Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide
There are several reasons why Egypt is so much more famous than these other cultures First Egypt's dry desert air preserved things well Colors stayed brilliant reds blues and greens leap from the walls of tomb paintings to our eyes Loaves of bread linen dresses even baskets of real figs have survived intact in the still air of the tombs During the same centuries many Hittite and Mesopotamian objects rotted away The things that sur vived are those that couldn't rot bronze statues clay tablets and silver harps Second mummies let us see how ancient Egyptians really looked Scholars unwrapped the mummy of Ramses II perhaps the most powerful pharaoh of Egypt and learned he had a high bridged nose and infected teeth In contrast most of the Egyptians neighbors buried or burned their corpses leaving only bones or dust for archaeologists to uncover Third the sheer number of objects found in Egypt is staggering The tomb of an important lady held 77 linen sheets Countless rings bracelets and necklaces of gold and beautiful stones have been found Glorious treasures did survive from the other three cultures but far less Much of it was probably melted down or stolen over the millennia Telling Time In this book dates are expressed using the abbreviation B C to indicate years before the year 1 in the Roman calendar and A D for those years that follow the year 1 Some people express these date as B C E and C E Time is counted backward before the year 1 The bigger the number B C the longer ago something happened About 3100 B C the first Egyptian king began his rule That was more than 5 000 years ago About 1200 B C the Hittite empire col lapsed That was only about 3 200 years ago The number 3100 is bigger than 1200 so the Egyptian king ruled first Here's a trick to quickly tell how many years ago an event occurred We are now near the year 2000 You can add 2 000 to any date B C and know how long ago something happened In 30 B C the Romans defeated the great Queen Cleopatra If the story is true she allowed a poisonous snake to bite her dying to escape from Roman control Add 2 000 to 30 from 30 B C and you know that Cleopatra died about 2 030 years
People in the ancient Near East as the region is called maintained some customs that were harsh and cruel All of these cultures kept slaves often foreigners who had been captured in war In the Mesopotamian city of Ur and the Nubian city of Kerma dozens Sometimes hundreds of the king's loyal subjects chose or were chosen to be buried with him when he died In Ur the subjects took poison first In Kerma they were probably buried alive This book begins with the first Egyptian pharaoh 5 000 years ago and ends with the defeat of Queen Cleopatra by the Romans 30 years before the year 1 B C It covers about three millennia three thousand years How many people have lived and died since Cleopatra was captured or the Hittites worshipped their thousand gods or King Piye of Nubia first sat on Egypt's throne Just imagine all those people century after century living their lives More than 50 centuries 5 000 years have passed since the earliest people in this book made their clothes grew their food raised their children and told their stories How amazing it is that we know anything at all about how they lived Yet we know quite a lot as you will
Trade Map of the Ancient Near East istorians have discovered actual trade routes that ancient people used as well as some of the goods they traded Trade is one way these ancient civilizations interacted Try to follow the trade routes on the map and learn the distance between famous and not so famous cities and coun tries Note Unlike modern maps this map does not show bor ders of the countries Borders changed many times over 3 000 years 1 It is 3100 B C the time that our book begins You are bringing a cargo of blue stones from Mesopotamia to Egypt to be made into jewelry Begin in the Mesopotamian city Uruk Travel by donkey to a town on the coast of Syria called Tabara el Akrad today Here you board a ship and cross the Mediterranean Sea to the mouth of the Nile River Battling wild hippopotami you sail to the city of Memphis where you unload your cargo 2 Leap forward in time to 1850 B C You are traveling by donkey from the town of Ashur in northern Mesopotamia You and hundreds of other traders are carrying loads of tin and fine woolen clothing Travel north to the Assyrian city of Nineveh then west to Carchemish KAR keh mesh in Syria From here go northwest to the town of Kanesh in the land of Hatti home of the Hittites There you trade your goods for pieces of silver You don't get coins money hasn't been invented yet 3 Come forward in time to 1650 B C You are bringing a load of olive oil and wine from southern Egypt to Nubia Board your boat in the city of Thebes Sail south on the Nile River past the town of Aswan to a group of rapids and waterfalls called the First Cataract To cross the cataract the sailors must take down the sail From the shore they drag the boat around the rapids with strong ropes Once past the rapids the boat sets sail again Twice more sailors must tow the boat across danger ous rapids and waterfalls at the Second and Third Cataracts Finally you arrive at the city of Kerma You meet the Nubian king in his fine tall audience hall There you trade your goods for gold ivory and ostrich
BLACK SEA SK Hattus as HATTI Kanesh A NATOLLA NAeone Tabara MITTANI ad Crche mish Nineveh ASSYRIA Ashur LEBANON NIS SYRA Qadeshorentes Mart MEDITERRANEAN Tigris River SEA uphrates PALESTINE Alexandria BABYLONA ELAM SUMER Uru LIBYA Giza Memphis MESOPOTAMIA EGYPT Nile River Thebes ARABIA 1 Aswan FIRST CATARACT SECOND CATARACT LOWER NUBIA NUBIA 3 THIRD UPPER NUBIA CATARACT Kerma 4 FOURTH CATARACT 5 FIFTH Data CATARACT Meroe 6 sXTH CATARACT
