Ancient Egypt

[anotheoldgit]

What peoples lived in Ancient Egypt before those who built the temples, statues,obelisks, Sphinx and pyramids? And how long did it take them to become skilled enough to build and erect such objects?

[Octavius]

Seven or eight thousand years ago, before there was Egypt or the pyramids, North Africa was a lush and green place. There were vast grasslands and green forests stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. Over this enormous green area, humans wandered in small groups; eventually, about eight thousand or so years ago, some of these small groups began to plant and cultivate their food.

While this happened all around the world, North Africa was a special case. For about the time humans slowly transformed into farmers, North Africa started to die. It died slowly and imperceptibly, but generation after generation began to notice that it was raining less frequently and that there were fewer plants. The death of the grasslands and forests slowly gave way to sand; in a few thousand years, North Africa became "The Desert". Humans were pushed relentlessly by the encroaching dry and sand. They were pushed south (and still are being pushed south as the Sahara continues to grow), some were pushed north into the Middle East, and some were pushed towards the Nile River. The Nile loomed as the only source of water in the growing desert; in a sea of sand, the Nile was a thin sliver of green, growth, and life.

This is where the great Nile civilizations were fostered and grew: Egypt, Nubia, Meroe. From the desperate human communities forced by the growing desert to live on the banks of the Nile grew one of the first great urban cultures of human history. However, we know almost nothing of these early pre-Egyptian communities. These were the Nilotic kingdoms.

contd/...

[Octavius]

We do know that around 5000 BC, people began to live in villages up and down the Nile Valley, and one thousand years later these people were burying their dead with great care and ornamentation. Around 3800 BC, Nile culture began to flourish. Egyptians discovered the world and began to interact and trade with other cultures as far away as Mesopotamia. Egyptians became master craftspeople; they buried their dead in coffins in lavishly equipped graves; they began to develop sophisticated technologies.

From 3900 to 3100 B.C., the villages along the Nile valley grew in wealth and power. Two of these villages became particularly powerful and wealthy Nekheb in the north and Nekhen in the south. Hence Upper & Lower Egypt was formed of the 2 cities of which the Upper Kingdom became victorious under the leader Narmer who tried to unify the 2 kingdoms.

At the same time, the Egyptians invented writing. Large-scale bureaucracy and the need for record-keeping certainly motivated this invention. This early form of writing which took the form of pictures (pictographic writing) eventually developed into hieroglyphics or medu netcher ("words of the gods") in ancient Egyptian.

Egypt prospered in the following centuries, agricultural production had been revolutionized by the building of massive irrigation projects; trade had ballooned; the population had swelled exponentially. Suddenly Egypt found itself wealthy; the country literally exploded with creativity for the next several generations. The period,from 2650-2134BC, the Old Kingdom, was the richest and most creative period in Egyptian history. All the pyramids were built at this time; the growth in population and wealth allowed the kings to apportion vast amounts of labour and materials to these monuments to themselves.

contd/...

[Octavius]

The first tombs of the pharaohs were large, unimpressive, bunker affairs called mastabas. They were made from sun dried mud brick and most have long since crumbled to dust. The first to build a 'pyramid' was Djoser in about 2630 BC. Pyramid-building is mathematically not a complex affair, but the Egyptians learned the art slowly. Djoser's pyramid, called the Step Pyramid, is not a smooth pyramid, but a series of six bases built one on top of another. A later king, Snofru, would build a pyramid closer to the classic design, but it was his son, Cheops, who built the largest of them all, the Great Pyramid of Giza (about 2570 BC). All of the enormous pyramids were built in the lifetimes of only four kings: Snofru, Cheops, Chephren, and Mycerinus, but they remain an icon of the richest and most powerfully creative period of Egyptian culture.

The great pyramid was the tallest building in the world until about 1300 AD.

Thats it in a nutshell.

[Toureman]

This also puts it in a nutshell........................

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/02/afe/ht02af e.htm

[pixie_woo]

Octavius, I'm in awe. You rock