ILOILO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY MODULE 2

GE 7 SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY LESSON 3

ANNEX 3E

Ancient Egyptian Science & Technology

https://www.ancient.eu/article/967/ancient-egyptian-science--technology/

The great temples and monuments of ancient Egypt continue to fascinate and
amaze people in the modern day. The sheer size and scope of structures like the
Great Pyramid at Giza or the Temple of Amun at Karnak or the Colossi of
Memnon are literally awe-inspiring and naturally encourage questions regarding how
they were built.

All across the Egyptian landscape rise immense structures, thousands of years
old, which have given rise to many different theories as to their construction. While a
number of very significant questions remain unanswered, the simplest explanation
for many can be found in ancient Egyptian inscriptions, texts, wall paintings, tomb
writings tomb inscriptions, art, and artifacts: the ancient Egyptians had an
extraordinary command of science and technology.

Ancient monuments and grand temples aside, the ancient Egyptians invented
a number of items which one simply takes for granted in the modern day. Paper and
ink, cosmetics, the toothbrush and toothpaste, even the ancestor of the modern
breath mint, were all invented by the Egyptians.

Additionally, they made advances in almost every sphere of knowledge from

the manufacture of simple household goods to beer brewing, engineering and
construction, to agriculture and architecture, medicine, astronomy, art and literature.
Although they did not have command of the wheel until the arrival of
the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt (c. 1782 - c. 1570 BCE),
their technological skills are evident as early as the Predynastic Period (c. 6000-c.
3150 BCE) in the construction of mastaba tombs, artworks, and tools.

As the civilization advanced, so did their knowledge and skill until, by the time
of the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323-30 BCE), the last to rule Egypt before it was annexed
by Rome, they had created one of the most impressive cultures of the ancient world.

Household Goods
The simple handheld mirror one finds so commonplace in the present day
was created by the Egyptians. These were often decorated with inscriptions and

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figures, such as that of the protector-god Bes, and were owned by men
and women alike. More ornate wall mirrors were also a part of middle- and upper-
class homes and were likewise decorated. The ancient Egyptians were very aware
of their self-image and personal hygiene and appearance was an important value.

Toothbrushes and toothpaste were invented because of the grit and sand
which found its way into the bread and vegetables of the daily meals. The image
presented in the modern day by art and movies of Egyptians with exceptionally white
teeth is misleading; dental problems were common in ancient Egypt, and few, if any,
had an all-white smile. Dentistry developed to deal with these difficulties but never
seems to have advanced at the same rate as other areas of medicine. While it
appears doctors were fairly successful in their techniques, dentists were less so. To
cite only one example, the queen Hatshepsut (1479-1458 BCE) actually died from an
abscess following a tooth extraction.

Toothpaste was made of rock salt, mint, dried iris petals, and pepper,
according to one recipe from the 4th century CE, which dentists in 2003 CE tried and
found to be quite effective (although it made their gums bleed). Another earlier recipe
suggested ground-up ox hooves and ash, which, mixed with one's saliva, created a
cleansing paste for the teeth. This recipe, lacking the mint, did nothing for one's
breath and so tablets were created from spices like cinnamon and frankincense
heated in a honey mixture, which became the world's first breath mints.

Ornamentation on furniture, although first appearing in Mesopotamia, became

more elaborate in Egypt and more refined as time went on. Different colors of ink
and different weights of paper were also developed by the Egyptians through their
invention of paint cakes and processing of the papyrus plant. Small area rugs one
finds in homes all over the world also were either invented or advanced in Egypt
(made of the same papyrus plant) as were knick-knacks in the form of cats, dogs,
people, and the gods. Small statues of gods such as Isis, Bes, Horus, Hathor,
among others have been found as parts of household shrines as the people
worshiped their gods in the home more often than at temple festivals. These statues
were made of material ranging from sun-dried mud to gold depending on one's
personal wealth.

Engineering & Construction

The great temples of ancient Egypt arose from the same technological skill
one sees on the small scale of household goods. The central value observed in
creating any of these goods or structures was a careful attention to detail. The
Egyptians are noted in many aspects of their culture as a very conservative society,
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and this adherence to a certain way of accomplishing tasks can clearly be seen in
their construction of the pyramids and other monuments. The creation of an obelisk,
for example, seems to have always involved the exact same procedure performed in
precisely the same way. The quarrying and transport of obelisks are well
documented (though how the immense monuments were raised is not) and shows a
strict adherence to a standard procedure.

Egyptian Obelisks, Karnak

by Dennis Jarvis (CC BY-SA)

The Step Pyramid of Djoser was successfully built according to the precepts
of the vizier Imhotep (c. 2667-2600 BCE), and when his plans were deviated from by
Sneferu during of the Old Kingdom (c. 2613- c. 2181 BCE), the result was the so-
called 'collapsed pyramid' at Meidum. Sneferu returned to Imhotep's original
engineering plans for his next projects and was able to create his Bent Pyramid and
Red Pyramid at Dashur, advancing the art of pyramid building which is epitomized in
the Great Pyramid at Giza.

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The technological skill required to build the Great Pyramid still mystifies
scholars in the present day. Egyptologists Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs comment on
this:
Because of their immense size, building pyramids posed special problems of both
organization and engineering. Constructing the Great Pyramid of the pharaoh Khufu,
for example, required that more than two million blocks weighing from two to more
than sixty tons be formed into a structure covering two football fields and rising in a
perfect pyramidal shape 480 feet into the sky. Its construction involved vast numbers
of workers which, in turn, presented complex logistical problems concerning food,
shelter, and organization. Millions of heavy stone blocks needed not only to be
quarried and raised to great heights but also set together with precision in order to
create the desired shape.

In order to accomplish this, the vizier would delegate responsibility to

subordinates who would further delegate tasks to others. The bureaucracy of the Old
Kingdom of Egypt set the paradigm for the rest of the country's history in accounting
for every aspect of a building project and making sure each step was proceeding
according to plan. Later in the Old Kingdom, Weni, known as the Governor of the
South, would leave an inscription detailing how he traveled to Elephantine for granite
for a false door for a pyramid and dug five canals for towboats to bring supplies for
further construction (Lewis, 33). Records such as Weni's show the immense amount
of effort required in building the monuments one finds in Egypt today. There are
numerous inscriptions relating to supplies and difficulties in building the pyramids at
Giza but no definitive explanation of the practical means by which they were built.

The most popular theory involves ramps which were constructed as the
pyramid was raised but this is actually untenable as Brier and Hobbs note:
“The problem is one of physics. The steeper the angle of an incline, the more effort
necessary to move an object up that incline. So, in order for a relatively small
number of men, say ten or so, to drag a two-ton load up a ramp, its angle could not
be more than about eight percent. Geometry tells us that to reach a height of 480
feet, an inclined plane rising at eight percent would have to start almost one mile
from its finish. It has been calculated that building a mile-long ramp that rose as high
as the Great Pyramid would require as much material as that needed for the pyramid
itself - workers would have had to build the equivilent of two pyramids in the twenty-
year time frame.”

Ramps may have been used externally in the initial stages of construction but
then were moved inside. The quarried stones were then brought in through the
entrance and moved up the ramps to their position. This, Houdin claims, would
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account for the shafts one finds inside the pyramid. This theory, however, does not
account for the weight of the stones or the number of workers on the ramp required
to move them up an angle inside the pyramid.

The Pyramids, Giza, Egypt

by Shellapic76 (CC BY)

A much more cogent theory has been proposed by engineer Robert Carson
who suggests that water power was used. It has been clearly substantiated that the
water tables of the Giza plateau are quite high and were more so during the period of
the Great Pyramid's construction. Water could have been harnessed and pressure
exerted via a pump, as Carson claims, to help raise the stones up a ramp to their
intended position. Egyptologists still debate the purpose of the shafts inside the
Great Pyramid with some claiming they served a spiritual purpose (so the king's soul
could ascend to the heavens) and others a practical left over from construction.
Egyptologist Miroslav Verner states that these questions cannot finally be answered
as we have no definitive texts or archaeological evidence to point in one direction or
another.

While that may be so, Carson's claim for water power in construction makes
more sense than many others (such as a hoist being used to transport the stones
when, clearly, there is no evidence whatsoever for Egyptian use or knowledge of a
crane) and it is known that the Egyptians were acquainted with the concept of the
pump. King Senusret (c. 1971-1926 BCE) of the Middle Kingdom drained the lake at
the center of the Fayyum district during his reign through the use of canals and
pumps were used to divert resources from the Nile in other periods. Ukranian
engineer Mikhail Volgin also cites water as central to the Great Pyramid's
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construction and claims that the pyramids were not designed as tombs at all actually
but were immense waterworks depots. He points to the lack of any mummies found
in the pyramids, their shape, and the high water table of the Giza plateau as
evidence for his claim.

Agriculture & Architecture

Whatever one makes of Volgin's water theory concerning the pyramids,
Egyptian society did depend on a reliable supply of clean water for their crops and
livestock. Ancient Egypt was an agricultural society and so naturally developed
innovations to help cultivate the land. Among the many inventions or innovations of
the ancient Egyptians was the ox-drawn plow and improvements in irrigation. The
ox-drawn plow was designed in two gauges: heavy and light. The heavy plow went
first and cut the furrows while the lighter plow came behind turning up the earth.
Once the field was plowed then workers with hoes broke up the clumps of soil and
sowed the rows with seed. To press the seed into the furrows, livestock was driven
across the field and the furrows were closed. All of this work would have been for
nothing, however, if the seeds were denied sufficient water and so regular irrigation
of the land was extremely important.

Egyptian irrigation techniques were so effective they were implemented by the

cultures of Greece and Rome. It has been noted that the Greek philosopher Thales
of Miletus (c. 585 BCE) studied in Egypt and may have brought these innovations
back to Greece (although he also studied at Babylon and could have learned
irrigation techniques there). New irrigation techniques were introduced during
the Second Intermediate Period by the people known as the Hyksos, who settled in
Avaris in Lower Egypt, and the Egyptians improved upon them; notably through the
expanded use of the canal. The yearly inundation of the Nile overflowing its banks
and depositing rich soil throughout the valley was essential to Egyptian life but
irrigation canals were necessary to carry water to outlying farms and villages as well
as to maintain even saturation of crops near the river. Historian Margaret Bunson
writes:

Early farmers dug trenches from the Nile shore to the farmlands, using draw
wells and then the Shaduf, a primitive machine that allowed them to raise levels of
water from the Nile into canals...Fields thus irrigated produced abundant annual
crops. From the predynastic times agriculture was the mainstay of the
Egyptian economy. Most Egyptians were employed in agricultural labors, either on
their own lands or on the estates of the temples or nobles. Control of irrigation

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became a major concern and provincial officials were held responsible for the
regulation of water.

Architecture surrounding these canals was sometimes quite ornate as in the

case of the pharaoh Ramesses the Great (1279-1213 BCE) and his city of Per-
Ramesses in Lower Egypt. Ramesses the Great was one of the most prolific builders
in Egyptian history; so much so that there is no ancient site in Egypt which does not
make some mention of his reign and accomplishments. In creating his grand
monuments, Ramesses' engineers called upon another invention of the Old
Kingdom: the corbelled arch. Without the concept of the corbelled arch, architecture
the world over would be significantly diminished and some structures, such as the
Great Pyramid, would be impossibilities. The grand halls of the temples of Egypt, the
inner sanctums, the temples themselves would all have been likewise impossible if
not for this advance in engineering and construction.

Abu Simbel Panorama

by Dennis Jarvis (CC BY-SA)

One of the most impressive of Ramesses' monuments is his temple of Abu

Simbel which was precisely designed so that, twice a year on 21 February and 21
October, the sun shines directly into the sanctuary of the temple to illuminate the
statues of Ramesses and the god Amun. This kind of precision in design and
construction can be seen in temples throughout Egypt which were all built to mirror
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the afterlife. The courtyard of the temple with its reflecting pool would symbolize the
Lake of Flowers in the next world and the temple itself would stand for various other
aspects of the afterlife and the final paradise of the Field of Reeds. Temples are
regularly oriented toward cardinal points and some, like the Temple of Amun at
Karnak, were used as astronomical observatories.

Mathematics & Astronomy

Astronomy was important to the ancient Egyptians on two levels: the spiritual
and the practical. Egypt was thought to be a perfect reflection of the land of the gods
and the afterlife a mirror image of one's life on earth. This duality is apparent
in Egyptian culture in every aspect and epitomized in the obelisk which was always
raised in pairs and believed to reflect a divine pair appearing at the same time in the
heavens. The stars told the stories of the gods' accomplishments and trials but also
indicated the passage of time and the seasons. Egyptologist Rosalie David
comments on this:
The Egyptians were noted astronomers who distinguised between the "imperishable
stars" (the circumpolar stars) and the "indefatigable stars" (the planets and stars not
visible at all hours of the night). They used stellar observations to determine the true
north and were able to orientate the pyramids with great accuracy...Each temple was
possibly aligned toward a star that had a particular association with the deity resident
in that building. (218)

On a more practical level, the stars could tell one when it was going to rain,
when it was nearing time to plant or harvest crops, and even the best times for
making important decisions such as building a home or temple or starting a business
venture. Astronomical observations led to astrological interpretations which may
have been adopted from Mesopotamian sources via trade. Strictly astronomical
examination of the night skies, however, were interpreted in terms of pragmatism
and recorded in mathematical calculations measuring weeks, months, and years.
Although the calendar was invented by the ancient Sumerians, the concept was
adapted and improved upon by the Egyptians.

MATHEMATICS WAS USED IN RECORD KEEPING, IN DEVELOPING THE

SCHEMATICS FOR MACHINES SUCH AS THE WATER PUMP, IN CALCULATING
TAX RATES, & IN DRAWING UP DESIGNS & SITING LOCATIONS FOR
BUILDING PROJECTS.

According to many Egyptologists, mathematics in Egypt was entirely practical.

Rosalie David, for example, claims, "Mathematics served basically utilitarian
purposes in Egypt and does not seem to have been regarded as a theoretical
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science" Ancient writers such as Herodotus and Pliny, however, consistently
mention the Egyptians as the source of theoretical mathematics, and they are not the
sole sources on this. Many ancient writers, Diogenes Laertius and his sources
among them, point to philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato, who both studied
in Egypt, and the importance of mathematical knowledge in their belief systems.
Plato regarded the study of geometry necessary for clarity of mind and it is thought
he took this concept from Pythagoras who first learned it from the priests in Egypt. In
his book Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western Philosophy, scholar
George G.M. James argues western philosophical concepts are falsely attributed to
the Greeks who merely developed Egyptian ideas, and this same paradigm may hold
for the study of mathematics as well.

There is no doubt that the Egyptians used mathematics on a daily basis for far
more mundane purposes than the pursuit of ultimate truths. Mathematics was used
in record keeping, in developing the schematics for machines such as the water
pump, in calculating tax rates, and in drawing up designs and siting locations for
building projects. Mathematics was also used on a very simple level in the medical
arts in writing prescriptions for patients and mixing the ingredients for medicines.

Medicine & Dentistry

Medicine in ancient Egypt was intimately tied to magic. The three best-known
works dealing with medical issues are the Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BCE), the Edwin
Smith Papyrus (c. 1600 BCE), and the London Medical Papyrus (c. 1629 BCE) all of
which, to one degree or another, prescribe the use of spells in treating diseases
while at the same time exhibiting a significant degree of medical knowledge.
The Ebers Papyrus is a text of 110 pages treating ailments such as trauma, cancer,
heart disease, depression, dermatology, gastrointestinal distress, and many others.
The Edwin Smith Papyrus is the oldest known work on surgical techniques and is
thought to have been written for triage surgeons in field hospitals. This work shows
detailed knowledge of anatomy and physiology. The London Medical Papyrus
combines practical medical skill with magical spells for the treatment of conditions
ranging from eye problems to miscarriages.

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The London Medical Papyrus

by The Trustees of the British Museum (Copyright)

Medical texts, other than these, also give prescriptions for dental problems.
Herodotus notes that doctors in Egypt were all specialists in their particular field and
this applied to dentists as well as any other. There was a position known as "One
Who is Concerned with Teeth", regarded as a dentist and another known as "One
Who Deals with Teeth" who may have been a kind of pharmacist. The dentist was
often called upon to pull a tooth but it seems that oral surgery was seldom
performed. Most of the medical texts dealing with dental issues are preventative or
related to pain management.

Based on the evidence of mummies who have been examined, as well as

letters and other documents, ancient Egyptians seem to have experienced fairly
severe and widespread dental problems. Dentistry does not seem to have evolved at
the same pace as other branches of medicine but still was more advanced and
showed a greater knowledge of dealing with oral pain than later remedies practiced
by other cultures. The first known dental procedure dates to 14,000 years ago
in Italy, according to evidence published in 2015 CE, but the first dentist in the world
known by name was the Egyptian Hesyre (c. 2660 BCE) who held the position of
Chief of Dentists and Physician to the King during the reign of Djoser (c. 2670 BCE)
showing that dentistry was considered an important practice as early as Djoser's
reign and probably earlier. This being so, it is unclear why dental practices did not
evolve to the same degree as other medical fields.

Artwork and many medical texts seem to largely ignore dental problems and
toothaches, but non-medical texts address them as most likely caused by a tooth-
worm which needed to be driven away by magical spells, extraction, and applying an
ointment. This belief most likely came from Mesopotamia, specifically Sumer, as an
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ancient text from that region predates the Egyptian concept of the tooth-worm.
Medical tools have been found which could have been used by dentists, but as none
are labeled or referred to clearly in texts, one cannot say for certain. It is clear,
however, that dentists had the ability to diagnose oral disease and the technology to
operate on gums and teeth.

The ancient Egyptians believed that balance, harmony, in all aspects of life
was most important and this value can be seen in almost all of their advances in the
sciences and technology: what was found lacking in life was balanced by what was
created by individual ingenuity. Although the gods were thought to have provided all
good things to human beings, it was still an individual's responsibility to care for
one's self and the greater community.

Through their inventions and advances in knowledge, the Egyptians

would have believed they were doing the god's will in making even better the
grand life and world they had been given.

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