Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs
Name ________________________
Period __________
Land of the Pharaohs
The Big Picture

Farming towns grew into small ____________.

These communities created______________ to promote peace and fairness.
These rules were created and enforced by the village _______________.

Along the Nile River in Egypt, groups of villages joined together under the
leadership of _____________.
Union of Two Crowns

Along the Nile, farmers were producing surplus crops and developing new technology
to make tools, pottery, and jewelry. This led to an increase in ______________.
Egyptians Join Together
 There was also terror and _________. Ruins of walls around early towns
and paintings of bloody battle scenes that there were many _________
between villages.
 To protect themselves, the people banded together into ________ separate
______________.
 Towns in Upper Egypt (which were located in the ____________) supported
a king who wore a __________ crown.
 Towns in Lower Egypt (which were located in the _____________) followed
a king who wore a ________ crown.
 In 3100 BC, Menes (King of _______ Egypt) lead forces and they
__________ north into the Nile Delta.
 Here his army overthrew the king of __________ Egypt.
 To show his victory, he wore a ___________ crown.

This crown stood for the ______________ which is the joining of
separate parts into one.
 Menes became the 1st _____________ of Egypt.
 The word pharaoh means “___________ ___________” which is where
the rulers lived.
 It later became the name of all rulers of Egypt.
Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs
Name ________________________
Period __________
Life in the Old Kingdom

At first, Egypt’s pharaoh did not greatly ____________ the civilization that they
ruled. Over time, though, the ____________ became the center of the
civilization.
Government Under the Pharaohs
 After unification, the most powerful leaders were made area
________________. They were in charge of collecting
___________ and served as local ___________. They also made
sure that flood waters were shared among farmers through the use
of ____________ and storage ___________.
 The governors reported to the pharaoh’s headquarters in
__________, Egypt’s capital. Memphis was located between
___________ and __________ Egypt, near present-day
____________.
Religion in Egypt
 The pharaoh had great political and _____________ powers.
 Egyptians believed that the pharaoh was a child of their ________
________, Ra.
 They believed that Ra gave life to Earth and that the pharaoh gave
life to Egypt and its ____________.
 Egyptians worshipped both _____ and the __________.
 _____ was the most important god to the Egyptians. They had more
than one god and believed each one had a different ____________.
 _______________ was the god of the dead. He was important
because the belief in afterlife was central to the religion of Egypt.
 Egyptians believed that after a person died, he or she would go to the
“____________ ____________.”
 They also believed that the dead could take ________ and
__________to the “Next World.
 This is why food and belongings were buried with the
____________.
Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs
Name ________________________
Period __________
 The Egyptians preserved the bodies of the dead __________ with a
process called_____________________.
 The bodies were dried and wrapped with strips of ______________.
Egypt’s Economy
 Since the pharaoh was considered a _________, all things in Egypt
belonged to the pharaoh. This put the pharaoh at the center of the
______________.
 The economy of a country is the way its people manage
____________ and ________________ for the production of
goods and services.
 Egypt’s economy was based on _________________. Farmers
produced a ____________ of food which fed the whole country.
 The pharaoh collected a large part of every family’s _________ each
year as ___________.
 The crops collected were used to feed the pharaoh’s
_____________ and _____________.
 The pharaoh also took taxes on everything else made in Egypt, such
as leather goods, linen cloth and _______________.
 The pharaoh also taxed people’s _____________.
 During the flood season, Egyptians were called upon to build
_________ or ______________ for the government.
 Craft workers and artists depended on the pharaoh for
___________.
 Their job was to make things for the temples.
 Egyptians “paid” for things by:
 _____________ things
 Government paid for _______________
A System of Writing

A system of writing, ___________________, was developed to allow the
pharaoh’s government to keep ____________ of all its business details.

Government would report back to the _______________ if people were ______
paying taxes.

System of __________was developed sometime before ___________________.
Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs

Name ________________________
Period __________
This system was called hieroglyphics and was made up of approx. 800 – 1000
____________ or _____________ called hieroglyphs.

Some hieroglyphics stood for objects and some stood for sounds, such as “s”

Hieroglyphics are the reason we know so much about the lives of ancient Egyptians.
Life of a Scribe
 Pharaohs depended on written ____________ to keep their government in
order.
 The writers were called _______________.
 They traveled throughout Egypt to keep records of details great and small.
 They went out into the ____________ to record how much grain a
_____________harvested.
 They also determined how much farmers would owe the
________________.
 Scribes also drafted letters and ________________ contracts.
 _____________ was only taught to a few people which meant that
______________were highly respected.
 Only _________ could become scribes and began their training at ____
years old.
 In school they chanted _____________ to improve their reading skills and
spent ___________ writing out stories over and over.
 If their attention wandered, they ran the risk of being __________.
 Junior scribes used __________ __________ as their “scrap paper.”
Writing on Paper
 After the boys mastered a simple type of ________________, they were
allowed to write on ____________, which is a reed plant that grows along
the Nile.
 Ancient Egyptians used these reeds to make papyrus, which is a type of
____________.
 The English word “____________” comes from papyrus.
 They used sharpened ____________ as pens. They dipped their pens in
red or black ink.
Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs
Name ________________________
Period __________
 Two skills that a scribe had to have were:
 ___________ ___________________ and __________ ___
__________
A Key to a Lost Language
 By AD 400, hieroglyphics fell out of use and their meaning was
__________.
 The ancient symbols that were found were a _____________ to the people
who found them.
 In 1799 a French soldier was digging in the town of _____________.
There, he found a large, __________, stone with writing on it. It contained
a passage written three times, in hieroglyphics, Greek, and ____________.
 By comparing these languages, the mystery of the hieroglyphics was solved.
Building the Pyramids

The most challenging thing for the scribes to keep track of was the building of
______________.

These stone structures were built as tombs, or burial places for ____________.

The ____________ _____________ is the Old Kingdom's most spectacular
monument.

It’s the ______________ of all pyramids built in Egypt’s history.

____________ ____________ ordered its construction and was buried inside
with his belongings that he would take into the ___________________.

The project took ____ years and many ___________ (_____________) were
forced to help build it.

A lot of _____________ were used to feed and clothe the workers.

The l____________________ of the Nile River was changed too.

Entire cliffs of stone were cut into blocks to build this monument.
Why it Matters?

Khufu was not the only _____________ who demanded building projects.

These projects caused the following things to happen:

Took a toll on the ______________.

_______________ people.
Notes- Lesson 2: Land of the Pharaohs

Name ________________________
Period __________
Egypt’s _____________ started to break down. Local _________________
began resisting the orders of the _______________.

Leaders in _____________ ____________ revolted and set up a new
_____________.

They created a new capital located in ____________.

This division in Egypt brought an end to the __________ __________________.

This breakdown led to a rise in greater _______________.

The pharaohs learned from their _______________ and stopped building
________________.
Main Ideas

Menes united the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt to form the
_____________ government in the world at that time.

The pharaoh was central to Egypt’s _______________, _____________, and
_______________.

The writing system of Egypt, called hieroglyphics, provided a way for government
workers to ______________ over long distances.

Ordinary people worked to build huge, government building projects like the
____________ ______________.

This strained both Egypt's economy and its people.