The Egyptians

Well, the title sounded appropriate and there are lots of pictures so I picked up The Egyptians at the used book store. It covers ancient egypt from about 5000 BC to 600 BC in 200 pages which is a bit ambitious. Also when I was reading it, I kept getting the feeling that the author expected me to know a lot of stuff I don't know. Unfortunately I was also reminded that I find straight history a bit boring.

But there were a few things I got out of the book. The main thing was some info about the great pyramid and it also helped me realize just how old it is. So around the 27th century the first step pyramid was built in Egypt. After that step pyramids were built for a while. Then the Pharaoh Snoferu added to a step pyramid to give it straight sides. Then he had a pyramid with straight sides built, but it was a bit off so the angle had to change near the top, it is called The Bent Pyramid. Well that was no good so he had another one built, and this time they got the straight sides right, it is called The Red Pyramid. Then his son Kheops came along and built The Great Pyramid in 2560 BC which remained the tallest man made structure in the world for 3,800 years. After that Pharoahs backed off on the size of the pyramids and eventually switched to rectangular buildings for their burial locations.

So let's put 2560 BC in perspective. When the Western Wall (as part of the second temple) was built, the Great Pyramid was older than the Western Wall is now. When the first segment of the Great Wall of China was built, the Great Pyramid was 2000 years old. Stonehenge, which is cool and mysterious, but is really just some big rocks in a circle was built within about +/- 100 years of the Great Pyramid.

Way back around 5000 to 3500 BC before farming along the Nile had really been figured out, people lived out in the desert and looked to rainmakers to get it to rain. As farming was figured out people moved close to the Nile and the Nile delta area. There they depended more on how much water the Nile brought each year rather than how much it rained. The position of Pharaoh had its origins in being the guy who could control the flow of the Nile. Pharaohs who ruled during droughts didn't stick around for long. Early on the Pharaoh was considered a God himself. As time went on the position transitioned into someone who had more direct contact with the Gods and eventually became more of a warrior king kind of position. Measurements of time, including both lunar and solar calendars, were figured out to know when the Nile floods would come, when to plant food, and when to harvest. Figuring out writing and mathematics did a lot to allow the centralization of power. One major task was figuring out property rights each year after the Nile flooded and knocked down walls and other indicators. There is a significant division between North and South (or Upper and Lower Egypt) and the Pharaoh had two crowns to represent ruling the two areas. Nubians are the people who live on the southern end of Egypt. They live in the area around what is now called Aswan which has Elephantine Island. The borders of Egypt moved around some over several thousands years, but the southern border was generally around Elephantine Island which had a fort.

I'm getting some mixed messages from the book and what I've seen online. Because there definitely were slaves in Egypt, but at the same time it sounds like it wasn't slaves who built the pyramids, but rather paid workers. And it sounds like those workers had lives that were just as good if not better than those of farmers.