Egyptian trends

A civilization that emerged at about the same time as Mesopotamia ... or a little later than Egyptian civilization is.
Egypt Speaking of which, the whole area of ​​ desert area Isn't it the image of? That image doesn't seem to be a mistake.

Because of the desert, people gather on the waterside around the Nile and a civilization is being built. This is because it is difficult to live in the desert except around the Nile because it is difficult to secure water.

This time I would like to explore such trends in Egypt.

Let's take a look at Egypt before the rise of civilization

We must establish the minimum requirements for civilization and the means of food acquisition to support the population. The means is farming and livestock farming in Egypt as well. That said, it's a desert area. Water and good quality soil were not normally expected for farming and livestock farming.

However, as I wrote earlier, there is a lot of rainfall and good quality soil near the source of the Nile. The rainwater that falls there scrapes the soil and flows down the Nile, which flows through Egypt, causing floods. The people of ancient Egypt devised agriculture using the soil that had been washed away by this flood.

Even if it is called a flood, the Nile is a very long river, so even if it rains from the highlands, the slope is gentle, and even if it rains a lot upstream, it will not be an immediate flood. Even if it rains, the water level rises slowly, so there seems to be almost no damage like flash floods that occur when it rains in the desert.

In this way, life in Egypt depended on the benefits of the Nile, so even the phrase "Egypt is a gift of the Nile" was born.

Let's take a look at the country that flourished in Egypt

Around 3000 BC, a unified nation was born to govern the many people who gathered around the Nile. The rule of the unified state is said to be faster than Mesopotamia, which is said to have been the oldest civilization.

By governing a large number of people, he built a nation centered on the king (Pharaoh) and religion. Especially in the case of ancient Egypt, the king himself is an incarnation of God, and he has a stronger theocracy than Mesopotamia.

Also, the existence of the desert was advantageous in the case of Egypt. It was able to prevent invasion from different ethnic groups for a long time (compared to Mesopotamia, which was an advanced region), and contributed to the creation of a powerful nation.

Egypt is a pyramid besides the desert And Sphinx However, the creation of such huge structures such as pyramids and sphinxes is the result of having a strong unified nation.

The Old Kingdom was especially prosperous. ・ Middle Kingdom ・ New Kingdom Is called.

Details of the countries that emerged in ancient Egypt, centered on the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom, are written in the article below. Is it easier to grasp the flow if you read this article? I think.

What kind of culture was nurtured in Egypt? ??

View of religion

Egyptian religion is a polytheistic religion centered on the sun god Ra. At the end of the Old Kingdom, Osiris, the god of the underworld and the resurrection, became popular, and in the New Kingdom, the belief of Amon-Ra, which connects the guardian god Amon of the capital Thebes and the sun god Ra, was born.

During his reign, Pharaoh, the incarnation of Horus, the god of the sun and the heavens, was believed to become Osiris after his death.

As you can see from that, the Egyptians seemed to believe that the soul had a world after immortal death, and a mummy was created in connection with the resurrection faith of the afterlife, and with the mummy praying for the happiness of the dead who went to the afterlife. I have left the book of the dead.

Culture

The Egyptians have left many pictorial documents in addition to the Book of the Dead.

It seems that the letters used for inscriptions, grave rooms, sarcophagus, etc. and the letters written on paper were different.

• Inscription, grave room, sarcophagus ⇒ The characters used are hieroglyphic sacred characters. Also called hieroglyphs.
• Paper (papyrus) ⇒ Civil characters. Also called demostick

It is said that two types of characters were used. Furthermore, the rebellion of the Nile every year has led to the development of technologies not found in other countries. Geodesy and the solar calendar.

What is geodesy?

In Egypt, when farming, there are many cases where the boundary line disappears even if a mark is placed or placed on the ground due to the flooding of the Nile River, and it was necessary to remeasure the boundary line every year. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the distance and direction, and the technology for surveying will develop.

Even in modern times, you take pictures with a tripod when you work on the road, right? I think you should think of it as the prototype of that.

We survey based on ropes, stakes, and sticks, and redraw the boundaries of agricultural land. Of course, it was also used when making city plans other than agricultural land, and it seems that geodesy was firmly used in the construction of pyramids.

What is the solar calendar?

This is also a calendar system developed to predict the flooding of the Nile. Focusing only on the movement of the sun, we decided to set it 365 days a year, and made a prediction of when the river would overflow. Probably because of the development of such technology, the sun became a special existence in Egypt, and the sun god Ra was born.

It is the prototype of the Gregorian calendar currently in use, and has had a considerable influence on posterity.