning with Alexander's general Ptolemy and continuing through his
successors. Cleopatra VII, the legendary Ptolemaic Egypt's final monarch, abandoned
Egypt to Octavian's armies in 31 B.C. (later Augustus). Following six centuries of Roman
control, Christianity became the official religion of Rome and the lands of the Roman
Empire (including Egypt). The Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century A.D.,
along with the introduction of Islam, would annihilate the final vestiges of ancient
Egyptian civilization and push the country into its current form
 ANCIENT EGYPT CONTRIBUTION TO THE
FIELD OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Ancient Egypt has left an indelible mark on the world. The Ancient Egyptians were truly
masters of invention. Because Ancient Egypt was an agricultural nation, it naturally
created technologies to aid in the cultivation of the land. Among the Egyptians'
numerous inventions or advancements are the following:
WRITING
✓ Mainly the earliest form of Egyptian writing, the hieroglyphics, which combined
logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic elements, and had a total of some 1,000 distinct
characters, & paper too.
ADVANCED THE SCIENCES
✓ Mathematics like geometry, medicine which includes surgical instruments similar to
those used today, accounting and astronomy while much of the world remained living
in primitive conditions.
TIME
✓ They’d their findings to monumental construction & temples and all the
paraphernalia constructed methods for measuring time and distances, the calendar &
sundials and applicant goes with large, organized societies.

METALLURGY
✓ Such as bronze tools, weapons, armor & building materials, the lever, the plow, grain
mills,

CONSTRUCTION
✓ Canals, pyramids and irrigation channels were also contributions of Ancient Egypt.

Here is a list of some contributions made by the Egyptians' ancestors.

✓ The world's first written language (Egyptian hieroglyphs) was invented in 3000 BC
which makes them one of the pioneers in writing techniques.
✓ They built pyramids like no other civilization, including Khufu's Great Pyramid, the
only surviving one still standing today because it survived intact through each stage of
construction without collapsing or suffering natural erosion.
✓ Science and mathematics were advanced by the Ancient Egyptians. Not only did
they use basic geometry, but they also developed a method of solving large numbers
of simultaneous linear equations..
✓ They used a system of rods and spheres to measure land distances.
✓ The Egyptians invented two-way mirrors called catoptric mirrors which could
reverse the image of what was being seen in the reflection instead of refraction,
showing a clearer picture for both parties involved.
✓ They used a mathematical approach to design the Egyptian Pyramids with their
own newly invented trigonometry.
✓ A solar calendar was used in Ancient Egypt, and was the most accurate of any
calendar until modern times.
✓ The water clock was also invented in Ancient Egypt, and became the most accurate
timekeeping device for over 1400 years until it was superseded by mechanical clocks.
✓ The Ancient Egyptians invented a method of creating artificial lakes, which they
used to grow crops and conserve water
✓ They also made sugar from sugar cane and numerous other techniques like making
cotton from flax and weaving it into material
✓ They invented the wigs used in ancient times, which were the first wigs in history.
Some Egyptian pharaohs wore wigs made from real human hair, but wig-weaving was
also a common skill of lesser women in ancient Egypt.
✓ The Egyptians made wine which was exported all over Europe
✓ They are known to have invented several surgical instruments for surgery that are
still being used today including the forceps, pincers, catheters, retractors and
probes. ✓ The eye salvage operation was also invented by Ancient Egyptian surgeons
✓ Ancient Egyptians were the first to create prostheses for replacement of body
parts ✓ They are also responsible for discovering how to preserve wood, which was
used in many European countries for building houses.
✓ Ancient Egyptians are also famous for inventing several musical instruments
including the organ, harp, lyre and the lyre-harp
✓ The world's first cathedrals were built by the Egyptians.
✓ They used a drawing of a heart as their symbol to represent life
✓ The Egyptian scribe invented hieroglyphics which is used in all modern languages
✓ They also invented alphabets which is used in all modern languages except Arabic
✓ Ancient Egyptian society was very advanced and scientific even without the use of
writing technology because they developed mathematics that could be applied to
everyday life
✓ Ancient Egyptians were the first to create and use mirrors for their own purposes
✓ The Egyptians created a highly accurate calendar that was used by other people in
the world up until modern times
✓ They invented the abacus, which is an ancient calculating device still used today
✓ They also made paper from linen and papyrus which was used all over Europe until
we had capable of making paper from wood
✓ They also invented the first paper mill in history
✓ The first written language in history was created by the Egyptians
✓ They were one of the first civilization to develop writing technolog
 HOW THESE CONTRIBUTIONS
THE SOCIETY CHANGED
WRITING
It was vital to the ancient Egyptians to preserve and transmit knowledge about religion
and governance. As a result, they devised written scripts for recording this information.

Hieroglyphic is the most well-known of the ancient Egyptian scripts. However, at least
three additional scripts were employed for various reasons over the ancient Egyptian
civilisation's three thousand years. Scribes used these scripts to record ancient Egypt's
beliefs, history, and ideals on temple and tomb walls, as well as papyrus scrolls.

They began to employ symbols to express elementary notions in Egypt towards the
end of the Predynastic Period (c. 6000 - c. 3150 BCE). This early writing, according to
Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, "was restricted to the briefest notations meant to
identify a person or a location, an event or a property". The first use of writing was
most likely in trade, to communicate information about products, pricing, and
acquisitions from one location to another. The first genuine evidence of Egyptian
writing, in the form of Offering Lists from the Early Dynastic Period, comes from tombs.

The first pictographs gave rise to hieroglyphics. Symbols and images were used to
represent ideas such as a person or an event. The difficulty with a pictogram is that the
amount of information it can hold is restricted. A woman, a temple, and a sheep may
all be drawn, but there is no way to communicate their relationship.

The Sumerians learned to expand their written language by using symbols that
represented the language directly, so that if they wanted to convey specific information
about a woman, a temple, and a sheep, they could write, "The woman took the sheep
as an offering to the temple," and the message would be clear.
This system was established by the Egyptians, who added logograms (word symbols)
and ideograms to their writing. An ideogram is a'sense sign' that uses a familiar symbol
to convey a specific message. A negative sign is perhaps the greatest example of an
ideogram: everyone knows what it means: subtract. The emoji is a recent example that
anybody familiar with texting will recognize; putting a picture of a laughing face at the
end of a phrase indicates that the speaker is joking or thinks the subject amusing.
Hieroglyphic script was founded on the phonogram, logogram, and ideogram.
Throughout Egypt's history, hieroglyphics were employed in various types of writing,
but they became most famous as the script of monuments and temples. The majesty
of colossal inscriptions was enhanced by hieroglyphics, which were arranged in
elegantly shaped rectangles. Hieratic was initially employed in religious writings, but it
soon spread to other fields including business administration, magical texts, personal
and business communications, and legal documents like wills and court records.
Hieratic was written on papyrus or ostraca and used on stone and wood to practice.
Around 800 BCE, it evolved into a cursive form (known as 'abnormal hieratic'), which
was eventually supplanted by demotic script around 700 BCE.

Coptic was the script of Egyptian Christians known as Copts, who spoke Egyptian
dialects but wrote in the Greek alphabet with certain demotic modifications. Because
the Greek language included vowels, the Copts included them into their alphabet to
ensure that everyone reading it, regardless of their original tongue, understood what
they were reading. Coptic script was employed to transcribe and preserve a number of
important texts, most notably the books of the Christian New Testament, and also
served as a key to deciphering hieroglyphics for future generations.

It's been suggested that the significance of hieroglyphics was forgotten when people
forgot how to read and write the symbols in later times of Egyptian history.
Hieroglyphics were in use as late as the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and only went out of favor
with the emergence of the new religion of Christianity in the early Roman Period. There
were gaps in the usage of hieroglyphics throughout the country's history, but the art
was not lost until the world depicted by the script changed. Hieroglyphic writing
became a thing of the past as Coptic script became the new paradigm of Egyptian
civilization. No one in Egypt knew anything about the Arab Invasion in the 7th century
CE. Hieroglyphic writing fell into obscurity as Coptic script became the new paradigm of
Egyptian civilization. By the time of the Arab Invasion in the 7th century CE, no one in
Egypt knew what was happening.