Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti

1. EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION
Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti
Of all the river valley civilizations, the Nile valley civilization is probably the most famous.
About 5.000 years ago, much of the terrain around the Nile River was covered by
swampland. The Nile River is the longest river of the world; it flows over 6700 km, from the
mountain range in the middle of Africa and empties in the Mediterranean Sea. The river has
6 great cataracts that offer an amazing view. At the end of the NileRiver is adelta formation.
Egypt has deserts to the east and west, the Mediterranean Sea to the north and high
mountains to the south. Egypt was well situated, with natural barriers for defense. The Nile
Valley people started their civilization 1200 km downstream from the first cataract of the
Nile, becauseafter that it was possibleto navigatein boats and transport people and goods.
Each spring, snow on the mountains would melt. The Nile River would flood every year from
June to October. This was a very good thing. When the flood waters receded, they left
behind fertile soil.Crops could easilybe grown in this black, rich soil.The river alsoprovided
water for cooking and bathing, water to irrigate the crops, food (fish, birds, animals lived in
or along it), building supplies (papyrus, trees and clay), and easy transportation of people
and goods. It was very easy to travel south to north by boat on the Nile River. All these were
"gifts from the Nile". This sacred river was the most important feature for ancient Egypt; it
allowed the Egyptians to stay connected and build a culture and a civilization.

2. Egypt was not isolated from other cultures. It was
easy to sail along the Mediterranean Sea, so
Egyptians had contact with many other peoples.
The squared sail made it possible to sail from north
to south along the river.
Sources
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/
http://egypt.mrdonn.org/
Comprehension check questions
1) Where in the world is Egypt?
2) Why was the Nile considered to be “The Life of Egypt”?
3) Were the ancient Egyptians isolated from other cultures?
Egyptian civilization
Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti
Society
The ancient Egyptians were
fascinating people; they were
in love with life. They worked
very hard, but saved time to
enjoy family, friends, music,
parties, swimming, fishing,
hunting, sailing, and
especially their children, all of
which were very important to
the ancient Egyptians.

3. Weather in Egypt was hot, so clothes were comfortable and loose,
usually made of linen (cotton). Ancient Egyptians used accessories
and jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, ear rings, rings, made of different
metals and shells (conchas). Egyptians had short hair and used wigs
(pelucas) with long hair. People used a black make up (maquillage)
called KHOL for their eyes. Egyptians did not wear shoes, they
preferred sandals.(Adapted from the book: El vestido y la moda ayer
y hoy)
Read also National Geographic magazine, April 2001, Article
"Pharaohs of the sun" by Rick Gore.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0104/feature2/
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0104/feature2/fulltext.html
Writing (Brief explanation)
By 3.000 B.C. the Egyptians had developed a
writing system called hieroglyphics. From the
greek language “hieros” means sacred, “glyphe”
means carving. There were more than 600
symbols, signs and pictures to indicate words or
sounds. At first they wrote on ivory (marfil), but it
took too much time and it was difficult to find the elephant tusks.
In search of a better material to write on, they discovered a plant
called papyrus that grew along the Nile river. The Egyptians cut the
stem of the plant into long and thin slices. Then, they placed the
slices together in order to create paper with it.
Egyptians wrote on papyrus with a sharpened reed as a pen. The
ink they used was created with vegetable gum diluted in water,
which was after mixed with soot (hollín). The government hired
clerks just for writing, they were called scribes.
At the beginning the parents taught their kids what they knew.
Later, all the knowledge was passed on the next generation
through education. There were schools only for boys.

4. Religion
Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti
Religion guided every aspect of Egyptian life. The Egyptians had
as many as 2000 gods and goddesses. Some gods, such as Amun
(also written Amon, Amon Ra, Amon Re), the king of the gods,
were worshipped in the whole country, while others had only a
local following. Often gods and goddesses were represented as
part human and part animal. For example, Horus, the sky god,
had the head of ahawk, and body of ahuman (son of Isis &Osiris).
They considered animals such as the bull, the cat, and the
crocodile to be holy.
Their two chief gods were Amon-Ra and Osiris. Amon-Ra was
believed to be the sun god and the lord of the universe; he was seen as an all-powerful
creator. Osiris was the god of the underworld. Stories about him revolved around the idea
of immortality. Osiris was the god that made a peaceful afterlife possible. The Egyptian
"Book of the Dead" contains the major ideas and beliefs in the
ancient Egyptian religion. Because their religion stressed an
afterlife, Egyptians devoted much time and wealth to
preparing for survival in the next world.
The Egyptians had many tales about how the world began.
According to a legend, it started with an ocean in darkness.
Then a mound of dry land rose up and the sun god Re
appeared. He created light and all things. Another version has
the sun God emerging from a sacred blue lotus that grew out
of the mud, while a third version has him appearing as a scarab
beetle on the eastern horizon.
Temples were considered dwelling places for the gods. They
were everywhere. Each city had a temple built for the god of
that city. The purpose of the temple was to be a cosmic center
by which men had communication with the gods. As the priests
became more powerful, tombs became a part of great temples.
The priest’s duty was to care for the gods and attend to their
needs. The priests had many duties such as funeral rites,
teaching school, supervising the artists and works, and advising
people on problems. Egyptians were polytheistic, they
worshipped many deities, except for during the reign of
Akhenaton who gave more importance to the god of the Sun, AMUN.

5. Fragment from National Geographic magazine: On a morning in the year 1353 B.C a young
pharaoh of Egypt rose before dawn to greet the sun with a poem he loved.
"Beautifully you appear from the horizon of heaven,"
"Oh living Aten, who initiates life. . . . Oh sole god, without another beside him! You create
the Earth according to your wish. . . . You are in my heart, and there is none who knows
you except your son."
Akhenaton was the first monotheist. He insisted that Amon was
the supreme and only god. Akhenaton had a very good taste in
arts and there are many palaces, temples, statues, painted
scenes and hieroglyphs from his reign. Akhenaten’s temples had
no roofs and the religious ceremonies were performed directly
under the sun. Akhenaten perceived himself and his wife
Nefertiti as extensions of the god Aten, that is why they are
known as the pharaohs of the sun. He even built a new city in a
desert valley in honor of the sun god; this city was Akhetaten,
meaning “horizon of Aten”, known today as Amarna.
You can see more in http://www.amarnaproject.com/pages/model_of_the_city/
Death and funerals
Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti
The Egyptians saw death as a transitional stage in the progress to a better life in the next
world. They believed they could only reach their full potential after death. Each person was
thought to have three souls, the "ka," the "ba," and the "akh." For these to function
properly, it was considered essential for the body to survive intact. The entire civilization of

6. Ancient Egypt was based on religion, and their beliefs were
important to them. Their belief in the rebirth after death
became their driving force behind their funeral practices.
Embalming / Mummification
When a person died, the priests recited prayers and a final
attempt was made to revive the deceased. The body was then
washed and purified in a special shelter called an ibu. The body
was then taken to the wabet, which was the embalmer's
workshop. A cut was made in the left side, and all the organs
were removed and stored in containers known as canopic jars.
The body was then packed with a salt called natron for a period
of forty days.After the forty days had passed,the insides were
filled with linen or sawdust, resin and natron. The body was
wrapped in bandages with jewelry and amulets between the
layers. A portrait mask was placed over the head of the
deceased by the Chief Embalmer, who wore a jackal mask to
represent Anubis. The wrapped body, or mummy, was put
into a coffin.
Burial Tombs
After a period of about 70 days, in which the mummification
process took place, the mummy was placed in a decorated
coffin.
Furniture, carved statues, games, food, and other items useful to the next life were
prepared to be buried with the mummy. The last ritual performed by the priest on the
mummy was called the "Opening of the Mouth." This ceremony was to magically give the
deceased the ability to speak and eat again, and to have full use of his body. After placing
the mummy in the sarcophagus, the tomb was sealed.
The pharaohs were considered to be the living version of God Horus and had special tombs
called Pyramids. The most famous pyramids are the pyramids of Giza.
Curious data
There are days when the sand blows incessantly, blanketing the remains of a powerful
dynasty that ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago. When the wind dies down and the sands are still,
a long shadow casts a wedge of darkness across the Sahara, creeping ever longer as the
North African sun sinks beyond the horizon. This is where our history of Egypt begins, in the
shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza, where stone meets sky as a testament to one of the
greatest civilizations on earth.

7. On the plateau of Giza, 2,300,000 blocks of stone, some weighing as much as 9 tons, were
used to build an eternal tomb for a divine king. There is also the Great Sphinx, an enormous
statue sculpture of ancient Egypt which represents the ancient sun God of Egypt. It has the
body of a lion and human head.
Five thousand years ago, the fourth dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom was a very advanced
civilizationwhere the kings,known as pharaohs, were believed to be gods.They livedamidst
palaces and temples built to honor them and their deified ancestors. "Pharaoh" originally
meant "great house," but later came to mean king. What we know of this early society
changes and is re-interpreted year by year as new archaeological finds discovered beneath
the desert sands revise our understanding of ancient Egypt.
How does the pyramid fit into early
Egyptian life? Pyramids today stand as
a reminder of the ancient Egyptian
glorification of life after death, and in
fact, the pyramids were built as
monuments to house the tombs of the
pharaohs. Death was seen as merely
the beginning of a journey to the other
world. In this society, each individual's
eternal life was dependent on the
continued existence of their king, a
belief that made the pharaoh's tomb
the concern of the entire kingdom.
Pictures on the walls of tombs tell us about the lives of the Kings and their families. We
know pyramids were built during a king's lifetime because hieroglyphs on tomb walls have
been found depicting the names of the gangs who built the pyramids for their kings.
Furniture and riches were buried with the king so he would have the familiar comforts of
his lifetime buried near him. Attendants and wives who died after the king were also buried
close to him. These graves of relatives and courtiers can be found on the outskirts of kings'
tombs, lying beside the pyramids. Whole subdivisions of tombs of those in high positions in
the court of a king can be found surrounding the pyramids of Giza. These are primarily
mastabas, or covered rectangular tombs that consist of a deep burial shaft, made of mud
brick and half-buried by the drifts of sand on the plateau.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/explore/age.html

8. Activities & Questions
The following exercises may be used in regular classes or recovery workshops.
Task 1: Answer the following questions.
1) What form did the gods and goddesses of the Ancient Egyptians
typically take?
a. Plants
b. Humans
c. Animals
d. Fire and wind
2) Who was considered the most important and powerful god?
a. Amun b. Ra c. Isis d. Osiris
3) What was Osiris the god of?
a. The underworld and the dead
b. The sky and the wind
c. Knowledge and wisdom
d. Protection from harm
4) Why was it important to preserve the body after death?
a. To keep a record of the people who had lived in Egypt
b. So the body would scareoff grave robbers from getting the treasure
c. So the ba and ka could unite in the afterlife
d. It was not very important
5) The Pharaoh was considered to be the living version of which god?
a. Osiris
b. Ra
c. Isis
d. Horus
6) What type of headdress was the goddess Isis usually drawn with?

9. a. Hawk
b. Sun
c. Bird
d. Feathers
7) What two gods were married and they were also the parents
of Horus?
a. Isis and Osiris
b. Thoth and Ra
c. Amun and Ra
d. Osiris and Thoth
8) This goddess had the head of a cat and is a gentle protective goddess, but
shesometimes shows up with the head of a lioness to protect the king in battle. What is
the name of this goddess?
a. Ma'at
b. Tatawet
c. Bastet
d. Hathor
9) What is the god of the sun called!?
a. Ra or Re
b. Horus
c. Nut and Geb
d. Osiris
Task 2: Answer the following questions.
1. What was the main purpose of the Ancient Egyptian
pyramids?
2. What does the largest pyramid built by the Egyptians
have?
3. What specific location do all the pyramids have in common?

10. 4. What geometrical shape formed the base of all the pyramids?
5. Which Pharaoh built the first pyramid?
Science & Medicine
Text adapted by Esmeralda Ferti
Science
Just before the floods in the Nile, there appeared a very bright star in the horizon; we call
this star Sirius (the Dog Star). The time between one rising of this star and the next rising
was 365 days, almost exactly a full year. The Egyptians divided this cycle in 12 months of 30
days each. This is how they developed their calendar. The years had no specific numbers;
they had names like the year of the great flood or the year of the
earthquake, etc.
The Egyptians also developed a systemof numbers basedon 10, similar
to the decimal system we use today. They used whole numbers and
fractions. They also used geometry to re-define the boundaries of
fields after the floods. Of course this was useful to lay out canals and
irrigation ditches.
Medicine
The Egyptians had discovered a lot about the human bodies and they used this knowledge
to treat illnesses and preserve the bodies. There existed a book called “The book of healing
diseases”. This book classified diseases according to symptoms and also prescribed
treatments = that was a mix of herbs, medicine and magic spells. (Dentist)
They understood the structure of the body and set broken bones and treated wounds, used
medicines to cure sickness, practiced autopsy, practiced surgery, etc. Magic and medicine
went together, so it was normal to see a priest act as a nowadays physician.
Bibliography: National Geographic magazine, April 2001, Article "Pharaohs of the sun" by Rick Gore
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0104/feature2/fulltext.html