6-2 Notes: Land of the Pharaohs

Menes unifies Egypt• Villages of Egypt banded

together and formed two kingdoms – Upper Egypt (white crown) and Lower Egypt (red crown)

• 3100 B.C.E. – Menes, king of Upper Egypt, overthrew the king of Lower Egypt

• To show his victory, he wore a double crown (combining the red and white crowns)

• Menes became the first pharaoh, or ruler of Egypt (the word actually means “great palace”)

• This time period of unification is called the “Old Kingdom” (2700 – 2200 B.C.E.)

Government & Religion in the Old Kingdom• Pharaoh’s headquarters

located in Memphis, Egypt• Pharaoh made local leaders

his area governors –in charge of collecting taxes; managing distribution of flood water, silt; local judges

• Egyptians believed that the pharaoh was a god, often identified with the sky god Horus and sun god Ra

• Ra – Most important god in Egyptian pantheon

• Egyptian gods stood for many things, mostly nature, industry, and protection

• Osiris – god of afterlife – important because Egyptians believed their dead went on to the “Next World”

Egypt’s Economy• Economy is the way people

manage money and resources for the production of goods and services

• All things in Egypt were property of the pharaoh

• Pharaoh collected taxes from everything produced in Egypt – from farmer surpluses to manufactured goods like linen cloth and baskets

• Pharaoh forced people to work on buildings and canals during flooding season

• Egyptian craft workers and artists worked almost exclusively for the pharaoh

• No money in ancient Egypt – everything traded according to value

Hieroglyphics• Hieroglyphics were a system of writing made of around 800 picture-signs (hieroglyphs) that stand for objects or sounds

• Scribes, or writers, traveled around recording details such as surplus values and taxes owed

• Only boys were taught how to write at school

• Papyrus, a reed that grows along the Nile, was used as paper – Scribes used sharpened reeds as pens

• 400 A.C.E. – Hieroglyphics fell out of use, meaning lost

• 1799 A.C.E. – French soldier digging in Rosetta, Egypt finds a stone that contains the same message in both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek – 1822 A.C.E. – Champollion, a French scholar, decodes stone unlocking the secret language of hieroglyphics

Building the Pyramids• Pyramids were built as tombs

for pharaohs• Pharaoh Khufu commissioned

the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza (Egypt’s largest pyramid) in 2600 B.C.E.

• Pyramid required 22 years to build, involving 100,000 workers

• Average weight of each block is 2.5 tons (5,000 lbs), total of 2,300,000 blocks!

• Many believe that costly building projects such as this stirred great anger amongst people in Egypt

• 2000 B.C.E. – Upper Egypt revolts and set up a new pharaoh who located his capital in Thebes