©Leah Cleary 2015

Teacher PowerPoint Notes: Ancient Egypt

Slide 3: The civilization began around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history occurred in a series of stable periods, known as kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods. After the end of the last kingdom, known as the New Kingdom, the civilization of ancient Egypt entered a period of slow, steady decline, during which Egypt was conquered by a succession of foreign powers. The rule of the pharaohs officially ended in 31 BC when the early Roman Empire conquered Egypt and made it a province.

Slide 4: Osiris is shown as a man with a beard wearing white mummy wrappings. His crown is the white crown of Upper Egypt surrounded by red feathers. His skin is green to represent vegetation. He holds the symbols of supreme power, the flail and crook. The crook is used by shepherds to catch their sheep. The flail is used in threshing, to separate the grains from the outer husks. Osiris was the God of the Dead. Images in Public Domain: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anc_Egyp-Osiris.png, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%84gyptischer_Maler_um_1360_v._Chr._001.jpg, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Set.svg Isis was the great mother-goddess. Her son was Horus, the enemy of Seth. Sometimes she has the baby Horus on her lap. Sometimes she has a throne on her head. Sometimes she has a sun disk and horns. Seth (or Set) is shown with an animal's head with a long curved pointed snout, slanting eyes, and square-tipped ears. Sometimes he has a forked tail. No-one seems to know what the animal is. Aardvark, antelope, camel, donkey fennec, giraffe, greyhound, jackal, jerboa, long-snouted mouse, okapi, oryx and pig have all been suggested. Seth was the God of the desert, storm and violence, which are all enemies of the fertile, prosperous, narrow valley of the Nile.

When Horus was a baby, his father Osiris was killed by Seth. Horus and his mother Isis hid in the papyrus reeds in the delta of the Nile until Horus grew up. The he went to war with Seth to get his father's crown and kingdom. The battles raged for a long time. Once Seth managed to blind Horus by taking out his eye and tearing it to bits, but Thoth, the God of Wisdom, managed to heal the eye. Isis decided to help her son Horus. She met Seth, and asked for his help. She described someone killing a man and taking all he had away from the man's son. Seth said that killer should pay for his crimes. Isis said that Seth himself was the killer, and he had condemned himself. The other gods agreed, and Seth was driven out into the Sahara Desert.

Slide 5: During their reign, Pharaohs identified themselves with Horus. After they died, they became Osiris.

Slide 7: Ra was the God of the Sun. He sailed across the heavens in a boat called the 'Barque of Millions of Years'. At the end of each day Ra was thought to die and sailed on his night voyage through the Underworld, leaving the Moon to light the world above. The boat would sail through the twelve doors, representing the twelve hours of night-time. The next dawn, he was born again. During the day Ra had to fight a snake called Apep. He was helped by the other gods, such as Seth and Bastet. The sun disk on Ra's head often has a cobra round it. A cobra appears on the forehead of Pharaohs like Tut.

Ra was the greatest of the gods and he kept his power in his secret name, which only he knew. He had started to grow old, and sometimes he dribbled. Isis collected some of his saliva and made it into a snake. She hid the snake where Ra would walk. When Ra trod on it, it bit him, and Ra screamed in pain. All the gods gathered round, but none could heal him. Isis said "If you tell me your secret name, this will give me enough magic power to heal you." Ra didn't want to do this, but eventually the pain was so bad that he had to. Isis healed him, and ever since then she has the magic powers that Ra had.

©Leah Cleary 2017

©Leah Cleary 2015

Slide 9: Anubis - God of Embalming head of jackal Anubis invented embalming to embalm Osiris, the first mummy. He was the guide of the dead. The Egyptians embalmed their dead, especially their pharaohs, to preserve them, since they thought that this helped them live for ever. The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you died, you travelled to the Hall of the Dead. There Anubis weighed your heart against the feather of Ma’at. Ma'at, the goddess of justice sits on top of the scales to make sure that the weighing is carried out properly. You can see Anubis steadying the scales to make the weighing fair. If your heart was lighter than the feather, you lived for ever. We still talk of "a heart as light as a father" to mean care-free, and "heavy-hearted" to mean sad. If your heart was heavier than the feather then it was eaten by the demon Ammit, the Destroyer. Ammit had the head of a crocodile, the shoulders of a lion and the rump of a hippopotamus. These were all frightening animals for the Egyptians. Thoth, god of wisdom and writing, stands by to record what happens.

Slide 13: The Great Pyramid of Giza , also called Khufu's Pyramid or the Pyramid of Khufu, and Pyramid of Cheops, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis, and is the only remaining 7 wonder of the ancient world.

Slide 14: It seems likely that the Pyramids of Giza were not built by slaves but by paid laborers motivated by a faith in the divinity and immortality of their kings. Exactly how the pyramids were built is unclear. It is likely that a sloping embankment was built up to or around the pyramid. The huge blocks would then have been hauled on sledges with the aid of rollers, papyrus ropes and levers. Although most stone was quarried locally at Giza, some had to be transported to the site along the Nile.

Slide 15: The Sphinx and Great Pyramid of Khufu at GizaThe Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest of the pyramids of ancient Egypt, and was regarded by the ancient Greeks as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks) ruled about 2589-2566 BCE when the Old Kingdom of Egypt was nearing a peak of prosperity and culture. Image in Creative Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Egypt-Antico_Egitto-Giza_Sfinge-DSC00623.JPG

Slide 16: Image from the Creative Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ancient_Egypt-

Antico_Egitto-Giza_Sfinge-DSC00623.JPG

Slide 20: Image from the Creative Commons:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egyptian_funerary_stela.jpg

©Leah Cleary 2017

Vocabulary

Theocracy A government in which rule is based on religious authority

Polytheism The belief in many gods

Hieroglyphics Writing system of the Ancient Egyptians

Government

-Began around

3000B.C., Old

Kingdom

-Pharaohs = Kings

and Queens

Gods and Goddesses

Old

Kingdom

Middle

Kingdom

Inter-

mediate

Periods

New

Kingdom

-Egyptunited

-Pyramids built

Osiris

became

important

-One between each

“Kingdom”-Times when Egypt was

conqueredGovernment

-Absolute Power

-Their word was law

-Religious and

Political leader

Most Prosperous

Time

©Leah Cleary 2017

Ancient Civilizations Notes

Religion-Came to believe in

eternity for all souls

-Your life and status

determined your place

-Myths

explained natural

phenomena

Mummification

-Burial was important-Journey to the other world

-Royals were mummified

How They Did It:

1. Remove theBrains throughthe nose with ahook

2. Remove the intestines

through the side

3. Fill the belly withperfume and sewit up

4. Soak the body insalt water for 70days

5. Wash the corpseand wrap it in

waxen cloth

Pyramids

-Giant tombs for the Pharaoh

-Largest at Giza

-May contain 2 million stones

- Each stone weighs up to 5,000 pounds,

2 tons!

-Took around 20 years to build

Hieroglyphics

-Pictographic

-Used pictures to communicate.

-The pictures represented ideas and objects.

-Eventually, the pictures came to represent sounds (phonetic)

Rosetta Stone

1. What year was it

discovered? 1799

2. What did the Rosetta

Stone enable us to do?

Translate (understand)

hieroglyphs

©Leah Cleary 2017

Hieroglyphs ActivityDirections: Translate the messages from hieroglyphics to English. Then write a message in hieroglyphics and have a friend translate it.

the rosetta stone is the key to

understanding hieroglyphics

Translation: ________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

ancient egypt was a theocracy

Translation: ________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Your Message:

Translation:

Translated by____________________________________________________

Answer Key

The Rosetta Stone is the key to understanding hieroglyphics

Ancient Egypt was a theocracy.

Answers Will Vary

©Leah Cleary 2014

Ticket out the Door #1

1. Define:

Pictographic: Symbols represent ideas and objects.

Phonetic: Symbols represent sounds.

2. Explain in two steps how writing developed:

1.At first writing was pictographic.

2.Then it became phonetic.

3. Do you think it would be easier to learn a pictographic or a phonetic written language?

Why? Answers will vary.

©Leah Cleary 2017