Ancient Egyptian Inventions

1. Ancient Egyptian Inventions By Dylan Ayres G/T Mrs. Parks, 5th Grade

2. Egyptian Shaduf Invention For nearly 1,500 years, Egyptian farmers cultivated about 800,000 hectares under this system of basin irrigation. The shaduf, the water-lifting device already in use in Mesopotamia, appeared in upper Egypt sometime after 1500 BC. This technology enabled farmers to irrigate crops near the river banks and canals during the dry summer. This would have allowed the cultivated area to expand by 10-15 percent. A similar increase might have been afforded by the waterwheel, introduced sometime after 325 BC. So by the time Egypt had become a breadbasket for the Roman Empire, some 1 million hectares of land were effectively under cultivation in the course of a year. In conclusion, they developed one of the first irrigation systems.

3. Egyptian Wigs The first documentations of wigs were registered on different Egyptian artifacts as well as wall paintings on ancient tombs. During hot summers, a lot of Egyptians shaved their heads to keep them clean, which was much easier than cleaning them from pests. At the same time, looking bald in ancient Egypt was not considered to be aesthetically pleasant, which is why they invented wigs. Those who did not wear wigs, while remaining bald, were mostly priests and laborers. At that time, wigs were not meant to replace hair. They usually consisted of various sizes of braids set with beeswax or the like, which made wigs rather stiff.

4. Sun Clock • It is worth mentioning that in order to tell the time, Egyptians invented two types of clocks - first it was the sun clock which was an obelisk that allowed Egyptians to part the day into morning and afternoon. • This was made with the shadow of the obelisk that moved around the surface of the obelisk throughout the day. With its help, Egyptians managed to identify the longest and shortest days of the year - they simply registered the time when the shadow of the obelisk was the longest and shortest at noon.

5. Surgical Instruments The first medical document that survived till nowadays is the Edwin Smith Papyrus. It is possibly the earliest document that tries to study the brain, and thus could be called the starting point of neuroscience. The Egyptians did not carry out actual surgeries, but some small surgical operations that helped them gain more surgical knowledge. The Edwin Smith Papyrus says that Egyptians used some techniques to treat dislocated bones. It characterized 48 surgical cases of injures of the head, neck, shoulders, breast, and chest. In addition, it showed the suturing of non-infected wounds using a needle and thread. The Edwin Smith Papyrus includes a list of instruments used during surgeries. The list featured lint, swabs, bandage, adhesive plaster (that took the form of letter "x"), support, surgical stitches, and cauterization. Today, visitors of the Cairo museum have the possibility to observe a collection of surgical instruments used in ancient Egypt, including scalpels, scissors, copper needles, forceps, spoons, lancets, hooks, probes and pincers. Besides, 37 surgical instruments are carved on a wall in the temple of Kom-Ombo (the house of life of the 2nd century BC).

6. The Pyramids • The oldest pyramid to date was erected back in 2750 BC for King Djoser, a representative of the 3rd dynasty of Egyptian kings. Prior to a pyramid tomb, the Egyptian kings were buried in rectangular mud-brick tombs dubbed “mastabas.” But the architect of King Djoser, Imhotep, decided to place several mastabas of decreasing dimensions on top of each other, and thus created the first pyramid on the planet. • The largest Egyptian pyramid, however, is the Great Pyramid of Giza, which for thousands of years remained the tallest architectural creation in the world until the erection of Lincoln Cathedral in 1311. The area of its base measures more than 52,600 square meters.

7. Resources • http://www.infoniac.com/science/top-10-inventions-of-ancient-egypt.html • http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/nile/t1.html