Government by a God-King
- Pharaoh- all powerful, worshipped as a god and intimately connected to the other Egyptian gods and goddesses
- relied on harmony and balance of the universe called "maat"
- Pharaohs had multiple wives, and all routes of financial and social success were through the palace
- Women could inherit land and money,and divorce their husbands, only few ever had real political power
- gods were often portrayed with animal heads or bodies
- believed in an afterlife and mummified bodies to preserve them for this post-death journey
- all souls would need to justify themselves at the point of death and be either sent to an after world of paradise or the jaws of a monster
- earliest Egyptian writing formed c. 3100 B.C. and were small pictures known as hieroglyphs
- Hieroglyphs represented religious words, or parts of words, and most commonly adorned temples
- Hieratic script was a shorthand developed by scribes and priest
- It was usually written in ink on papyrus, which was made from mashed Nile reeds
- Papyrus was stored in scrolls and these scrolls were the books of ancient Egypt.
- astronomers created a calendar with 12 months and 365 days, using the moon
- doctors wrote extensively on health issues and created potions and cures for a number of common ailments
- wooded sailboats were constructed to increase transport ability on the Nile
- pyramids: massive stone tombs, originally covered in marble but was later stripped off during the Muslim conquest
- Stone sculptures and interior painting depicted humans and gods in a series of regulated poses, often in profile and without perspective, but were highly effective
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