Government by a God-King

• Pharaoh was all powerful, worshipped as a god, and intimately connected to other Egyptian Gods
• Egyptians relied on the balance of the universe
• Pharaohs had multiple wives, all routes to their financial and social success was through the palace
• Women could inherit money and land, they could divorce their husbands, though only a few ever wielded any real political power

Gods, Humans, Everlasting Life

• Gods were often portrayed with animal heads or bodies
• Egyptians believed in an afterlife and mummified bodies to preserve them for this port-death journey
• All souls would need to justify themselves at the point of death and would either be sent to an after-world paradise or the jaws of a monster

The Writing of the Words of god

• Earliest Egyptian writing was formed c. 3100 B.C. and were small pictures known as hieroglyphs
• Hieroglyphs represented religious words or parts of words
• Hieratic script was shorthand developed by scribes/priests
• Hieratic script was usually written in ink on papyrus
• Papyrus was stored in scrolls

Calendars and Sailboats

• Egyptians astronomers created a calendar with 12 months and 365 days to make better sense of the seasonal cycles
• Due to their excellent knowledge of human anatomy, doctors wrote extensively on health issues an created potions and cures for a number of common ailments
• Wooden sailboats were constructed to increase transport ability on the Nile

Pyramids and Temples

• The pyramids were massive stone tombs, originally covered in marble but the marble was later stripped off during Muslim conquest
• Stone sculptures and interior painting depicted humans and gods in a series of regulated poses, they had no perspective and looked very flat, they were highly effective