The document provides information on the time period and location of ancient Egypt. It describes how Egypt was originally divided into two kingdoms that were unified by King Menes around 3100 BC, marking the beginning of ancient Egypt. The Nile river was crucial to Egypt's development by providing fertile land and isolating the civilization. Egypt had four main historical periods separated by intermediate periods, with important events and capital cities noted for each period. The document also discusses Egypt's political, social, economic, and cultural aspects like its hierarchical social structure, agricultural economy, use of hieroglyphic writing, polytheistic religion, and architectural and artistic achievements including temples and royal tombs.

2. TIME
&
PLACE

3. TIME & PLACE
 Chronology: 4000 - 31 BC,
 Modern country: Egypt

4. TIME & PLACE
 Location:
• On the banks of the Nile river:
provided them with fertile land. ,
since once a year it overflowed.
• In the middle of a desert:
isolated them from enemies.

5. NILE RIVER FLOODING

7. TIME & PLACE
 At the beginning, the Egyptian civilization was
divided into 2 independent kingdoms:
 Lower Egypt (delta area)
 Upper Egypt (valley area)
King Menes unified them in 3100 BC. This event is
taken as the beginning of ANCIENT EGYPT.
King Menes, the
first Pharaoh of
Ancient Egypt

8. ACTIVITY 1
COPY AND ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
1) When did the Egyptian civilization
developed?
2) What modern country is it today?
3) What geographical conditions
influenced its development?
4) Who and when unified upper Egypt &
lower Egypt?

9. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF EGYPT (ACTIVITY 2)
 There were 4 main periods separated by the so-called
“intermediate periods”:
PERIOD
CHRONOLOGY
CAPITAL
OLD
KINGDOM
MIDDLE
KINGDOM
NEW
KINGDOM
LATE PERIOD
-
MAIN EVENT

10. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF EGYPT
• OLD KINGDOM (3100 - 2181 BC):
• Capital: Memphis
• Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by king Menes. The
Great Pyramids of the pharaohs Cheops, Chephren &
Mykerinos are built at Giza.

11. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF EGYPT
• MIDDLE KINGDOM (2055 - 1795 BC):
• Capital: Thebes
• It is a time of territorial expansion.

12. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF EGYPT
• NEW KINGDOM (1550 - 1069 BC):
• Capital: Thebes.
• Period of enormous prosperity. The territorial expansion
continued, and Egypt reached its maximum extension.
Some well-known pharaohs of this period were Ramses II &
Tutankhamen.
TEMPLE OF
ABU SIMBEL,
DEDICATED TO
RAMSES II
TUTANKHAMEN’S
FUNERARY MASK

13. HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF EGYPT
• LATE PERIOD (715 -31 BC):
• Egypt lost its power to the Persians, the Greeks, and
finally in 31 BC to the Romans who in made it a Roman
province.
ROMAN EMPIRE
IN 31 BC

14. IN 525 BC THE PERSIANS (LEADED BY THE KING CAMBYSES II) CONQUERED EGYPT.

15. IN 332 THE GREEKS (UNDER ALEXANDER THE GREAT) CONQUERED EGYPT.

16. FINALLY, IN 31 BC THE ROMANS (LEADED BY OCTAVIAN AUGUSTUS, THE 1ST
ROMAN EMPEROR) CONQUERED EGYPT AND MADE IT A ROMAN PROVINCE.
CLEOPATRA WAS THE LAST EGYPTIAN PHARAOH.
ROMAN EMPIRE IN 31 BC

17. POLITICAL,
SOCIAL &
ECONOMIC
ORGANIZATION

18. POLITICAL ORGANIZATION
PHARAOHS were the maximum leaders,
they had absolute power: they had control
over EVERYTHING:
 Political power  imposed law & justice
 Military power  commanded the army
 Owners of all the land
 Controlled trade with other territories
 They were considered living gods
To be able to control everything in such a large territory,
pharaohs had people to help them:
• Governors
• Clerks, administrators
(scribes were the most
important)
• A very organized army.

19. SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Egyptian society was very HIERARCHICAL .
The PYRAMID is a perfect symbol to represent this complexity!!!
Pharaoh
& family
Priests &
nobles
Clerks (scribes,
army officers…)
Farmers, craftsmen
(artisans) and traders.
Slaves

20. ACTIVITY 3: SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
To represent the HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY
of Ancient Egypt, you are going to…
a) Draw a Pyramid with 5 levels.
b) Put the following Egyptian social groups
in its corresponding level.
• Priests & nobles
• Clerks (scribes, army officers…)
• Slaves
• Pharaoh & his family
• Farmers, craftsmen (artisans) and traders.

21. ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION
EGYPTIAN ECONOMY
Based on:
Irrigated agriculture:
- Wheat (for bread)
- Barley (for beer)
- Legumes
- Figs
- Cotton
Farming:
- For food: pigs, sheep, poultry.
- For work: oxen, donkeys.
Other economic activities:
Advanced craftwork
Trade controlled by the
pharaoh.

22. Egyptian
cultural
legacy

23. A) CULTURAL ASPECTS
 They developed the HIEROGLYPHIC writing . Usually they used
papyrus for writing.
The Rosetta Stone (found at the end of the 18th
century), in which the same text is written in 3
different scripts (hieroglyphs, demotic and Greek),
provided the key to the modern understanding of
Egyptian hieroglyphs.

24. A) CULTURAL ASPECTS
 HIEROGLYPHIC writing: there are over 6.000 hieroglyphics.
Some hieroglyphics represent ideas:
 An arm with a pot means “gift”, “offering”.
 An arm with a shield and a mace means “combat”, “”fight“.
Other hieroglyphics represent sounds.
 For example an owl represents the phonetic sound “M”.
NOTE: the Hieroglyphic character for our letters "i" and "e"; "f“ and "v";
“o”, “u” and “w” are the same.

25. A) CULTURAL ASPECTS
 Pharaohs names were written inside “cartouches”:
an oval with a horizontal line at one end which
indicated that the text enclosed was a royal name.
The oval surrounding their name was meant to
protect them from evil spirits.
1º) Draw a
cartouche in a
blank sheet of
paper.
2º) Write in it
your name using
hieroglyphics!!
3º) Decorate it!!

26. A) CULTURAL ASPECTS
 They also developed algebra, geometry, astronomy… This enabled
them to make a calendar of 365 days divided into 24 periods (our
hours).

27. B) EGYPTIAN RELIGION & BELIEFS
 They were POLYTHEISTIC  believed in many gods.
 They believed in life after death (afterlife). Their belief was so strong
and important to the people that great preparation was made for
death and burial:
1º) The preparation of the body itself (mummification).
2º) Burial places (mastabas, pyramids, hypogeum).

28. Many of these
gods had a
zoomorphic
aspect (half
human, half
animal), which
was a way of
symbolizing
aspects of their
functions or
personalities.
Ex: birds to
symbolize
wisdom  the
wings of birds
raise them
above others.

29. ACTIVITY 4: egyptian gods
Choose an Egyptian god an prepare a poster
(size A4) including:
1) Drawing (not printed!)
OSIRIS
2) Name
3) Name in hieroglyphics
4) Description:
• What is he/she
god/goddess of?
• How does he look like?
• Symbols?
Osiris is the Egyptian god
of the afterlife &
agriculture.
He was depicted as a
green-skinned man with a
pharaoh's beard, partially
mummy-wrapped at the
legs, wearing a distinctive
crown with two large
ostrich feathers at either
side.
His symbols, are a crook
and flail.

30. LIFE AFTER DEATH:
MUMMIFICATION & JUDGEMENT OF OSIRIS
Egyptians believed than humans were made of a body & a soul (the ka). There were 2
requirements to live forever in paradise (afterlife):
1) THE SOUL (KA)  had to pass the
Judgment of Osiris, otherwise the
dead’s heart (which contained the
soul) would be eaten by a demon
(Ammit). The “Book of the Dead”
contained information about how to
pass this judgment.
2) THE BODY  had to be
preserved. That’s why they were
mummified.

31. 1) JUDGMENT OF OSIRIS

32. ACTIVITY 5: the judgement of osiris
The
deceased
Anubis (god
of embalming
and the dead)
Anubis (god of
embalming and
the dead) took
the deceased
to the “Two
Truths hall”.
The heart of
the deceased
Ammit
(crocodiledemon)
The f eather that
symbolizes Maat
(goddess of truth)
The heart of the deceased was
weighed against a feather (which
symbolises Maat, the goddess of
truth). Thoth (god of writing and
knowledge) recorded the result.
If the heart was heavier, Ammit
(demon) would eat it, and the
deceased wasn’t allowed to the
afterlife.
Thoth (god
of writing &
knowledge)
The
deceased
Horus (god of the
sky, war and
protection)
Osiris (god
of the
af terlif e)
If the heart was lighter, the deceased was led by
Horus (god of the sky, war and protection) and was
received by Osiris (god of the afterlife) who would
confirm his access to the afterlife.

33. 2) MUMMIFICATION

34. ACTIVITY 6: COMIC OF THE mummification
process
VIDEO:
1) Embalmers washed and purified the body with
water from the Nile.
2) The brain was extracted through the nose with a
hook.
3) They cut the corpse on one side, and removed all
the organs (intestines, lungs, stomach & liver)
except the heart. The heart was left inside the
body, since it was thought to embody the soul.
4) Each organ was put into a different Canopic Jar.

35. THE CANOPIC JARS
The Canopic Jars were the representation of the four sons of Horus (god of the sky, war
and protection). They were funerary gods and protected the mummified organs.
Duamutef: in jackal form, protected
the stomach.
Qebehsenuef: in falcon form,
protected the intestines.
Hapi: in baboon form,
protected the lungs.
Imseti: in human form,
protected the liver.

36. ACTIVITY 6: COMIC OF THE mummification
process
5) They filled the body with aromatic herbs and other dry
materials.
6) To avoid decomposition, the body was dried by
covering it natron (a type of salt), which absorbed the
moisture from the body.
7) After 70 days, they cleaned the dry corpse and
wrapped it with strips of white linen.
8) A funerary mask was placed on the corpse, which was
then placed in a sarcophagus.

37. BODY WRAPPED IN STRIPES OF LINEN

38. SARCOPHAGUS

39. SARCOPHAGUS

40. C) ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENTS
Egyptian art was mainly related to religion (gods & afterlife).
ARCHITECTURE: main building material  stone.
Temples  homes of the gods, or to commemorate a pharaoh (Luxor,
Karnak, Abu Simbel).
Tombs
 burial places of the pharaohs:
o Mastabas
o Pyramids (Giza complex: Cheops, Chefren, Mykerinos).
o Hypogeum (Valley of the Kings).
SCULPTURE:
Reliefs  to decorate temples’ walls.
Free-standing figures  official or religious use. Represented
gods/pharaohs/nobles/clerks.
PAINTINGS: decorated interior of tombs & temples. Scenes of
everyday life or religious topics.

41. TEMPLES

42. TEMPLES
Function:
Homes of the gods
Commemoration of pharaohs
Best examples:
 Luxor  dedicated to god Amun (king of the gods).
 Karnak  dedicated to god Amun (king of the gods).
 Abu Simbel (dug out of rock)  dedicated to Pharaoh Ramses II.

43. ACTIVITY 7: STRUCTURE OF EGYPTIAN
TEMPLES
2) Pylons
3) Patio
1) Avenue of
sphinxes
5) Sanctuary
4) Hypostyle
hall
1) AVENUE OF SPHINXES: a sphinx was a mythical creature with the
body of a lion & the head of a human. It was thought of as a guardian.
2) PYLONS: served symbolically as guard towers against evil forces.
3) PATIO: it’s the place where believers were received.
4) HYPOSTYLE HALL: it was a room of columns covered with a ceiling.
Only clerks, nobles, priests and the pharaoh had access to it.
5) SANCTUARY: the room with the statue of the god. Only pharaohs and
priests had access to it.

44. TEMPLE OF LUXOR

45. TEMPLE OF KARNAK:
columns in the sides
of the patio &
in the hypostyle hall.

46. TEMPLE OF ABU
SIMBEL
It was dug out of rock.

47. ROYAL TOMBS:
- Mastabas
- Pyramids
- Hypogeum
Poor people were buried in holes in the desert….. but pharaohs and
nobles were laid to rest in tombs that would last forever and
show the world their glory.

48. 1) MASTABAS
 1st royal tombs
 They were flat-roofed, rectangular pyramids.
 They had a burial chamber built beneath them.

49. 2) PYRAMIDS
 Largest funerary monuments in the world.
 Different types:
 Step pyramids
 Bent pyramids
 Normal pyramids
 Inside a pyramid there were many chambers (rooms) and passages.
The pharaoh’s sarcophagus and its funerary treasure was in the “Burial
chamber”. To avoid its sacking, there were blocked passageways &
hidden entrances… false passages led to false chambers…
 Biggest & most well known pyramids: the ones of the pharaohs
Cheops, Chephren & Mykerinos (located in Giza).

50. INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE GREAT
PYRAMID (CHEOPS) OF GIZA

51. STEP PYRAMID
Several mastabas on top of
each other, each one slightly
smaller than the previous
one.

52. BENT PYRAMID
When Egyptians first tried to make a pyramid with straight sides (instead
of steps), they made the sides too steep.
Halfway through the construction, they tried to correct this by making
them less steep at the top, but this left the pyramid looking a little
strange. It became known as the Bent Pyramid.

53. NORMAL PYRAMIDS
The Red Pyramid (also known as the North Pyramid), was
the 1st “true” pyramid  this time builders got the angle
right, and the sides slope gently to a point.
Egypt´s most famous pyramids are at
Giza: Cheops, Chephren & Mykerinos
King’s buried in these pyramids were
members of the same family (father, son
and grandson).

54. THE PYRAMIDS’ BUILDERS
People used to think the pyramids were built by slaves who were treated harshly, but
the workers were actually free men. They were paid by the pharaoh, and they were
proud to be part of such an amazing achievement.

55. 3º) HYPOGEUM
 Underground tombs that were dug out of rock.
 They were the burial tombs of the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom.
(afraid of sacking).
 Best examples: in the Valley of the Kings  the most famous tomb in
it was Tutankhamun’s. The discovery in 1922 of this nearly intact
tomb enabled historians to increase their knowledge of Ancient Egypt
civilization.

56. THE DISCOVERY OF THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMUN
The most famous Egyptian tomb of all was built for Tutankhamun, the boy king who died
when he was not much more than 18 years old. Over 3,000 years passed. Most
Egyptian royal tombs were ransacked by robbers, leaving only fragments of the
treasures. But in 1922, a British archaeologist named Howard Carter was searching the
Valley of the Kings. He had almost given up hope of finding anything new when he found
the intact tomb of Tutankhamun.

57. THE TOMB OF TUTANKHAMUN

58. 1ST SARCOPHAGUS OF
TUTANKHAMUN

59. 2ND SARCOPHAGUS OF TUTANKHAMUN

60. 3RD SARCOPHAGUS OF TUTANKHAMUN

61. FUNERARY MASK AND MUMMY OF
TUTANKHAMUN

62. THE
END