Ancient Egypt

The ancient Egyptians are famous for many things, such as the pyramids, embalming, sphinx, hieroglyphics, farming in a desert, music, the mysterious tombs and many more. The Egyptian civilization lasted over 3000 years and their monuments were ancient to the Greeks and Romans. During the 3000 year civilization the Egyptians had 30 dynasties, a period of their time, followed by two Greek ones before Egypt fell. Also the Egyptians invented or discovered some amazing things, such as:

• Hieroglyphics and the first pyramids, 3200-2300 BC
• Temples and bakeries, 2050-1775 BC
• Horses and chariots, first sweets and new musical instruments, 1775-1575 BC
• Rock tombs and Books of the Dead written, 1575-1085 BC

Some believe that the Eygptians also brought with them the first sort of religion. The Egyptians had gods and goddesses for everything in life, and felt that they must worship a specific one for a certain result.Some of these gods and goddesses are:

• Sobek - the crocodile headed god - controlled water supply
• Thoth - the ibis headed god - invented writing and speaking, also god of wisdom
• Seth - god of desert, chaos and storms, enemy of Osiris, seen as the first 'devil'
• Re or Ra - the sun god, also made people
• Horus - the falcon headed god - looked after the Pharaoh, god of sky, fought Seth
• Sekhmet - lioness headed goddess - war goddess
• Hathor - cow horned goddess - looked after happiness, dancing, love and music
• Ptah - spoke the names of all things in the world, this made them exist
• Bes - dwarf god - looked after happiness and protector of families
• Isis - wife of Osiris - looked after women and children
• Anubis - jackal headed god - helped prepare mummies and god of the dead
• Osiris - looked after death, rebirth, the earth and the underworld, taught humans to farm
• Aten - form of Ra - was made the 'king' of the gods during Akhenaten's reign (1400-1300 BC)

Hieroglyphics

 The hieroglyphics are the most famous part of ancient Egypt as they remained a mystery for so long, until they were deciphered through the use of the Rosetta Stone in 1822. These hieroglyphics were used on tomb walls and the first kind of paper, papyrus. Papyrus was made through crushing soft parts of reeds in a criss-cross pattern and leaving the juices made to dry in the sun and bind together. Some of the hieroglyphics did not mean one letter, it could mean one word. Below is the alphabet in hieroglyphics.

Alphabet

When writing in hieroglyphics there is no use of silent letters and words are written as they would sound, much like we are taught when we are children. Below I have written the word 'photography' as it would appear in hieroglyphics.

'Photography' as it would appear

 The video below is  from the BBC television show Horrible Histories. It is an extract that shows a useful mnemonic to learn about hieroglyphics.

 
Sources:

• Horrible Histories, The Awesome Egyptians, Terry Deary,1994
• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/menu.html
• http://art-zoo.tripod.com/artgallery/id14.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85EHnhYGiY4