THE BRONZE AGE
Ancient Egypt
Its all about Location!
 Running over 4,000
miles, the Nile is the
longest river in the
world.
 The most important
fact about the Nile is
that it floods each year,
enriching the soil
around it.
 This is called the “Gift
of the Nile”
The Nile River as seen
from space.
Egypt The
Fortress
 Unlike Mesopotamia,
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Egypt had geographical
barriers that protected it
from invasion:
the deserts to the west
and east,
the Red Sea to the east,
the Mediterranean Sea
to the north,
and rapids in the
southern Nile.
Two Halves to a Whole
 Unlike Mesopotamia,
which was a series of
city states, Egypt was a
kingdom.
 Egyptian history began
around 3100 B.C. when
Menes created the first
royal dynasty in Egypt.
United Egypt Government
 A dynasty is a family of
rulers. Their right to
rule is passed on
through the family.
 Egyptian rulers
became known as
pharaohs. Pharaoh
means “great house”
or “palace.”
 Egyptian pharaohs had
absolute power.
Egyptian Government
 However, they were
Egyptian Vizier meets
with his ruler.
A Vizier is directly
responsible to the
Pharaoh.
aided first by their
families and then by a
large bureaucracy–an
administrative
organization of officials
and regular
procedures–that
developed during the
Old Kingdom.
Egyptian Religion
http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/go
ds/explore/main.html
 Religion gave the Egyptians a sense
of security and timelessness.
 The Egyptians were polytheistic.
Egyptian Economy
 Agriculture created
most of Egypt's wealth.
 Grain, vegetables,
fruit, cattle, goats, pigs
and fowl were grown,
and fish from the Nile
were caught, and
eventual surpluses,
after deduction of the
various taxes, were
sold on the markets.
Egyptian Social Classes
 Ancient Egypt had a
What do you
notice that is
different from
Mesopotamia?
social Hierarchy.
 Hierarchy: a system or
organization in which
people or groups are
ranked one above the
other according to
status or authority.
 At the top was the
Pharaoh and his family,
and at the bottom was
slaves.
Egyptian Writing
 Writing in ancient
Egypt was called
Hieroglyphics.
 Hieroglyphics: is a form
of pictograph writing in
which the symbols
mean words.
 A simpler form called
Hieratic script was
used for business deals
and everyday writng.
Kingdoms of Egypt
 Historians divide
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Egyptian history into
three major periods of
stability, peace, and
cultural flourishing:
Pre-Dynastic
The Old Kingdom
The First Intermediate.
The Middle Kingdom.
The Second Intermediate
The New Kingdom.
Hellenistic Period
Pre-Dynastic
and
Unification
of Egypt
 The first king of the unified Upper
and Lower Egypt was Menes who
is now identified with Narmer.
 The Archaic or Early Dynastic
Period of Egypt immediately
follows the unification of Lower
and Upper Egypt c. 3100 BC.
 It is generally taken to include
the First and Second Dynasties,
 Lasting from the Proto-Dynastic
Period of Egypt until about
2686 BC, or the beginning of
the Old Kingdom.
Old Kingdom
 The Old Kingdom lasted
from 2700 to 2200 B.C.
 The Old Kingdom
consisted of the
3rd,4th,5th, and 6th
Dynasties
 The pyramids were built
during the Old Kingdom.
 Egypt's Old Kingdom
was one of the most
dynamic periods in the
development of Egyptian
art.
 Architects and masons
mastered the techniques
necessary to build monumental
structures in stone.
Artist reconstruction of the Great Pyramids
at Giza
The Great Pyramids at Giza
 They served as tombs for
the pharaohs and their
families.
 They contained food,
weapons, artwork, and
household goods for the
person in the afterlife.
 Historians are still
amazed at the builders’
precision.
 Huge stones are fitted so
closely that a hair cannot
be pushed between
them.
http://www.history.com/topics/ancientegypt/videos#deconstructing-history-thegreat-pyramid
Mummification Perfected.
 Mummification: is a
process in which the
skin and flesh of a
corpse can be
preserved.
Anubis: God of the Dead.
Mummification
 In mummification a
body was slowly dried
to keep it from rotting.
 It was done in
workshops that priests
ran for wealthy
families.
 Then the body was
covered with salt to
absorb moisture.
Mummification
 Workers would first remove certain internal
organs, placing them in four special jars put in
the tomb with the mummy.
 What Organs do you think were kept in here?
Canopic jars
 Hapi, the baboon-headed god representing the north,
whose jar contained the lungs and was protected by the
goddess
 Nephthys Duamutef, the jackal-headed god
representing the east, whose jar contained the stomach
and was protected by the goddess
 Neith Imseti, the human-headed god representing the
south, whose jar contained the liver and was protected
by the goddess Isis
 Qebehsenuef, the falcon-headed god representing the
west, whose jar contained the intestines and was
protected by the goddess Selket
Mummification
 They also removed the
brain through the nose.
(Or Was It?)
 Later, workers filled
the body with spices
and wrapped it in resinsoaked linen.
 This process took
about 70 days.
Why, oh Why?
 Why would the Ancient Egyptians go through all this
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trouble to preserve a body?
The ancient Egyptians believed that part of the
human spirit was permanently linked to the viability
of the body.
Therefore, it was necessary to preserve the body if
one wanted to achieve immortality in the Egyptian
religion's afterlife.
Allowing the body to rot effectively meant
destroying the person's soul.
Unlike people of many other religions and cultures,
the Egyptians believed that the body needed to be
intact to serve as a host for the soul.
 http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-
history/ancient-egypt/videos/how-to-makeamummy?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f
=1&free=false
First Intermediate Period
 The First Intermediate
 It included the seventh,
Period, often described
as a "dark period" in
ancient Egyptian history.
 Spanned approximately
one hundred years, from
ca. 2181–2055 BC, after
the end of the Old
Kingdom.
8th, 9th, 10th, and early
part of the 11th dynasties.
 The First Intermediate
Period was a dynamic
time in history where
rule of Egypt was
roughly divided between
two competing power
bases.
First Intermediate Period
 It is believed that during this time, the
temples were pillaged and violated, their
existing artwork was vandalized, and the
statues of kings were broken or destroyed as
a result of this alleged political chaos.
Middle Kingdom.
 The Middle Kingdom
 This period included
was between 2050 and
1652 B.C. Egyptians
later portrayed this
time as a golden age.
 Egypt expanded into
Nubia, and trade
reached into
Mesopotamia and
Crete
the later part of the
11th dynasty, 13th, and
14th Dynasties.
 The pharaoh was now
portrayed as a
shepherd of the
people.
Second Intermediate Period.
 However the Middle
kingdom would not last
long.
 The Second Intermediate
Period marks a period
when Ancient Egypt fell
into disarray for a second
time, between the end of
the Middle Kingdom and
the start of the New
Kingdom.
 This would comprise the
15th,16th, and 17th
Dynasties of Egypt.
New Kingdom
 Rise of the Egyptian
Empire.
 The New Kingdom lasted
from 1567 to 1085 B.C.
 The Eighteenth Dynasty
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contained some of
Egypt's most famous
pharaohs, including:
Ahmose I
Hatshepsut
Thutmose III
Amenhotep III,
Akhenaten and
Tutankhamen.
New Kingdom Pharaohs
 The first female pharaoh,
Hatshepsut. If not the
first, then the most
prolific of all the rulers.
 Hatshepsut was one of
the most prolific builders
in ancient Egypt.
 Later pharaohs
attempted to claim some
of her projects as theirs.
 Why would they claim
her works later?
Thutmose III
 He was an active expansionist ruler,
sometimes called Egypt's greatest
conqueror or "the Napoleon of
Egypt."
New Kingdom Pharaohs
 Amenhotep III, also
known as Amenhotep
the Magnificent.
 His reign was a period
of unprecedented
prosperity and artistic
splendor, when Egypt
reached the peak of
her artistic and
international power.
New Kingdom Pharaohs
 He is especially noted
for abandoning
traditional Egyptian
polytheism and
introducing worship
centered on the Aten,
which is sometimes
described as
monotheistic or
henotheistic.
 Akhenaton tried to
make Egyptians
monotheistic and
worship only the sun
god.
 Many believed this
change would upset
the cosmic order and
destroy Egypt.
Amenhotep IV/Akhenaton I
 Monotheistic:
Belief in only
one god.
He also portrayed himself very differently
than any other previous Pharaoh.
Nefertiti
 Akhenaton was
married to one of
the more famous
queens, Queen
Nefertiti.
 She was
important as she
was one of the
more powerful
queens in ancient
Egypt's time.
http://www.history.com/topics/ancientegypt/videos#coroners-report-king-tut
New Kingdom Pharaohs
 After Akhenaton’s
death, the boypharaoh Tutankhamen
restored the old gods
and polytheism.
Top: A composite
rendering of King
Tut
Right: Famous
Death Mask
 He is famous because
his tomb is the most
intact tomb we have
ever discovered in the
Valley of the Kings
New Kingdom Pharaohs
 Akhenaton’s religious
reforms caused upheavals
that led the Egyptians to
lose their empire.
 Ramses II, who reigned
from 1279 to 1213 B.C.,
regained some of the
empire.
 He is often regarded as the
greatest, most celebrated,
and most powerful
pharaoh of the Egyptian
Empire
Right: Ramses II
Bottom: Ramses II
Great Temple
End of the
Egyptians
 New invasions
by the “Sea
Peoples” then
ended the
Egyptian Empire
once and for all.
The New
Kingdom
collapsed in
1085 B.C.
Who were the “Sea People”?
 No one really knows who
they were.
 There are many
speculations that they
were invading people
from the Aegean
Peninsula as well as
displaced Minoans, and
other indo-European
people.
 Rulers of ancient Egypt
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http://www.history.com/topics/ancientegypt/videos#cleopatra
that were not Egyptian:
Libyan Period
Nubian Period
Persian Empire Period
Macedonian Period
Ptolemaic
Period(Cleopatra, Julius
Caesar and Mark
Anthony)
Roman Period
Conclusion
 In all, from its unification to the end, there
were a total of 31 dynasties that ruled of
Egypt.
 This time line spanned from c. 3100 B.C.E. to
30 B.C.E.
 If you are interested in learning more about
this subject. Research Ancient Egypt
Unification to Roman Conquest.
The Video Replay!