North African History

and Culture

Early Peoples- Chapter 21:2a -

The Greek historian

Herodotus once referred to Egypt as

being “the Gift of the Nile.”

[Image source: http://www.williston.k12.nd.us/larsen/Unit3%20Egypt/Herodot2.htm]

Satellite remote-sensing image of

Egypt, showing the Nile River Valley.

The rich alluvial

soil of the river and the delta provided

good farm land for

the people of Egypt.

[Image source: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/6539/pic.htm]

Early Egyptians took up farming and grew cereal crops such as wheat and barley.

The Nile also provided Neolithic farmers with ducks and geese in its marshlands and fish in its waters.

[Image source: http://www.uk.sis.gov.eg/pharo/html/bountfrm.htm]

[Image source: http://www.uk.sis.gov.eg/pharo/html/bountfrm.htm]

[Image source: http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/COSTUME1_INDEX.HTML#Plate1]

Over time, strong leaders united these villages into

kingdoms, or monarchies,

each under the unrestricted

ruled of a powerful king.

By 4000 B.C., ancient Egypt consisted of two

large kingdoms . . .

Lower Egypt in the north,in the Nile Delta, and . . .

[Image source: http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94/delta185.gif]

Upper Egypt in the south, in

the Nile River Valley.

[Image source: http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94/upegnom.gif]

King Narmer (Menes) of

Upper Egypt conquered

Lower Egypt and unified the country circa

3000 B.C.[Image source: http://campus.northpark.edu/history//Classes/Sources/Narmar.html]

The unification of Upper and

Lower Egypt can be seen in the

combination of the two crowns.

[Image source: http://www.lib.ohio-state.edu/OSU_profile/bslweb/afancient.html]

Narmer (Menes) ruled the unified

kingdom of Egypt from his

new capital, Memphis, which he built on the border between

the two kingdoms.

Memphis

King Narmer (Menes)

established the first dynasty,

or line of rulers from one family.

[Image source: http://campus.northpark.edu/history//Classes/Sources/Narmar.html]

Historians have organized ancient Egyptian dynasties into three great periods:

• Old Kingdom (2700 to 2200 B.C.)

• Middle Kingdom (2050 to 1800 B.C.)

• New Kingdom (1600 to 300 B.C.)

A strong, centralized

national government developed under the Egyptian pharaohs.

[Image source: http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/COSTUME1_INDEX.HTML#Plate1]

The title pharaoh means “great house.”

[Image source: http://www.unites.uqam.ca/dhist/pagesp/pagemg3.htm]

Egyptian society revolved around providing for the “great house.”

[Image source: http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94/society.gif]

Egypt was a theocracy, where the

pharaoh was both the

religious and political leader

of Egypt.[Image source: http://www.pharaonicarts.com/ramses-horus.htm]

To honour their god-kings, Egyptians built “houses of eternity,” or pyramids, to entomb their remains.

[http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp./org/orion/eng/hst/egypt/giza.html]

Egyptians developed one of the

earliest systems of

writing, known as

hieroglyphs.

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone in A.D.

1799 by allowed later scholars to decipher

hieroglyphs.[Image source:

http://www.bc-freemasonry.com/biography/champollion_jf/rosetta.html]

Egyptian priests worked out a 365 day calendar that

made it possible to predict the

annual inundation.

Between 1570 and

1085 B.C., Egypt

expandedits power through

conquest.

Egypt conquered Israel and parts of Syria to the northeast, and

Libya to the west.

Thutmose III captured the

important town of

Megiddo which

controlled the trade routes.

[Image source: http://www.eyelid.co.uk/k-q3.htm]

Egypt’s power began to decline when it came into competition with sea powers like the Phoenicians.

Phoenicians

The Phoenicians established a network of trading posts

and colonies throughout the Mediterranean Basin.

[Source: World History: Patterns of Civilization (Prentice-Hall]

-Ezekiel 27:32b-33

“Who was ever . . . like Tyre in the midst of the sea? When your wares came from the seas, you satisfied many peoples; with your great abundance and merchandise you enriched the kings of the earth.”

Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, conquered Egypt in the late-300s B.C., as he dismantled the once mighty Persian Empire.

http://1stmuse.com/frames/alex-synopsys.html#Granicus

Alexander would build a city in Egypt and name it

after himself.

The Romans would later absorb Egypt into its growing empire in the late-first century B.C.

After the Roman Empire was divided in A.D. 395, the eastern half became

known as the Byzantine Empire.

[Image source: http://www.american.edu/dgolash/romanemp400ad5.jpg]

The Eastern Roman Empire managed to escape many of the barbarian invasions that threatened the stability of the West.