Chapter+2,+Section+2

Delta: a marshy region formed by the deposition of silt at the moth of the river. Narmer: A king who supposedly brought upper and lower Egypt together. Pharaohs: The Egyptain equivilant of a kings, although he was considered a god as well as a governement and army leader. Theocracy: A government based on religious rule. Pyramid: A large triangular structure in which pharaohs were buried. Mummification: A process of emballing and drying corpes to prevent them from decaying. Hieroglyphics: The Egyptain form of writing. Papyrus: A type of reed used for a smooth writing surface.
 * Key Words:**

//Narmer:// The King who united the kingdoms of upper and lowerEegypt. __//**Summary**//__
 * Key People:**
 * The Geography of Egypt**
 * Egypt has part of the nile river within it's borders, which is over 4,100 miles long


 * The Gift of the Nile**
 * Yearly flooding in July brings water, which allows vegitation to grow, as well as settlements. It left behind a rich soil called silt.
 * Peasants would prepare their wheat and barley feilds for the sorching sun or the remaining months.
 * The egyptians worshipped the Nile as a god because it brought them much needed water.

--If the Nile's floodwaters were even a mere few feet below the normal, the amount of silt and water for the crops greatly lessend, which meant that many people starved. --If the Nile's floodwaters were a few feet higher than normal, the extra water destroyed property and gardens. --The deserts that surrounded the fertile area forced the people to only be able to live in a very small part of their country, thus reducing interaction wit other countries.
 * Environmental Challenges**
 * Although the Nile was "as regular as clockwork", living in Egypt still had challenges:
 * The deserts had one benefit, though-they shut out invaders :)


 * Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt**
 * Although river travel was common, the cataract part of the river prevent boaters from going beyond that point.
 * Because the elevation is higher, the southern part of the river is called upper egypt, which is a thin piece of land that's near where the river spreads into tributaries. The Northern part of Egypt is called lower Egypt, near the Nile delta region.
 * The Nile which flows north, provided a nice transportation system between upper and lower Egypt.


 * Egypt Unites into a Kingdom**
 * In 3200 BC, there were two seperate kingdoms: upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Eventually the two kindoms were united, some say by a king named Scorpion, others by a king named Narmer.
 * Red Crown=Lower Egypt, tall white crown=Upper Egypt. Some people believe that the kingdoms united around 3000 BC.
 * Narmer created a double crown with red abnd white to symbolize uniting. Eventually the uniting established a dynasty, which would later become 31 dynasties which would last 2,600 years.


 * Pharaohs rule as Gods**
 * Unlike Mesopotamia, the Egyptians saw their kings, or Pharaohs, as gods, which were almost as glorious and powerful as the actual Gods themselves.
 * The Pharaoh was responsibile for the government, religion, army, and the kingdom's well being.


 * Builders of the Pyramids**
 * The Egyptains belived that the pharaoh ruled even after his death because he had ka, an eternal life force. Their tomns were even more important then their palaces, because they were expected to reign forever.
 * The people who built them didn't even use the wheel, and the bricks were very heavy, at least 2 1/2 tons.
 * The pyramids also show the economic and technological strengths of the Egyptians.


 * Egyptian Culture**
 * Because nature was in their favor, the Egyptians had more confidence and a more optimistic perspective towards life than the Sumerains in Mesopotamia.


 * Religion and Life**
 * The Egyptians were polytheistic and belived in gods such as Ra, th sun god, and Osiris, the god of the dead, whcih they honored by building huge temples.
 * Egyptains believe in the afterlife, and a special test that granted eternal lilfe: Anubis, the god and guide to the underworld, weighed each persons's heart, and their heart could be no heavier than a feather, or else the devourer of Souls would gobble up the heart.
 * People of all classes prepared for the afterlife and took it very seriously, with the Kings and Queens having large tombs, and the others having smaller ones. They were preserved by mummification.
 * Since the people believed they could still live after death, they were buried with things such as clothes food, jewelry, cosmetics, and scrolls that had magic spells and prayers to guide them to the afterlife.


 * Life in the Egyptian Society**
 * The Egyptains had a social pyramid, with the royal family on top, the priests, those with wealth, and army commanders were next, and the merchants and artisans after, and farmers and peasants at the bottom.
 * Later, slavery became a widespread source of labor (Awwww :'[ ), and the worked in gold mines in upper Egypt.
 * The Egyptians were not forced to stay in the social classes they were born into. They could move up or down depending on the success of their job or who they married.
 * Like Mesopotamia, women mostly had the same rights a men, such as owning property abd proposing marrige.


 * Egyptain writing**
 * Simple pictures were the former writing of Egypt, but scribes came up with a more "flexible" writing system called hieroglphics.
 * In the earlier fomrs of hieroglphics, pictures were used. For example a picture of an owl stop for the "m" sound or the bird itself.
 * Hieroglphics were first written on stone and clay, but then the people came up with Papyrus reeds, a smoother writing surface.
 * Egyptian Science and Technology**
 * The needs of the people led to may inventions by the Egyptians, one of them being a calendar to track the time between floods and to plan their planting season.They also were the ones to divide the year into 365 days, and 12 months of roughly 30 days each.
 * Egyptians invented a system of numbers to add, subtract and count. This helped to collect and count taxes and helped architects to make accurate measurements.
 * Egyptains also came up with the best medicines and cures for thing. For example they set broken bones with splints.


 * Invaders Control Egypt**
 * The power of the Pharoahs declined at 2180 BC, which was the end of the old kindom, although strong pharoahs had control of the middle kindom from 2040 to 1640 BC. They did many things to improved the land, such as drain the swamps to make room for farmlands.
 * In 1640 BC, a group of people from Palestine called the Hyksos controled Egypt from 1630-1523 BC.
 * The New Kingdom in Egypt would soon rise... (dun dun dun....)