Transcript Ancient Egypt Study Guide Answers

Ancient Egypt Study Guide
Answers
Part I: Importance of the Nile River and Impact of
Geography
•Egypt is located in the continent of Africa
•Egypt’s northern border touches the Mediterranean Sea
•The Nile River is the longest river in the world.
•The flooding of the Nile River brought fertile soil to Egypt.
•Egypt’s best farmland is located in the Nile Delta.
•Besides the Nile River, the Mediterranean Sea in the north
and the Sahara Desert on either side of Egypt provided a
natural barrier to protect Egypt from invasions.
•The Nile river was a “gift” to Egypt because it provided
fertile soil to allow for good farming and also provided
water for drinking, food, and transportation.
Part III: Other things to know:
• Egypt and Mesopotamia shared similarities.
Both are river civilizations that depended on the flooding of
rivers to provide them with fertile soil for farming.
•What one thing besides farming did Egypt’s economy rely
most on? Trade with other cultures
•What job did most Egyptians have? farmers
•Scribes served an important purpose in Egypt. What was
that? Scribes were responsible for recording the taxes and
other governmental documents for the pharaoh. They also
wrote religious texts.
•Why were the pyramids so important to the Egyptians? The
pyramids represented the magnificence of Egypt. The
pyramids also showed the importance of the pharaohs in
protecting Egypt even in death.
•Why was the Egyptian calendar so important? The calendar
helped predict the flooding of the Nile river so that the Egyptians
could best prepare their crops.
•Why was papyrus so important to the Egyptians? Papyrus was
used to make the scrolls for Egyptian writing and was also used to
make other things Egyptians used. It was also so plentiful that the
Egyptians traded papyrus reeds with other people.
•What was the Egyptian belief about the afterlife? Egyptians
believed their afterlife would be happier than their time on earth.
Therefore, they viewed life on earth as a learning process and
prepared well in death for the afterlife (i.e. mummification,
including important goods and food in burial tomb)
•Why was religion so important to the Ancient
Egyptian way of life? The Egyptians believed that to
be admitted to the “heavenly place” of their afterlife,
you had to spend your life on earth doing good deeds
to appease the gods and therefore grant your
entrance into the afterlife.
•How did Ancient Egyptians influence modern day
life? Be able to name a couple of examples. (Think
about your stations) Egyptians created a calendar
similar to ours, they created a writing system which
other civilizations modified, and they created
architecture that is still replicated today (Washington
Monument is similar to the Egyptian obelisks)