1. Chapter 3: Section 4 ANCIENT EGYPT CULTURE

2. Essential Question What were the culture achievements of the Egyptians?

3. Life of Egyptians: The Social Classes Egyptians were hard-working but also loved beauty Ruler was the pharaoh, followed by the small upper class Upper class included priests, members of pharaoh’s court, and the nobles with property

4. Middle class- merchants and skilled workers Largest class- peasants Slaves were a small group, normally people who had been captured in war Had rights and could be set free and own land

5. Women Had many rights Were seen as living models of Isis, the wife god of Osiris Noble women had a lot of power

6. Writing Hieroglyphs, or picturelike symbols, were used for writing At first, writing was on clay and stone, but then recorded on an early form of paper made from a reed found in the marshy areas of the Nile delta: papyrus

7. The Rosetta Stone The meaning of Egypt’s hieroglyphic writing was lost after 400AD A black stone with Greek letters and Egyptian hieroglyphs was found in 1799 1820’s- a French scholar named Jean Francois Champollion cracked the code

9. Science/Astronomy Because of agriculture, the Egyptians needed to keep track of when the Nile would flood Astronomers, or scientists who study the stars and their objects in the sky, noticed the tides matched the stars