Henry Liu 12/14/10 Period 4 Galanis Ancient History Final Targets 1. Describe the geography of Ancient Egypt and its effect on Egyptian civilization The Egyptian civilization lies in the heart of the Nile River valley. The river extends 3,000 miles before it reaches Egypt, and flows North. It is regulated by the Aswar Dam, and flows into the Mediterranean. The Nile River supplied fertile soil and water, wheat, barley, and flax crops, papyrus, and a religion to worship.
He stands directly behind Hatshepsut while dedicating the myrrh acquired at Punt to Amun-Re. Many historians argue that Thutmose III resented Hatshepsut’s superiority in their co-regency, and they support this by the claim that Thutmose III destroyed many of her inscriptions and reliefs. However, many New Kingdom pharaohs replaced their predecessor’s cartouche with their own. This destruction of many of her inscriptions occurred in the year 42, 22 years after her death. Thutmose had control of the army.
As each new group of people moved into the region governments were established. Much of Mesopotamian history lay buried beneath the sand and soil for thousands of years. However, there were clues, such as the ruins of ziggurats, that treasures lay below the surface. Mesopotamia lay in the region between the Euphrates River and the Tigris River, and because of the shape the area is called the Fertile Crescent. The word Mesopotamia actually means (in Greek) “the country between the rivers.
Religion in Ancient Egypt Heather Christy January 11, 2009 University of Phoenix-Axia College Religion in Ancient Egypt Heather Christy University of Phoenix-Axia College The Egyptian world was filled with glory and splendor. They built grand pyramids, lavish temples, and beautiful monuments. Their world seemed perfect, almost magical, yet full of intrigue and mystery. The Egyptians practiced polytheism, the practice of worshiping more than one God at a time. Inside this practice of polytheism, the Egyptians created some interesting views on life and death.
The Aztecs worshiped hundreds of gods and goddesses; each represented a different aspect of life. The Rain god, Sun god, vegetation god and fertility god. The Tezcatlipoca, the warrior god of the north and the god of sin and misery. The Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec god o the obsidian knife who sprang forth from his mother’s belly to kill his siblings. The Quetzalcoati was the Aztec god of the wind.
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.
The river valleys of the Nile in Egypt and the Euphrates in Mesopotamia both had similarities and differences. Both of these river valley civilizations started around 3500 B.C. An absolute monarch called the Pharaoh ruled the Nile River Valley. The Egyptians believed their king was a god and worshiped him like one. The Mesopotamian’s also had an overall king but they didn’t believe he was a god.
Fash was a very interesting book that catalogued the history of the Maya from the Preclassic Period (2000 B.C.E to 250 AD) to the Postclassic Period (900 AD- 1200 AD) including the collapse of the Classic Period centers in the southern lowlands, to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores in 1519 AD. The first section of the book talks about Copan as being the classic Maya center describing Copan as “the Athens of the New World” and also explains the importance of archeological studies at the site. Copan has more hieroglyphic inscriptions and other sculpted monuments than any other Maya ruin, or any other site in the New World. The principal group of ruins, or site core, consists of a series of large buildings constructed around open courtyards which frequently contained stelae and alters. The principal groups contained two basic parts; the north included many low-lying plazas and to the south, the upraised courtyards and constituent structures were built upon the Acropolis .
Ancient Egypt: People and Events Terms: Ma’at: Was a goodness and symbol of the equilibrium of the universe. Mummification: Is the process of the long term preservation of a dead body. Sources of minerals and building supplies including copper, gold, tin, alabaster, limestone, amethyst and natron. Old Kingdom: The time frame was 2644-2150 BCE, there were two crowns represented for different places in different places in Egypt then King Menes is believed to have been the first to unite Egypt. The king was the ruler of all of Egypt and considered a god.
The tale was written in Akkadian, the Babylonians’’ language on twelve tablets that were discovered, and were excavated along with 25,000 other stone tablets in 1839 from the ruins of Nineveh, and translated into English by Henry Rawlinson sometime in 1872. The prelude of the epic is a general description of the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh who was 2/3 god and 1/3 mortal. He had built great walled cities with magnificent temple towers called ziggurats all by forced labor from his subjects whom he lorded over very cruelly; he would physically rape any women under his rule no matter what her status or whom she belonged. His subjects cried to the gods because of this oppression, and the gods heard their pleas and created a wild man named Enkidu who they sent to put Gilgamesh in check. The wild man who lived with beasts was controlled, and tamed by what the Greeks called Hetaerae who has sex with him.