Government by a God-King
- Pharaoh was all powerful, worshipped as a god and intimately connected to the other major Egyptian gods and goddesses.
- Egyptians relied on a harmony and balance of the universe, which they called "maat"
- Pharaohs had multiple wives, and all routes to financial and social success were through the palace.
- Women could inherit money and land and divorce their husband, though only a tiny few ever wielded real political power.
Gods, Humans, and everlasting life
- Gods were often portrayed with animal heads and bodies
- Egyptians believed in an afterlife and mummified bodies to preserve them for this post-death journey
- All souls would need to justify themselves at the point of death and be either sent to an after-world paradise, or the jaws of a monster.
The Writing of the Words of God
- Earliest Egyptian writing formed c. 3100 B.C. and were small pictures known as hieroglyphs
- Hieroglyphs represented religious words, or parts of words, and most commonly adorned temples
- Hieratic script was a shorthand development by scribes and priests
- Hieratic script was usually written in ink on papyrus, which was made from mashed Nile reeds
- Papyrus, the precursor to paper, was stored in scrolls and these scrolls were the books of ancient Egypt.
Calendars and Sailboats
- Egyptian astronomers created a calendar with 12 months and 365 days to make better sense of the seasonal cycles.
- Due to the excellent knowledge of human anatomy, Egyptian doctors wrote extensively on health issues and created potions and cures for a number of common ailments
- Wooden sailboats were constructed to increase transport ability on the Nile
Pyramids and Temples
- The pyramids were massive stone tombs, originally covered in marble but the marble was later stripped off during the Muslim conquest
- The Temple of Amon at Karnak is the largest religious building in the world, also made out of huge blocks of stone
- Stone sculptures and interior painting depicted humans as gods in a series of regulated poses, often in profile and without perspective, but were highly effective
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