1. Geography, early history, politics, and society
Egypt
Geography, early history, politics, and society

3. Egypt: Gift of the Nile
Nile River naturally irrigated cropland with predictable, annual flooding
River also facilitated man-made irrigation systems
Adjacent (surrounding) deserts protected Egypt from invasion
Waterfalls hindered invasion from the south
Stability meant long-term indigenous (native, not foreign) government

4. Mesopotamia Environment:
An open environment without serious obstacles
Flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers helped to provide alluvial soil for productive agriculture but was unpredictable.
Deforestation and salinization of soil
Led to conquest by foreigners
Egypt Environment:
Egypt was surrounded by deserts, mountains, seas, and cataracts which made it less vulnerable to invasions.
Predictable floods – good soil, less salinization
When floods didn’t happen, social upheaval happened

5. Earliest Egypt: Before the Kings
Agriculture sustained life
Grasses ground into food, 12,000 B.C.E.
Seeds ground into flour, 6000 B.C.E.
Saharan drought led to more Nile settlement
String of villages along Nile by B.C.E.
Walled towns emerged by 3300 B.C.E., along with evidence of social stratification

6. Land of the Nile. Stretching over 1000 miles along the Nile River, ancient Egyptian civilization depended on a strong government. The kingdom was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, and further subdivided into nomes (tax districts).
Land of the Nile. Stretching over 1000 miles along the Nile River, ancient Egyptian civilization depended on a strong government. The kingdom was divided into Lower and Upper Egypt, and further subdivided into nomes (tax districts).

7. Egypt: State or Cities?
Egypt: the state (country as a whole) is more important than cities
Different than in Mesopotamia, where cities were more important than the state as a whole (think of the wealth of Babylon during the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires)
Merged early city-states under one rule around 3,000 BCE
Pharaoh (king) ruled all, had political and religious responsibility, like in early Mesopotamia

8. Unification and the Rule of Kings
3100 B.C.E unification established unified Egypt from peoples who came to the Nile and melded into a single ethnicity
Menes often seen as first king, but there is support for kings 200 years earlier
Kings came to be seen as divine
Kings balanced nature and invited Nile to flood

9. Slavery: Egypt (and the Indus Valley civilizations) initially had far fewer slaves than did Mesopotamia, which was highly militarized.
Mesopotamia:  
Written laws made women subordinate to men
Respectable women = veiled
Goddesses relegated to home and fertility
Egypt:  
Women could own property, start divorce
Hatshepsut, woman ruled as Pharaoh
Less veiling
Statues show married people as equal

10. The Growth of Cities Egypt had no independent city-states
Egyptians lived in network of riverbank villages interspersed with larger towns that may have become administrative cities (nomes)
Transition occurred around 3300 BCE.
Development of Hierakonpolis illustrates this trend: spread out rather than compact, it still served as an administrative center

11. The Growth of Cities (cont.)
Supplemental irrigation systems during drought may have triggered unification
Development of man-made irrigation projects a staple feature of Egypt for next 2,000 years
Religion, administration, and irrigation were keys to city development
Did cities have walls? This would be a measure of the success of unification

12. The Growth of Cities (cont.)
Recent excavations suggest presence of walls
Larger cities were political capitals-- Memphis in the north and Thebes in the south
City-village network supported population increase from 1.5 to 2.5 million in B.C.E. period
Egypt also had trade cities to deal with rest of world

13. Hyksos: a nomadic people from the Middle East who moved into Ancient Egypt around 1650 BCE and ruled there until around BCE, when they were driven out by the Egyptians
Were likely ethnically related to peoples of the Fertile Crescent
Importance of pastoral nomads and their relationship with settled peoples