- Coach Parrish
- OMS
- Chapter 3, Section 4
Social Classes - Most of what is known about social classes, and other Egyptian history is from their artwork.
- Egyptian society resembled a pyramid.
- At the top was the pharaoh. Beneath him was a small upper class including priests, pharaoh’s court, and landholding nobles.
- Below the upper class was the middle class of merchants and skilled workers.
- At the bottom of the social pyramid was the lower class called peasants.
Slavery - Prisoners captured in wars were made into slaves. Slaves formed a separate social class that was never very large in number.
- Slaves in Egypt could own personal items and inherit land from their masters. Occasionally they were also made free.
Lives of the Peasants - Most peasants worked the land of wealthy Egyptians. During the flood season, they worked on roads, temples, and buildings.
- Once the flood season was over, they quickly worked the soil to prepare crops for planting.
- The busiest season for the peasants was harvest season when men, women, and children went into the fields to pick the crops.
- Women were viewed as living models of Isis, the goddess of motherhood.
- Egyptian women had the same rights as men and held various jobs throughout the empire.
A New System of Writing - In ancient Egypt, they wrote using a system of pictures to stand for words called hieroglyphs.
- Some symbols stood for words and other symbols stood for sounds. They began using hieroglyphs because of the empire’s growing wealth.
Writing Materials - At first, the Egyptians wrote on clay and stone like the Sumerians. Over time, they wanted to write on something more stable, so they chose papyrus.
- Papyrus – early form of paper made from a reed found in the marshy areas of the Nile delta.
- Papyrus was made by cutting the inner stalks into narrow strips, laying them side by side, wetting them and then letting them dry outside.
Papyrus Artwork Unlocking a Mystery - Historians could not read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics until 1799 AD. A soldier found a large stone later called the Rosetta Stone while digging a fort in the Nile delta.
- The Rosetta Stone contained 3 languages on it, hieroglyphics, demotic (later Egyptian writing), and Greek letters. In 1820, a French scholar named Jean Francois Champollion cracked the code.
Egyptian Legacy - Astronomers – scientists who study the stars and other objects. Egyptians were astronomers in that they knew when the Nile would flood based on Sirius (dog star).
- Because of mummification, ancient Egyptians knew a great deal about the body. They learned how to perform surgery on broken bones. They also used plants to create medicines.
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