In ancient Egypt the pharaohs were seen as a kind of demi-god. This status as demi god is because the pharaoh was seen as being born from the queen and being fathered by the sun god Ra, making the pharaoh part god. This divinity makes it easier to understand why the ancient Egyptians would go to such
On the other hand, Egypt developed near the Nile River. Developing near a river or body of water was not only important to these two civilizations but to other civilizations as well. For example China developed near the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers and India developed near the Indus River. Developing near a river was important because the surrounding land was very fertile and great for farming. This led
Mesopotamia and Egypt were different in terms of cities and states since Egypt had Babylon, Assyrian, and Nubian Kingdom of Ta-sati Persian rue in Egypt pharaoh. And Mesopotamia’s cities and states had Tikal, Sumer, Ur Nubian kingdom of Kush, roman conquest, and Nobel sudden. Mesopotamia was established by the Sumerians by the middle of the 4th millennium B.C. Egypt was founded around 3000 B.C.E when Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt combined into one whole kingdom. Egypt’s history is divided into three parts.
The rulers devoted their time to the design and decoration of extensive funerary complexes, as well as the pyramids and subterranean tombs. The Egyptian funerary practices were from Osiris, and his belief in the continuity of life after death. The dead would a “last judgment” that consisted of two tests done by Osiris and supervised by the god, Anubis. The artists of Mesopotamia and Egypt helped create the symbolic visual language. They depended on the natural color of their materials from the earth to get the colors they wanted.
The Unique Culture of Egypt While the Sumerian civilization was developing, a similar process took place along the banks of the Nile River. Yet, the two civilization’s culture was very different. Egypt was united into a single kingdom, which allowed it to enjoy a high degree of unity, stability, and culture continuality over a period of 3,000 years. The geography, writing, architectural structures, society, and their process of mummification made the Egyptian culture unique compared to the other civilizations of the time. The Ancient Egyptians thought of Egypt as being divided into two types of land, the “black land” and the “red land.
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.
Papyrus made it easier for the Egyptians to write. As the Egyptian civilization grew, their way of life expanded based on their achievements. Like Egypt, the Indus River Valley was another great civilization. In the Indus River Valley they found artifacts such as clay, wooden children’s toys, pottery, small statues, and seals used to mark trade items. One of their most remarkable achievements was their city planning.
Research Assignment: Ancient Egyptian beliefs in afterlife influenced their funerary practices and rituals. This ancient civilisation obsession with death and the desire to have a well furnished sustained afterlife consequently led to the survival of extensive funerary artefacts, tomb art, preserved bodies, pyramids, funerary literature and mortuary text, such as, the coffin text, pyramid texts and the book of dead. This combined with the writings of ancient historians such as Herodotus with, ‘The Histories’, Plutarch, with ‘Worship of Isis and Osiris’, Manetho with, ‘Aegyptiaca’ (History of Egypt) and Didorus Siculus with, ‘Bibliotheca historica’ (Historical Library) have provided contemporary historians and Egyptologist with numerous primary sources both literary and non-literary to utilize, in their exploration of Ancient Egyptian culture. The Ancient Egyptian beliefs prominently affected periods of their history, Old, Middle and New kingdom, the Ancient Egyptian mortuary beliefs controlled their funerary traditions specifically the practices and rituals involved. These religious traditions, practices and rituals, were also influenced by other cultures beliefs, such as, the Roman influence in the Ptolemy period.
Resurrection is the recreation of the physiological person; it is assumed that reincarnation of the person is reliant only on a deity. Christianity, Islam and Judaism all believe in the idea of resurrection. In the Old Testament the background of Resurrection are developed at different stages, also developing into the New Testament. The term ‘sheol’ is mentioned in the early parts of the Old Testament and is the Hebrew term for the ‘abode of the dead’ It is the idea of a murky underworld where everyone went after death. Hades was the Greek underworld, it was graphic and physical where there were different levels of judgment, one being Elysian which was paradise and the other Tartus which was for the sinners.
SUMERIAN CIVILIZATION The Sumerian civilization originated around 4000 BC and went on until 1450 BC when the Hittites took control of the region. Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, was located in what is now Southern Iraq. This territory, when skillfully irrigated, offered a fertile settlement for the arousal of cities. Sumerian cities had self-government and they were independent. Therefore, each city state had its own deities, kings, laws and culture.