Friday, October 18, 2024

Ancient Egypt and the Nile river

The most crucial part of Ancient Egypt and current Egypt is the Nile River, and the water flows northward through lower Egypt, a river delta is where a river opens into a sea.
The Nile River 
flows into the Mediterranean Sea, and because it looks like it branches into a sorta triangle similar to the Greek letter Delta or Δ but flipped upside down. 

The Nile flows from upper to lower Egypt, keep in mind when it is lower means north, while upper means south. 
This makes the southern parts of the river in Upper Egypt upriver known as the Upper Nile. 

The Nile River was a trivial part of the advancement and development of agriculture the Ancient Egyptians had a callander based on what the river was doing at that time.
So they had seasons about when the river would flood and cause the surrounding area to be fertile for crops a growth season for when the crops have time to grow, and a harvest season to harvest before the flooding would happen again.

Around 3,100 to 3,150 BCE is when we believe that Upper and Lower Egypt was united by King Menes or Narmer, the empire that he helped unify withstood for over a thousand years.

The Kingdom is split into 3 kingdoms, the Old Kingdom which is from the 27th century BCE until 22nd BCE. 

The thing most people associate with Egypt is the Pyramids and kings known as Pharaohs, the Pyramids of Giza were built during the time of Sneferu and Khufu around the 26th century BCE, we are still trying to understand on how the pyramids were built, we found out that the pyramids were not built with slave labour but instead with well-trained craftsmen and carvers.
And each 
pyramid may have taken 10,000-100,000 people spanning decades to build each one.

How we know how much about Ancient Egypt was their writing system, being Hieroglyphics, and we learned how to decypher them, and learned that nobility had better gravesites than most commoners. We knew that the pyramids were tombs of kings because of how elaborate they were, but we did not know so much about ancient Egypt until 1799 when we found the Rosetta stone.

The reason why this was important in our understanding of ancient Egypt is that it was written in hieroglyphics, but also the same script was used in ancient Greek and in an Egyptian language named Demonic Egyptian. So using this knowledge we were able to decipher these texts.

Now we must travel through thousands of years of Egyptian history through the Old and Middle kingdoms, and then you have the Hyksos, which are Semitic people and speak something similar to Arabic, and Hebrew.
Then the New Kingdom which is is really like their peak of civilization and the height of technology.

One of the few Pharaohs that are known in the new kingdom is Akhenaten, who changed his name to Amenhotep after the Egyptian god Amen meaning 'satisfied', and Amenhotep disliked worshipping multiple gods. So he started worshipping a single god Aten, since he changed his name to Akhenaten.

And he started getting rid of evidence that the other Egyptian gods existed, this is notable because this is one example of Monotheism, which is worshipping a single god. He is also known to give lots of power to his wife Nefertiti, who practically Co-Ruled Egypt, and their son probably the most well known Egyptian ruler King Tutankhamun, he is also a child Pharoh, he was a kid when we came to power and died at 18.

Another famous pharoh after Tutankhanmum is Ramses the Second, rules for most of the 13th century BCE, representing the peak of Egyptan military might, known for his battle at Keddish, around 1274 BCE, Ramses wasn't able to cappture Kaddish, it is speculated that it was the largest chariot battle in history.

Then the new kingdom perishes and we get to the end of the second melliunum. Then things get a little confusing, the Kushites rule the Upper Nile for a brief period, the Assyrians they also rule for a time, then the Persian's take over, Cambyses, Cyrus the Great's son and conqours Egypt for a while and becomes part of the Achaemenid empire for a while.
Alexander the Great shows up, and then after he dies one of his generals takes over and it becoems Ptolemeic Egypt. Then Cleopatra takes over and is consdierd to be a "Pharoh", then after her death it becomes part of Rome. 





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