and sanctity of the king. From the king's authority also flowed an extensive bureaucracy, recruited from the landed nobles but specially trained in writing and law. Governors were appointed for key regions and were responsible for supervising irrigation and arranging for the great public works that became a hallmark of Egyptian culture. Most Egyptians were peasant farmers, closely regulated and heavily taxed. Labor requisition by the states allowed
construction of the great pyramids and other huge public buildings. These monuments were triumphs of human coordination, for the Egyptians were not particularly advanced technologically. They even lacked pulleys or other devices to hoist the huge slabs of stone that formed the pyramids.
Given the importance of royal rule and the belief that pharaohs were gods, it is not surprising that each of the main periods of Egyptian history was marked by some striking kings. Early in each dynastic period leading pharaohs conquered new territories, sometimes pressing up the Nile River into present-day Sudan, once even moving up the Mediterranean coast of the Middle
East. One pharaoh, Akhenaton, late in Egyptian history, tried to use his power to install a new, one-god religion, replacing the Egyptian pantheon. Many pharaohs commemorated their greatness by building huge pyramids to house themselves and their retinues after death, commanding work crews of up to 100,000 men to haul and lift the stone. The first great pyramid was built around 2600 B.C.; the largest pyramid followed about a century later, taking 20 years to complete and containing 2 million blocks of stone, each weighing 5 1/2 tons.
Some scholars have seen even larger links between Egypt's stable, centralized politics and its fascination with an orderly death, including massive funeral monuments and preservation through mummification. Death rituals suggested a concern with extending organization to the afterlife, based on a belief that, through politics, death as well as life could be carefully controlled. A similar connection between strong political structures and careful funeral arrangements developed in Chinese civilization, though with quite different specific religious beliefs.
Despite some initial inspiration, Egyptian culture separated itself from Mesopotamia in a number of ways beyond politics and monument building. The Egyptians did not take to the Sumerian cuneiform alphabet and developed a hieroglyphic alphabet instead. Hieroglyphics, though more pictorial than Sumerian cuneiform, were based on simplified pictures of objects abstracted to represent concepts or sounds. As in Mesopotamia the writing system was
complex, and its use was, for the most part, monopolized by the powerful priestly caste. Egyptians ultimately developed a new material to write on, papyrus, which was cheaper to manufacture and use than clay tablets or animal skins and allowed the proliferation of elaborate record keeping. On the other hand, Egypt did not generate an epic literary tradition.
Egyptian science focused on mathematics and astronomy, but its achievements were far less advanced than those of Mesopotamia. The Egyptians were, however, the first people to establish the length of the solar year, which they divided into 12 months each with three weeks of ten days. The week was the only division of time not based on any natural cycles. The achievement
of this calendar suggests Egyptian concern about predicting the flooding of the Nile and their abilities in astronomical observation. The Egyptians also made important advances in medicine, including knowledge of the workings of a variety of medicinal drugs and some contraceptive devices. Elements of Egyptian medical knowledge were gained by the Greeks, and so passed into later.
The pillar of Egyptian culture was not science, however, but religion, which was firmly established as the basis of a whole world view. The religion promoted the worship of many gods. It mixed magical ceremonies and beliefs with worship, in a fashion common to early religions almost everywhere. A more distinctive focus involved the concern with death and preparation for life in another world, where in contrast to the Mesopotamians the Egyptians held that a happy, changeless well-being could be achieved. The care shown in preparing tombs and mummifying bodies, along with elaborate funeral rituals particularly for the rulers and bureaucrats, was designed to assure a satisfactory afterlife, though Egyptians also believed that favorable judgment by a key god, Osiris, was essential as well. Other Egyptian deities included a creation
goddess, similar to other Middle Eastern religious figures later adapted into Christian worship of the Virgin Mary; and a host of gods represented by partial animal figures. Egyptian art focused heavily on the gods, though earthly, human scenes were portrayed as well in a characteristic, stylized form that lasted without great change for many centuries.
Stability was a hallmark of Egyptian culture. Given the duration of Egyptian civilization, there were surprisingly few basic changes in styles and beliefs. Egyptian emphasis on stability was reflected in their view of a changeless afterlife, suggesting a conscious attempt to argue that persistence was a virtue. Change did, however, occur in some key areas. Egypt was long fairly isolated, which helped preserve continuity. The invasions of Egypt by Palestine toward the end of the Old Kingdom period (about 2200 B.C.) were distinct exceptions to Egypt's usual self-containment. They were followed by attacks from the Middle East by tribes of Asian origin, which brought a period of division and chaos, including rival royal dynasties. But the unified
monarchy was reestablished during the Middle Kingdom period, during which Egyptian settlements spread southward into what is now the Sudan, setting origins for the later African kingdom of Kush.
Then followed another period of social unrest and invasion, ending in the final great kingdom period, the New Kingdom, around 1570 B.C. During this period trade and other contacts with the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean, including the island of Crete, gained ground. These contacts spread certain Egyptian influences, notably in monumental architecture, to other areas. It was during the New Kingdom that Egyptians first installed formal slavery, subjecting people such as the Jews. It was also in this period that the pharaoh Akhenaton tried to impose a new monotheistic religion, reflecting some foreign influence, but his effort was renounced by his successor Tutankhamen, who restored the old capital city and built a lavish tomb to celebrate the return to the traditional gods. After about 1150 B.C., new waves of invasion and internal conspiracies and disorganization, including strikes and social protest, brought fairly steady decline. It was around this period that one people, the Hebrews, followed their leader Moses out of Egypt and into the deserts of Palestine.
The development of two great early civilizations in the Middle East and North Africa encourages a first effort at comparative analysis. Because of different geography, different degrees of exposure to outside invasion and influence, and different prior beliefs, Egypt and Mesopotamia were in contrast to one another in many ways. Egypt emphasized strong central authority, while Mesopotamian politics shifted more frequently over a substructure of regional city-states. Mesopotamian art focused on less monumental structures, while embracing a pronounced literary element that Egyptian art lacked.
These cultural differences can be explained partly by geography. Mesopotamians lacked access to the great stones that Egyptians could import for their monuments. The differences also owed something to different politics, for Egyptian ability to organize masses of laborers followed from its centralized government structures and strong bureaucracy. The differences owed something, finally, to different beliefs, for the Mesopotamians lacked the Egyptian concern for preparations for the afterlife, which so motivated the great tombs and pyramids that have made Egypt and some of the pharaohs live on in human memory.
Both societies traded extensively, but there was a difference in economic tone. Mesopotamia was more productive of technological improvements, because their environment was more difficult to manage than the Nile valley. Trade contacts were more extensive, and the Mesopotamians gave attention to a merchant class and commercial law.
Social differences were less obvious because it is difficult to obtain information on daily life for early civilizations. It is probable, though, that the status of women was greater in Egypt than in Mesopotamia (where women's position seems to have deteriorated after Sumer). Egyptians paid great respect to women at least in the upper classes, in part because marriage
alliances were vital to the preservation and stability of the monarchy. Also, Egyptian religion included more pronounced deference to goddesses as sources of creativity.
Comparisons in politics, culture, economics, and society suggest civilizations that varied substantially because of largely separate origins and environments. The distinction in overall tone was striking, with Egypt being more stable and cheerful than Mesopotamia not only in beliefs about gods and the afterlife but in the colorful and lively pictures the Egyptians emphasized in their decorative art. Also striking was the distinction in internal history, with Egyptian civilization far less marked by disruption than its Mesopotamian counterpart.
Comparison must also note important similarities, some of them characteristic of early civilizations. Both Egypt and Mesopotamia emphasized social stratification, with a noble, landowning class on top and masses of peasants and slaves at the bottom. A powerful priestly group also figured in the elite. While specific achievements in science differed, there was a common emphasis on astronomy and related mathematics, which produced durable findings about units of time and measurement. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt changed only slowly by the standards of more modern societies. Details of change have not been preserved, but it is true that having developed successful political and economic systems there was a strong tendency toward conservation. Change, when it came, was usually brought by outside forces - natural disasters or
invasions. Both civilizations demonstrated extraordinary durability in the basics. Egyptian civilization and a fundamental Mesopotamian culture lasted far longer than the civilizations that came later, in part because of relative isolation within each respective region and because of the deliberate effort to maintain what had been achieved, rather than experiment widely.
Both civilizations, finally, left an important heritage in their region and adjacent territories. A number of smaller civilization centers were launched under the impetus of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and some would produce important innovations of their own by about 1000 B.C.
by
jnr20 (student)
