Wednesday, February 25, 2015

February 25

Government by a God-King

  • Pharaoh was all powerful, worshipped as a god, and intimately connected to other Egyptian Gods
  • Egyptians relied on the balance of the universe
  • Pharaohs had multiple wives, all routes to their financial and social success was through the palace
  • Women could inherit money and land, they could divorce their husbands, though only a few ever wielded any real political power
Gods, Humans, Everlasting Life
  • Gods were often portrayed with animal heads or bodies
  • Egyptians believed in an afterlife and mummified bodies to preserve them for this port-death journey
  • All souls would need to justify themselves at the point of death and would either be sent to an after-world paradise or the jaws of a monster
The Writing of the Words of god
  • Earliest Egyptian writing was formed c. 3100 B.C. and were small pictures known as hieroglyphs
  • Hieroglyphs represented religious words or parts of words
  • Hieratic script was shorthand developed by scribes/priests
  • Hieratic script was usually written in ink on papyrus
  • Papyrus was stored in scrolls
Calendars and Sailboats
  • Egyptians astronomers created a calendar with 12 months and 365 days to make better sense of the seasonal cycles
  • Due to their excellent knowledge of human anatomy, doctors wrote extensively on health issues an created potions and cures for a number of common ailments
  • Wooden sailboats were constructed to increase transport ability on the Nile
Pyramids and Temples
  • The pyramids were massive stone tombs, originally covered in marble but the marble was later stripped off during Muslim conquest
  • Stone sculptures and interior painting depicted humans and gods in a series of regulated poses, they had no perspective and looked very flat, they were highly effective 

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