xlii Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Research and Activity Ideas
• Pretend you are a pharaoh who has ordered the building of a pyramid, or a Chinese emperor preparing his tomb. What people and items would you want to have with you in the next life? Write a list of these, and explain why each is important.
• Like Hammurabi, Moses, or the Romans who wrote the “Twelve Tables,” your job is to create a set of laws to gov- ern a nation. Make a list of things identified as crimes, and the punishment you think would be fair; also make a list of activities you would want to encourage, and how the government could do so. Conduct the group like a Greek democracy: all members of the group have an equal vote, though it is advisable that you first elect a leader to direct the discussion. After creating an initial set of proposed laws, conduct a vote to decide which should become offi- cial. Voting should be by secret ballot.
• Just as the ancient peoples had their myths and legends to explain the world, there are myths and legends in modern life. Who are the great heroes and villains of today, and of recent years—for example, political leaders and entertain-
xliii
ment figures—and why do you think they are perceived as heroes or villains? How do you think they will be remem- bered, and what legends have developed or will develop around them? Modern legends often develop from rumors accepted as fact: what rumors have you heard, about things or events of local or national interest, which turned out not to be true? Discuss as a class.
• Choose a civilization covered in this book, and find pic- tures showing how people dressed in that place and time. Make simple costumes, using materials easily available at home, that resemble the clothing of that ancient civiliza- tion. On a given day, all members of the class should come to school in their costumes (or change clothes at school for the event) and conduct class as though it were a gathering of people from different civilizations. Talk to each other “in character,” as though you were an Egyptian, for instance, or a Roman. Discuss your beliefs and your world, how you are different and similar—-thus, for instance, if you are a Hindu from India, you believe in reincarnation; or if you are an Israelite, you worship Yahweh.
• Find a map of the Persian “Royal Road,” the Old Silk Route in Asia, or the Roman roads (for example in Roy Burrell’s Oxford First Ancient History, listed in the Bibliography). Compare the length of these roads to interstate highways that run through your area. What problems would travel- ers on those ancient highways face that people on modern interstates do not?
• Divide into seven groups, each of which will report on one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This may include cre- ating a model, if possible, though models do not need to be detailed. For the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, for instance, one could use houseplants and stacked card- board boxes. (The Colossus of Rhodes may be depicted with clothing.)
• Look up examples of ancient Sahara rock art in Basil Davidson’s Ancient African Kingdoms, pp. 43—57 (see bibli- ography of AFRICA chapter); in the June 1999 National Geographic (“Ancient Art of the Sahara” by David Coulson, pp. 98—119); or some other source. Pick out a piece of art- work that interests you, read the caption to learn more about it, and draw your own version.
xliv Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
• Interview a doctor about the Hippocratic Oath. What does it mean to him or her? What are some situations in which he or she has applied the Oath? How do doctors sometimes fail to apply it? Present the results of your interview in class, and discuss as a group.
• Pick a five-page section of text in this series or another appropriate volume. Copy the pages, then read them and highlight all words of more than two syllables. Look these words up in a dictionary and make a list of all those derived from Latin, as well as those derived from Greek. Also include the original Latin or Greek word and its meaning. For example, section comes from the Latin secare, to cut; appropriate from proprius, to own; and volume from volumen, a roll or scroll.
• Conduct an athletic event similar either to a tlatchli match, substituting handball, tennis, or volleyball for the Mesoamerican game; or a Greek footrace in the Olympics. Class members should choose whether to be participants or spectators, since both are necessary, but unlike ancient games, girls should be encouraged to take part in competi- tion. If participating in a tlatchli game, remember that in Mesoamerican culture, those who lost were sacrificed; therefore players on both sides should later report to the class how they felt while playing. If simulating an Olympic event, class members should be appointed to write an ode to the winner, and to prepare a laurel crown (using small leafy tree branches, for example) for him or her.
• Many ancient peoples were concerned with what happened to a person after they died: the Egyptians and Chinese believed that, with proper preparation, a person would live on the earth; the Hindus believed in reincarnation; the Greeks and Romans believed that most people went to Hades, and a very few good or bad ones went either to the Elysian Fields or Tartarus; and the Christians, of course, accepted the idea of Heaven and Hell. Divide into groups, each of which pretends to hold a certain belief. Explain why your group believes in its explanation of the afterlife.
• Imagine that you are a young person in China, Greece, or Rome, or that you are a member of one of the “barbarian” tribes that threatened those societies. Depending on which group you belong to—-civilized or “barbarian”—-write two pages concerning how you feel about the other group.
Research and Activity Ideas xlv
Egypt 1
he world’s first major civilization developed in Egypt more than five thousand years ago. It flourished longer than almost any society in human history. The Egyptians, who were very concerned about what happens in the afterlife—that is, in a life after death—built vast tombs called pyramids for their kings, the pharaohs. Many of the pyramids are still standing. They represent some of the greatest architectural achieve- ments of human history. Closer to home, a legacy (a gift from the past) of ancient Egypt can be found in many a modern household, thanks to the Egyptians’domestication, or taming, of the house cat. The Egyptians were also one of the first peo- ples to develop a system of writing, which they called hiero- glyphics; and a basic type of “paper,” derived from the papyrus (pronounced puh-PIE-russ) plant. (The word paper comes from papyrus.) Though Egyptian society declined after 332 B.C., it exerted a huge influence over Greece and Rome. Out of Greek and Roman civilizations ultimately came the cultures of Europe and the nations influenced by those cultures—includ-
ing the United States.
1
N
A S I A
Medi te rranean Sea
Nile Delta
Lower Egypt Giza
Memphis
Cairo
SINAI PENINSULA
miles
0 200
0 200 kilometers
400
400
A F R I C A
S A H A R A
Upper Egypt
First Cataract
Second Cataract
Third Cataract
Aswan
A R A B I A N
P E N I N S U L A
Area under Egyptian control
Ancient coastline Ancient city Great Pyramid Sphinx
Cataract (rapids)
Fourth
Cataract
Fifth Cataract
Khartoum
White Nile R.
Sixth Cataract
Blue Nile R.
Map of Egypt. XNR Productions. The Gale Group.
Where to find Egypt
Egypt lies in the northeastern corner of the African continent, along the Nile River. The Nile flows through a vast desert, including the Sahara, which separates Egypt from most of Africa. To the northeast of Egypt is the Sinai (SIGH-nye) Peninsula, which links Africa with the Asian land mass. To the east is the Red Sea, which separates Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. North of Egypt is the Mediterranean Sea, on the shores of which many ancient civilizations developed. Today, the region around Egypt is called the Middle East. To histori- ans studying the ancient world, this area is known as the Fer- tile Crescent.
Facts of life (and death) in Ancient Egypt
It is impossible to talk about ancient Egypt without talk- ing about the Nile River, the center of Egyptian life. Just as a per-
2 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
son’s body is built around their spine, the Nile was the spine of Egypt; without it, there would have been no pharaohs or pyra- mids or any Egyptian civilization of any kind—only desert.
Not only is the Nile the world’s longest river, at 4,160 miles (6,695 kilometers), it is also the only major river on Earth that flows northward. From its source deep in the African con- tinent, in the present-day nation of Burundi, the Nile flows into Lake Victoria, crosses the Equator, and spans half the length of Africa, running through the countries of Uganda and Sudan before entering Egypt.
More than halfway along its course, near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the Nile changes in two important ways. The first of these changes is the beginning of the cataracts, or rapids, which interrupt the smooth flow of the river. Just above Khartoum is the Sixth Cataract. As the Nile snakes gradually northward, it passes through several more of these rapids, each numbered in descending order. The First Cataract lies near the modern city of Aswan; above this point, Egyptian civilization developed.
Even more important than the cataracts, however, is the second change. At Khartoum two rivers come together to form the Nile as the ancient Egyptians knew it. These two bod- ies of water are the White Nile, which flows up from the south; and the Blue Nile, which originates to the southeast, in Ethiopia. The White Nile has a relatively stable flow, whereas the Blue Nile experiences a dramatic rise and fall during the course of the year because it comes from an area prone to heavy summer rains.
In ancient times, the Blue Nile caused flooding from July to September. These floods, rather than being disasters, were essential to the life of Egypt. As the floodwaters receded each year, they left a deposit of silt, a type of soil rich in miner- als. Silt has a consistency somewhere between that of sand and clay. The enriched earth was perfect for growing wheat and bar- ley. Most years the farmers of Egypt had bountiful harvests.
Thanks to the Nile, Egypt was known as the Black Land—that is, a place of black earth good for crops. Beyond the Nile Valley, however, lay the Red Land. This was the desert, which covered more than ninety percent of Egypt. With the exception of a few scattered oases (green areas), this area was
Egypt 3
Words to Know: Egypt
Afterlife: Life after death, in which peoples’ spirits go on living in an afterworld, or future world.
Architect: Someone who designs a building or other structure.
Assassination: Killing, usually of an important leader, for political reasons.
Astronomy: The scientific study of the stars and other heavenly bodies, and their movement in the sky.
Barge: A type of boat used for transporting cargo.
Bureaucracy: A network of officials who run a government, and sometimes make it diffi- cult to achieve progress.
Cartouche: A vertical oval with hieroglyphs inside it, spelling out the name of a king.
Cataracts: Rapids along the Nile.
Census: A count of the people living in a country.
Chariot: A small and highly mobile open-air wagon drawn by horses.
Class: Social rank or group.
Colonize: To turn a place into a territory of another country.
Commoner: Someone who is not a member of a royal or noble class.
Concubine: A woman whose role toward her husband is like that of a wife’s, but with- out the social and legal status of a wife.
Decipher: To translate a code.
Decomposition: The decaying of a dead body.
Deity: A god.
Delta: A triangle-shaped area where a river’s waters empty into the sea.
Diplomacy: The use of skillful negotiations with leaders of other nations in order to influence events.
Disillusionment: Loss of faith in old beliefs, without the adoption of new beliefs to replace the old.
Divine: God-like.
Dynasty: A group of people, often but not always a family, who continue to hold a position of power over a period of time.
Embalming: The process of preparing a dead body so that it will not rapidly decompose.
Engineer: A person who oversees the building of large structures.
Famine: A period when there is not enough food in a region to feed all its people.
Hieroglyphics: A system of symbols, called hieroglyphs, which made up the Egyp- tians’ written language.
Intermediate: In between.
Ironic: When something is intended to be one way, but turns out to be quite different from what was intended.
Islam: A faith that arose in Arabia in the A.D.
600s, led by the prophet Muhammad
(A.D. 570?–632.)
Legitimacy: The right of a ruler to hold power. Mason or stonemason: A type of craftsman
who builds with stone.
4 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Mastaba (MAHS-tah-buh): Rectangular mud- brick tombs that preceded the pyramids in Egyptian history.
Metallurgy: The science of metals. Monotheism: Belief in one god.
Mortuary: A place where bodies are prepared for burial by morticians.
Mummification: The Egyptian art of embalm- ing, which included wrapping a body in linen bandages.
Muslim: A believer in Islam.
Nomarch: A governor of a province in ancient
Egypt.
Outcropping: A large piece of rock sticking up from the earth.
Pagan: Worshiping many gods.
Papyrus: A type of reed from which the Egyp- tians made the first type of “paper.”
Perspective: An artistic technique of represent- ing faraway objects so that they appear smaller than objects close by.
Pharaoh: The title for the king of ancient Egypt.
Pictograms, phonograms: Two types of writ- ten symbol, the first of which looks like the thing it represents, the second of which represents a specific syllable.
Plateau: A large flat area. Polytheism: Worship of many gods.
Propaganda: A type of writing or other art that a government uses to influence peo- ples’ opinions about the government
and its opponents.
Proportion: The size of one thing in relation to something else, and the proper represen- tation of their relationship.
Pyramidon: A small pyramid.
Quarry: A place from which stone or rock is removed from the earth.
Radical: (adj.) thorough or sweeping changes in society; (noun) a person who advocates such changes.
Reclamation: The raising of land formerly cov- ered by water.
Sarcophagus: A brightly decorated coffin of ancient times, which often bore the face of the person buried within.
Scribes: A small and very powerful group in ancient society who knew how to read and write.
Silt: A type of soil rich in minerals, deposited by a flooding river.
Sophistication: Development, complication, or refinement.
Spatial relationship: The space between and within objects, a concept closely related to the idea of proportion.
Standing army: A full-time, professional army.
Successor: Someone who comes after some- one else, as for instance a king who fol- lows another. Its opposite is predecessor.
Theocracy: A government controlled by reli- gious leaders.
Usurper: Someone who seizes power.
Vizier: A chief minister.
Egypt 5
and is a hellish place where no living creature could long sur- vive. No wonder, then, that the Egyptians’ religion depicted the red god of the desert, Set, as an evil deity (DEE-ih-tee).
Even with the Nile, Egypt is a hot, dry, country; with- out it, the climate would be almost unbearable. Although the modern nation of Egypt is more than 700 miles wide at its widest point, virtually all of Egyptian civilization—both now and in ancient times—focuses on a narrow strip of land that spreads out for a few miles on either side of the Nile. This land is the Nile Valley, which forms the rim of the river as it flows for some 500 miles through Egypt.
Cairo, the modern capital, is close to the site of Mem- phis, one of ancient Egypt’s capitals. Near Cairo the Nile begins its final stage before flowing into the Mediterranean Sea. This region is the Nile Delta, an area perhaps 100 miles long and about as wide. Most major rivers have a delta, a triangle-shaped region where the river slows down before emptying into the sea. In a delta, the river’s waters fan out, depositing great loads of silt and creating particularly rich soil for farming.
Not only was the Nile the source of all life in ancient Egypt, it was also the principal highway for commerce and other transportation. If people wanted to go from southern Egypt (Upper Egypt) to the north, the currents would carry their boat. If they wanted to travel from the north (Lower Egypt) to the south, they had only to rely on the Mediter- ranean winds to push a sailboat. Thus the river formed the framework of Egyptian civilization. A later historian would describe Egypt as “the gift of The Nile.” The Egyptians in turn believed that the Nile came from the source of all life and the source of all things both good and bad: the gods.
Gods, pharaohs, and the afterlife
Most ancient cultures placed a strong emphasis on gods or deities, which they used as a means of explaining things in the natural world such as the ocean and the thunder. With the exception of the Hebrews, virtually all ancient cultures had a pagan belief system—that is, they worshiped many gods. These beliefs were certainly held by the Egyptians, who usually repre- sented their gods as beings with bodies of men or women but the heads of other creatures.
6 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Principal among the Egyptian deities were Ra, the sun god, who later came to be called Amon-Ra; Osiris (oh- SIGH-riss), the god of the underworld; Isis (EYE-siss), the goddess of the home; the evil Set; and the falcon- headed Horus (HORE-us). There were hundreds of gods, each with its own priests, temples, and rituals. And then there were the men who the Egyptians believed were close to gods: the pharaohs.
In modern America, people are used to following the lives of celebri- ties, stars they read about in magazines and see on television shows. In ancient Egypt, by contrast, there was only one “star,” and he was the pharaoh. The word pharaoh (FAIR-oh) means “great house” or “one who lives in the palace.” This was the title for the king of Egypt, but the pharaoh was much more than a mere king. He was seen as a link between the gods and
humankind, and the people viewed him more as a divine being than as a human. They addressed him as “son of Ra” or by other godlike names, and they considered him an earthly embodiment of Horus. Thus Egyptian illustrations often por- trayed the pharaoh as a falcon, like Horus, whose wings cov- ered the world.
When a pharaoh died, the Egyptians believed, he became one with the god Osiris and ruled over the dead. This role might seem unpleasant, but to the Egyptians, the afterlife was more important than life on earth. They believed that a person did not really die: the person’s spirit would continue to live for eternity—if the people who prepared the body for bur- ial followed certain procedures. Therefore the Egyptians built enormous tombs, the pyramids, for the pharaohs.
Pyramids were not simply graves. They were houses in which the pharaoh’s spirit would live until it came time to emerge and begin life again in the afterworld. Along with dolls
Osiris, god of the underworld. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
Egypt 7
symbolizing their wives and servants, pharaohs were buried with various treasures, including jewelry as well as models of furniture, chariots, and boats. So that they would not go hun- gry, their tombs contained great quantities of food and drink, which would often be supplemented by offerings of more food and drink at a temple attached to the pyramid.
The pyramids housed the pharaoh’s body, but that body first had to be preserved. Therefore the Egyptians devel- oped the art of mummification. Eventually not only pharaohs, but Egyptian nobles and ultimately even rich commoners (nonroyalty) began having themselves mummified and buried in their own elaborate tombs. Indeed everyone, not just the pharaohs and the upper classes, believed that they would con- tinue living in the afterworld. Only the select few, however, could afford to make what Egyptians considered the proper preparations.
Everything about the pharaoh distinguished him from other people—even the items he wore. One of these items was a rectangular-shaped ceremonial beard (i.e., it was not his real hair), that hung straight down from the chin about six inches. Often pharaohs were shown with arms crossed over their chests, each hand holding objects that symbolized their power: usually a whip and a crook. A pharaoh’s crook is a long, hooked, striped object that looks a bit like a candy cane.
As it is today in the desert, headgear was extremely important in the hot, dry climate of Egypt. The pharaoh’s head cloth, called a nemes, served to distinguish him from his sub- jects. From the front, the nemes (pronounced NEM-ease) had a shape like thick hair that hung down over both of his shoul- ders, to about the center of his rib cage. Like the crook, it was striped; across the top, over his eyebrows, it had a band of gold. At the center of this band were one or two golden cobras, the fearsome poisonous snakes that lived in the deserts around Egypt. This stood for the cobra goddess that protected the kings and queens of Egypt.
As impressive as the nemes looked, it was not the pharaonic crown. (The word “pharaonic” is simply pharaoh transformed from a noun to an adjective.) To describe his crown and its symbolism, however, it is necessary to appreci- ate what happened when a pharaoh named Menes united the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt in about 3100 B.C.
8 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Egypt before the Old Kingdom
(5500–2650 B.C.)
Before the time of ancient Egypt, there were two lands called Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. One might assume that Upper Egypt would be north of Lower Egypt, but this was not so: the terms upper and lower refer to the two regions’ relative elevation or height along the Nile. Because northern Egypt was downstream from southern Egypt, it was “lower.”
Based on what historians know, Lower Egypt was not “lower” than Upper Egypt in terms of culture. In fact, it was more developed, as symbolized by the establishment of the first Egyptian capital in the northern city of Memphis. Yet it appears that in the unification of the country that occurred in about 3100 B.C.,Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt and then adopted much of its northern neighbor’s culture.
According to tradition, the king who brought together the two Egypts—in effect, the first pharaoh—was named Menes (MEN-ease), though he may have been named Narmer or Aha. Because of uncertainty about his identity, he is usually considered a semi-legendary figure. In other words, he may have lived, but most likely much of what historians “know” about him is mere legend.
What is certain is that Egypt was unified and that this unification created the world’s first national government. For almost 3,000 years, Egypt would be ruled by a series of dynas- ties, or royal houses, who would each in turn claim the title of pharaoh for themselves. A dynasty is a group of people, often but not always a family, who continue to hold a position of power over a period of time. The ruling dynasty might change (in all, Egypt had thirty-one dynasties), but the unified king- dom of Egypt continued to exist. It provided a single govern- ment that made trade and travel possible throughout the Nile Valley and Delta. The pharaoh’s crown became a symbol of the unified kingdom: it combined the tall white crown of Upper Egypt with the squat red crown of Lower Egypt.
Early dynasties
Apart from the shadowy figure of Menes, history has preserved little concerning the identities of pharaohs in the almost five centuries between the unification of Egypt and the
Egypt 9
Egyptian hieroglyphics, photograph. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
beginning of what historians call the Old Kingdom of Egypt. The First Dynasty followed Menes by some 200 years, appearing in about 2920 B.C. The end of the Second Dynasty nearly thee hundred years later ushered in the Old Kingdom.
Historians do know that these early dynasties already featured many of the characteristics commonly associ- ated with ancient Egypt. For instance, these early Egyptians had a type of bur- ial mound called a mastaba (MAHS-tah- buh), which would later develop into pyramids during the Old Kingdom. Rectangular in shape and with sloping sides, mastabas were tombs made of mud bricks. They looked very much like the houses in which the common people of Egypt lived, but these were houses for royalty, and they were meant to last for eternity.
Even more important than these early pyramids, however, was
another element of Egyptian life that dates back to the early dynasties. This was the development of writing through use of a system of symbols called hieroglyphs.
Hieroglyphics
The Egyptian system of writing was called hieroglyphics, and the symbols it used were called hieroglyphs. Whereas the English alphabet uses only twenty-six letters, hieroglyphics made use of some 700 different symbols. There were two types of hieroglyphs, pictograms, which looked like the things they represented—for example, a picture of flowing water to stand for the word ”water”—and phonograms, which stood for an entire syllable. For an English speaker, the concept of a phono- gram is difficult to understand: It would be as though the “syl” in syllable, for instance, could be represented with just one let- ter instead of three. Chinese and Japanese are modern exam- ples of languages that make use of phonograms.
10 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Whereas most people in Amer- ica can read and write, the vast major- ity of Egyptians were illiterate. Even pharaohs were not likely to be literate. Because written communication is essential to any civilization, the people who could read and write were bound to be very powerful. This literate group was known as scribes, and indeed they were enormously influential. Their equivalent in modern society would be people who can write computer pro- grams and develop software.
Egyptians were strong believers in magic, and to them, words were magical. This was particularly true of written words. Indeed the term hiero- glyph is Greek for “sacred carving.” Given the sacred, magical nature of words, the scribes became like priests of a sort. The complicated nature of hieroglyphics, incidentally, was no accident: scribes deliberately made the system difficult in order to maintain their positions of influence.
Originally these symbols were also difficult to write down, though this probably had nothing to do with the scribes’ efforts to keep themselves in a job. Hieroglyph comes from a root word meaning “to carve,” and the first hiero- glyphs—the oldest known example dates from about 2950
B.C.—were carved into stone. Likewise scribe, a word coined much later by the Greeks, means “to scratch an outline.” Dur- ing the Middle Kingdom, the development of hieratic script, along with the use of papyrus, would make writing much eas- ier The scribes’ influence, however, would remain strong. Next to the royalty, high government officials, and priests, they were the most powerful figures in Egyptian society.
The Old Kingdom (2650–2150 B.C.)
Historians have difficulty placing exact dates on
ancient Egyptian history before the period of the New King-
The Sphinx sits in front of the Giza pyramid in Cairo, Egypt. Originally, the Sphinx was plastered and brightly painted.
The Library of Congress.
Egypt 11
Egyptians pulling building materials. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
dom, which began in the 1500s B.C. Generally, however, the half-millen- nium (500 years) from the beginning of the Third Dynasty in about 2650 B.C. to the end of the Sixth Dynasty in 2150
B.C. is considered the Old Kingdom of Egypt. This is a period noted for the building of the greatest and most impressive pyramids, which occurred during the Fourth Dynasty. But the pyramids would not have been possible without the establishment of a strong central government that commanded the willing submission of its subjects.
One misconception many peo- ple have about the building of the pyramids was that it was done by slave labor; in fact the vast majority of work- ers on these enormous projects partici- pated of their own free will. A large portion of them were farmers who worked during the Nile’s summer floods, and they received food and
shelter (the Egyptians did not use money as such) in return for their labor.
Indeed, there were few slaves in ancient Egypt, though this is not to say that all people were equal in that society. On the contrary, the pharaoh occupied the highest class, followed by a group that included priests, scribes, and soldiers. Below this was a larger class of merchants, overseers, and other pro- fessionals, and at the bottom was the bulk of the population, mostly farmers and servants.
The people built the king’s tomb by the sweat of their brows. History would remember the pharaohs as the “builders” of the pyramids, even though few of them had any- thing to do with the design, much less the labor. Yet few Egyp- tians saw anything unfair about the humble state of the peo- ple compared with the wealth and splendor of the pharaoh. By helping the king build his eternal house, the common peo- ple believed, they were ensuring their own protection in the afterworld.
12 Ancient Civilizations: Almanac
Because the Egyptian king was like a god, the allegiance of the people to their ruler was absolute; otherwise, it would have been impossible for the pharaohs to demand the vast sacrifices of sweat and toil (not to mention resources such as food for the workers) required to build the pyramids. The people’s belief that they needed the pharaoh’s protection, both in the pre- sent world and the next, was the “glue” that held the Old Kingdom together.
As for the need to protect Egypt from outside invaders, there was little to fear—thanks to nature, not the pharaohs. An invading army could only come into Egypt by one of two routes: across the desert, which was impossible, or up the Nile, which the Egyptians controlled. Egypt at this time had no need for a standing army (that is, for a full-time military pre- pared for warfare at any time). There were minor campaigns far beyond
Egypt’s borders, as they fought the Nubians to the south and the people of the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast for control of valuable mines. For the most part, however, the pharaohs were free to devote themselves to what they considered the most important aspect of life: preparing for death.
From the Step Pyramids to the Bent Pyramid
As noted earlier, the first royal tombs were boxlike structures called mastabas. However, by the time of the pharaoh Zoser (or Djoser), who reigned from about 2630 to
2611 B.C., the mastabas had begun to seem too plain for a king’s eternal dwelling. Zoser’s need for a structure that would properly glorify him in the afterlife led to the creation, by his brilliant architect Imhotep, of the first pyramid.
Imhotep, who held the rank of vizier, or chief minister, was among the most learned men, not only of his time, but of any time. Trained as a scribe, he was also an engineer, a math-
Limestone figure of Pharoah Zoser. Roger Wood/Corbis.
Reproduced by permission.
Egypt 13
The gods of Egypt
Given the importance of the Nile, one might think that the principal Egyptian deity would be the god of the river, but that honor went to a god who represented the other great natural force in the life of Egypt: the sun. Ra, the sun god and king of the gods, had come from Nun, a state of disorder that preceded the creation of the world. The light Ra brought to the Earth gave life. But Ra disappeared each night. Some worshipers believed he was born each day, then got older as he traveled across the sky, until he died when he went below the horizon. Ra was usually depicted with a sun-like disk, much like a halo but flat, over his head. In southern Egypt, there was a similar god named Amon, and eventually his identity was joined with Ra’s to make Amon-Ra, the supreme god.
Ra’s children were twins, a boy named Shu (pronounced like “shoe”) and a girl named Tefnut (TEFF-noot). Shu ruled over the air, holding up the sky, and Tefnut
helped him. The strain of this task caused her to shed tears, which provided the morning dew. Just as the royalty of Egypt tended to marry their relatives, the same was true of the gods: Shu and Tefnut produced two children, Geb and Nut (like Tefnut, rhymes with “loot”). The two were born holding one another, so Ra commanded Shu to separate them; Geb became the sky, and Nut the earth.
Geb and Nut had two sons and two daughters. The most notable of these was the son Osiris, who educated the Egyptians in agriculture and city-building. He married his sister Isis, goddess of the home, and was murdered by their brother Set, who threw Osiris’s body into the Nile. Later Isis rescued Osiris with the help of Nephthys (NEFF-thiss), Set’s twin sister. Yet Osiris decided to stay in the land of the dead, or the underworld, and became the god of that region. The Egyptians believed that like Ra, he remained in a constant
ematician, a master builder, and a renowned wise man. Ironi- cally it was he, and not Zoser, who would come to be glorified by successive generations, who worshiped him as a god because of his great genius.
Imhotep built a structure composed of six mastabas on top of one another, each smaller than the one below. This became the Step Pyramid of King Zoser, built in the town of Saqqara (suh-CAR-uh) near Memphis. The Step Pyramid stood some 200 feet, or twenty stories high. Around it was an elabo-
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state of death and rebirth, symbolized by the yearly rise and fall of the Nile.
Osiris was usually depicted as a pharaoh (or king), with an Egyptian crown and the other emblems carried by the pharaoh. Isis usually had angel-like wings. Above her head a moon disk like Ra’s sun disk, surrounded by cow’s horns. The evil god Set was usually seen with the head of a crocodile or that of a monster.
As the god of the relatively more barren southern half of Egypt, Set desired the fertile lands ruled by Osiris, and this led to the murder of his brother. With Osiris dead, Set began to mistreat his sisters Isis and Nephthys. Nephthys was also Set’s wife and became the goddess of mourning.
While Osiris was alive, Nephthys had disguised herself as Isis and had a child with him, and though Isis later found out, she was not angry with her sister. This child was Anubis (uh-NEW-biss), god of the dead,
who helped prepare bodies for the afterlife. He was typically shown with the body of a man and the head of a jackal or dog.
Osiris also had a son by Isis, Horus, who was born weak and became more vulnerable still when he lost his father and had to be raised by his mother. He was often tormented by his wicked uncle Set. But Osiris came back to life periodically to teach Horus how to fight, and eventually Horus—depicted as a man with the head of a falcon, and the sun and moon for eyes—became a powerful warrior. Later he defeated Set in battle. Ra forced Set into the desert, where he ruled over a kingdom of sand, rocks, and scorpions.
These were some of the principal gods and goddesses, but there were many, many more. Each geographical area had its own deities. There were hundreds of gods, each of which had its own temple and priests.
rate walled complex that included a temple as well as buildings that looked like temples but were not. They had false doors and could not be entered, a tactic to fool grave robbers. There was also a long court on which King Zoser, watched by crowds from all over Egypt, once ran a course to prove to his subjects that he was physically fit. This was perhaps the world’s first recorded spectator sporting event.
The pharaohs that followed Zoser built step pyramids modeled on Imhotep’s, and from these later structures it is clear
Egypt 15
Bent pyramid at Dashur. Corbis/Marilyn Bridges. Reproduced by permission.
that building techniques developed and improved over time. Not until Sneferu (SNEFF-eh-roo), who built four pyramids between 2575 and 2551 B.C., did the smooth-sided pyramid make its first appearance. The most well-known of these is the “Bent Pyramid,” which was originally intended to be very steep; but halfway up, the builders changed the angle. Various reasons have been given for this: Either the pyramid had to be completed in a hurry or (more likely) the builders began to find cracks in it caused by the extremely steep angle. Whatever the reason, the Bent Pyramid is an unusual-looking structure.
The Great Pyramids
Sneferu’s son Cheops (KEY-ops), or Khufu (COO-foo), would build the greatest of all the pyramids. Often referred to simply as “the Great Pyramid,” this one and the two beside it in Giza, on the west side of the Nile near modern-day Cairo, are what most people think of when they hear the word “pyramid.”
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The Great Pyramid, completed in about 2550 B.C., orig- inally stood 481 feet (147 meters) tall, and though it is now 33 feet (10 meters) shorter, it remains a structure of staggering pro- portions. Its height makes it equivalent to that of a fifty-story building, which would not seem all that tall in a modern Amer- ican city—but the Great Pyramid was built more than 4,500 years ago. Furthermore, its sheer size would make it an impres- sive addition to any city: it is 755 feet (230 meters), along a side, meaning that its base would cover ten football fields. Though it is possible a few structures of the ancient Middle East and Europe were taller, the Great Pyramid is by far the tallest that has survived. It would be almost 4,000 years before there would be a taller structure, the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. Built in the 1200s, the cathedral is slightly taller.
As for Cheops himself, little is known, but based on his ability to mobilize the men and resources necessary for such an enormous project, he must have been one of the most power- ful rulers in the history of the world. Khafre (CAH-frah), who
Stepped Pyramid near Cairo. Archive Photos. Reproduced by permission.
Egypt 17
The Great Pyramid in the afternoon.
Photograph by Susan D. Rock. Reproduced by permission.
was either Cheops’s son or brother, ruled from 2520 to 2494
B.C., and built the second of the Great Pyramids. Last came Menkaure (min-KAW-ray), who was probably Khafre’s son. His pyramid was by far the smallest of the three Great Pyramids, standing only 218 feet (66 meters). The Pyramid of Khafre, by contrast, was only nine feet, or three meters, shorter than that of Cheops, and in many photographs it appears taller because it sits on higher ground.
Indeed, today it actually is taller because the limestone facing has been removed from the earlier and taller Pyramid of Cheops. Originally all three pyramids were covered in a smooth limestone finish, so that they gleamed in the desert sun. However, later conquerors of Egypt stripped away these coverings. All that remains is a small portion of limestone on Khafre’s pyramid—near the top, where it would have been hardest to reach. Because it still has its covering, the Pyramid of Khafre is actually taller than its neighbor.
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From Imhotep’s Step Pyramid onward, few pyramids were solitary structures: Most had a number of buildings around them. The Great Pyramids were no exception. By far the most notable of its surrounding structures was a statue called the Sphinx. The Sphinx has the body of a cat and the face of a man—probably Khafre’s. It sits crouched very much the way a house cat does, facing toward the sun in the east. The Sphinx seems to guard the Great Pyramids.
Presumably the Sphinx was carved from a large piece, or outcropping, of limestone that lay next to the Great Pyra- mids. The Giza pyramids stand on a flat spot, or plateau, where enormous quantities of rock form a solid foundation. Like most pyramids from Zoser’s onward, they were built on top of large stone outcroppings. The outcropping not only served as a strong base for the structure but also gave the builders mate- rial with which to start.
The building of the Great Pyramids was a triumph of engineering seldom equaled in human history. For that rea-
Excavation of Cheops. AP/Wide World. Reproduced by permission.
Egypt 19
son, some observers have developed fanciful explanations, including the idea that beings from another planet built them. Such speculation is outside the realm of history, which deals in facts that can be demonstrated through archaeological research. That does not mean that historians cannot be intrigued by the mysteries of the pyramids. Indeed, it is hard not to be. The air of mystery surrounding the pyramids only increases as soon as one goes inside these great structures.
The rituals of death
It is easy to get so caught up in the majesty and spec- tacle of the pyramids that one forgets their original purpose: They were tombs, or rather houses in which the dead would “live” during the next life. For this reason, all the pyramids (the Egyptians constructed more than eighty) were built on the west side of the Nile, toward the place where the sun went down, or “died,” each night.
Deep inside each pyramid was a burial chamber for the pharaoh. Because they buried their kings with great stores of treasure, the Egyptians were aware that robbers might try to get in and steal the valuables, so they designed the pyramids with confusing networks of passages, including blind alleys and doors that led nowhere. Before a pyramid was closed up for good, the builders sealed its chambers shut with granite blocks or huge quantities of sand.
These “tricks” were another feature pioneered by Imhotep in the Step Pyramid, which contained a complex of underground chambers. The Great Pyramid, too, has a number of passageways, including a vast hallway called the Grand Gallery. Originally its entrance was concealed under polished blocks that looked exactly the same as the rest of its exterior.
Beyond these barriers and passageways, deep inside the pyramid, was a burial chamber that would serve as the home of the pharaoh’s body in the next life. A dead body, however, will rapidly decompose if simply left to decay; therefore the Egyp- tians developed a means to preserve the bodies, a process called mummification. Mummification involves embalming, a chemi- cal process meant to preserve a corpse, or dead body. Embalm- ing is still practiced in modern funeral homes.
The Egyptians, because they intended for corpses to last for centuries, made an art of the embalming process. Modern
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Americans tend to approach this subject with a little fear and disgust, but it was perfectly natural to the Egyptians, who called the mortuary (a place where bodies are prepared for burial) the “Beautiful House.” Morticians, or mortuary workers, believed they were guided by the god Anubis. Indeed, their work ranks among the great achievements of ancient Egypt. From their experiments in the preservation of bodies comes some of the world’s earliest anatomical and medical knowledge.
The morticians first removed most of the corpse’s internal organs. Then they dried the body using a variety of chemicals, most notably natron, a compound much like bak- ing soda that came from the surrounding desert. Usually they would let the body sit in natron crystals for forty days. Next they stuffed the areas of the body from which organs had been removed, using natron, spices, sawdust, or a mixture of these ingredients. Then they sewed up the cuts they had made in the corpse when removing its insides, and rubbed the body with oil.
Three mummies laying side- by-side, displayed for a museum exhibit in Boston, Massachusetts.
AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.
Egypt 21
How the Pyramids Were Built
The building of the pyramids was one of the greatest achievements in human histor y. The pyramids are a monument not only to the pharaohs’ power but also to the genius of the architects, engineers, and government officials who planned and built them.
First a site had to be selected. It had to be on the west side of the Nile, above flood level. It had to be near the water, because boats would be bringing in the blocks needed for building. The stone came from various places, but the hard granite that surrounded the interior chambers of the pyramid came from 500 miles up the river in Aswan. There, workers in a quarry, a place where stone is “mined” from the earth, spent most of the year cutting giant blocks of granite. Once the Nile flooded in the summer, they loaded the blocks onto boats, or barges, and floated them downriver to the building sites.
When the barge arrived, the blocks had to be unloaded. Most of these blocks weighed about 2.5 tons, or 5,000 pounds
(2.27 metric tons, or 2,270 kilograms), so it was not easy to get them from the shore to the top of a pyramid. Workers, usually in team of thirty men, pulled the blocks out onto giant sleds atop rows of logs. With ropes attached to the sleds, they would pull the blocks up long temporary ramps made of mud and brick, which were built on a gentle slope to make it easier to drag stones up them. The ramps were also wide, not only so that there would be plenty of room for the sleds, but also so that there would always be a part of the ramp that could be closed off while it was being raised. The ramp, of course, had to rise with the pyramid.
Among the pyramid builders, the workers who dragged the stones up the ramps were at the lowest social level, but they were not slaves. Some of them left behind graffiti (pronounced grah-FEE-tee) or wall writings, that showed how much they felt like an essential part of the project—as indeed they were. Blocks used
in Sneferu’s Medium Pyramid include
inscriptions celebrating the various work
After this, they wrapped the body with linen, using resins to seal up the wrapping. The wrapped corpse was called a mummy. At the funeral, priests performed a ceremony in which they “opened the mouth” of the dead person so that he or she could eat, speak, and breathe in the afterlife. The mummy was then placed in a brightly decorated coffin, called a sarcophagus (sar-KAHF-uh-gus), which often bore the face of
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gangs: “Enduring Gang,” says one inscription, and another celebrates the “Vigorous Gang.”
In a class above these common laborers were the skilled workers, especially masons (a type of craftsman who builds with stone). Above the masons were the planners and their assistants, the scribes. The scribes recorded figures for the amount of stone used in a given period of time and helped keep track of the tools and the teams to which they were assigned. Among the scribes’ writings that have survived is a written excuse for a worker who “called in sick.”
The scribes also took note of the intricate calculations taken by the builders. It was not enough to plan the pyramid at the beginning, and go from there: the builders had to constantly measure angles and lengths to make sure that they were correct. Their calculations were amazingly sophisticated. One can see how careful they were by measuring the Great Pyramid, the longest side of which is only about eight inches longer than the
shortest side. Plenty of houses in America do not have measurements as nearly perfect as these!
The precision of the measurements is particularly impressive in light of the Egyptians’ lack of technological sophistication in other areas. For instance, at the time of the Old Kingdom, they had not yet entered the Bronze Age. They may not have even known about the wheel. Furthermore, Egyptian art of the time suggests that they did not have a very well-developed sense of space.
Given these circumstances as well as the suitability of the pyramids’ placement for astronomical obser vations (that is, observation of the stars), some people have speculated that beings from another planet built the pyramids of Egypt, along with those of Mexico. Such claims are hard to prove or disprove, given the archaeological evidence; less questionable is the opinion that the Great Pyramids are some of the most amazing structures on earth.
the person buried within. And so the dead body would sit, entombed in its quiet chamber within the pyramid, for the rest of eternity.
By almost any measure, the pyramids were and are spooky places. First of all, their very purpose as tombs is a lit- tle chilling in most people’s view. Second, they have stood for so long: hence an old saying, “Time laughs at all things, but
Egypt 23
the pyramids laugh at time.” Even within ancient Egypt, which would continue to exist for almost 2,000 years after the end of the Old Kingdom, people thought of the pyramids as ancient. They would remain a testament to the first, and in some ways, greatest phase of ancient Egyptian history.
The First Intermediate Period
(2150–1986 B.C.)
All civilizations, no matter how great they are, eventu- ally fall. Historians, with the benefit of hindsight, can some- times see evidence of a civilization’s impending (that is, upcoming) decline even at a time when that civilization appears to be strong and healthy. Thus although the Old King- dom still flourished in the Fifth Dynasty of the 2400s B.C., there were already signs that its best years lay in the past. Like their predecessors in the Fourth Dynasty, the kings of the Fifth Dynasty built pyramids, but theirs were neither as impressive nor as lasting. The pharaoh Nyuserra, for instance, built a pyra- mid whose name means “the places of Nyuserra are enduring.” This proved ironic, because that pyramid today is little more than a heap of stones
The rule of the Memphis pharaohs still seemed strong during the Sixth Dynasty, one of whose kings was Pepi II. Pepi held power longer than any leader in history: he ruled from
2246, when he was just six years old, to 2152 B.C.—ninety-four years. The end of Pepi’s reign marked the end of the Old King- dom. With the beginning of the Seventh Dynasty, Egypt entered what is called the First Intermediate Period. (The word intermediate refers to something that divides.) This period of about 125 years divided the Old Kingdom from the Middle Kingdom.
Why did the Old Kingdom decline? There were several reasons. One was the rise of nomarchs, or governors of provinces, who challenged the authority of the pharaohs. There was also an increase in government bureaucracy, which put further strain on the system. A bureaucracy is a web of offices and officials who create conflicting, often unnecessary, and sometimes senseless rules and regulations, thus making it hard for anyone to get anything done. Furthermore, there was
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a widespread sense of disillusionment, an emotional state that occurs when people lose their old beliefs without finding something new to believe in.
Writings from the era, particularly those of the scribe and wise man Ipuwer (IP-oo-weer) suggest that society was in a state of upheaval. The old faith in the pharaohs no longer motivated the people; indeed, the rulers of the Ninth and Tenth dynasties were former nomarchs who had seized power. Ipuwer wrote of increasing suicides, and of a social order that had been turned upside-down: “Look! The poor of the land have become rich; the possessor of things [has become] the one who has nothing.” Another scribe wrote about an increas- ing attitude of dishonesty among people: “To whom do I speak today? / Brothers are evil, / Friends of today are not of love.”
To top it off, it appears that during this time there was also a famine, or a period when there was not enough food for everyone. Stability only began to return with the Eleventh Dynasty, which established its capital at Thebes (pronounced like “thieves,” but with a b instead of a v.) Finally, a king named Mentuhotep II (min-too-HOE-tep) united all of Egypt under his rule in about 1986 B.C. This effectively ended the First Inter- mediate Period and ushered in the second great age of ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom.
The Middle Kingdom (1986–1759 B.C.)
The Eleventh and Twelfth dynasties made up the period known as the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. Though there would again be great building projects, nothing would ever equal the scale of the Old Kingdom’s pyramids. What was missing was the system that had made the pyramids possible. The pharaohs were still powerful, but now nomarchs and scribes enjoyed an increasing share of power, a fact symbolized by the much larger number of people who had themselves mummified after death. Also, the disillusionment brought on by the First Intermediate Period had left the Egyptian people- less committed to the old ways of doing things.
Although his power was not as great as it had been, the pharaoh was still, as people might say in modern times, “run- ning the show.” The kings who followed Mentuhotep II carried
Egypt 25
on trade, and sometimes waged war, with other parts of North Africa and the Middle East. In particular, they sought to open trade with the eastern and southeastern regions, along the Red Sea and in what is now Ethiopia. Also, as in the Old Kingdom, they waged war with the people of the Sinai, and with the Libyans, a desert nation to the west.
One of the most powerful kings of this era was Amen- emhet I (ah-min-NIM-het), who established the Twelfth Dynasty in 1937 B.C. Amenemhet had been a vizier, and it appears that he was a usurper (you-SUR-purr)—that is, someone who seizes power. Around the time he ascended to the throne, a book called The Prophecy of Neferti began to circulate. It depicted a scene at the court of Sneferu in which the pharaoh receives a prophecy concerning a future king who will save Egypt. Clearly this predicted savior is Amenemhet.
Several elements of The Prophecy of Neferti are interest- ing. It is perhaps the first example of propaganda, a type of writ- ing or other art (for instance, posters) that a government uses in order to convince people that the government is good and everything opposed to it is bad. Propaganda would be widely used during the twentieth century, both by free and peaceful governments such as that of the United States and by clearly evil regimes such as those of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Also, The Prophecy of Neferti highlights the concept of legiti- macy, which is closely tied to propaganda. Legitimacy simply means that the ruler has a right to rule. In America, the votes of the people give their leaders legitimacy. In ancient Egypt, a leader gained legitimacy by being identified with the gods and the great pharaohs. Because Amenemhet had more or less stolen the throne, it was important for him to gain legitimacy.
No doubt for the same reason, Amenemhet wanted to ensure that there would be a smooth transition to the next ruler, his son Senusret (sin-OOS-ret), or Sesostris I. He shared power with Senusret for about nine years; but in spite of his efforts, Amenemhet was assassinated by a group within his royal court. This group was also hostile to Senusret, who was away at battle when the killing occurred. He did, however, manage to hold on to power.
Many of these events were recorded in another book from the same era, The Story of Sinuhe. The tale was similar to what modern people would call a novel. It portrayed fictional
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(that is, invented) characters against a historical backdrop. A modern example of this technique would be the book Gone with the Wind (1936), which made use both of invented char- acters and real events—specifically, the American Civil War (1861–1865). Another important text from the end of Amen- emhet’s reign and the beginning of his son’s was The Testament of Amenemhet, sometimes called The Lesson of Amenemhet. Unlike The Story of Sinuhe, this book was not a story, but con- sisted of the dying king’s advice to his son. The book’s content could be summed up by the modern expression,”It’s lonely at the top.” In the Testament, Amenemhet warns Senusret that a king has few friends and many enemies who are eager to take his power and his life from him.
It might seem ironic that Amenemhet was giving this advice, but in fact he probably had nothing to do with the Tes- tament, which was undoubtedly written after his death. As with The Prophecy of Neferti and The Story of Sinuhe, its author is unknown. These texts, however, point up a key aspect of the Middle Kingdom: the growing significance of the written word.
Developments in writing
The pharaohs were certainly powerful rulers, but they could not have controlled their kingdoms without the help of scribes; nor would historians know the names of the pharaohs if there had been no one to write them down.
Though the scribes remained an exclusive and power- ful class in the Middle Kingdom, writing itself became much easier owing to two developments. The first of these was papyrus (puh-PIE-russ). Papyrus is the name for a kind of reed, which the Egyptians cut into strips. They crisscrossed these strips and soaked them in water, then flattened them with a smooth shell or a piece of ivory. When it had dried, the papyrus became like paper, and indeed the English word “paper” comes from papyrus.
No longer did the scribes have to carve hieroglyphs into stone; nor did they have to painstakingly draw out each hieroglyph, thanks to the development of hieratic (high-RAT- ick) script. Hieratic was a simplified form of hieroglyphics that could be written much faster, just as it is easier to write in cur- sive lettering than it is to print. As is true of many modern lan-
Egypt 27
guages such as Arabic and Chinese, hieratic was written from right to left. For the next 1,300 years, hieratic would remain the system for everyday writing, including legal documents, letters, and stories; then, around 650B.C., the scribes would develop an even simpler form, called demotic (deh-MOTT-ick). During this time, however, hieroglyphics remained in use for types of writing intended to be more lasting—for example, on tombs—and were still often carved into stone.
Several other varieties of written communication developed around the time of the Middle Kingdom. There were seals, which like their modern equivalents carried some- thing stamped on the bottom that could be transferred by rub- bing the seal in ink, then placing an impression on a docu- ment. Scribes used labels, which may have assisted them in creating an early type of filing system: A label attached to a papyrus scroll identified its contents and the name of the pharaoh at the time of its writing.
On the doors of kings and other important figures were doorplates, which contained not only the name of the person who lived there but a message as well—for instance, “There shall always exist the son of Re [Ra] whom he loves, Amenhotep the god, ruler of Thebes.” The name of the pharaoh, either on a doorplate or elsewhere, would be contained within a cartouche (car-TOOSH), a vertical oval with hieroglyphs inside it.
The rise and fall of the Middle Kingdom
Senusret I and the kings that followed him continued a tradition established by Amenemhet: In the latter part of a pharaoh’s reign, he would allow his successor (usually his first- born son) to share power with him. The rulers also carried on Amenemhet’s efforts to expand Egyptian influence through trade and warfare.
Senusret sent mining expeditions to Nubia and the eastern desert, which yielded gold and high-grade building stone, respectively. His grandson, Senusret II, had floodgates built along part of the Nile Valley in order to reclaim valuable farmland. Later, Senusret III ordered the First Cataract cleared, which made it possible for boats to pass through. This removed one of Egypt’s natural barriers, and for that reason he
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had fortresses built to protect the country from invasion by
Nubians or Kushites to the south.
Amenemhet III, who reigned from 1817 to 1772 B.C., would prove one of the greatest of the Middle Kingdom’s pharaohs. Under his leadership, the Egyptians reclaimed some
153,600 acres, or 240 square miles (621.6 square kilometers), of fertile farmland from the Nile and developed an irrigation sys- tem to keep it watered. He also led a number of building pro- jects, including construction of Egypt’s last major pyramids. The pyramid at Hawara, though not nearly as large as its pre- decessors from the Fourth Dynasty, was an impressive achieve- ment in its own right, containing an intricate set of trapdoors, blind hallways, and other “tricks” designed to keep robbers out.
Soon after Amenemhet III, however, the Middle King- dom fell into decline. Already at the time of Senusret II, nearly seventy years before, it had seemed that the world was grow- ing old. Thus one of the scribes in Senusret’s court complained that everything had already been done: “Would that I had words that are unknown,” he wrote, “utterances and sayings in new language ... without that which hath been said repeat- edly.” Similar views have been expressed in different words by people in modern life, proving that some things never change. One of those unchangeable facts of human history is that civ- ilizations rise and fall: thus the Middle Kingdom ended, to be followed by a period of unrest.
The Second Intermediate Period
(1759–1539 B.C.)
As would later be the case in Rome, ancient empires in decline tended to have huge numbers of kings in a row. Some early historians estimated that during the five dynasties that followed the Twelfth, a span of some 220 years known as the Second Intermediate Period, Egypt had 217 kings—almost one per year. In truth it probably was not that bad, but it does appear that the country had quite a number of pharaohs (many of whom ruled at the same time) during this time.
The First Intermediate Period had been characterized by a general decline in the society, which was not the case in the Second Intermediate Period. However, Egypt during this
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