Egypt2

Ancient Egypt: The Old, Middle and New Kingdoms

A. Taming the Nile

1. Characteristics of the Nile River

2. The need for a bureaucracy

a. Predicting the inundation

b. Extending/maintaining the irrigation systems

c. Surveying and redistributing land

d. Collecting taxes, controlling the surplus

B. The Development of a Writing System

1. Priests and Scribes

2. Cracking the Rosette Stone

3. Hieroglyphics, demotics & ideographs

C. Science & Technology

1. For control of water

2. For navigation of the Nile

3. Architecture: Temples and Pyramids

a. Sneferu, the Pyramid Builder (2613-2589 BC)

b. The stepped pyramid

c. The bent pyramid

d. The red pyramid of Dahshur

e. The Great Pyramid of Giza

f. Raison d’etre

4. Medicine (from mummification?)

5. Metallurgy

D. Crises

1. Feminism: Queen Hatshepsut (1498-1483)

2. Akhenaten, the “Flower Child” Pharaoh

E. Decline (2181-2040), (1633-1555) (332-323) BC

1. Alexander the Great

2. The Ptolemy’s

3. The Romans