Exam Topics 9/1

1, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt

Mesopotamia
-Geographical location:
The name Mesopotamia comes from Greek meaning ‘between rivers’. It lay between the
rivers Tigris and Euphrates providing annual floods. As a result it had reach soil,
with slight irregular rain. Water problem was caused by the unpredictable flooding
of the rivers and by the lack of rain, it was irrigational farming.

-Civilisation:
Mesopotamia is a geographical term, not political. There were different empires by
different names founded in the territory in different periods of the history of
Mesopotamia. The first settlements appeared around 4000 BC, when the Sumerians
founded city-states in the southernmost part of Mesopotamia. There was close
relation between religion and government; in these early societies deity kingdoms
were formed. All land belonged to the gods and as the king was God's vicar king-
priest, lands were controlled by the king and the priestly class and the rest of
the land was owned by the community of the settlements. The society was based on
agriculture and the role of irrigation was central.

-Religion and culture:

Culture: Sumerians invented writing very early, they used cuneiform (wedge-shaped
pictograms made on clay tablets with reed stalks).
Religion was polytheistic - people worshipped many gods. The gods personified the
elements and natural forces.

Egypt
-Geographical location:
Egypt lies in the valley of the Nile, which provides annual, regular floods and it
means natural reclamation and provides clay. It is relatively separated to Upper
and Lower Egypt. Despite the lack of stone and wood, limestone, granite, gold,
copper, semiprecious stones were mined or traded - from about 4000BC they created
contact with Mesopotamia.

-Civilisation:
The absolute lord was the Pharaoh, he was worshipped as a god, the lord of all
lands. The priests owned land and held the most important political positions.
Nobility were seated in the highest offices, they formed from the religious
establishment. Peasantry represented the majority of the society, they produced
food and provided workforce for the public works. There was patriarchal slavery,
which had little importance slaves were mostly captured in wars and worked around
the house.

-Religion and culture:

There were altogether some 2000 gods - polytheism was characteristic of Egyptian
religion. The son of Osiris and Isis Was Horus the falcon god, the protector of
kings. Afterlife: death is the main threatening change in life. They believed in
the afterlife, which could be happy after satisfactory preparations - mummies were
created. The word mumiya comes from the Arabic. The mummies were embalmed bodies
mostly of pharaohs whose vital organs were put into canopic jars before the body
was embalmed.
Writing: The hieroglyphs (sacred writing),were pictograms which later signalled
sounds. It was more difficult than cuneiform. The writing material was papyrus. It
could be made into a book, which was an Egyptian invention, but it was more
perishable.
Medicine: Ebers Papyrus contains the description of 700 illnesses. Homer reckoned
the Egyptian medicine the most developed.
Sciences: The Egyptians could solve simple equations with one unknown quantity.
Geometry concentrated on architecture and administrative purposes.
Architecture is distinctive of tombs, memorials of the pharaohs. The pyramids were
built under the direction of scribes. The Great Sphinx represented King Khafra as a
man-headed lion.