Topic: The Rise and Collapse of the Bronze Age: 3000-1000 BCE

Egyptian Civilization

A second center of civilization sprang up in northern Africa, along the Nile River. Egyptian civilization, formed by 3000 BC, benefited from the trade and technological influence of Mesopotamia , but produced quite a different society and culture.

Less open to invasion, Egypt retained a unified state throughout most of its history. With some fluctuations, the kingdom lasted almost 3000 years, though its period of greatest vitality had passed by 1000 BC . Egypt was more rural than Mesopotamia.

The Land of Egypt: “Gift of the Nile”

The land of Egypt is defined by the Nile River, the narrow green strip of arable land on either side of its banks, and the fertile Nile delta area. The rest of the country is barren desert, the unfriendly “Red Land” that contrasted with the “Black Land,” which was home to the vast majority of the Egyptian Population.

Egypt was traditionally divided into two areas: Upper Egypt , along the southern part of the Nile s far south as the First Cataract, Lower Egypt , the northern delta area. The climate was good for agriculture, but with little or no rainfall, farmers had to depend on the river for irrigation.

Egypt’s other natural resources included reeds (such as papyrus for writing), wild animals, birds and fish, plentiful building stone and clay, and access to copper and turquoise from the desert and gold from Nubia.

Farming had developed along the Nile by about 5000 BC, but economic activity increased before 3200 BC, in part because of greater trade with Mesopotamia. This acceleration provided the basis for the formation of regional kingdoms and soon a unified empire along the great river.

Because of its early unity and its cohesion along the banks of the Nile , Egypt had fewer problems with political unity than Mesopotamia did. The king (“pharaoh”—this title which means “the palace” was not used until the New Kingdom period), possessed immense power.

The Egyptian economy was more fully government-directed than its Mesopotamian counterpart, which had a more independent business class. Government control may have been necessary because of the complexity of coordinating irrigation along the Nile. It nonetheless resulted in godlike status for the pharaohs, who built splendid tombs for themselves—the pyramids—from 2700 BC on (during the OLD KINGDOM).

THE OLD KINGDOM (2686 BC – 2181 BC)

Egypt’s political organization evolved from a pattern of small states ruled by local kings to the emergence of a large, unified Egyptian state around 3100 BC. Historians organize Egyptian history into a series of thirty dynasties falling into three longer periods: the Old, Middle, and New Kingdoms. These three periods were divided by periods of political fragmentation and chaos.

THE MIDDLE KINGDOM (2055- 1650 BC)

Tensions between central and local government are a constant feature of Egyptian political history. At times when the central power was predominant, provincial official were appointed and promoted by the central government on the basis of merit. When central power was weak, provincial officials tended to become autonomous, made their positions hereditary.

Egypt was governed by a central administration in the capital city through a system of provincial and village bureaucracies. Bureaucrats at the center kept track of land labor, taxes, and people; collected resources from throughout the country; and used them to support the central government institutions (the palace, the bureaucracy and the army) and to maintain temples and construct monuments.

During periods of weak rule and occasional invasions, Egyptian society suffered a decline, but revival kept the framework of Egyptian civilization intact until after 1000 BC. At key points, Egyptian influence spread up the Nile to the area now known as Sudan with an impact on the later development of African culture. The kingdom of Kush interacted with Egypt and invaded it at some points.

THE NEW KINGDOM (1550 –1069 BC)

ART & SCIENCE

Neither Egyptian science nor the Egyptian alphabet was as elaborate as its Mesopotamian equal, although mathematics was more advanced in this civilization. Egyptian art was exceptionally lively; cheerful and colorful pictures decorated not only the tombs—where the belief in an afterlife made people want to be surrounded by objects of beauty—but also palaces and furnishings. Egyptian architectural forms were also quite influential, not only in Egypt but in other parts of the Mediterranean as well. Egyptian mathematics produced the idea of a day divided into 24 hours, and here too Egypt influenced the development of later Mediterranean cultures.

The most famous Egyptian art form was of course the pyramid, which the pharaohs built to house themselves and their families after death. The largest pyramids required labor forces of up to 100,000 people, and they were amazing achievements given the state of Egyptian technology. Workers rolled the huge stones, weighing more than 5 tons, over logs and onto Nile barges. The pyramids attested to royal power. They also illustrated Egypt’s ability to generate agricultural surpluses and to command a labor force (an example of a remarkable social engineering—organize people for labor).

Egypt interacted periodically with the Middle East, but the contacts were not very influential in either direction. Egypt’s interactions with the upper reaches of the Nile, deeper into Africa, were more significant. After about 1570 BC, in the final main phase of the great kingdoms, Egypt also expanded trade with the islands of the eastern Mediterranean, which extended the empire’s influence to southern Europe, particularly in terms of monumental art but also in the area of mathematics.

Egyptian religious beliefs were based on a cyclical view of nature (like most agricultural societies).

Egypt and Mesopotamia Compared

Comparisons in politics, culture, economics, and society suggest that the two civilizations varied substantially because of largely separate origins and environments. The distinction in overall tone was striking, with Egypt more stable and optimistic than Mesopotamia not only in its beliefs about gods and the afterlife but also in the colorful and lively pictures the Egyptians emphasized in their decorative art. The distinction in internal history was also striking: Egyptian civilization was far less marked by disruption than its Mesopotamian counterpart .

Egypt and Mesopotamia differed in many ways thanks to variations in geography, exposure to outside invasion and influence, and different beliefs. Despite trade and war, they did not imitate each other much. Egypt emphasized strong central authority, whereas Mesopotamian politics shifted more often more over a substructure of regional city-states.

Mesopotamian art focused on less monumental structures and embraced a literary element that Egyptian art lacked.

The economics differed as well. Mesopotamia developed more technological improvements because the environment was more difficult to manage than the Nile valley. Trade contacts were more wide-ranging, and the Mesopotamians gave considerable attention to a merchant class and commercial law.

Social differences between the two civilizations are less obvious because we have less information on daily life for this early period. It is probable, though, that the status of women was higher in Egypt than in Mesopotamia (where women’s position seems to have deteriorated after Sumer). Egyptian seem to have paid great respect for women, at least in the upper classes, in part because marriage alliances were vital to the preservation and stability of the monarchy.

Differences were not the whole story, as river valley civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia shared important features. Both emphasized social stratification, with a noble, landowning class at the top and masses of peasants and slaves at the bottom. A powerful priestly group also figured in the elite.

Although specific achievements in science differed, both civilizations emphasized astronomy and related mathematics and produced durable findings about units of time and measurement. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt changed slowly by more modern standards. Having developed successful political and economic systems, both societies tended strongly toward conservation. Change, when it came, usually was brought by outside forces (natural disasters or invasions).

Finally, both civilizations left important heritages in their regions and adjacent territories. Several smaller civilization centers were launched under their impetus of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and some produced important innovations of their own by about 1000 BC.