Ancient Of Egypt

Assalamualaikum and good evening to all of you, my fellow friends. Okay for today, I want to
continue my slides about Ancient of Egypt. So, do you guys know anything about Egypt? What do
you know about Egypt?
Okay, nevermind. Let me start this. I want to introduce to you guys a bit of intro about Egypt.

Introduction

-One of the world’s earliest civilizations.

Okay, do you guys know any earliest civilizations other than this?
We have Ancient of Egypt, besides that, we also have Ancient of China, just like what my friend had
teach you guys from the previous slides. Other than that, we have Ancient of Greek and Roman.
-Developed as a river-valley culture.
Why did Egypt developed as a river-valley culture? Do you know why? It’s all because Egypt is
located near to Nile’s River, which is the longest river in the world. But… only 22% of the river runs
through Egypt.
-Because of Nile River’s, agriculture groups established small village settlements on the riverbanks
and organized tribal kingdoms.
So… what can we say is, Nile’s river played such a huge part in Egypt. This river is like the primary
water source for the Egyptians. They lived and farmed along the Nile, using the soil to produce food
for themselves and their animals. They also used the water for shower and other things in their daily
lives.

-About 3000 BCE, these kingdoms consolidated into a large empire, with eventually became a highly
organized and centralized political colossus.
Consolidated-united
Political colossus-a statue, it’s like a political centre, or system gergasi politik. It shows that Egypt on
that time, was really good at politics issues.

__________________________________________________________________________________

-Egyptian religious beliefs affirmed the divine origin of the pharaoh, or emperor.

WHO IS PHARAOH?
Do you guys know Firaun? Yes, Pharaoh is the English name for Firaun.

-The most powerful person in ancient Egypt.

He was at the really top of social hierarchy.
-It was the name for king and the son of the god Ra.
-The pharaoh was the political and religious leader of Egyptian people.
-They believed that the pharaoh was not only the King, but also a god.
-They also believed that at the death, he became Osiris, and would help them in their afterlife.
That’s why they always listened to him. They willing to do anything that was ordered by him.

Okay, look properly at the social hierarchy. This is their status career level on that time.
Vizier-perdana menteri/prime minister
Nobbles-bangsawan
-The concept of king-priest gave the priestly elite, high status and considerable power, by making
them the guardians of state culture.
-In contrast to the scholars who were leading educators in China, the priestly elite exercised that role
in Egypt.
-For much of history, priests or other religious figures controlled much formal education.
Take note, everybody. This is the important thing that we need to remember. Education in Ancient
of Egypt was being controlled by the priestly elite. If you look at the previous picture, they were
listed on the 3rd level after Pharaoh and Vizier. Look at how important their position was.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Religious and Secular Concerns

-Educationally, the Egyptians were both worldly and otherworldly.

What did I mean, by wordly and otherworldly here? Okay, worldly is because they studied a lot of
things related to their daily lives. Otherworldly is because they also believed in the life afterdeath.
-Although preoccupied with the supernatural, they also developed technologies to irrigate the Nile
Valley and to design and build Egypt’s massive pyramids and temples.
Look at the structure of the temples.
Do you ever wonder how the pyramid looks like in the inside? This is it.
Look at how the pyramids were built.

>>VIDEO: THE PHARAOH’S WRATH

-To administer and defend their vast empire, they studied civil administration.
To make things easier, to study on how to manage the country, they studied all that.
-Their obsession with mummification led them to study medicine, anatomy, and embalming.
What is embalming? Embalming is a process of preserving a corpse from decay. Well… usually
people do this things because of they want the corpse to look good for public display at funeral, or
for some religious purposes, or for some medical experimental. But I think in Ancient of Egypt, they
did this because of religious purposes.

So, do you guys know any process of mummification? Do you want to take a look?
MUMMIFICATION STORY

http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk/mummies/story/main.html

Okay let me show you this video. I just want you guys to have a bit of idea on how the mummy looks
like.
>>VIDEO: TRAILER THE MUMMY

-The Egyptians also developed a writing system.

-They left so many writings in the form of pictures on the walls of tombs and pyramids.

-This writings is known as hieroglyphs.

>> VIDEO: ANCIENT EGYPT- HIEROGLYPICHS

-Hieroglyphs were written in columns from left to right.

Just like what we practice in today’s world. Writings that start from left to right.
-Hieroglyphics writing was used in tombs and for religious purposes.
-Two languages were developed in Egypt for business and everyday use. They were known as
Hieratic and Demotic.
-From these two languages, a later language, known as Coptic, developed.
-The teaching of writing and reading then became an important feature of schooling that has
persisted through the centuries.
Writing and reading are the reasons why we can share knowledge with everyone else. Through this
form, we also can inherit knowledge to the future generation.

>>Education in Ancient Egypt

-Children stayed with their mothers until age 4.

-At the age of 4, education of the boys was taken over by their fathers

-Some children at this time, attended a general village school.

It was only on low level of education. They learned about how to survive by their own selves. They
learned about their daily lives.
-Children from upper class family attended a school that were designed for a specific career such as
scribe.
-After finished school, sons typically followed in the same area that their father practiced.
-For example, at the age of 14, sons of farmers or craftsmen joined their fathers in their professions.
-While, sons whose parents had higher status careers continued their education at special schools
usually attached to temples or governmental centres.
-At higher level of education, they learned “Instruction of Wisdom”, which included lessons on ethics
and morality. They also focused on skills needed for higher status positions such as doctor or scribe.
-The educational track that a student followed was typically determined by the position that the
father held in society.
This proves that education in Ancient of Egypt was very restricted. Not all people can go to advanced
schools. It depends on their status, their level. It depends on which family they come from…
-Very few careers were available for women.
Well… I believe that everyone already know about this. Since thousand years ago, women’s were not
able to upgrade themselves to a higher level. It’s not that they don’t want to, but it’s all about
society. The society on that time, didn’t have any expectations on women. They believed that
women didn’t have the power or ability to be on the same level just like the men. So, the possibility
of them, being able to upgrade themselves in the education fields was very low.
-Women had to stay at home.
-They trained for motherhood and on how to be a good wife.
-Some girls could train to be dancers, entertainers, weavers, or bakers.
-Only the daughters of wealthy family received education in reading or writing.

>>Temple and court schools

-Egypt required an educated bureaucracy to administer the empire and collect taxes.
Of course they want the educated bureaucracy to administer their empire! Do you want someone
who don’t have any qualification to administer your country? Of course not, right? SO, that’s why
on..
-By 2700 BCE, the Egyptians had established an extensive system of temple and court schools to
train scribes, in reading and writing. Many of them were priests.
-AS I said bfore, After a primary education, boys studied the literature which was needed for their
future professions.
-Special advanced schools prepared priests, government officials, and physicians.

>>Educating scribes

-In the scribal schools, students (male from upper class) learned to write hieroglyphic script by
copying documents on papyrus, sheets made from reeds, which growing along the Nile’s river.
-Teachers say or read aloud any religious or technical texts, and the students need to copy what they
heard. This is something that we always do in our primary school. Do you still remember that?
-This is to reproduce a correct, exact copy of a text.
Exact copy of a text is really important to make sure they produced the best scribes. Scribes
shouldn’t be someone who reproduce a wrong copy of text!
-Usually, students would chant a short passage until they had memorized it thoroughly.
-Advanced students studied mathematics, astronomy, religion, poetry, literature, medicine, and
architecture.

Major purposes of education in Egypt (Yang ni tolong buatkan mind map)

-To transmit and approved rendition of the cultural heritage that was constructed by the religious
and political elite.
To inherit the cultural heritage to the next generation
-To reproduce dominant leadership elite.
To strengthen their leadership
-To transmit skills such as reading and writing and higher studies such as embalming, medicine, civil
administration, and architecture.

Egypt’s Historical Controversies

Traditional Interpretation
-In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great, the King of Macedon, led his armies to conquer Persia,
Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
-His conquest of Egypt introduced Hellenistic civilization, which in turn had been shaped by ancient
Greek culture.
-According to the conventional historical interpretation, ancient Egyptian civilization was a highly
static despotism (zalim) and its major cultural legacy was comprised (merangkumi) of its great
architectural monuments.
Despotism is a way of ruling in which the leader has total, unchecked power. Despotism can also
describe tyranny, the wielding of power through cruelty and terror. It's often used in reference to a
country that's ruled by a dictator, but despotism can describe any situation characterized by
oppression and threats. Do you understand that? Okay let me give simple example. When your sister
threatens to send all of your friends embarrassing baby photos of you if you don’t let her control the
TV remote, that’s despotism.
Bernal’s Theory
-The historian, Martin Bernal, argues that the ancient Greeks borrowed many of ancient Egypt’s
concepts about government, philosophy, the arts, sciences, and medicine.
-Futhermore, the Egyptians, located in North Africa, were an African people, and the origins of
Western culture are thefore African.
-Though they recognize Egyptian and Greek interactions, Bernal’s critics contend that he greatly
overemphasizes Egypt’s influence on ancient Greek.
-While historians continue to debate the matter, tentative findings indicate that Egyptian-Greek
contacts, particularly at Crete, introduced the Greeks to Egyptian knowledge and art.
-This historical controversy has important ideological significance, which is, whoever interprets the
past gains the power of illuminating and shaping the present.
If you lived in the past, then you have anything that don’t agree with, you interprets it, you argues
about it, then you’ll have the power to change the present. You’ll be able to make yourself known,
well… maybe in the history textbooks.

>>For better understanding, let me play this video for you.

VIDEO: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANCIENT EGYPT