Study Guide: Ancient Egypt

1. Study Guide: Ancient Egypt Duncan Winburn

2. Vocabulary • Delta – The part of a river that branches out • Cataracts – Strong rapids • Silt – rich soil and small rocks mixed together • Shaduf – an Egyptian invention that made it easier to water plants • Kingdom – A civilization with a person that rules • Pharaoh – a person who ruled both sides of Egypt

3. Vocabulary • Papyrus – an early kind of paper made out of reeds • Pyramid – a wonder of the world that the Egyptians built in which they buried their pharaoh and put his belongings in the same tomb • Hieroglyphics – a way of writing in Egypt • Mummification – a special way that the Egyptians buried people

4. Vocabulary • Amulet – A lucky charm that the Egyptians put around dead people’s necks • Embalmer – a person who embalmed dead people • Book of the Dead – A book that the Egyptians studied to learn about what would happen in the afterlife • Obelisk – A big pillar with four sides that has a pointed top

5. Vocabulary • Sphinxes – mythical creatures with a lion’s body and a human’s head • Dynasty – a group of people who ruled from the same family • Menes – Egypt’s first pharaoh • Khufu – made the first pyramids • Ahmose – drove out the Hyksos

6. Vocabulary • Rames II – a giant statue was made for him • Queen Hatshepsut – The first female pharaoh • Ramses the Great – A pharaoh that conquered other places • King Tutankhamen – Archeologists discovered his undisturbed tomb • Rosetta Stone – a stone slab with hieroglyphics written on it • To Barter – to negotiate what to trade and trade it

7. Short answer • The important regions of Egypt are Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. These make up Egypt. Thebes is the capitol of all of Egypt. • The Greeks called Egypt “The Gift of the Nile” because the Nile was so important • I think that Upper Egypt was more important to a ruler because it had more cities.

8. Short answer • The social structure of Egypt goes like this: The pharaoh was at the top Nobles were below Scribes and Craftspeople were below Farmers, Servants and Slaves were at the bottom • The people thought of a pharaoh as a god, so he got blamed for whatever went wrong

9. Short answer • The Egyptians were polytheistic, which meant they believed in a lot of gods. They would make sacrifices, worship them and ask them favors • The Egyptians believed in the afterlife because they believed in people’s spirits

10. Short answer • The mummification process goes like this: They open the dead person and take out all of the organs except the heart and the brain The heart is left in to keep for the afterlife for weighing They couldn’t figure out what the brain was for, so they pulled it out through the dead persons nose and threw the brain away They then placed a lucky charm around the person’s neck, wrapped the body in bandage, put in a sarcophagus and buried it in a pyramid or tomb

11. Short answer • Pyramids were important because that was where all of the dead people were buried. They stopped building them because robbers kept stealing the dead person’s treasures • The type of writing Egyptians used was called hieroglyphics

12. Short answer • Three Egyptian Innovations: • They invented burial tombs, which people still use • They had kings and queens, which people still used later on • They invented the first kinds of clocks, which people renovated later on

13. Short answer • In the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians invented mummification. In the Middle Kingdom, the Egyptians were ruled by Queen Hatshepsut. She was the first female pharaoh. In the New Kingdom, the Egyptians were ruled by Ramses the Great. He conquered other countries and expanded his kingdom.