S.S. Ch.4 Lesson 2

Egypt Unites
About 3,100 B.C, King Narmer united Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. This began the Egyptian period that historians now call the Old Kingdom. It was a time when the Egyptians believed that their kings were living gods. This belief helped unify the people, and it also allowed the kings to maintain their authority.

¨3,100 B.C., King Narmer(believed to be King Menes) conquered Lower Egypt
He united the two lands and built Memphis as the new capital
¨This union established the first nation-state
¨King Narmer’s rule marks Egypt’s first dynasty, or Dynasty 1

¨A dynasty is a series of rulers from the same family
¨About 31 dynasties ruled Egypt over more than 3,000 years
the dynasties are divided into three kingdoms
the Old Kingdom
the Middle Kingdom
the New Kingdom


¨The Egyptians believed the kings were living gods, acting as the connection between the gods and the people of Egypt
¨Their beliefs unified the Egyptian people but also allowed the kings to maintain their authority
¨The king controlled both the economy and government
¨The vizier carried out king’s orders
¨Other officials collected taxes, planned building projects and made sure the laws were obeyed


¨Members of the royal family held highest public officials
¨Beginning in Dynasty 5, many helped the king rule by acting as monarchs, or governors, who ruled areas called nomes
¨Ancient Egypt was divided into 42 nomes

Written Forms of Language
The Egyptians may have borrowed the idea of writing from the Sumerians. The Egyptians developed a writing system that used hieroglyphs in about 3,100 B.C.

¨3,100 B.C.-
Egyptians use picture symbols for writing called hieroglyphs
Hieroglyphs had more than 700 symbols
Each glyph represented a sound, an object, or an idea
Hieroglyphic means “holy carvings”
It was used mostly for religious reasons

Scribes-
Carved hieroglyphs on walls of temples, tombs, and palaces
Recorded government information, royal ceremonies, tax collecting, and even the depth of the Nile

Papyrus
Pressed strips from the stalk of the papyrus plant, a reed that grows in marshy areas
Scribes wrote on papyrus with tools made from reeds sharpened to a point
Soot, the fine black powder from smoke, was mixed with water to serve as ink.
For Egyptians, a “book” was a scroll

Building the Pyramids

¨The pyramids served as tombs for Egyptian rulers
¨2,600 B.C., King Zoser of Dynasty 3 became the first king to be buried in a stone pyramid, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara
¨The pyramid shape is identified with the sun god, Ra

¨Great Pyramid of Giza
Best known pyramid of Egypt
Built for King Khufu
Completed about 2,566 B.C.
480 feet(146.3 meters) high and made of 2.3 million stones weighing about 2.5 tons (2,268 kgs)
King Khufu’s son, King Khafre ordered the building of the other two pyramids at Giza and the building of the Sphinx

The pyramids help us understand the relationship between social and political order in early Egyptian society. As godlike rulers, the kings were able to use huge amounts of Egypt’s resources and the whole society to build pyramids

Preparing for the Afterlife

¨Egyptians believed in the afterlife and so they developed ways to preserve bodies
¨
¨Book of the Dead
nexplains the weighing of the heart
nThey believed the soul of a dead person appeared before Osiris and a group of judges
nJudges weighed the heart on a scale with a feather.
nIf the two balanced, the person earned life forever
nIf the heart was heavy, they were eaten by monsters
¨They were able to decipher the Book of the Dead after discovering the Rosetta Stone.