The flooding was very unpredictable and could cause mass destruction. Too little rain and they could end up with famine, too much and everything was destroyed. Menes was one of the great pharaohs that this documentary talks about. He is credited for uniting Upper and Lower Egypt and is the founder of the First Dynasty. He built the first damn to protect the city from the flooding which required extreme labor.
In Mesopotamia, they established patterns for civilization to take place. Later on Mesopotamia was unified by Hammurabi and the Babylonians. In Egypt, civilization began because of the Nile and rich soil. It allowed Egyptians to live without depending on anyone else. In my opinion, Mesopotamia and Egypt were equally stable and
The rivers would easily flood at unplanned times that would result in devastations and floods that made it harder for the civilization to develop. Mesopotamia also didn’t have any natural barriers to prevent from attack and invasion of foreigners, and was constantly being taken over and occupied by different people groups. Due to Mesopotamian civilization being the first, Egypt was influenced by the Mesopotamian culture and revised many of the ideas and developments created there. Due to the time that these civilizations surface, both of the civilizations were Polytheistic; meaning that they believed in several gods. In the earlier times all of the religions were focused around the strength and power of the gods, which they inferred to be a part of nature.
Ancient Egyptian communities settled on the banks of the Nile, to profit from the fertile soils for farming and agriculture. Agriculture…gave rise to increasingly cooperative and centralised social interactions characteristic of all early civilizations. In contrast, the ancient Greek villages were quite isolated from one another as the terrain isolated one village from another. The extremely mountainous terrain discouraged communication by land and favored political independence; through most of ancient Greek history, the various cities, raised on small isolated plains, remained autonomous political entities. The formation of villages and communities in both Egypt and Greece led to the introduction of politics and structured religion in the regions.
Irrigation systems were a great way to transport water to easily grow an abundant amount of crops. The Shaduf, Saqiya, and Noria all helped to move water. (Doc. 2) The need for water is important especially in a hot desert like environment like Egypt, Mesopotamia, or Eastern China. The people would often combine a Noria with an aqueduct so you don't have to worry about the river flooding and breaking the machine.
many hunters and gatherers lived along the coastal plains of modern Syria and Israel and in the valleys and hills near the Zagros Mountains (Kreis 2013). Instead of constantly having to travel for food, they would find themselves staying in one region and start using what was around them. This was the beginning of civilization as we know it. Sumerian civilization was not just a civilization, but also a foundation for many civilizations that followed which adopted and implemented many of its developments and inventions (Kreis 2013). One of the biggest contributions to civilization by the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Hebrews was the invention of agriculture.
Because of this, both of these civilizations depended on rivers to sustain a productive agriculture. This is especially important to both because they lived in arid lands. However, the rivers that the Egyptians and Mesopotamians used were far different from each other. The Egyptians lived near the Nile
They would also use copper to make small ornaments. Art was a main part of their life and showed their culture. Farmers would live close to water so when it flooded in would replace all the nutrients in the soil and replace the soil as well. Their societies where small and their towns where small as well consisting of 100 people or less. Their town was based around a plaza which was used for gathering and religious events.
They also controlled labour, trade, land and resources. The Pharaoh was in charge of national security, ensuring the happiness of his people and maintaining an ordered and peaceful society. The nobles and the priests were the only ones that could hold government posts where they profited from tributes paid to the
The Egyptian civilisation was the first of the great world civilisations, and the stability of this society led to important spin-offs into medicine. Egyptians created a settled farming economy, with an organised government, laws and social conventions. This was a society in which people were wealthy enough to pay to take care of their health. They also developed a formal religion, which required temples, priests and rituals that included mummification. Their experience of mummification taught the priests about the workings of the human body, and some members of the priesthood evolved into professional doctors.