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Social and political structures of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt
4. Early civilizations in Mesopotamia
4. Early civilizations in Mesopotamia
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The Egyptian faith was based on a collection of ancient myths, nature worship, and innumerable deities. Sumerian lives were spent serving the gods in the form of man-made statues. There was no organized set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings. While the Mesopotamians didn't have anything quit to scale with the pyramids, they did use and build ziggurats for religious purposes.
Ancient Egyptians were ruled by a pharaoh for most of their history. A pharaoh was a king who was viewed as god-like and possessing magical powers. Those governed under this centralized rule knelt before the pharaoh when he passed by and were banned from touching him or making eye contact. He owned most of the land, supervised armies,
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Later on, however, royal status became hereditary. The royal class was looked upon highly, and people often thought of them as part divine. Next in the social chain were the priests and priestesses, many of whom were related to the rulers in some way. Also in the social structure were free commoners. They mostly worked as farmers in the countryside or in other manufacturing jobs. Slaves came from three main sources: prisoners of war, convicted criminals, and people who sold themselves into slavery in order to satisfy their obligations. Most slaves were domestic servants in wealthy households, but some worked as agricultural laborers as well. Like the Mesopotamians, Egyptians had a well-defined social class system. Also, the Egyptian peasants and slaves played a similar role in society as the Mesopotamian peasants and slaves. However, the organization of the ruling classes differed significantly. While Mesopotamians had a series of urban kings, Egyptians had one supreme, central ruler called the pharaoh. The Egyptians had no need for nobles since the pharaoh was the absolute ruler. Instead, Egyptians relied on professional military forces and government officials. This allowed for individuals of common birth to have a higher likelihood of attaining high positions compared to …show more content…
Mesopotamia is located on the fertile crescent and had very few natural resources here. Rivers dominated life, so as you can guess their relationship with the environment wasn’t the best. Not when they didn’t know whether or not if the river was going to kill you that day or not. But if you never brought the flooding into consideration the river provided silt, food and transport for the people of Mesopotamia. As for Egypt it was located right next to the Nile River which gave them fertile land, water, a supply of animals and the flooding of the Nile was predictable. Not only that, the Nile provided transportation, trade, papyrus for paper, and the most important thing, it gave Egypt unity. So as you can imagine and see Egypt had a lot better relationship with the environment than
The ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt developed into successful civilizations. One civilization the Egyptians developed was in the Nile River valley. Based off the "Mesopotamia and Egypt DBQ" packet, "Ancient Egypt was an advanced civilization in many areas including religion, architecture, transportation, and trade. Ancient Mesopotamia was one of the first civilizations that developed a form of government as well as organized people in political states." Based on the documents, Egypt and Mesopotamia developed into successful and advanced civilizations by effectively using the resources that surrounded them to solve problems and live happily.
Egypt and Mesopotamia were two of the world’s earliest city-based civilizations, creating the basis for Middle Eastern and Western history. Both Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations existed on the banks of major rivers. While Egyptian civilization thrived along the Nile, Mesopotamia settled between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Although they shared this characteristic, it was also the cause of many of their differences in political systems, religions, and social stability.
The main differences between Sumerian and Egyptian geography is the flooding of the rivers and invasions they suffered. Sumer was a Mesopotamia, a land between two rivers. The two rivers were the Tigris and Euphrates River. Egypt had only one river, the Nile River. It was usual to rivers flood; the Tigris and Euphrates had very unpredictable flooding. Different from these rivers the Nile was very much predictable. Flooding in Sumer caused a lot of death, so people would start building their houses further from the rivers and they would also build irrigation ditches. However, in Egypt the river wasn’t a bad thing. Sumer suffered many invasions; to prevent this they made armies and built walls around the cities. Egypt suffered any invasions because of its location,
Egypt and Mesopotamia; two different civilizations that were similar in some ways, as well as different. They had their difference of their geographical location, as well as their different aspects of life. Even though they had their different life aspects, they had also had several similarities between each other.
These individual states traded with each other. They would most likely trade things specific to that area. They also had a very multifaceted and planned irrigation system. Last but not least they were all tiny domains that were actually well prearranged. On their own they were fairly solid and had a very organized government. Although they were then all united by King Menes. The citizens were fairly obedient and did what they were told to do by their god, the pharaoh. They felt as if bad things would happen if they went against a god. The government became one hundred percent centralized and they controlled every single last one of the resources in the vast region in which we call the Nile River Valley. Just imagine being a part of this structured civilization. Now the Mesopotamia civilizations were a little different, well a lot. Although they had similarities. They did have slight similarities though. Mesopotamia was made of many independent states. They never became united and stayed this way as to what feels like the end of time. In earlier times this probably seemed like a good idea although later they realize that it is now. This separation made the region tremendously susceptible to attacks. The Mesopotamians apparently never heard the saying there is no I in team! Although, despite all of this separation the region worked together in order to do massive projects which included things like
The Egyptian and Mesopotamian religion and society were similar, but their government/leadership was different. Religion in Egypt and Mesopotamia were very similar because both faiths were polytheistic and had priestly authority. Both cultures had powerful priests, both had a belief of an afterlife, and religion was part of their daily lives. Both societies had similar rigid social classes, relied on slavery; both also had a religion which played an important role in their daily lives. Although, their societies were very common, they still had some differences in government. The Egypt, the government was a theocracy, whereas the government in Mesopotamia was run by a monarchy. Despite their similarities, the differences between these two civilizations were most likely a result of unique geographical and topographical conditions.
Ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations would not be as successful as they were without living by the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile rivers. Rivers shaped the development of civilization in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia by how they utilized the floods, what they traded, their views on religion, and controlling the rivers.
During the time of early civilizations people were creating communities, societies, cultures, political structures and religions all new to our world. It was trying times and ages of awakenings. Religion played a major part role in the history of our world and mankind some of the religions discovered at this time are still practiced today, and some have faded away. The two early civilizations that stand out to me are Mesopotamia and India. Although the two share some similarities, the differences in religious beliefs between Mesopotamia and India are clear.
In the first civilization, both Mesopotamia and Egypt relied on a hunter-gatherer economic system, during that time, every country in the world strived on it. Mesopotamia had rich soil for agriculture, but experiences floods. For the Mesopotamians, these floods would destroy major cities, but for the Egyptians it would keep the soil rich all year long without the damage that the Mesopotamians had experienced. With the rich soil foods were plentiful around the farm lands, which gave both countries the chance to establish largely dense areas, like what we now know as a city-state. The Nile River also served as a defense for the Egyptians they enjoyed centuries of tranquility and peace in which they used to develop peaceful development of their civilization. For the Mesopotamians, this wasn’t the case.
The Mesopotamia was in between to very important rivers, which were the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Being between two rivers had some advantages, as well as disadvantages. Some of the advantages meant that they could produce enough food to support the people that lived around that area. Some of the disadvantages were that they had some flood problems. Sometimes the rivers would over flow, which caused floods that destroyed crops and villages. Considering that their main source for anything was agriculture, floods really brought chaos. After some time the Mesopotamian people learned different ways
Mesopotamia’s climate consisted of temperatures rising from 110 to 120°F in the summer. This led to many dry days that eventually led to a severe drought. Basically, there was little to no rainfall from the months of May until October. This led to the devastation of agriculture. Not only did the Sumerians have to deal with the effects of the droughts, they had to deal with the consequences of flooding as well. The Tigris and the Euphrates surrounded Mesopotamia thus when it would overflow more devastation would occur such as the washouts of embankments. (Hause, 2001, pg. 7)
Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, and Greece were all historical civilizations that made history the way it is today. The three civilizations differed in many different ways, but they were also quite similar in other aspects. The focus of survival, beliefs, daily life, and many other focuses connect the three civilizations.
The ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt began to develop circa 3,000 B.C. Located near rivers, the lands offered fertile soil and an excess of crops that drew in many people. As more people arrived, the small settlements flourished into large, thriving civilizations. Many aspects of Mesopotamia and Egypt, such as their cities, their strongly organized government, and their religion, greatly contributed to the success of these two civilizations.
A consistent characteristic among the first civilizations was social stratification. In most of the first civilizations, social hierarchies included kings, the elites, the working class, and slaves. Social stratification was evident in the Mesopotamian and Egyptian societies based off of the documents from the Babylonian Empire, The Law Code of Hammurabi, and the Egyptian student text, Be a Scribe. In the document The Law Code of Hammurabi, soldiers, farmers, salves, and other jobs are mentioned (96-97). In the document Be a Scribe, farmers, cobblers, soldiers, and various other jobs are mentioned (100-101). It is significant that these jobs are mentioned in both documents because it illustrates the similarities in these civilization’s social hierarchies. But, the similarities in their social structures do not end there. Special treatment based off of social standing was a consistent factor in both of these civilizations as well. This is clearly exemplified in Mesopotamia with the harshness of punishments for crimes being dependent on class (97). In Egypt, evidence of special treatment based off of social stratification is insinuated in the document Be a Scribe. This document delves into the negatives of having low class jobs and encourages people to become educated to grow in class rank (101). Despite these similarities, these two civilizations still held vastly different values and
The Mesopotamian geography affected their society because Mesopotamia was located on an open plain without protection from foreign intrusions. Egypt, on the other hand, was centered on the Nile River ad protected by natural boundaries. This allowed Egypt?s kingdom for prosper and last for thousands of years. Mesopotamia was not considered a nation or country, it was considered a region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers that established a number of highly organized city-states. Since each city-state was independent there was no capital of Mesopotamia.