Egypt is one of the oldest and most durable civilizations. The reason for this is its location. Sandwiched on both sides by the desert, it had the opportunity to develop in the fertile Nile Valley. The floods of the Nile are like rivers for farmers.
The blessed people of Egypt, whose population did not exceed five million at all periods of its history, lived under the rule of rulers who considered themselves living gods on earth.
Historians calculate the chronology of Egypt by dynasties:
1 – early dynastic period – 2920-2575 BC. Egyptian civilization goes back centuries, to the 9th millennium BC. Nomadic tribes of hunters gradually concentrated in the Nile floodplain. By the 5th millennium BC. two clearly demarcated associations arose here: Lower and Upper Egypt. Around 3000 BC Upper Egypt conquered its northern neighbor. During the 3rd Dynasty, the Joker erected a step pyramid.
2. Ancient kingdom. During the 4th Dynasty, Egyptian culture entered its heyday. The Pyramids of Gizeh with the Sphinx are architectural monuments of the era. Trade and art flourished, and writing developed. During the 5th Dynasty, the cult of the Sun greatly increased. By the end of the 6th dynasty, the Ancient Kingdom disintegrated into a number of principalities warring between the powers.
3. First transition period – 2134-2040. BC. At the beginning of the first transition period, the pharaohs have little real power, and the countries are torn apart by internecine conflicts. In the end, the 9th and 10th dynasties reigned and the aggressive princes of Thebes proclaimed themselves the rightful heirs to the throne and founded a new dynasty.
4. Middle Kingdom - 2040-1640 BC. Egypt is united by the Theban pharaoh of the 11th dynasty. The tsar enjoys the support of the bureaucratic class, nullifying the power of local rulers. The flourishing of art. Among the gods, Osiris comes first, and the cult of the sun Ra is popular.
5. Second transition period – 1640-1550. BC. For unknown reasons, the Middle Kingdom disintegrates, the Hyksos tribes from Palestine captured the Delta region, and founded the XV dynasty there. The Dynasty XVII Fav declares war on them and, using new weapons - horses loaded into chariots - liberates the Delta and proclaims a new era - the New Kingdom.
6. New Kingdom - 1550-1070. BC. Egypt becomes a prosperous and open society. During the reign of Tutankhamun, art flourished.
7. Third transition period - 1070-712 BC. Internal crisis. The country split. Egypt then falls to the Libyan dynasty.
8. Late period – 712-332 BC In the 7th century - Assyrians attack, in 525 BC. - The Persians invade, turning Egypt into a province. In 332, Persia fell under the blows of A. Macedonian and the last page was turned in the history of Egypt. The final decline came when Egypt fell to Caesar Augustus in 30 BC. Even the language the people spoke disappeared from the face of the earth forever.
For many centuries after the collapse of Dr. Egypt remained a country - a mystery. During the Egyptian campaign of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Rosetta Stone was found.
There are few monuments of vanished civilizations in the world that would be so shrouded in mystery and inspire such sacred horror as the Egyptian pyramids of the Old Kingdom.
In other Egypt, the fourth son of Ramses II showed interest in the pyramids. He not only restored the pyramids, but also discovered and identified many objects of Egyptian material culture.
Memphis is the other capital of Egypt, up to 50,000 people lived and worked there, families lived in two-three-story houses made of raw brick. Mostly artisans lived here. It flourished until the 7th century. AD when the Arabs, having captured Egypt, began to actively destroy the city, using stone to build a new capital - Cairo.
Almost everything we know about Memphis and Egypt in general comes from its cemeteries. As time passed, so did the burials.
Around 2630 BC. During the reign of Pharaoh III of the dynasty Djoser, pyramids began to be built entirely of stone. – Imhotep built a step pyramid. Base 118.6x140.9m height 62 m.
Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops in Greek spelling). Its base covers an area of 5.2 hectares. You can fit 5 hl inside. cathedrals in Europe, including St. Peter's in Rome, and St. Paul's in London.
How did you manage to build it?
Scottish astronomer Charles Piazzi Smith believes that deities are embedded in the shapes of the Great Pyramid. Numbers related to the measurement of space and time. He calculated that if the height of the pyramid, expressed in inches, is multiplied by 9 to the 6th power (since the proportion 9 9 is the ratio of the height of the pyramid to its width), then the distance from the Earth to the Sun is obtained. And the perimeter of the pyramid is 365.2 i.e. the number of days in a solar year multiplied by 1000.
The Sphinx is 4500 years old and has already been completely cleansed for 70 years. The gigantic creations probably owe their origin to man’s observation of seasonal changes in the nature around him, for the Egyptians always lived in close unity with nature. One of the most deeply kept secrets of ancient Egyptian civilization was discovered in 1926. The Englishman Tsilkinson found a bas-relief in the tombs at Tel El Amarna. Ancient sculptors departed from the canons of their time. Instead of dark journeys into the realm of the dead and battle scenes, they sealed Akhenaten and Nefertiti in a natural home environment, sitting comfortably with children on their laps in armchairs.
For apostasy, the priests who compiled the lists of the pharaohs who ruled Egypt regularly omitted the name of Akhenaten from them. Over time, they found a cache of his correspondence with other states and sculptures. After 17 years of reign, Akhenaten died, his successor came for only three years, and then Tutankhamun, who was only 9 years old, took the throne. The old gods returned to the temples again. Tutankhamun ordered that the city of the solar disk be abandoned by everyone. Reigned for about 10 years. The crown then passed to Eibe, the queen's brother. He began to destroy the memory and name of Akhenaten, and completed what he started - Horemheb, the pharaoh who assumed power after Ey.
Amazing our imagination, ancient mummies are silent witnesses of centuries gone by. What can they talk about? Today, scientists can examine mummies without unbandaging them or removing them from their coffins. This is done using computer control scanners: flat images are converted into three-dimensional ones created on monitor screens.
Pharaoh Thutmose I (1504-1492 BC) refused to build pyramids because robbers always remained a threat and chose the “Valley of the Kings” for burial.
In 1922, archaeologist Carter made a sensational discovery: the tomb of Tutankhamun.
There is no more impressive farewell to another world in history than the burial of Ramses II, who died in 1224 BC.
Bas-reliefs and the “Book of the Dead,” which contains the texts of spells, allowed scientists to describe the entire ritual in detail. He reigned for almost 60 years, left behind 90 children, outlived 12 of his crown princes (and is currently closed to visitors).
That. mummies told us about the life of a bygone ancient civilization.
One of the world's oldest civilizations, the civilization of Egypt originated in Northeast Africa, in the valley of one of the longest rivers in the world - the Nile. It is generally accepted that the word "Egypt" comes from the ancient Greek "Aigyptos". It probably arose from Het-ka-Ptah, a city that the Greeks later called Memphis. The Egyptians themselves called their country Ta Keme - Black Earth: after the color of the local soil. The history of Ancient Egypt is usually divided into the periods of the Ancient (end of the 4th - most of the 3rd millennium BC), Middle (until the 16th century BC), New (until the end of the 11th century BC) kingdoms, late (X-IV centuries) , as well as Persian (525-332 BC - under the rule of the Persians) and Hellenistic (IV-I centuries BC, as part of the Ptolemaic state). From 30 BC to 395 AD, Egypt was a province and granary of Rome, after the division of the Roman Empire until 639 it was a province of Byzantium. The Arab conquest of 639-642 led to a change in the ethnic composition of the population, language and religion in Egypt.
According to Herodotus, Egypt is the gift of the Nile, for the Nile was and is a source of inexhaustible fertility, the basis for the economic activity of the population, since almost the entire territory of Egypt lies in the zone of tropical deserts. The relief of most of the country is a plateau with prevailing altitudes of up to 1000 meters within the Libyan, Arabian and Nubian deserts. Ancient Egypt and its neighboring regions had almost everything necessary for human existence and activity. The territory of Egypt in ancient times was a narrow ribbon of fertile soil stretching along the banks of the Nile. Every year during floods, the fields of Egypt were covered with water, which brought with it fertile silt that enriched the soil. On both sides the valley was bordered by mountain ranges rich in sandstone, limestone, granite, basalt, diorite and alabaster, which were excellent building materials. Rich gold deposits were discovered south of Egypt, in Nubia. There were no metals in Egypt itself, so they were mined in the adjacent areas: copper on the Sinai Peninsula, gold in the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea, lead on the Red Sea coast. Egypt occupied an advantageous geographical position: the Mediterranean Sea connected it with the Western Asian coast, Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece.
The Nile was the most important shipping route connecting Upper and Lower Egypt with Nubia (Ethiopia). In such favorable conditions, the construction of irrigation canals began in this territory already in the 5th-4th millennium BC. The need to maintain an extensive irrigation network led to the emergence of nomes - large territorial associations of early agricultural communities. The very word denoting the region - nom - was written in the ancient Egyptian language with a hieroglyph depicting the land divided by an irrigation network into areas of regular shape. The system of ancient Egyptian nomes, formed in the 4th millennium BC, remained the basis of the administrative division of Egypt until the very end of its existence.
The creation of a unified system of irrigation agriculture became a prerequisite for the emergence of a centralized state in Egypt. At the end of the 4th - beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, the process of uniting individual nomes began. The narrow river valley - from the first Nile rapids to the delta - and the region of the delta itself were developed differently. This difference remained throughout Egyptian history in the division of the country into Upper and Lower Egypt and was reflected even in the title of the pharaohs, who were called “kings of Upper and Lower Egypt.” The ancient Egyptian crown was also twofold: the pharaohs wore white Upper Egyptian and red Lower Egyptian crowns inserted into each other. Egyptian legend attributes the merit of unifying the country to the first pharaoh of the 1st Ming dynasty. Herodotus says that he founded Memphis and was its first ruler.
From this time on, the era of the so-called Early Kingdom began in Egypt, which covers the period of the reign of the 1st and 2nd dynasties. Information about this era is very scarce. It is known that already at that time there was a large and carefully managed royal economy in Egypt, and agriculture and cattle breeding were developed. They grew barley, wheat, grapes, figs and dates, and raised large and small livestock. The inscriptions on the seals that have reached us indicate the existence of a developed system of government positions and titles.
Egypt was called "Gift of the Nile" in ancient times
Geographical position
Ancient Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, which originated in Northeast Africa, in the Nile Valley. It is generally accepted that the word "Egypt" comes from the ancient Greek "Aigyptos". It probably arose from Het-ka-Ptah, a city that the Greeks later called Memphis. The Egyptians themselves called their country “Ta Kemet” - Black Land - after the color of the local soil.
Egypt occupied an advantageous geographical position. The Mediterranean Sea connected it with the Western Asian coast, Cyprus, the islands of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece. The Nile was the most important shipping artery connecting Upper and Lower Egypt and the entire country with Nubia, which ancient authors called Ethiopia.
Formation of a single state
We read in more detail about the first centuries of Ancient Egypt and the formation of the state in the article “Formation of the State. The Early Kingdom of Ancient Egypt".
In the era before the formation of the state, Egypt consisted of separate regions; as a result of their unification, two kingdoms arose - Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. After a long war, the Upper Egyptian kingdom won, and the two parts merged. The exact date of this event is unknown, but it can be assumed that around 3000 BC. e. a single state already existed in the Nile Valley.
The beginning of the chronicle Egyptian tradition is associated with the name of King Min (Greek Menes) - the founder of the 1st dynasty, probably identical with Horus Akha. According to the legend preserved by Herodotus, Ming founded the capital of the united kingdom at the junction of Upper and Lower Egypt, erecting a dam to protect the city from flooding. From here it was convenient to govern both the south and north of the country. The Greeks later named this city Memphis.
Formerly kingdom
After the reign of his heir, Thutmose II, the throne was seized by Hatshepsut, who initially retained the child king, her stepson, Thutmose III, as the nominal ruler, but later openly declared herself a pharaoh. Having come to power, Thutmose III sought to eradicate any reminder of Hatshepsut, destroying her images and even her name. He made many campaigns in Syria and Palestine, and his empire began to extend from the fourth cataract of the Nile to the northern outskirts of Syria.
For the first half of the 14th century. BC e. marks the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton), whose name is associated with the most important religious reform. Under Amenhotep IV's two successors, a departure from his policies began. Semnekh-kere restored the cult of Amun; under the next pharaoh, Tutankhamun, the cult of Aten, approved by the reformer king, lost state support.
Under Ramses I (XIX Dynasty), long wars began with the Hittites for dominance in Syria. During the reign of Ramesses II, the famous battle with the Hittites took place under the walls of the Syrian city of Kadesh, in which up to 20 thousand people took part on each side. In his description of this battle, Ramesses claims that it was he who won the victory. But it is known that the Egyptians were unable to take Kadesh and the Hittites, led by King Muwatallis, pursued them during their retreat. The long war ended in the 21st year of the reign of Ramesses II with a peace treaty with the Hittite king Hattusilis III. The original treaty was written on silver tablets, but only copies in Egyptian and Hittite languages survive. Despite the strength of Egyptian weapons, Ramesses II failed to restore the borders of the empire of the pharaohs of the 18th dynasty.
Under the heir of Ramesses II, his thirteenth son Merneptah, and under Ramesses III, the son of the founder of the 20th dynasty Setnakht, waves of conquerors - the “peoples of the sea” and Libyan tribes - fell on Egypt. Having with difficulty repelled the onslaught of the enemy, the country found itself on the verge of serious upheavals, which in internal political life were manifested in frequent changes of rulers, rebellions and conspiracies, in the strengthening of the positions of the new nobility (especially in Thebaid, in the south of Egypt), closely associated with priestly circles, and in in the sphere of foreign policy - in the gradual decline in Egypt's military prestige and in the loss of its foreign possessions.
The era of the New Kingdom was for Egypt a time not only of territorial expansion, but also of rapid economic development, stimulated by the influx into the country of a huge amount of raw materials, livestock, gold, all kinds of tribute and labor in the form of captives.
From the 18th dynasty, bronze tools began to be widely used. But due to the high cost of copper, stone tools are still used. A number of iron products have survived from this era. Iron was known in Egypt before. But even at the end of the 18th dynasty it continued to be considered almost a treasure. And only in the VII-VI centuries. BC. tools in Egypt began to be widely made from iron, which was extremely important for economic progress.
During the era of the New Kingdom, improved plows, foot bellows in metallurgy, and a vertical loom began to be widely used. Horse breeding, previously unknown to the Egyptians, was developing to serve the Egyptian army with its war chariots. From the reign of Amenhotep IV, the first image of a water-lifting structure—shaduf—came down to us. His invention was of great importance for the development of horticulture and gardening in high fields. Attempts are being made to grow new varieties of trees exported from Asia (pomegranate, olive, peach, apple, almond, cherry, etc.) or from Punt (myrrh tree). Glass production is developing intensively. The art of mummification reaches unsurpassed perfection. Domestic trade is becoming increasingly important. International trade, for the development of which in Egypt during the era of conquest there was no incentive, because it received everything it needed for itself in the form of booty and tribute, acquires a certain significance only in the second half of the New Kingdom.
During the New Kingdom, the widespread use of slave labor was noted, primarily in the royal and temple households (although slaves also served private estates). Thus, during his 30-year reign, Ramses III donated to the temples over 100 thousand captives from Syria, Palestine and more than 1 million sections (Greek “arur”; 1 aur - 0.28 hectares) of arable land. But the main producer of material goods was still the working population of Egypt, entangled in all kinds of duties.
By the beginning of the 11th century. BC. Two kingdoms were formed in Egypt: Lower Egyptian with its center in Tanis, in the northeast of the Delta, and Upper Egyptian with its capital in Thebes. By this time, Syria, Phenicia and Palestine had already left Egyptian influence, and the northern half of Egypt was flooded with Libyan military settlers led by leaders allied with the local Egyptian authorities. One of the Libyan military leaders, Shoshenq I (950-920 BC), founded the XXII Dynasty. But his power, like that of his successors, was not strong, and under the Libyan pharaohs (IX-VIII centuries BC) Lower Egypt fell into a number of separate regions.
At the end of the 8th century. BC. The Nubian king Piankhi captured a significant part of Upper Egypt, including Thebes. The local influential priesthood supported the conquerors, hoping with their help to regain their dominant position. But the ruler of Sais in Lower Egypt, Tefnakht, who relied on the Libyans, managed to lead the fight against the invasion. Memphis also opposed the Nubians.
However, in three battles they defeated Tefnakht’s army and, moving north, reached Memphis, taking the city by storm. Tefnakht was forced to surrender to the mercy of the victors. The next Nubian king to rule Egypt was Shabaka. According to the legend preserved by Manetho, he captured the Lower Egyptian pharaoh Bokhoris and burned him alive. In 671 BC. The Assyrian king Esarhaddon defeated the army of the Nubian pharaoh Taharqa and captured Memphis.
The liberation of Egypt and its unification was carried out by the founder of the XXVI (Sais) dynasty, Psammetichus I. The next pharaoh, Necho II, sought to establish his dominance in Syria. In 608 BC. The Jewish king Josiah blocked the road for the Egyptian army at Megiddo (a city in northern Palestine), but was mortally wounded. After this, Judea began to pay a large tribute in gold and silver to the Egyptian king. Egyptian rule over Syria and Palestine lasted three years, and in 605 BC. The Egyptian army was pushed back to its border by the Babylonians. Under Apria (589-570 BC), one of the successors of Psammetichus I, Egypt supported Judea in the fight against Babylonia. Apries defeated the fleet of Sidon, one of the largest Phoenician cities. In 586 BC. The Egyptian army appeared under the walls of Jerusalem, but was soon defeated by the Babylonians.
By that time, to the west of Egypt, on the Libyan shore of the Mediterranean Sea, the Hellenes had created their own state - Cyrene. Apries decided to subjugate him and sent significant military forces against him, but they were defeated by the Greeks. A rebellion broke out in the Egyptian army against Aprus, and Amasis (570-526 BC) was elevated to the throne.
Persian rule
In 525 BC. In the battle of Pelusium, the Persian army led by King Cambyses defeated the Egyptians. Then Cambyses was proclaimed king of Egypt (XXVII dynasty). To give the seizure of Egypt a legal character, legends were created about the matrimonial ties of the Persian kings with the Egyptian princesses and about the birth of Cambyses from the marriage of his father Cyrus with Nitetis, the daughter of Pharaoh Apria.
Capture of Egypt by Alexander the Great
Egypt achieved independence from the Persian overlords several times (Dynasties XXVIII-XXX) until it was conquered in 332 BC. Alexander the Great, in whom the Egyptians initially saw a liberator from Persian oppression. The time of Pharaonic Egypt is up. The Hellenistic era began. http://civilka.ru/egypet/egipet.html
The civilization of Ancient Egypt was formed in the Nile Valley, in a relatively isolated area, which left its stamp of originality on it. The long history of Ancient Egypt is characterized by the alternation of eras of centralization of the state (kingdom) with periods of disintegration (transitional periods). Each such stage has economic, political and cultural characteristics, although elements that indicate the continuity of Egyptian civilization have always been preserved. The history of Egypt is traditionally divided into the following major periods:
I. Predynastic period(IV millennium BC), during which 42 territorial and political units - nomes - were formed. As a result of political, economic and military interaction, they united, creating two political formations: Upper Egypt (south) and Lower Egypt (north). Those, in turn, became parts of a single Egyptian state.
II. Early Kingdom period(c. 3300 - c. 2800 BC, I-II dynasties). Under King Menes, the founder of the First Dynasty, Egypt was unified. The capital is located in the city of Memphis. The integrity of the country was strengthened by the creation of a centralized irrigation system and administrative apparatus, the invention and spread of hieroglyphic writing.
III. Old Kingdom period(c. 2800 - c. 2250 BC, III-VI dynasties). Egypt is becoming an economically and politically strong state. Economic prosperity and political stability made it possible to improve the irrigation system, as well as the construction of the pyramids of the pharaohs Cheops, Khafre and Mikerin - symbols of Egyptian civilization.
IV. First transition period(c. 2250 - c. 2050 BC, VII-X dynasties). This is a time of internal strife and the collapse of the centralized state. The importance of the city of Thebes increased, it became the center around which the kingdom was again united.
V. Middle Kingdom Period(c. 2050 - c. 1700 BC, XI-XIII dynasties). The country was reunited, and the power of the leaders of the nomes was limited. Egypt increased its territory, especially in the south. Bronze tools became widespread, and glass production began.
VI. Second transition period(c. 1700 - c. 1580 BC, XIV-XVII dynasties). The Egyptian state collapsed due to the invasion of the Hyksos - nomadic tribes of Semitic origin who invaded from Asia and conquered the northern and central parts of the country. The rulers of Thebes led the liberation struggle, which ended with the expulsion of the Hyksos.
VII. New Kingdom period(c. 1580 - c. 1070 BC, XVIII-XX dynasties). The heyday of Egyptian civilization. Egypt expanded its possessions to the Euphrates in the east and the third cataract of the Nile in the south. The pharaohs made great efforts to preserve their lands in the fight against the Hittite kingdom, and later with the so-called. peoples of the sea.
VIII. Late period(c. 1070-525 BC, XXI-XXVI dynasties). A time of strife, invasions and foreign domination: Libyan, Nubian, Assyrian. During the XXVI dynasty, Egypt experienced its last rise - the so-called. Sais revival.
IX. Period of Persian rule(525-405 BC, XXVII dynasty). The Persian kingdom conquered Egypt, but increasing taxation and Persian abuses led to the Egyptians rebelling and liberating the country.
X. The last period of Egyptian independence(405-342 BC, XXVIII-XXX dynasties). The unification came down to internal strife, which caused the weakening of the state and the restoration of Persian influence.
XI. Period of Persian, Greek and Roman-Byzantine rule(342 BC - 646 AD). In 332 BC. e. the Persians were expelled by Alexander the Great. After the collapse of Alexander's empire, the Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty was established in Egypt, which lasted until the Roman conquest (30s of the 1st century BC).
The heritage of Egyptian civilization is priceless. First of all, for the Greco-Roman world, which borrowed and reworked many of the cultural achievements of Ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egyptian civilization originated in the Nile Delta region. During the history of Ancient Egypt, 30 dynasties of rulers changed. 32 BC. e. is considered the boundary of the existence of ancient Egyptian civilization.
The encirclement of Egypt by mountains predetermined the closed nature of the civilization that arose here, which was of an agricultural nature. Agricultural work, thanks to favorable climatic conditions, did not require much physical effort; the ancient Egyptians harvested crops twice a year. They processed clay, stone, wood and metals. Farming tools were made from baked clay. In addition, granite, alabaster, slate and bone were also used. Small vessels were sometimes carved from rock crystal.
The perception and measurement of time in Ancient Egypt was determined by the rhythm of the Nile flood. Each new year was regarded by the Egyptians as a repetition of the past and was determined not by the solar cycle, but by the time needed to harvest. They depicted the word “year” in the form of a young sprout with a bud. The annual cycle was divided into three seasons of 4 months each: the Nile flood, after which came the sowing season, followed by the harvest season, i.e. recession of the Nile. The months did not have names, but were numbered. Every fourth year was a leap year, every fifth day of the decade was a day off. The time was kept by the priests.
The Egyptians divided the day into twelve hours and the night into twelve. Each hour had its own name. The first hour of the day was called “brilliant”, the sixth - “the hour of rising”, etc.
In addition, all days of the year were divided into three categories - happy, dangerous and unlucky - depending on the events that marked them at the time when the gods lived on earth. Thus, the Egyptians behaved according to the days. On unlucky days, they tried not to leave the house, especially at sunset and at night. To refresh your memory and suggest the right decision in doubtful cases, there were calendars with happy and unlucky days marked.
The high standard of living and well-being of the ancient Egyptians is confirmed by the fact that they had two customs that were not typical of other ancient civilizations: leaving all old people and all newborn babies alive. The main clothing of the Egyptians was the loincloth. They wore sandals very rarely, and the main means of demonstrating social status was the amount of jewelry.
The Egyptians deified the Nile, as well as all nature. He was depicted as an obese man, fat, with folds on his stomach, wearing a belt, wearing sandals, which was considered a symbol of wealth. He was called the “father of the gods.” Many cities bore his name. When the flood was about to begin, sacrifices were made to the divine Nile in many temples.
The Egyptians believed that everything in the world belonged to the gods, that the gods were the source of universal prosperity, that they knew their thoughts and desires and could intervene in people’s affairs at any time. They also deified animals and birds, and especially revered the crocodile and ibis. Plants were treated with no less reverence. The Egyptians believed that after death they would fall to the court of the god Osiris, who would weigh their good and bad deeds on the scales. They sought to ensure that the afterlife was no different from earthly life. The bodies were embalmed. Wealthy people prepared an afterlife for themselves in advance, so every city of the living had a city of the dead.
The ancient Egyptian state had the features of a centralized despotism. The pharaoh was the head of state: administrative, judicial and military powers were united in his hands. The ancient Egyptians believed that the god Ra (the sun god in Egyptian mythology) took care of their well-being and sent his son, the pharaoh, to earth. The pharaoh's tasks included performing sacred, cult rituals in temples in order for the country to be prosperous. In modern terms, the pharaohs were professional statesmen who had the necessary knowledge and experience. Their power was unlimited, but not limitless. And since power was inherited from the Egyptians through the maternal line, the eldest son of the pharaoh and his eldest daughter had to enter into an incestuous marriage.
The ancient Egyptian state was divided into geographical units - nomes, which were ruled by nomarchs wholly subordinate to the pharaoh. An effective system of internal and exchange trade existed in Ancient Egypt already from predynastic times. In Ancient Egypt, silver, not gold, served as money, since gold was a symbol of divinity, providing the body of the pharaoh with an eternal afterlife. The main means of transport in Egypt were ships and boats; the main trade routes were rivers and canals. On land roads that were laid along dams, they used pack animals, primarily donkeys. ancient egyptian vedic despotism
A systemic feature of the organization of ancient Egyptian society was the possession of a profession. The main positions - warrior, artisan, priest, official - were inherited, but it was also possible to “take office” or be “appointed to a position.” The social regulator here was the annual reviews of the working population, during which people received a kind of annual “outfit” for work in accordance with their profession. The bulk of able-bodied Egyptians were used in agriculture, the rest were employed in crafts or the service sector. The strongest young men were selected during examinations for the army.