Mesopotamia & Egypt
More than
5,000 years ago, two of the earliest civilizations began on the
continents of Asia and Africa. “The land between two rivers”,
Mesopotamia, was built between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in
modern-day Iraq. In north-eastern Africa, Egyptians settled along the
Nile, one of the longest rivers in the world. These two groups had
some similar cultural and social aspects, but they also had some
differences. Both used new technologies to improve their lives. While
there were differences in classes for both peoples, distinctions in
social divisions were more prominent in Mesopotamian history.
Egyptian and Mesopotamian lives were based around temples and
religion.
The
Mesopotamian and Egyptian people were able to create such great
civilizations because of advancements in technology. One of the
biggest ones was the domestication of plant and animals. It allowed
for more people to be fed through the efforts of less people.
Populations rose quickly as families were able to successfully raise
more children. In Egypt, farmers depended on the flooding of the Nile
to grow their crops. Mesopotamians built dams and dug channels for
irrigation. As the production of food rose, they needed a way to keep
track of everything. The Sumerians in Mesopotamia invented a language
written into clay tablets that became cuneiform writing. Egyptians
used picture symbols called hieroglyphs and wrote a cursive script on
the first kind of paper, papyrus. These kinds of writings were used
for economic purposes, art, and religious objects. Metallurgy was
developed by Mesopotamians, and both the Egyptians and Sumerians made
pots and bricks out of baked clay. As things were being recorded, we
were able to examine other social and cultural attributes of these
two civilizations.
As agriculture
took hold of the the ancient world, men became more dominant because
they were better able to cultivate land. Consequently, women became
less important. As the first governments were formed, it was men who
were at the head of them. Even as women diminished in social
standing, social classes appeared as certain landowners gained more
wealth and power. Hammurabi's Law Code in Babylonia shows the
difference in rights of people: “1. the free, landowning class,
which included royalty, high-ranking officials, warriors, priests,
merchants, and some artisans and shopkeepers; 2. the class of
dependent farmers and artisans, who were legally attached to land
that belonged to king, temple, or elite families and who made up the
primary rural work force; 3. the class of slaves, primarily employed
in domestic service.” (The Earth And Its Peoples,
pg. 38) But things were not exactly the same down in Egypt as
they were in early Mesopotamia. Women in the royal family are shown
in tomb paintings with their spouses. They are shown as having
dignity and affection, even if they they weren't as powerful as their
male counterparts. Documents from ancient Egypt describe how women
could own property, inherit from parents, write wills, and control
their dowries. There were Egyptians who had more power than others,
but no formal class structure appeared. At the head was the king and
important officials, then lower officials, local leaders, priests and
professionals, artisans, and wealthy farmers, with peasants at the
bottom of the chain. The Egyptians most likely used peasants, who
were paid, to build their huge pyramids and other large structures,
while Mesopotamians had slaves to work for them.
Egyptian and
Sumerian civilizations were centered around their temples and
religion. The Sumerians believed in gods that controlled and
symbolized forces of nature. These included Anu of the sky, Enlil of
the air, Enku of water, Utu of the sun, and Nanna of the moon. The
Sumerians built temples, such as ziggurats, devoted to gods that
could have high walls, plazas, multiple chapels, shrines, and other
various rooms. The priests attempted to appease the gods in order to
gain their favor. They believed their gods controlled the natural
disasters that occurred and the people feared them. Likewise,
Egyptians believed in many gods that embodied parts of the world. Ra
was the god of the sun, Osiris of the underworld, and the people
associated the king with raising the dead and the symbolism of the
sun god. The huge pyramid tombs with innumerable treasures are a
testament to how Egyptians viewed the afterlife. The pharaohs would
be carefully mummified and entombed with food, water, gold, and his
servants to help him in the next life. Egyptian art depicted parts of
the journey to the underworld made by the dead and the events that
occurred there. Religion and the temples that were used to
accommodate it played an important role in the ancient world.
Everything
accounted for, Egyptians and Mesopotamians had many similarities with
a few differences. They used advanced tools and ideas to their
advantage. Social hierarchies separated people, but not as much in
Egypt. Most importantly, religion and temples served as the basis for
communities. Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt started what lead to the
ideas, laws, systems, and values that we have today.
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