Both religions believed that everything that happened in their life (floods, good harvest, calamities, etc.) was caused by the gods. Therefore, they believed, that appeasing to the various gods could have a dramatic effect in their life. The most important Egyptian god was Ra, the sun god and ruler of all other gods; Utu was the Mesopotamian sun god. Mesopotamia also had an air god, Enlil, and a sky god, An (Stone, 2011).
Pharaohs were believed to be a god who was placed on Earth and was a provider of an important link between the gods and people of Egypt. He was also responsible for keeping order and making laws. The Vizier was the next most important person in the government of Ancient Egypt. A vizier takes the place of a prime minister, chief justice, and head of treasury. Also, the vizier was sometimes the high priest.
Power was also delegated to advisors such as viziers and stewards Hapuseneb, Senenmut). Religious: Religion was intertwined with politics due to the structure of Ancient Egyptian culture. The gods were the centre of life. In order to gain publicity and respect, an association with these gods would brirng trust and respect to a society largely illiterate and unknowing. – Marriage to Thutmose II Hatshepsut had a daughter with Thutmose II, Neferure.
Compare/Contrast the systems of governments that developed in Mesopotamia and Egypt between 3000-700 BCE Thesis: Although Mesopotamia and Egypt were both ruled like city states, grew up in river valleys and were ruled like a theocracy and monarchy, Mesopotamia believed gods weren’t on the human’s side while Egyptians worshipped their pharaoh, a human god. Also, Mesopotamia constantly was conquered by different groups while Egypt stayed fairly undisrupted. Paragraph 1: Mesopotamia and Egypt both had leaders who ruled the people “through the power of god.” * People of Egypt believed in the Pharaoh and he had the power to make the rivers swell up and had the ability to make the sun rise every day during the old kingdom (2800-2200 BCE) * Ruler of Sumerian state in Mesopotamia
The ancient Egyptians revolved heavily around Earth and Sun gods, which they believed controlled the vital flooding of the Nile. Egyptian rulers,
2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/180764/Egyptian-religion>. Summary: This website talked about how there were two essential foci of public religion, the king and the gods. It also went into detail with the king and most of the gods that the Egyptians believed
Before this time, Egyptians worshipped many different gods but the primary god was Amun-Ra. During his reign, Akhenaten altered traditional Egyptian religion in one of his most controversial decisions as Pharaoh. Akhenaten changed the focus of Egyptian religion to one sole god, Aten. This is why Akhentan changed his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhenaten, as he took on the name of the god. As Angela P Thomas noted in her book Akhenaten’s Egypt, “Aten was given a titulary like the king and the god’s name was written in double cartouches.
They both wrote one of the first works of literature in history. Gilgamesh came from Mesopotamia and The Book of the Dead came from Egypt. Mesopotamia and Egypt differ in regards to politics concerning structure, government, and leadership. Pharaohs ruled ancient Egyptians and kings ruled Mesopotamia. Egypt was a highly centralized bureaucracy and Mesopotamia of self-governing city-states.
Egyptians were devoted to their gods and to their pharaohs who were gods on earth. This obsession with higher power is shown very abundantly through Egyptian art. As an artist myself I feel very connected to this form of expression. If I had been born in Ancient Egypt around the year 2000 B.C., I feel like I would most certainly have been an artist of their culture as well because it is part of who I am and who I was born to be. Egyptian art and architecture developed independently and revolved around the concept of immortality.
The Pharaoh as Horus in life became the Pharaoh as Osiris in death, where he was united with the rest of the gods. New incarnations of Horus succeeded the deceased pharaoh on earth in the form of new Pharaohs. The lineage of Horus, the eventual product of unions between the children of Atum, may have been a means to explain and justify Pharaonic power; The gods produced by Atum were all representative of cosmic and terrestrial forces in Egyptian life; by identifying Horus as the offspring of these forces, then identifying him with Atum himself, and finally identifying the Pharaoh with Horus, the Pharaoh theologically had dominion over all the world. The notion of Horus as the Pharaoh seems to have been superseded by the concept of the Pharaoh as the son of Ra during the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt.